Time in the Teachings of Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi

sefirah
, see above, chapter 1, n. 56. 
41
This is based on the kabbalistic notion of the affinity between the 
Shekhinah
and “the other side.” 
See Tishby, 
Widsom of the Zohar
, i, 376-379 and ii, 469. 
42
LT 
Hukat
60c [Appendix 4]. 
43
Ibid. For the source of the law, see Maimonides,
 Mishneh Torah
, Hilekhot parah adumah, 10:6. 
44
See for example LT 
Emor
32a, 
Nitsavim
52b. 
45
See for example MAHZ
5568
, i, 194. Elsewhere, a similar function is ascribed to nails. See for 
example TO 7a-c, 12d, 26b, 63b;
 
MAHZ
 Ketsarim
, 69. For the use of the image of hair in Rashaz’s 
teachings on the contraction of the Divine [
tsimtsum
] and its Maggidic sources, see Schwartz, 
Mahashevet Habad
, 94 n. 279. This view of hair and nails has a Lurianic source. On hair as the 
representation of Judgements [Dinim], see for example Vital, 
Peri ‘ets hayim
, Sha’ar ha-berakhot, ch. 
6, 43. On nails, see for example Vital 
‘Ets hayim, 
Sha’ar 31, ch. 2, 112. 

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217 
menstrual blood with the external forces,
46
thus exacerbating the perception of 
women as impure by extending impurity from the halakhic domain to metaphysics. 
This in turn is echoed in the conduct instructions that appear in 
Tanya
, where the 
talmudic comparison [
b
Shabat 152a] of woman to “a vessel full of filth” is used in 
reference to evil and decay embodied in worldly delights, which one should learn to 
abhor.
47
2.1 The fluidity of gender categories. 
Pejorative characteristics of the female in Rashaz’s writings are only part of the 
picture. In fact, Rashaz provides theoretical underpinnings for the re-evaluation of 
the function of the female in the world. First of all, according to Rashaz, there is no 
place void of God,
48
which means that there is room for divine service also in the 
lower domains of reality;
49
secondly, Rashaz refers in multiple places to such 
principles as “what descends lower ascends higher”
50
and “Their [namely the 
sefirot
’s] end is fixed in their beginning,”
51
which allows him to bring back the 
female with all its features to the centre of the divine drama.
As in the kabbalistic writings on which Rashaz was drawing, one can discern 
in his teachings a certain need for balance between masculine and feminine 
46
See for example 
Seder tefilot
, 57a-b, where five colours of impure blood (see 
m
Nidah 2:6) are 
depicted as “a level which is entirely devoid of good”. See also MAHZ
 5564
, 262; 
5568
, 194 and 199. 
TO 59d associates impure blood with external thoughts [
mahashavot zarot
]. 
47
T1, 14:20a.
See also Rosman,
“‘Al nashim va-hasidut,” 157 n. 24.
48
One of the sayings that frequently recur in Rashaz’s writings is the zoharic “There is no place void 
of him [
let atar panui mineh
: 
Tikunei zohar
, lvii, 91b],” underscoring the divine omnipresence in the 
world. See for example T1, 21:26b, 40:54b, 51:71a, T2, 7:83b, T3, 5:95b, T4, 1:102a, 11:116b, 
20:131b; TO53c. 
49
This idea appears in Loewenthal, “Women and the Dialectic,” where it is suggested that the 
mystical concept of Lower Unity, that is unity of God within the world, was used in 20
th
century 
Habad as a theoretical framework for opening up for women the possibility of fully participating in 
the hasidic spiritual enterprise. See in particular 15*-19*. 
50
For the significance of this principle in Rashaz’s thought, see Foxbrunner,