Time in the Teachings of Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi

it‘aruta dile-tata 
and 
it‘aruta dile-‘ila
]. The soul ascends to God in 
ecstatic love during prayer, and through this it merits the power to bring the divine 
light down to earth in the Torah.
100
Thus prayer and Torah are inscribed on the 
scheme of 
ratso va-shov
,
101
the continuous dynamics of ascent and descent, 
nullification and the drawing down of the divine. The former, 
ratso
, is achieved 
through the desire to leave the body and to efface subjectivity in ecstatic prayer; only 
when there is no subjectivity, no particular will, which functions as a barrier 
separating one from God, can the divine light descend, clothed in Torah and 
commandments.
102
96
LT 
Va-yikra 
4d; see also T1, 6:10b. On the interdependence of Torah and other types of worship in 
the context of 
bitul
, see Foxbrunner, 
Habad
, 148-49. 
97
On 
mesirat nefesh 
and 
kidush ha-Shem 
in the Habad school, see Loewenthal, “Self-Sacrifice,” 457-
494; Elior, 
Paradoxical Ascent
, 185-89. 
98
LT 
Shir ha-shirim
22a. On the development of the idea of the 
Shekhinah 
which overtakes man’s 
vocal apparatus in prayer and study, see Idel, “‘Adonai Sefatai Tiftah,’” 34-49; idem, 
Enchanted 
Chains
, 196-202. 
99
T1, 41:58b; LT 
Be-har
40c-d, 
Ha’azinu
74a, 
Tazri’a
, 22d-23a, 
Va-yikra
5a. 
100
See for example LT 
Ha’azinu
74a, 
Shir ha-shirim
17a, 49a-b. 
101
On 
ratso va-shov 
see above, chapter one, n. 99. 
102
See for example TO 25b; LT 
Shir ha-shirim 
46a; MAHZ
 Ethalekh
,
 
17-18. 

---

194 
What is expressed here in technical kabbalistic terms as 
ratso va-shov
, lower 
and upper arousal, is elsewhere directly applied to the routine stages of everyday 
worship. Praises of God, recited out loud in 
Pesukei de-zimra
, serve as a means of 
attaining ecstasy, which reaches its peak when the word “one” [
ehad
] of the 
Shema’
is spoken. The silent prayer of 
‘Amidah
, which follows, signifies the eradication of 
self.
103
The hasidic masters, in a manner recalling the Aristotelian definition of a 
human being as 
zoon logon echon
, defined the faculty of speech
 
as the unique 
faculty that elevates human beings above other creatures;
104
hence silence during the 
‘Amidah
equals giving up one’s uppermost faculty and substituting God’s speech for 
it by means of Torah study, since it is not a person itself who recites the words of 
Torah but rather “the 
Shekhinah
speaking from his throat” with “my words which I 
have put in thy mouth” [Is 59:21]. 
Despite stressing the importance of preparatory prayer, Rashaz did not mean 
that studying Torah without it did not have any impact on the divine reality. 
Nevertheless, he argued in favour of study that followed prayer: “with all thy might” 
[
be-khol me‘odekha
; Dt 6:5], which draws on 
Keter 
to 
Hokhmah
, in contrast to study 
with no preceding prayers, which draws only from 
Hokhmah
.
105
As Rashaz put it 
elsewhere, study that follows prayer brings down “verily supernal wisdom” 
[