All One

16 Shevat 5782

“Thus it is written: ‘Havayah (Yud-hey-vav-hey)—He is Elokim,’ as is explained elsewhere.” (Lessons in Tanya, Likutei Amarim, end of Chapter 21)

Lessons in Tanya explains, “The Four-Letter Name of G‑d denotes Divine revelation and transcendence, while the Name Elokim refers to G‑d’s power of self-concealment by which he vests Himself in creation. The equation points out that they are one; Elokim is G‑dly just as is the level of G-dliness signified by the other Name. Thus, Elokim does not act as a veil obscuring G‑d, since it is essentially one with Yud-hey-vav-hey, the power of revelation.”

We affirm this every day when we say Shema. “Shema Yisroel, G‑d (Havayah) is Elokeinu, G‑d (Havayah) is one,” the transcendent G‑d is the same as the concealing G‑d, it is all one.

“Moshe appointed leaders of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties, and of tens.” (Shemos 18:25)

The Rebbe explains, “In Jethro’s plan, the people would be under the authority of judges who were beneath Moshe’s stature. Nonetheless, G‑d approved of this system, because this way even the simplest among the people would be able to solve their problems according to the Torah’s legal system, thereby submitting their lives to its authority. If Moshe had remained the people’s sole judge, some of the people would have been too intimidated by his awe-inspiring presence and spiritual stature to approach him with their problems. This might have led these people to feel alienated, or beyond the Torah’s concern.”

Here we see the same concept as above. Average people do not have the capacity to receive judgement from revealed prophets of Moshe’s stature, just as all created beings do not have the capacity to receive G‑dliness in its pure form. Many times, holiness must be constricted and condensed to be able to be absorbed by everyone at his level. This is not a negative thing, but the expressed will of Hashem, for His Torah was given to everyone, to govern not only their most sublime moments but also the most trivial concerns of their daily lives.

“You shall have no alien god within you, nor shall you bow down to a foreign deity.” (Tehillim 81:10)

The wording of this verse seems strange at first, why specifically not “בְּךָ” (within you)? Because Hashem is the entire world, alien gods do not exist. They only exist in our imagination, in which we are able to perceive ourselves as separate beings. Hence, only within ourselves are we able to believe in alien gods, because outside of our own imagination they do not exist. The more a person meditates on the oneness of Hashem, how all life-force derives from His Word, the more unconstricted G‑dliness he will be able to perceive.