Time in the Teachings of Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi

hoveh, hayah ve-yihyeh
],” to point out that He gives life to the past, the 
present and the future [
‘avar, hoveh ve-‘atid
] at every minute; that there is 
nothing but Him, and for Him the past, present and future are the same.
22
This is yet another example of the extent to which Rashaz’s discourse on time relies 
on philosophical concepts. Following Maimonides he explains that knowing God’s 
deeds in the world indirectly provides knowledge of God himself, even though such 
knowledge offers no insight into the essence of the divine being.
23
The Maimonidean 
idea of God as the existent who brings all beings into existence leads Rashaz to form 
21
See Maimonides, 
Mishneh Torah,
Sefer ha-mada‘, Hilekhot yesodei ha-Torah, 1:1: “The basic 
principle of all basic principles and the pillar of all sciences is to realize that there is a First being 
[
matsui
] who brought every existing thing into being [
mamtsi kol ha-nimtsa
]. All existing things, 
whether celestial, terrestrial, or belonging to an intermediate class, exist only through His true 
existence” [Appendix 10].
22
MAHZ 
Parshiyot
, i, 95 [Appendix 11]. 
23
See Maimonides, 
Moreh nevukhim
, 1:54, and the discussion in Davidson, 
Moses Maimonides
, 338, 
of Maimonides’ interpretation of the denial of Moses’ request to see God’s face [Ex 33:20-23], 
whereby “Moses’ cryptic request at Sinai and the cryptic replies he received hence teach that the aim 
of human life is knowledge of God, that man cannot attain knowledge of the divine essence, yet that 
man can know God indirectly, through His ways and through what he created.” 

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32 
the principle that in order to be able to create all beings as they are, the creator must 
already in some way possess their qualities. He proceeds to apply this principle to 
the existence of time: from the fact that time permeates all created beings, Rashaz 
infers that temporality should be somehow related to God too. Indeed, God is not 
subject to time, but He comprises time in a state preceding its division into three 
tenses: past, present and future, to which the Tetragrammaton alludes, interpreted as 
comprising the past, present and future forms of the Hebrew verb “to be.”
24
More 
detailed discussion of the relation of God’s names to time will follow below; at this 
point, however, it is important to stress the fact that God comprises the totality of 
time, which in turn enables Him to cause temporal reality to exist.
The passage quoted above underscores the complexity of the relation 
between God and time in Rashaz’s writing, which, as Dov Schwartz has noted, 
cannot be exhausted by the dichotomy of “supra-temporal” versus “infra-
temporal.”
25
In fact, the God of Rashaz’s teachings is above time, is the source of 
time and acts through time. In order to elaborate on the philosophical idea of God as 
the existent who brings to existence time and temporal reality, Rashaz turns to 
kabbalistic terminology. 
2.1 World, year, soul
. 
There are several 
ma’amarim
in Rashaz’s teachings that explain the emergence of 
time from the creator into the created world. One of them refers to the triad of 
“world, year, soul” [
‘olam, shanah, nefesh
], drawn from 
Sefer yetsirah
.
26
These three 
24
Stern (
Time and Process
, 33 n. 21) names the piyut 
Ha-ohez be-yad midat ha-mishpat
as the first 
occurrence of this idea.
25
As opposed to the doctrine of the Maggid of Mezeritch. See Schwartz,