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Chassidus on the Parsha · Vayeira · 11:50
“I Will Go Down and See”
Torah Ohr, Vayeira: the maamar Arda Na
Why would Hashem, Who sees everything from above, “go down and see” Sedom? The Alter Rebbe’s answer: the same facts, seen with chesed, look different.
In this video
- Two questions on the verse: why the outcry is in the feminine, and why Hashem needs to “go down and see.”
- “Galui v’yadua”: Hashem knows every detail without being clothed in it, the answer to the philosophers’ question on hashgachah pratis.
- Lights and vessels: the “roaming eyes” are the keilim and the malachim, while the light of Ein Sof within them stays “revealed and known.”
- The gloss on daas elyon and daas tachton, and Yosef’s good eye.
- A judge and a beloved talmid chacham, and Noach’s korban: the same facts argued for merit through chesed.
- Seeing and hearing: the outcry rises like hearing, but “I will go down and see” is the long right line of chesed.
- A story of Reb Levi Yitzchok of Berditchev and a wagon driver.
A maamar of the Alter Rebbe in Torah Ohr on this week’s parsha, ד"ה ארדה נא (14d–15d), followed closely in its own order, with each idea shown in a picture. Learn it inside this Shabbos.
The closing application is drawn from the maamar’s mashal and its gloss on Yosef; it is not a separate statement in the maamar. The story is told orally in Chassidic circles; our source is the Burstons’ collection.
Sources
- Torah Ohr, Parshas Vayeira, ד"ה ארדה נא, 14d–15d (Kehot)
- Bereishis 18:20–21 and Rashi
- Tehillim 33:13
- Zecharia 4:10 · Divrei Hayamim II 16:9
- Yeshayahu 55:8
- Mishlei 22:9
- Zohar, Saba d’Mishpatim (as cited in the maamar)
- Kesubos 105b
- Bereishis 6:5–7, 8:21
- Story: P. and C. Burston, Chicken Soup to Warm the Neshama, “Perspective” (chabad.org), heard from Zevi Raskin
Review questions
- Why are the words “hak’tza’akasa haba’ah” (its outcry that has come) in the feminine?Because the outcry rises through midas hadin, the sefirah of Malchus, the feminine attribute. It comes up through the malachim and keilim of Malchus to the light of Ein Sof in the sefiros of Atzilus (14d, 15b).
- How does “galui v’yadua” answer the philosophers’ question about hashgachah pratis?A person’s mind becomes clothed in what it knows, which is change and multiplicity. Hashem knows every detail without being clothed in it; everything is simply revealed and known, so knowing many details is no multiplicity Above (14d).
- If Hashem knows without being clothed in anything, what are “the eyes of Hashem that roam through all the earth”?The roaming eyes are the keilim, the vessels of the sefiros, and the malachim that receive from them. Of the vessels one can say they roam; for the light of Ein Sof within them it is “galui v’yadua” (14d–15a).
- Why does Hashem “go down to see” rather than judge by the outcry, and what does the mashal of the judge teach?The outcry rises from below like hearing, through gevurah. “I will go down and see” is from above, with chesed, to look at the same facts for merit. Like a judge who cannot judge a talmid chacham as dear to him as himself, because closeness and love find room for merit (15b–15d).
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