Time in the Teachings of Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi

dirah ba-tahtonim
], 
achieved by virtue of “our worship and our Torah.”
129
3.3 Building God’s dwelling in the lower worlds. 
The messianic task of establishing God’s dwelling in the lower worlds is placed on 
the shoulders of the entire Jewish people, both individually and collectively. It starts 
with the body of each and every individual and extends to the actions of the entire 
community in space, through all the generations of the Jewish people in time.
The idea of the communal responsibility for realizing the messianic future 
features extensively in the thirty-seventh chapter of 
Tanya
. In the opening lines of 
the chapter Rashaz writes: 
This culminating fulfilment of the messianic era and of the resurrection of the 
dead, which is the revelation of the light of the blessed 
Ein Sof
in this 
material world, depends on our actions and service throughout the duration of 
127
See for example T1, 37:48b, 49:69a. See also Ornet, 
Ratso va-
shov, 136; Wolfson, 
Open Secret
, 
140. 
128
MAHZ 
Ketsarim
, 119 [Appendix 21]. See Loewenthal, 
Communication
, 69 and 243 n. 32. 
129
Ibid. 

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102 
the exile. For what causes the reward of a commandment is the 
commandment itself,
130
because by virtue of performing it the person draws a 
flow of the blessed 
Ein Sof
’s light
 
from above downwards, to be clothed in 
the corporeality of this world, in something that was previously under the 
dominion of 
kelipat nogah
.
131
Thus the advent of messianic time and the fulfilment of the messianic task are 
dependent on everyday activity carried out by everyone. By addressing this message 
in print to the readership of his book Rashaz underscores the communal and 
egalitarian character of the messianic effort: all members of the Jewish community 
take part in it, both the representatives of the elite, such as Rashaz himself, and the 
broader circle of his followers, to whom the book was addressed. As the core of the 
messianic effort lies in the performance of the commandments, there is nothing that 
takes Rashaz’s messianic concept beyond the nomian framework. He turns around 
the mishnaic saying that “the reward of the commandment is a commandment”
132
in 
order to infer from it that the ultimate reward (namely, the redemption) will be 
granted in return for the fulfilment of the commandments. In other words, the 
redemption, which is the full revelation of the light of 
Ein Sof
in the lower worlds, is 
brought closer by the performance of commandments, each of which draws down a 
certain amount, however small, of the light of 
Ein Sof
.
The messianic dimension of the commandments is further reinforced in 
Rashaz’s commentary on the laws of the ritual of the red heifer. About this ancient 
ritual it is said that since the destruction of the Temple, only the king Messiah will 
perform it again.
133
In Rashaz’s viewpoint, the commandment of the red heifer 
represents the totality of the Torah [
kelalut ha-Torah
]
134
and constitutes the purpose 
130
See 
m
Avot 4:2. 
131
T1, 37:46b [Appendix 22]. 
132
m
Avot 4:2. 
133
Maimonides, 
Mishneh Torah
, Hilekhot parah adumah, 3:9. 
134
This is based on the phrasing of the biblical verse “This is the ordinance of the law [
zot hukat ha-
Torah
] which the Lord hath commanded, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, that they bring 
thee a red heifer without spot, wherein is no blemish, and upon which never came yoke” [Nm 19:2], 
which may suggest that the law of the red heifer is the quintessential law of the Torah. 

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103 
of the descent of the soul to the lower worlds and its embodiment.
135
For this 
commandment is an epitome of the dynamics of