One Breath Within

1 · In the Image of One

“And G‑d said: Let us make man in Our image, after Our likeness … And G‑d created the man in His image, in the image of G‑d He created him” (Bereishis 1:26–27). And further it is written: “And He blew into his nostrils a breath of life, and the man became a living soul” (ibid. 2:7). And again, after the Flood, when the world is renewed and the covenant with all flesh is established, the Torah says: “One who spills the blood of man, by man shall his blood be spilled, for in the image of G‑d He made man” (ibid. 9:6).

We need to understand. The Torah is exact in every expression; all the more so in the opening of Creation, where every word is a root for all that will unfold thereafter. What is this ענין of “in Our image, after Our likeness,” and “in the image of G‑d He made man”? What is this “breath of life” that is blown from Above into man, through which he becomes “a living soul”? And, most importantly for our discussion, to whom do these expressions apply?

For at first glance one might have thought that such lofty terms—tzelem Elokim, neshimas chayim—belong only to Israel, who are later chosen as “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” Yet the Torah places these descriptions at the very beginning, before the existence of Avraham Avinu, before the separation of Israel from the nations. The man of whom it is said “in the image of G‑d He created him” is Adam, the father of all humanity. And the verse “for in the image of G‑d He made man” is said to the children of Noach, to all the descendants of Adam, and serves as the reason for the prohibition of bloodshed for all mankind. This indicates that the tzelem Elokim is not a later, particular acquisition, but a quality engraved in the very being of the human as human.

And this is explicit in the Mishnah (Sanhedrin 4:5): “Therefore man was created single, to teach you that whoever destroys one life is considered as though he destroyed an entire world, and whoever sustains one life is considered as though he sustained an entire world. And for the sake of peace among creatures, that a person should not say to his fellow, My father is greater than your father … and to declare the greatness of the Holy One, blessed be He: for a man stamps many coins with one seal and they are all alike, but the King of kings, the Holy One, blessed be He, stamps all men with the seal of Adam the first man, and no one is like his fellow. Therefore each and every one is obligated to say: For my sake the world was created.”

Here the Mishnah, which speaks of the din of capital cases for all humans, emphasizes that Adam was created יחידי, single, in order that all who come from him—without distinction of people or tongue—should know that they share one root, one “seal.” And this seal, as the Mishnah concludes, is used to “declare the greatness of the Holy One, blessed be He.” The very fact that from one seal emerge endlessly diverse faces, each unique, is itself the proclamation of Divine greatness. Thus it emerges that the singularity of each human being, in all its irreducible particularity, is not a mere psychological curiosity but a revelation of the Divine image imprinted in Adam and transmitted to all his children.

However, we must still clarify: what is this “seal” in the soul itself? What is the pnimiyus of tzelem Elokim, such that on account of it, the destruction of one life is considered as the destruction of an entire world; such that the prohibition of murder for all mankind is grounded “for in the image of G‑d He made man”? And how is this related to “He blew into his nostrils a breath of life”?

For the expression “He blew” is itself wondrous. Chazal explain (as is known in Chassidus) that “one who blows, blows from within him”—from his inwardness, his פנימיות. And the verse does not say that He formed man and placed in him a created soul, as in the case of animals, but specifically that He blew neshimas chayim. From this we understand that the human soul, even as it descends to enliven a physical body, has a special connection to the Pneimius of the Ein Sof, so to speak. And this is what gives rise to the designation “tzelem Elokim,” that in the very being of man there is something that bears likeness to the Divine.

Yet here we are forced to pause. If we say that this neshimas chayim and this tzelem Elokim are present in every human being, Israelite and gentile alike, then how are we to understand what is explained at length in the teachings of Chassidus—that within Israel there is a nefesh Elokit which is “literally a part of G‑d Above,” in a way that is not said regarding the nations of the world? On the other hand, if we would reserve the language of “Divine image” only for Israel, this would be openly against the simple meaning of the verses and the words of the Mishnah and the Rambam, as will be explained.

For the Rambam, in Hilchos Melachim (ch. 8–10), establishes clear halachos concerning the nations of the world. He rules that they are commanded in seven mitzvos, and that “any gentile who accepts upon himself and is careful to observe the seven mitzvos commanded to the children of Noach is one of the righteous among the nations of the world and has a portion in the World to Come.” And he further explains that the perfection of this acceptance is when he fulfills them “because the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded them in the Torah and informed us through Moshe Rabbeinu that the descendants of Noach were commanded with them previously.” Thus it is not only that a non‑Jew can behave ethically; rather, he can stand in a covenantal obedience to the command of Hashem as revealed in Torah, and thereby merit Olam HaBa.

This demands explanation. For Olam HaBa, in the language of the Rambam, is not a worldly reward, not garden and river, but a state of the soul after the departure from the body, when it delights in the radiance of the Shechinah, in the knowledge of G‑d without the coarse garment of material existence. If so, how can it be that the soul of a righteous gentile, which, according to many understood formulations, is not “a part of G‑d Above” in the same manner as the soul of Israel, nonetheless is capable of such deveikus and such delight in Elokus? Does this not indicate that also in him there is some inner point that is fitting to cleave to the radiance of the Shechinah, and to be sustained by it eternally?

And we must also contemplate the very reasoning the Torah gives for the prohibition of murder upon all humanity: “for in the image of G‑d He made man.” It is not written, “for man is precious,” or “for society requires order,” though these are also true on their level. Rather, the Torah reveals that the gravity of this sin, and the universal obligation upon all human beings to guard the life of their fellow, is rooted specifically in tzelem Elokim. The dignity of the human is not merely social or utilitarian, but metaphysical: to touch his blood is to lay a hand, as it were, on an image of G‑dliness.

From all the above it is clear that the question before us is not whether the nations of the world possess any connection to the Divine. The Torah itself, in its beginning, establishes that the human as human is created “in the image of G‑d,” that his life is animated by a “breath” from within, and that the destruction of that life is a diminishing of an entire world because of the greatness of its root. The Mishnah universalizes Adam as the single seal from which all are formed, and the Rambam codifies that a righteous gentile merits Olam HaBa, a share in the eternal life of the soul in the radiance of the Shechinah.

The true question, then, is otherwise: how are we to understand the nature of this tzelem and this neshimah that are shared by all, and how do they relate to the nefesh Elokit spoken of in Chassidus as particular to Israel? In what sense is every human being an “image” of the Divine, and in what sense is there a unique inwardness, a particular mode of G‑dly life, entrusted to the soul of Israel? How can we hold, with full fidelity, both the universality attested by the beginning of Torah and the particularity emphasized in the inner teachings of Torah?

For if we blur the distinction, we may diminish the special mission of Israel, the covenant of Torah and mitzvos, and the depth of what it means to be “a part of G‑d Above.” But if we exaggerate the distinction, ignoring or explaining away the explicit universality of tzelem Elokim and Olam HaBa for the righteous of the nations, we distort the pshat of Torah and close our eyes to the Divine image revealed in billions of human faces.

Therefore we are compelled to seek a deeper hashkafah, an inner cosmology of the human soul, in which both aspects are given their true place: a level on which all descend from one Adam and are bearers of one Divine “breath,” and within that, a further differentiation of roles and revelations, in which Israel and the nations each have their unique shlichus in manifesting the One. To approach this, we must first set out the classic teaching of the “two souls” as explained in Tanya, and from there the question will be sharpened in such a way that its resolution will necessitate a new contemplation of the very structure of the human soul.

2 · The Two Souls and the Question

To clarify this, we must now recall what is explained at length in the beginning of Tanya, where the Alter Rebbe establishes a fundamental yesod concerning the souls of Israel. For there he opens with the statement of the sages that “all Israel have a portion in the World to Come,” and asks: what is the inner definition of the “beinoni,” the intermediate man, whose avodah is the subject of the sefer? And in order to define this, he first lays down that “every Jew, whether righteous or wicked, has two souls,” not merely two inclinations but two full nefashos, each with its own faculties and will.

The first is the nefesh hacheyunit hativis, also called nefesh habehamis, the vital-animal soul, which is in the blood and gives life to the body, and from it are derived the natural traits and emotions, both those that are destructive and those that are refined and even noble. This soul, as he explains, is not unique to Israel, but is “from the side of kelipah and sitra achra,” in the sense that its consciousness is centered on selfhood and on the world as an independent reality, and it is this same life-force which is found, in its general nature, in the nations of the world as well, for they too live, feel, desire, fear, love, are angered, and are capable of compassion, generosity, and natural goodness.

Only that, as he distinguishes there, in the nefesh habehamis of Israel the natural middos, when purified and trained, are predisposed to be a “kindness of holiness,” to be harnessed to holiness and to be elevated; whereas in the nations of the world, even when the traits are good and upright, they are, in their essential source, “kindnesses of kelipah,” meaning that they do not by themselves reveal the Divine, but remain within the horizon of the created and the human. In this, the Alter Rebbe is following the earlier Kabbalistic literature, which speaks of the souls of the nations as deriving from the external aspects of the worlds, and of Israel as deriving from pnimiyus.

After establishing this, he proceeds, in the second chapter, to the chiddush that concerns us most: that in addition to this animal-vital soul, “there is in Israel another nefesh, a second soul, which is truly a part of G‑d Above, as it were,” and he cites the verse, “For He is your life,” and the phrase “My son, My firstborn, Israel,” and the metaphor of a son from the brain of the father, to illustrate that the nefesh Elokit of a Jew is not merely created by G‑d, but is bound to Him in its very essence, as a ray to the sun, as a son to a father.

And he explains there further that this nefesh Elokit, being a chelek Eloka mimaal mamash, is by its nature Godward; all its faculties—its chochmah, binah, and daas, its love and awe, its tiferes and so on—are essentially oriented to know G‑d, to love Him, to cleave to Him, to nullify itself before Him. Even when, in the revealed conduct of the person, this soul is greatly concealed, and the animal soul rules, nevertheless in its essence it remains what it is: a conscious G‑d-wardness, a will only for Elokus, a natural bitul to the Ein Sof.

It emerges, then, that according to the open, simple reading of Tanya, there is here a clear differentiation: the nefesh habehamis, which is the basis of ordinary human vitality and psychology, is common to Israel and the nations, with certain differences of refinement and orientation; the nefesh Elokit, which is a “piece of G‑d Above” and whose daas and ratzon are only toward G‑dliness, is spoken of there as the specific inheritance of Israel, the “people close to Him,” bound in essential fashion with Torah and mitzvos.

And the Alter Rebbe is not innovating this separation on his own; rather, he is giving Chabad-formulation to what is already explicit in the Zohar and in the writings of the Arizal, where it is said that “Yisrael are bound to the Torah and the Torah to the Holy One, blessed be He,” and that “Yisrael, oraysa, veKudsha Brich Hu chad hu,” that there is a unity between the soul of Israel, the Divine wisdom of Torah, and the Infinite One. There it is taught that the root of Israel is in the inner vessels of Atzilus, whereas the root of the nations is in the externalities and in the lower worlds. The simple impression from all of this is that there is, in the very being of the soul, a distinction in kind and not merely in degree.

However, in order that we should not err, we must emphasize that all these expressions in Tanya and in Zohar are words of the living G‑d, holy and true, and no one may, G‑d forbid, dismiss or dilute them because of external considerations. The covenant with Israel, the chosenness of Israel, the unique holiness of the Jewish soul, are absolute foundations of Torah, and any attempt to flatten them into a vague humanism is a betrayal rather than a deepening. Our entire derech is to accept the words of our masters in their full sharpness, and precisely thereby to be led to a truer, broader understanding, not to flee from their implications.

Yet it is exactly when we take them with full seriousness that the kushya intensifies. For when one hears that the nefesh Elokit is “truly a part of G‑d Above,” and that this is said concerning “every Jew, whether righteous or wicked,” and not said, in this language, concerning the non-Jew, the immediate, almost unavoidable conclusion in the simple mind is that only the Jew has real Divine inwardness, only the Jew is, in his essence, G‑dly; the non-Jew has, at most, created life from G‑d, but not G‑d within.

And this seems to stand in direct contradiction to what we saw earlier concerning tzelem Elokim and neshimas chayim bestowed upon Adam and all his descendants, and concerning the portion in Olam HaBa of the righteous gentile. For if the non-Jew does not have any mode of soul that is truly G‑dly, how is he an “image of G‑d” in the same simple sense as Adam? How can his cleaving in Olam HaBa be to the Ein Sof, if there is in him no essential chelek Eloka?

Moreover, the difficulty is not only from texts, but also from the reality which Divine Providence allows us to see in our time. For in earlier generations, when the nations were sunk in coarse idolatry, cruelty, and corruption, and Israel was uniquely devoted to Torah, it was easier to imagine that there is an ontological gap that expresses itself straightforwardly in history. But in the present era, when the Divine plan has brought about a world in which the seven Noahide laws, in their general content, are enshrined in the conscience of many peoples; when there are multitudes of non-Jews who seek truth, who are ready to sacrifice for justice and compassion, who are moved by profound awe before the Creator, who study what is known to them of His word, and who yearn to walk in His ways—this empirical fact, too, demands an accounting within the inner Torah.

For is it possible to say, concerning a person who prays with tears to the One G‑d, who restrains his impulses out of fear of Heaven, who dedicates his life to kindness and to the alleviation of suffering, that his soul is only an animal soul from kelipah, without any inward Divine dimension? If one were to speak thus, not only would it be difficult from the plain sense of the verses and of the Rambam, but it would also be difficult from the sense of the heart that feels the radiance of Elokus in such a countenance. And if we answer that all this is only from the refinement of the animal soul, then we must explain: what is the nature of such refinement that it can mirror, so closely, the activities and experiences which Tanya attributes to the nefesh Elokit—love of G‑d, awe of G‑d, bittul to His will?

On the other hand, if we would say that the nations, too, possess a nefesh Elokit in the very same sense that Israel does, then we uproot the entire edifice built in Tanya on the basis of the two souls, and we deny the words of Zohar and Arizal, and we also blur the halachic and covenantal distinctions between Israel and the nations, which are fixed and eternal. This cannot be.

Thus we are compelled to say that the simple, un-nuanced picture—that there are two categories of beings, one with an inner G‑dly soul and one without—does not yet express the full depth of the matter, and that the very sharpness of the Alter Rebbe’s language is itself an invitation to seek deeper. For his intention is not to speak of metaphysical worth, G‑d forbid, but to define the structure of conscious avodah in Israel, whose task is Torah and mitzvos, and for this purpose he describes the nefesh Elokit as the conscious, revealed orientation to G‑d which is the inner life of a Jew.

We may therefore begin to suspect that there is here a distinction between the root of the soul and its revealed configuration in history; between the ontological oneness which may pertain to the human as such, and the specific form in which this oneness is manifest in Israel as a covenantal people. The nefesh Elokit, as spoken of in Tanya, may be the name for a certain gilui, a certain emergence into daas and into avodah, of a depth that, in its root, is not limited to Israel alone.

But to say this in a way that is not mere speculation, we require a broader cosmology of the human soul than the binary of animal and Divine as applied only to Israel. We must inquire: what is the primal human soul, before the division into Israel and the nations? How is that soul structured in its strata, from the animal vitality up to the hidden point of oneness? In what way can there be, within one great root-soul of Adam, different branches and organs, each with its own revealed task, while still sharing one Divine life?

When we contemplate this, it will become possible to understand how the inner oneness with G‑d can be universal, and yet the revealed nefesh Elokit, as a conscious, Torah-bound G‑dwardness, can be particular to Israel. And this is the next step: to speak not yet of Jew and non-Jew as separate beings, but of the Nishmas Adam, the single Adam-soul, and how its branches are differentiated.

3 · The Adam‑Soul and Its Branches

To approach this, we must return to the beginning of human being as such, before any division into peoples and covenants. For the Torah does not begin with Avraham, nor with Sinai, but with Adam HaRishon, and all the words of Chazal concerning Adam are not stories of an individual alone, but of the prototype and root of humanity.

It is known that our Sages said that Adam was created alone, and that all who come to the world are his descendants. And the Mishnah likens this to a king who stamps many coins with one seal, and all the coins are alike; whereas in the case of Adam, many “coins” were struck from one “seal,” yet each is different from his fellow. Now this is not only an ethical teaching, that each person is unique and therefore must say “bishvili nivra ha’olam.” It is also, when we contemplate it more deeply, a metaphysical description: there is one “seal,” one primal form of humanity, from which all differentiated human beings are “struck.” The multiplicity of persons does not negate the unity of their root; rather, the very unity of the root is precisely what allows for infinite variation within its one form.

And this is the inner content of what is found in the words of the Zohar and the writings of the mekubalim, that “Adam” is not only the first man below, but is also a name for a supernal configuration, Adam HaElyon, and above that, Adam Kadmon, which is the first, all-encompassing arrangement of the Divine light as it begins to relate to the possibility of worlds. For “Adam” comes from “adameh laElyon”—“I shall resemble the Supernal One.” This means that the human form is itself a tzelem, a likeness, of a certain Divine order; that the very idea of “human” is rooted Above as a way in which the Infinite One chooses to be mirrored.

However, we must be very cautious here. When Chassidus speaks of Adam Kadmon, it speaks of a level which is utterly beyond created being, where all worlds are but like a single point, and there, certainly, there is no distinction of Jew and gentile, nor even of any particular world at all. Thus, to apply the term “Adam” both to that highest configuration and to the first man below is already to hint that there is a chain of resemblance, a drawing down from the supernal “Adam” into the lower “Adam,” and from him into all his descendants.

We can therefore say, by way of explanation, that between the supernal Adam and the many individuals in the world there is an intermediate concept which we will call, in the language of our discussion, Nishmas Adam—the Soul of Adam. This does not mean the personal soul of the first man in Gan Eden as an individual, but a great klal, an encompassing soul-being within which all the particular souls of human beings are included as pratim, particulars. Just as there is Nishmas Yisrael, the collective soul of Israel as a people, so, on a broader and more primal plane, there is Nishmas Adam, which is the collective human soul prior to any division at all.

To clarify this, we must explain the relationship of klal and prat. A klal is not merely a sum of particulars lined up side by side; that would still be only a multiplicity. A true klal is a higher unity which precedes the particulars, and in which all the details are present in a more inward, undifferentiated way. Later, when the klal is expressed, it unfolds into distinct pratim, each of which bears and reveals one aspect of the klal in a particular form.

The nimshal is understood by the mashal of the body. The living body is one organism, one life. Yet this one life expresses itself through many diverse organs: head and heart, hands and feet, inner organs and outer limbs. The brain does not live with one life and the hand with another; the blood that courses through the veins is one, and the soul that vitalizes is one. Nevertheless, the way this one life is revealed is utterly different in each organ: in the brain as comprehension and thought, in the heart as feeling and pulse, in the hands as action and craft, in the feet as movement and support. The organs are not interchangeable; each has a specific tzurah and tafkid. The wholeness of the body depends on this very differentiation, that each organ be itself and not another, yet all serve the one life and the one will of the person.

So too, in a deeper manner, with Nishmas Adam. It is a single life-field, a single human soul-being, in which the form “Adam” is present in its totality. Within this klal, the many individual souls are like organs and limbs, each one a prat which both receives from and contributes to the expression of the whole. The unity of Nishmas Adam means that there is one human tzelem, one essential pattern of being-human, in which the capacity for daas, for love and awe, for moral choice, for relationship to the Creator, is given as a single inheritance to the species as such. The diversity of individuals and of groups is then a diversity of function within this one organism.

According to this, the distinction of Israel and the nations can be understood not as a difference of species, G‑d forbid, but as a differentiation of organs within the one Adam. Israel, as the descendants of Avraham chosen at Sinai into a covenant of Torah and mitzvos, are analogous to the heart and the brain of the great body of Nishmas Adam. The nations, each with their particular paths and cultures, are analogous to the various limbs and organs which carry out action in the world, which build, cultivate, expand, and reveal in actual deed the possibilities of human life.

This image is not a mere poetic device; it is rooted in the very way the Kabbalah describes Adam HaElyon, where the sefirot arrange themselves in a structure of “head,” “torso,” “arms,” “legs,” and so on, and each part of that supernal Adam corresponds to distinct channels of Divine flow and to distinct groups of souls. When this is copied and reflected Below, in the lower Adam, the Nishmas Adam, those channels become the different collective soul-roots of Israel and of the seventy nations, each one an organ in the one body.

If so, the uniqueness of Israel as “heart” and “brain” is not that only they are alive, but that in them the life is revealed in a certain way: as inward daas of G‑dliness, as explicit covenantal consciousness, as Torah, which is called “wisdom” and “heart” of all worlds. The other peoples are not thereby excluded from the one life; on the contrary, their very raison d’être is to be the limbs and vessels through which that inner daas is carried out into the breadth of the world—in civilization, in culture, in the harnessing of the earth’s potentials for the sake of goodness and justice.

And here we can better understand what was said earlier regarding the righteous among the nations attaining a portion in Olam HaBa. For just as in the body, when the heart cleaves to life, all the limbs live with it, and when the head knows, the hands and feet participate in that knowing through action, so too, when Israel as heart and brain cleave to the living G‑d through Torah and mitzvos, this cleaving draws life into the entire Nishmas Adam. When a non-Jew fulfills his commanded path with righteousness and yiras Shamayim, he connects to that same life from his place as a limb within the body; his Olam HaBa is not a separate world, but his share in the common life of Nishmas Adam as it is bound to its Source.

Yet we must not flatten the distinctions. For just as a heart cannot say “I will be a hand,” and a hand cannot demand the inner experience of the heart, so the limbs of the human body of Nishmas Adam cannot exchange their missions. Israel’s task is inward Torah-knowing and the explicit revelation of the Divine Name in history; the nations’ task is to build a world of righteousness and kindness, to refine the created order under the sovereignty of the One. Both are necessary; both are dignified; both are expressions of one life. The superiority of an organ is measured only relative to its particular function, not in absolute worth, for without the feet the head cannot move, and without the hands the heart’s generosity remains only feeling and does not become bread for the hungry.

With this, the sharpness of the Tanya’s language about nefesh Elokit begins to take on a new meaning. The nefesh Elokit, as the Alter Rebbe speaks of it, is the revealed, conscious aspect of that Nishmas Adam as it is present in the “heart-brain” organ called Israel. That organ’s very definition is to be a seat of daas Elokus, of explicit awareness of G‑d as commanded in Torah. The nations, as other organs, participate in the same Nishmas Adam, and their vitality too, in its root, is from the same Divine breath; but the mode in which this root emerges into revealed conscious avodah is different, as befits their place in the body.

However, this only takes us to the level of the collective. We have spoken of Nishmas Adam as a klal and of Israel and the nations as organs within it. But each organ itself is composed of countless cells, and each human being is a world in miniature. Within every individual soul—whether of Israel or of the nations—there are also levels and strata, from the outermost vitality attached to the body up to the innermost, simple point of oneness with the Source of all life. If Nishmas Adam is one encompassing field, then each soul is like a local condensation of that field, containing within itself the same pattern in small.

Thus, to truly understand how the one Divine life of Nishmas Adam is present in every person, and how the distinction of heart and limbs plays out within the inner experience of each individual, we must now descend from the collective to the personal. We must map the strata of the soul as they are found in any human being, and distinguish between those levels where differences of role and covenant are manifest, and that deepest point where the simple oneness with Hashem is the same in all. When we will examine these inner levels, we will see how the universal field of Nishmas Adam imprints itself in each person’s consciousness and being, and how the one Divine oneness expresses itself in manifold ways.

4 · Five Strata of the Human Soul

And here we must recall what is already known in the teachings of Chassidus concerning the structure of the soul in general. For it is explained that the soul is not one simple, undifferentiated point alone, but that in its hisgalus there are five bechinos: nefesh, ruach, neshamah, chayah, yechidah. Nefesh is the level of life that enclothes itself in the blood and in the powers of action; ruach is the emotional and middos‑life, love and awe and the like; neshamah is the intellectual grasp, mochin; chayah is a transcendent chiyus that surrounds, a higher vitality of Elokus that is felt only as a makif; and yechidah is the innermost point, utterly one with its Source, beyond all hischalkus.

However, it is clear that when we speak of these five in their full sense, we are already speaking in the language of kedushas Yisrael, of the nefesh Elokit as it is revealed through Torah and mitzvos. The very definitions of ruach and neshamah there are bound with ahavas Hashem and yiras Hashem, with comprehension in Elokus, and the like. If so, how can we borrow this same ladder as a map for the soul‑life of all humanity—including those who have not been given this revealed covenant and whose daas Elokus is not of this order?

On the other hand, since Nishmas Adam is one, and since the tzelem Elokim and neshimas chayim are said of Adam as such, it cannot be that the inner architecture of a human soul as human is totally other than the fivefold pattern known in Chassidus. For all seder hishtalshelus is one, and the form of Adam below mirrors the supernal Adam. Only we must say that there is an inner correspondence without full identity; that there is a fivefold structure in every human soul which parallels nefesh–ruach–neshamah–chayah–yechidah, yet is defined in terms that apply to Adam as a human being before the revelation at Sinai.

To explain this, we will speak of five strata that can be discerned in the experience of any person, Jew or of the nations: Chomer‑Life, Tzurah‑Self, Sadeh‑Heart, Or‑Witness, and Yachid‑Hidden One. Each of these is a bechinah in the individual spark of Nishmas Adam, and together they form a ladder from the most outward expression of life up to the most inward point of simple oneness.

The lowest stratum we will call Chomer‑Life. “Chomer” here does not mean mere dead matter, but the life of the soul as it is bound with the body, with its instincts and needs. It is the drive to live and to continue living: hunger and thirst, the seeking of shelter, the impulse to flee danger and to cling to what preserves existence. It is manifest in the beating of the heart, in the reflex that pulls the hand away from fire, in the unrest of a body deprived of air or food. This is the aspect of the soul that animates the organism as organism. In the language of Chassidus it corresponds to nefesh as it enclothes itself in the blood, but here we are speaking of it in a more universal way, as that layer of Nishmas Adam which grips the dust of the earth and makes it a living, moving being.

Above this stands a second stratum which we call Tzurah‑Self. If Chomer‑Life is that the person lives, Tzurah‑Self is what kind of “I” it feels itself to be. “Tzurah” is the form, the pattern, that the raw life assumes; it is the story the person tells about himself, the sense of identity shaped by memory, language, culture, and choice. Here are found conceptions of “who I am,” of honor and shame, of purpose and futility. A child who first says “I,” who insists “this is mine,” who later can say “I was wrong” or “I am this kind of person”—all this belongs to Tzurah‑Self. It is the narrative form of the soul, the meaning‑making faculty that arranges experiences into a coherent picture. In the classical ladder this has affinity with ruach and even with aspects of neshamah, for it involves both middos and seichel; but here we speak of it in its human‑universal aspect, before we distinguish whether the content of that story is in truth aligned with Elokus or not.

The third stratum we will call Sadeh‑Heart. “Sadeh,” a field, is a place that receives and brings forth; it is open to heaven and to rain, and it bears fruit for others. So too, within every human soul there is a field‑like level which is not only self‑story but relation, responsiveness to the other. This is the realm of empathy and of shared joy and pain, of attachment and care, of the capacity to be moved by the face of another human being, by the cry of a child, by the beauty of a sunset that is somehow felt as a gift. Even when a person’s Tzurah‑Self tells a story of isolation or defense, in the depth of the Sadeh‑Heart there remains a vulnerability to connection, a longing to love and to be loved, to belong and to give. This level is already more transparent to the life of Nishmas Adam as a klal, for here one feels that one’s own life is interwoven with the lives of others. It corresponds in some measure to ruach in its higher aspect—the middos as they open beyond the narrow self—and it draws as well from neshamah, from the understanding that another being is also a “someone.” But again, we are describing it as it exists in all: the field of the heart that can be cultivated for good or, G‑d forbid, trampled and hardened.

The fourth stratum is subtler, and we will call it Or‑Witness. “Or” is light, and “Witness” indicates that which beholds without grasping, that which is present to what is, without yet forming it into a story. Every human being knows, at least in certain moments, a mode of awareness in which he is simply seeing, hearing, sensing, before judgment and reaction. There is a clear space of consciousness in which thoughts, feelings, and bodily sensations arise and pass, and there is a simple knowing of them, as of clouds moving across the sky of the mind. This knowing cannot itself be seen as an object; it is the seer of all. When one becomes aware that one is aware, one has touched this Or‑Witness.

In its root, this level is already an intimation of Elokus, for it is a reflection of the Divine “Eye that sees,” of the omnipresent knowing of the Creator. When the Or‑Witness is turned toward Hashem, when a person uses this transparent awareness to behold the world as G‑d’s world, to hear within the events of his life the speech of a Living One addressing him, then this stratum becomes a keli for daas Elokus in the broader sense appropriate to that soul. It is here, therefore, that the capacity to “behold G‑d” in some way is located, even for those who have not received the Torah; for they too can lift their awareness beyond the movements of ego and feel themselves in the presence of Something greater. This level parallels what is called neshamah, and even in some degree chayah, for it is already more makif than the concrete emotions and thoughts; but its definition here is not as a specific comprehension in Elokus, rather as the simple light of consciousness which can become a window for Elokus.

Above all these stands the fifth and deepest stratum, which we will call Yachid‑Hidden One. Here we must be very careful in our lashon, for we are approaching the point where words fail. This level is not another content of consciousness, nor another refinement of awareness. It is not the narrative “I,” and it is not even the witnessing awareness of that “I.” Rather, it is the bechinah in the soul which is not experienced as separate at all, the root‑identity by which the soul is what it is in the hand of its Maker.

We call it Yachid, for two reasons. First, to indicate that this point is indivisible within the soul itself: it is not compounded of parts, not subject to fluctuation or development. Whatever changes a person undergoes in thought, emotion, or character, the Yachid‑point remains what it always was. Second, to indicate that this point is one with the Divine Yachid, for it does not know itself except as being‑from‑Hashem. If the Or‑Witness can know “I am aware, and there is a world, and perhaps there is a G‑d,” the Yachid‑Hidden One does not know itself as an “I” over against a “Thou” at all. It is that by which the soul is held constantly within the “I Am” of the Ein Sof, whether this is revealed in consciousness or utterly concealed.

This level corresponds to yechidah in the classic ladder, yet we are here naming it in a way that is not bound to the specific gilui of the nefesh Elokit in Israel. For Yechidah, as spoken of in Chassidus, is the yechidah‑of‑Israel as it is revealed in mesiras nefesh al kiddush Hashem and in the deepest taanug in Elokus. Yachid‑Hidden One, by contrast, points to the simple fact that in every spark of Nishmas Adam there is such an indivisible root‑point, already and always bound up with Hashem’s being. Whether this bond is consciously known and lived, whether it is revealed as bittul and deveikus, is a further inyan; but the metzius of that point is there, for otherwise there would be no tzelem Elokim in the full sense, and no possibility that any human being could truly return and cleave.

Now, if we look again at these five strata, we can see how each one is both a prat within the individual and an echo of the klal of Nishmas Adam. Chomer‑Life is the individual’s share in the basic life of the human organism as such: to stand upright, to eat bread, to breathe the air. Tzurah‑Self is the way Nishmas Adam forms itself as particular cultures and persons, each bearing a unique “face” of the human. Sadeh‑Heart is the participation of the individual in the mutuality of the klal, the sense that “I” and “you” are bound. Or‑Witness is the shining of the supernal Adam’s daas within the individual spark, the capacity to know that there is a whole of which one is a part. And Yachid‑Hidden One is the root of all, the point in which each spark remains directly connected to the source‑life of the entire Nishmas Adam in the Ein Sof.

Through this model we can now speak, with precision, of a universal “yechidah‑core” in all humanity, without erasing the unique role of the nefesh Elokit of Israel. For the nefesh Elokit, as it is revealed in the “heart‑brain” organ of the body of Adam, is a particular manner in which the Or‑Witness and the Yachid‑Hidden One radiate into the lower strata with a daas Elokus and a Torah‑commanded avodah that are specific to that organ. The nations, as other organs, receive the same Yachid‑core in their spark of Nishmas Adam, and even the same Or‑Witness as bare awareness; but the way this radiance clothes itself in Tzurah‑Self and Sadeh‑Heart, in story and in relationship, is different, as befits their function.

Yet a question remains, and indeed it grows sharper the more we speak of this inner universality. If within every human being there is such a Yachid‑Hidden One, a point indivisibly one with Hashem, how is it that we see human beings who deny G‑d, who act in ways utterly opposed to His will, who sink into cruelty and corruption? How can there be such distance and darkness if at the core there is such nearness and light? And if this core is truly one with Hashem, how do we understand free choice, sin, and the possibility of punishment and reward? To answer this, we must now turn to contemplate more deeply the precise nature of this Yachid‑core, and in what sense it is “one with Hashem” while yet allowing for concealment and for the whole drama of moral life.

5 · The Hidden One Within

The explanation of this is by first recalling what is known regarding the level called Yechidah in the teachings concerning the nefesh Elokit of Israel. For there it is explained that just as in the general order of the worlds there are levels of nefesh, ruach, neshamah and chayah, which are all in the realm of hislabshus and hispashtus—that the Divine life is enclothed and spreads forth into various keilim, measures and definitions—so too in the soul there is an inner point higher than all of these, called Yechidah, which is not a particular faculty nor an extended light, but the simple essence of the soul as it is united with Atzmus Ein Sof. And therefore it is described as chelek Eloka mimaal b’gilui—not merely a “part of G‑d above” in the sense of origin, but a “part” that stands in revelation as such, that its very being is the Divine beingness as it is reflected in a created soul.

From this comes the known expression that the Yechidah is lo nitma velo nitpas, it cannot be defiled and it cannot be grasped by any foreign hold. For all the levels which manifest as powers and garments—intellect, emotions, thought, speech and deed—can be seized, so to speak, by the side that opposes holiness, in that they can be directed toward evil and be darkened by sin. But the Yechidah, since it is not an extended light that passes through the “street” of consciousness and choice but is rather the very “root of the root” of the soul in Atzmus, remains always pure, beyond contamination. It is like the hidden life in the seed which no injury to the outer bark can truly touch.

And this is the inner meaning of the daily declaration “the soul that You have placed within me is pure; You created it, You formed it, You breathed it into me, and You preserve it within me,” that the purity precedes the stages of creation, formation and being breathed into. Before it is clothed in the garments of created being (“You created it, You formed it”), there is a nekudah of “You placed within me” which is tehorah hi, an indivisible purity that comes directly from the One who places it. The later stages—creation, formation, the Divine “breath” that animates—speak already of descent into definition; but the core that is “placed” is not yet under the rule of definition at all.

However, according to what was explained above, that we are now speaking not only of the nefesh Elokit of Israel but of a universal Yachid‑Hidden One imprinted in every spark of Nishmas Adam, we must say that the content of these descriptions applies, in its essential inyan, to that universal point as well, albeit with a distinction in the manner of its revelation. That is, the Yechidah spoken of in connection with Israel is the Yachid as it is in a state of gilui within the particular organ of the body of Adam that is designated for Torah and mitzvos; whereas the Yachid we are now describing universally is the same mode of being—essential unity with Atzmus—but as it remains be’he’elem, in concealment, within every human soul.

To phrase this more precisely: Yachid names not a power of knowledge about G‑d, nor even a capacity for love and awe of G‑d, but a mode in which the human soul is held directly in the Divine “I Am,” before it has any self‑standing identity at all. It is not that there is first a created “I” which afterward comes to cleave to the Divine “I”; rather, in the depth of depths the human “I” is nothing but a manner in which the Divine “I” is present. This is the inyan of bitul b’metzius as distinct from bitul hayesh.

For bitul hayesh means that there is a “something” which feels itself as a being unto itself, and through contemplation, or through the experience of the Divine light, it comes to be humbled, to nullify its will before the Divine will, to make itself a vehicle and servant. Here the yeshu’s existence remains; only that it is submissive, transparent, devoted. This is the bittul that applies in the revealed faculties of the nefesh: the mind that understands Elokus, the heart that loves and fears, the limbs that act in obedience.

But bitul b’metzius is of a wholly other order: it is not that the “something” yields, but that from this vantage there never was an independent “something” to begin with. The soul in its Yachid‑mode does not stand before Hashem as a second; it is rather like a ray in the sun, which, when perceived in its source, has no separate name or standing at all. Or as a wave within the ocean: from the shore one points and calls it “this wave,” but from within the deep it is only the ocean itself moving. Or as a branch that, viewed from the outside, appears as a distinct limb, yet in its inner sap is nothing but the trunk’s life extended.

In such a state there is no place for defilement and no place for fall, for there is nothing for the fall to attach to. All the tum’ah and all the coarseness that can overtake a person, Heaven forfend, are in the garments and outer structures of the soul—in Chomer‑Life and Tzurah‑Self, in the patterns of desire, story, and habit that can be distorted. Even the Sadeh‑Heart can become a field of foreign growths, and the Or‑Witness can be turned, by choice and habituation, away from beholding Elokus. But the Yachid‑Hidden One, being essentially bitul b’metzius, is never altered, never dimmed. It remains “the soul You placed within me is pure,” even at the hour that the garments are not pure.

Now from here the earlier difficulty becomes heightened: if so, if in the depth of every human being there is this unblemished point of bitul b’metzius, what room is there for accountability? Is it not then compelled, as it were, by its very essence to be one with Hashem? And if the true “I” of each person is only a ray of the Divine “I,” how can we speak of free choice, of sinning against G‑d, of reward and punishment?

But the answer is that this very concealment we have been speaking of is the space of choice. That is, the Yachid as it is in its own place, so to speak, is not the one who chooses; it is the ground of being upon which choice takes place. The strata of Or‑Witness, Sadeh‑Heart, Tzurah‑Self and Chomer‑Life are the levels at which the human being stands over against Hashem as an addressee of His command. There the person experiences himself or herself as a separate “I” addressed by the Divine “You,” and it is precisely this sense of separateness that allows for the possibility of disobedience, Heaven forfend, and therefore for the great wonder of obedience, of self‑transcending devotion.

In other words: the Yachid‑core does not erase moral responsibility; it sustains it. For were the creature truly cut off in its root, its choices would have no ultimate weight, no bridge to the Infinite. Because the deepest point is already one with Hashem, every movement in the garments—every thought, word, and deed—has the power either to align with that truth and reveal it, or to obscure it and exile it. Reward and punishment, in their inner sense, are no more than the revelation or concealment of this already‑present unity.

And this is the secret of teshuvah for all. For the possibility that a being who has turned away can turn back, that a heart hardened in cruelty can soften, that a mind long closed to G‑d can open, depends on there being in that being something which has never moved away. The turning of teshuvah is not the creation ex nihilo of a new relation to Hashem, but the peeling away of concealments so that the ever‑present relation of Yachid to Atzmus can shine into awareness. This is why, when a person truly returns, he says not “I have made myself into something new,” but “I return to You,” for he senses that he is coming home to a place he has never truly left.

According to this we can now refine the distinction between Israel and the nations in terms of Yechidah and Yachid. The exclusivity that the earlier texts speak of concerning the nefesh Elokit—its description as a chelek Eloka mimaal b’gilui, its designation as Yechidah—pertains to the way that this essential oneness is brought into revelation within a particular organ of Nishmas Adam. In Israel, by virtue of the covenant of Torah and mitzvos, this point is empowered to shine more openly into Or‑Witness, Sadeh‑Heart, Tzurah‑Self and even Chomer‑Life, such that the very structure of consciousness is more readily permeated with daas Elokus. This is Yechidah: Yachid as it is be’gilui in the covenantal organ.

By contrast, in the other organs—the nations of the world—the same essential point exists no less in its root, for it is of the very definition of a human soul that it is a spark of Nishmas Adam and that Nishmas Adam is bound in Atzmus. Only that there it is more hidden, more covered over, and its radiance into consciousness comes primarily in the form of conscience, of awe before the mystery of being, of the sense of right and wrong and the thirst for meaning. Here we call it Yachid‑Hidden One, to indicate that its being is identical in kind, but its mode is he’elem and not gilui.

And yet, ultimately, both are one in the Ein Sof. For when one ascends higher than all worlds and all configurations, there is no distinction between revealed and concealed, between heart and limb, between Israel and the nations; there is only the simple truth that “all of them You made with wisdom” and that “all are in the hand of Heaven.” The distinctions that are of such consequence in the realm of avodah and halachah are distinctions in how this Yachid‑truth is to be served and expressed, not in whether it is present.

Thus the earlier tension is resolved. The sharp language of nefesh Elokit and Yechidah unique to Israel remains in its place, describing a revealed gilui in a specific organ of Nishmas Adam. The universal language of tzelem Elokim, of neshimah tehorah, of the righteous among the nations having a portion in the World to Come, speaks of the Yachid‑core as it is present in every human being. Both are true, each on its level; they are two perspectives on one mystery.

But with all this, the matter is still in the realm of description and ontology. We have spoken of what is, of the structure and root of the soul. What remains, and what is in truth the purpose of all of this, is to understand: given that such a Yachid‑point lives within every person, Jew and gentile, how is one to live from that point? By what paths can a human being cause this hidden unity to permeate the conscious faculties, so that the bitul b’metzius of the core becomes also a bitul hayesh in mind and heart and action? To this we must now turn, to speak of the ways of awakening and drawing the Hidden One within into revelation.

6 · Paths of Awakening

According to all the above, that the Yachid‑core is one and the same in every human soul, the question now becomes: how is this inner point drawn forth into gilui within the diverse structures of Nishmas Adam, so that the outer strata no longer stand only in their own nature, but become merkavah and keli to that simple oneness? And since, as explained, the differentiation of Israel and the nations is specifically a differentiation in the mode of revelation and in the form of avodah, it follows that the derech of this hisgalus itself will be manifold: each organ of the great Adam‑soul has its own path and its own commandments, and yet all the paths converge toward the same Ein‑Sofic root.

To understand this, it is first necessary to recall what is explained in Chassidus regarding the inyan of mitzvos. For although on the revealed level a mitzvah is a Divine decree—gezeiras ha’melech—obligating action in a specific form, nevertheless it is also called in the writings of the mekubalim and the Baal Shem Tov “eitzos,” counsels, how a created being can bind himself to his Creator. Not, Heaven forbid, that the mitzvah is merely advice and not absolute command, but that the command itself is the supreme counsel, the uniquely tailored form through which the Yachid within that soul‑organ may be drawn and revealed in the garments of thought, speech, and deed.

This is clearly seen in the distinction the Rambam makes concerning the righteous among the nations in Hilchos Melachim. There he enumerates the seven mitzvos that the children of Noach were commanded, and after detailing their laws he concludes that any gentile who accepts and fulfills them is counted among the “chasidei umos ha’olam” and has a portion in the World to Come—on condition that he accepts them “because the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded them in the Torah and informed us through Moshe Rabbeinu that the sons of Noach had been commanded concerning them previously.” If, however, he fulfills them only because they appear rational and fitting, he is a “chacham” but not of the category of “chasid” who merits Olam HaBa.

Now, at first glance this is wondrous. For we have said that the Yachid‑core is beyond all garments of intellect and understanding; why then should the World to Come—a gilui of that very core—depend upon the particular daas and kavvanah with which the mitzvos of Noach are fulfilled? But according to what has been explained above we can understand: the difference is not in the essence of his soul, which is in any case united with Hashem in the mode of Yachid, but in the pathway by which that oneness is allowed to permeate the revealed strata.

When a person fulfills the seven laws merely as rational ethics, the garments of Tzurah‑Self and Sadeh‑Heart are indeed refined; he becomes a more coherent, compassionate, and ordered human being. Yet in his Or‑Witness there remains a subtle separation, for his ultimate point of reference is the self‑evident rightness of the human mind or of social harmony. The Yachid‑core is not explicitly acknowledged as the sole ground of being; thus its bitul b’metzius remains concealed from his conscious daas.

But when he accepts these same commandments because “Hashem commanded in the Torah,” then in that very moment his Or‑Witness bends in bittul toward an Absolute that is not of his making. His knowing is re‑aligned: he is no longer the measure of truth, but stands measured by a Will that precedes and grounds all worlds. This is daas in the inner sense—an integrated knowing in which awareness cleaves to the One known—and through this the Yachid‑core finds an opening into consciousness. Hence he becomes “chasid,” for chesed in its supernal form is the outflow of Atzmus to another; his very being becomes a place where the Infinite has chosen to dwell.

From here we may derive a general rule: the awakening of the Yachid into revealed faculties proceeds not only through the external act, but through the bittul and kavvanah that accompany the act, and this according to the covenantal path in which the soul stands. The mitzvos are etzos how to bind each specific organ of Nishmas Adam to its Source; the inner movement common to all is bittul—self‑nullification before the living G‑d—and the key faculty that carries this movement into stable consciousness is daas.

And since we have distinguished in the structure of the individual soul the five strata from Chomer‑Life until Yachid, it is understood that the avodah of drawing down this inner point must be be’ofen ha’mesuder, in an ordered way, that each level receives its proper tikkun and becomes a keli to what stands above it. For if one seeks only to leap directly to Or‑Witness or even to Yachid, while leaving Chomer and Tzurah in their coarseness, then the light has no vessels, and either it does not remain or it is distorted by the unrefined garments. Therefore we must map the general eitzos of Torah and the seven mitzvos of Noach according to these five strata, to see how, in practice, a human being—whether Jew or righteous gentile—walks step after step until the hidden point shines in all his being.

In the realm of Chomer‑Life, the work is that of disciplined behavior, setting boundaries for the bodily vitality and the animal drives. For Israel this finds its fullest expression in the comprehensive yoke of mitzvos maasiyos—kashrus, Shabbos, family purity, tzedakah, and all the many details of halachah that regulate eating, earning, intimacy, rest. These are not merely external fences but the Divine form imposed upon the raw chomer, such that even the instinct for self‑preservation and pleasure is trained to move within the orbit of the Divine will. In the gentile covenant, this corresponds to the prohibitions of bloodshed, theft, sexual immorality, and the like, which likewise draw lines in the field of instinct and survival. When a Noahide restrains his anger from violence, his greed from theft, his desire from forbidden unions because “so Hashem commanded,” then his Chomer‑Life, too, bows in bittul before a higher law.

The next stratum, Tzurah‑Self, is the narrative form of the person: how he tells his own story, how he conceives his purpose in the world. Here the avodah is that of kavvanah—directing the inner intention and meaning of one’s life toward serving the One. By a Jew this is the work of accepting the yoke of Heaven daily in Krias Shema and birchos haTorah, of learning Torah with the consciousness that “Hu chayeinu”—He is our life—and of seeing all of history and all of one’s personal circumstances as part of the Divine story of Dirah Betachtonim. By a righteous gentile, Tzurah‑Self is realigned when he chooses to see himself not merely as an autonomous moral agent, but as a ben Noach entrusted with a share in G‑d’s covenant with humanity: to build societies of justice, to establish courts, to honor the Creator, to refrain from idolatry. When he says in his heart: “I am created for this, this is my calling from the Creator of heaven and earth,” then his story too becomes a branch of the one great story of Nishmas Adam.

The third level, Sadeh‑Heart, is the relational field of love and fear, empathy and attachment. Its rectification is through the cultivation of ahavah and rachamim—love and compassion—toward others, and yir’ah, reverence, toward Hashem. For Israel the Torah is filled with commands that are explicitly emotional: “You shall love Hashem your G‑d,” “You shall love your fellow as yourself,” “You shall not hate your brother in your heart,” and so forth; and Chassidus explains how contemplation on G‑dliness begets emotions in the heart, transforming its natural egocentric tendency into a Sadeh where only the Divine presence and His creatures are beloved. For the gentile as well, the Noahide path demands that he love the stranger, practice kindness, give charity, honor parents, and cultivate reverence before the Creator. Here, too, the Rambam’s condition of “because Hashem commanded” is decisive: when these emotions are oriented not only by human sentiment but by recognition of the Divine image in the other and the Divine sovereignty over the self, then Sadeh‑Heart becomes a sanctuary in which the Yachid‑core may be felt as a quiet, pervasive warmth.

The fourth stratum, Or‑Witness, is the faculty of simple awareness, the inner light that beholds thoughts and sensations without being identical with them. Its avodah is through meditation and contemplation—hisbonenus—that turn this neutral witnessing into daas Elokus, awareness of G‑d. In the specifically Jewish path this includes set times for contemplation on Hashem’s unity, the meaning of “Ein od milvado,” the greatness of the Ein Sof and the smallness of the worlds, as explained in Chassidus; during prayer, the Or‑Witness is trained to rest on the words of davening with kavvanah, until the awareness itself becomes a vehicle of bitul—“Know before Whom you stand.” A righteous gentile, too, may engage in simple contemplation: reflecting on the wonder of creation, the dependence of all beings on their Creator, the moral law inscribed in his conscience, the miracles and providences he has experienced. When he does so not in order to inflate his spiritual self‑image but in order to stand more humbly before the Living G‑d, then his Or‑Witness is likewise suffused with a faint radiance of the Yachid, and his daas becomes an organ of cleaving.

Finally, the innermost stratum, Yachid‑Hidden One, is awakened most directly through surrender and simple emunah. Here the avodah is less doing and more yielding: to say “Hinei ni”—here I am—before Hashem’s will as it is known to me in my covenant, even when I do not understand, even when my Chomer, Tzurah, Sadeh, and Or all feel otherwise. For a Jew this is the bitul of kabalas ol malchus Shamayim that transcends all sechel and hergesh, the readiness to fulfill Torah and mitzvos solely because they are His; it is mesirus nefesh in time of decree, and also the quiet mesirus nefesh of daily self‑overcoming for His sake. For a righteous gentile this same movement appears when, for example, he refrains from idolatry in an environment that celebrates it; when he upholds justice though it costs him; when he refuses to worship any power, ideology, or “energy” in place of the Creator, even at the price of loneliness. In those moments the Yachid in him, which has never been separate, emerges as an “I” that chooses to belong only to Hashem.

Thus we see that, in truth, the derech of a Jew and the derech of a chasidei umos ha’olam are distinct in form yet convergent in inner content. The Jew’s mitzvos are 613 etzos for drawing down the Yechidah in revealed covenantal fashion; the gentile’s seven laws, accepted as a Divine command through Moshe, are etzos for opening the same Yachid‑core along his appointed lines. Both must refine Chomer‑Life through disciplined behavior, Tzurah‑Self through narrative alignment with a Divine calling, Sadeh‑Heart through love and compassion sanctified by reverence, Or‑Witness through meditative daas, and Yachid itself through emunah and bittul. Enlightenment in the language of Chassidus is thus not an abstract state or a flash of mystical experience, but the gradual permeation of all these strata by the inner oneness, until “all your deeds are for the sake of Heaven” and “in all your ways you know Him.”

However, once we speak of meditation, expanded awareness, refined emotion, and even simple faith, there arises a further subtlety that must be addressed. For in our generation there are many experiences that resemble these movements: states of non‑dual consciousness, powerful energetic sensations, psychological integration, altruistic activism, and the like. How is one to discern whether a given state is truly the awakening of the Yachid, or only an expansion within Sadeh‑Heart or Or‑Witness that yet leaves the ego as yesh hanivra, a substantial separate something? Since the Yachid itself is beyond grasp, what are the signs in the revealed faculties that it has indeed begun to shine?

To clarify this, we must turn now to distinguish between true G‑d‑consciousness, which is marked by bitul, moral alignment, and being addressed by the living G‑d, and those heightened states that remain within the orbit of the created self.

7 · G‑d‑Consciousness and Its Imitations

Yet, as is known from the words of our Rebbeim, whenever there is a revelation of light in the world, there is immediately also the possibility of confusion and mixture, for klipah too seeks to be yonik from that light. And this is especially so in matters of penimiyus, where a person feels something subtle and expansive within himself; there the danger is great that he will take the very expansiveness and make from it an increase of yeshus, of self‑substantiality, rather than bitul.

For this is the first yesod that must be set: the distinction between ayin and yesh hanivra. The whole kav of Elokus that descends after the tzimtzum is called ayin in relation to the worlds, for it does not present itself as a something within the frame of created being, but as that which utterly transcends the scale of somethingness. The created entity, even when refined and spiritual, is called yesh hanivra, a being that experiences itself as “I am,” with a stand‑alone metzius. All the toil of avodah is to transform the I‑sense of yesh into an I‑sense that is only a keli for the ayin, until the yesh itself is permeated with the knowledge that “there is nothing besides Him.”

Now, when a person—be he from Israel or from the nations—enters into a state of widened awareness, where thoughts quiet, or where he feels himself as part of a great unity, this may indeed be a certain tasting of ayin; but it may also be, and often is, only a subtler form of yesh hanivra. For there is a great pleasure in feeling oneself spacious, “above” the ordinary narrowness of mind, and that pleasure can itself become an object of clinging, a spiritual self‑satisfaction. Then the more he speaks of oneness, the more his sense of “I and my experience” is strengthened.

And this is the critique that Chassidus articulates with sharpness: mystical experience without bitul remains within the orbit of the created self. Even if it reaches up to Or‑Witness in great clarity, if the inner movement is that the I remains the center, the knower, the one who “has” this consciousness, then the Yachid has not yet been awakened into gilui. The light has illuminated the chamber of Or‑Witness, perhaps also refined Sadeh‑Heart, but the root of separateness stands as before.

To express this in the language of our five strata: there can be a strong gilui in Sadeh‑Heart—waves of love for all beings, tears of empathy, a sense of universal compassion. There can be a great gilui in Or‑Witness—silence of mind, perception of the passing nature of thoughts, even a perception of the world as an undivided field. These are real giluyim, and they are precious as preparations. But as long as the inner sense is “I am experiencing this,” or “my true self is this awareness,” without a corresponding falling away of self‑importance before the living G‑d, the Yachid remains be’he’elem.

For Yachid is not merely the deepest layer of the self; it is the place where the self is held within “Anochi Hashem Elokecha,” within the Divine Anochi. When that point stirs, the primary taste is not of expansion but of bittul—of standing before an Infinite Someone to Whom one is utterly given. Therefore, a primary siman of authentic Yachid‑awakening is not how high the light feels, but what it demands of a person in the plainness of life.

And here we must connect with the saying “lo bashamayim hi”—“it is not in heaven.” The Torah uses this expression regarding the Torah itself, that it is “very near to you, in your mouth and in your heart, to do it.” Chassidus explains that this is not merely a technical statement that halachah is not decided by heavenly voices; it is a fundamental definition of emesdike G‑d‑consciousness. For if the consciousness remains in heaven—in lofty states of mind, in subtle perceptions—but does not descend into “to do it,” into practical obedience to the Divine ratzon as it is given to this soul, then it has not yet touched the penimiyus of Elokus.

Therefore, for a Jew, the test of whether his experiences in Or‑Witness come from Yechidah shining is whether they increase his kabbalas ol to Torah and mitzvos in all details; whether “lo bashamayim hi” becomes more real to him, that the will of Hashem is precisely here below, in the physical act. If he emerges from prayer or meditation with a diminished sense of urgency about halachah, with a feeling that he is “beyond” the particulars, this is a clear sign that his nondual awareness did not stem from the inner Yechidah but from a refined yesh of Or‑Witness, which has been misappropriated by the animal soul.

And likewise, lehavdil, for a chasidei umos ha’olam, the test is whether his experiences of unity and energy deepen his acceptance of the Divine command in the seven mitzvos and in the derech of uprightness and justice that his conscience, aligned with those commands, dictates. If he emerges from his practice with a feeling that moral boundaries are relative, that “all is one” and therefore good and evil are but concepts, then it is revealed that his Yachid has not been aroused; rather, his Tzurah‑Self has woven from the light a new story that serves its own comfort.

From this we can understand another ikar: deveikus in the language of Chassidus is not merely fusion with an undifferentiated oneness. Deveikus means cleaving, and cleaving is always to a Someone. It is a relational unity, like the unity of a son cleaving to his father, a wife to her husband, “and his soul is bound up with his soul.” Even when we speak of the highest bittul b’metzius, it is bittul of the created I into the infinite Thou of “Ata Hu,” not an evaporation into an impersonal absolute. Therefore, true deveikus must carry the sense of being addressed, of being called, of standing before the living G‑d.

This is a very fine distinction, but it is decisive. A person can stand in great stillness and feel that there is only one seamless field of being, and he may interpret this as “there is nothing but consciousness,” or “I am that.” In such a state he may even say the words “ein od milvado,” but the One to Whom he speaks is not yet experienced as an Other, as the Master of the world Who commands and loves and reveals Himself in Torah. This is not yet deveikus in the Chassidic sense; it is a high perception in Or‑Witness, but the relational axis is missing.

When, however, the Yachid begins to shine, the person finds himself not only included within oneness but addressed by it. There arises a sense of standing under the gaze of Hashem Yisbarach, of being known and called. For the Jew, this often takes the form of a new intimacy with the words of Torah and tefillah, as though they are spoken to him personally. For the non‑Jew, it can appear as a deepened sense that the One Who grounds all being also cares how he acts with his fellow, that there is a Divine expectation upon him in the covenant of Noach. In both, the gilui of Yachid does not flatten the world into sameness, but intensifies the weight of relationship and obligation.

Accordingly we can now articulate clear simanim for discerning whether a given heightened state has touched the Yachid‑point or has remained within the created strata of Sadeh‑Heart and Or‑Witness:

First, humility. Authentic Yachid‑awakening diminishes the sense of self‑importance. The person becomes more simple, more ready to say “I do not know,” more able to receive from Torah, from tzaddikim, from the tradition that precedes him. If the experience leads to a sense of superiority, of being more advanced than others, this itself is proof that it has not come from bitul.

Second, increased compassion. Since the Yachid of each soul is bound up with Nishmas Adam as a whole, its gilui naturally awakens a deeper care for others, a readiness to bear their burden, to judge them favorably. If a person’s mystical path makes him more detached from the suffering of others, more willing to justify their pain as “their karma” or the like, this indicates that his Sadeh‑Heart has become narrowed, not expanded by the light.

Third, strengthened commitment to the Divine will as it is known to him. As explained, “lo bashamayim hi” means that the ratzon of Hashem is realized in concrete deeds. For a Jew, this is measured in his observance of Shabbos, kashrus, tefillin, family purity, and the whole corpus of halachah; in his toil in Torah; in his honest business and interpersonal ethics. For a gentile, this is measured in his carefulness in the seven mitzvos, in his rejection of theft, bloodshed, sexual immorality, idolatry, blasphemy, cruelty to animals, and in his establishment of just laws; and beyond this, in his cultivation of kindness and truthfulness as his conscience, formed by these commands, demands. If the expanded state does not translate into firmer, more joyful obedience in these areas, it is not yet gilui of Yachid.

And all this applies equally to the Israelite mystic and to the gentile lightworker. The forms of their avodah differ, but the criteria of authenticity are one, for they are all rooted in the same Nishmas Adam and oriented to the same living G‑d. In each case, the question is: has the inner point of bitul been aroused, or only the pleasure of subtle experience? Has the person moved from “I have consciousness” to “Hineni”—“here I am,” present before You?

With this, the earlier caution becomes fully clear. When we spoke of nondual awareness, energetic sensitivity, and psychological integration, we did not mean to belittle them, for they are real giluyim within Sadeh‑Heart and Or‑Witness and can serve as preparations for the awakening of Yachid. The danger lies only when one mistakes them for the end itself and builds upon them a spirituality that is self‑referential, that takes its own states as the ultimate judge rather than submitting to the Divine ratzon revealed “not in heaven” but here below.

On the other hand, when these experiences are received with humility, guided by the light of Torah in the case of Israel, and by the Noahide covenant and rectified conscience in the case of the nations, then they can become fine vessels for the Yachid‑light, allowing the inner oneness to permeate Sadeh‑Heart and Or‑Witness without being captured by yeshus. Then the person’s very refinement, his expanded awareness and sensitive heart, become more transparent to the One Who dwells within them.

And this is already a glimmer of how all the inyanim with which we began—tzelem Elokim, neshimas chayim, nefesh Elokit, Nishmas Adam, the five strata, Yachid and Yechidah—can be seen as facets of a single Divine intent: that the one breath of Elokus blown into Adam should return to its Source through a humanity that knows, loves, and serves the living G‑d in all its diversity. To see this fully, however, we must now return to the verses with which we opened, and re‑read them in the light of all that has been explained.

8 · One Breath, Many Paths

Thus we are returned to the beginning, but now with different ears. When the Torah says, “Let us make man in Our image, after Our likeness,” and immediately after, “He blew into his nostrils a breath of life,” it is not speaking in two tongues, as if there were a general image for all and a special breath for some. According to what has been explained, these two expressions are one inyan from two sides.

“Tzelem Elokim” refers to the very configuration of Nishmas Adam as an image—a form—in which the Divine Oneness can be mirrored within the created. “He blew into his nostrils” speaks of the manner of its enlivening, that this image is not an external shape but a living neshimah from Pneimius, a Yachid‑point that is held within “I am Hashem.” And since the Adam into whose nostrils He blew is the klal of humanity, the neshimah is likewise a klal‑neshimah, a single Divine breath whose root is one even as its expressions branch.

In other words: the “breath of life” is not multiplied in its Source. From the side of Hashem, there is only the One who “blows,” and the blowing is a simple act of bestowal. The multiplicity appears only as that breath passes through the many nostrils of Nishmas Adam’s organs, each organ receiving according to its keli. And this is the depth of what was said, that every human being, by virtue of being human, stands within this one field of neshimah, and therefore bears a tzelem that is not foreign to Elokus.

On this background we can now understand in a new way the Mishnah that teaches that “Adam was created as a single individual” and that “from one stamp many coins are struck, and yet not one of them is like his fellow.” For at first glance the parable of the coins is difficult, since there the sameness is stressed—that one die imprints all with the same form—whereas here individuality is stressed, that none resemble one another. But through the inyan of Nishmas Adam and its organs, the matter is upright.

The “stamp” is the one Divine image of Adam‑Kadmon, the archetypal form in which all human faculties are included in perfect unity. When this stamp is impressed in the world, it does not produce one flat repetition, but a living body: heart, brain, hands, feet, each one a particularization of that same image. Their dissimilarity is not a deviation from the stamp but its very fulfillment. It is only that in the separation of consciousness after the chet, each facet tends to experience itself as a whole, and then the diversity becomes a source of division. The kavanas ha’briyah, however, is that the coins should recognize their shared stamp and serve together as one kingdom.

According to this, the sharp words of the Alter Rebbe in Tanya, that the nefesh Elokit in Israel is a “part of G‑d above,” are not, G‑d forbid, a negation of the one breath in the rest of humanity, but a designation of the particular organ through which that breath is meant to be consciously known as such. The “part of G‑d above mamash” is the revealed Yechidah in the heart‑brain of Nishmas Adam, a mode in which the Divine I‑ness is not only the hidden root of being but is apprehended and served as such through Torah and mitzvos.

The nations, in this mashal, are like the other limbs. Their function is not to contemplate the life in abstraction, but to move, to build, to act in the world in a way that manifests the Ratzon Ha’Elyon in concrete structures of justice, kindness, and order. The same breath that Israel is commanded to know in Torah, the nations are commanded to enact in derech eretz and the Seven Mitzvos. When the hand gives tzedakah to the poor of the earth, even if it does not meditate on the Ein Sof, it is nevertheless channeling the one blood of Nishmas Adam into that place.

We can now also re‑read the verse “for in the image of G‑d He made man,” which is given in the context of the prohibition of murder, and is addressed to all the descendants of Noach. The warning is not merely pragmatic, that the world cannot stand if men destroy one another, but ontological: whoever sheds human blood is striking at the very tzelem in which the Divine breath is invested. From the standpoint of Nishmas Adam, murder is a self‑wound of the organism, a rebellion of one limb against the life in which it itself stands.

And this is also the inner meaning of the covenant with Noach, that the seven commandments entrusted to him and his seed are not a secondary system but the basic musculature of the Adam‑body. They are the way in which the universal Yachid‑core begins to impress itself on Chomer‑Life and Tzurah‑Self across all the nations, preparing the vessels for the ultimate time when that Yachid will shine without concealment.

For the prophets have already spoken of that time, that “then I will transform the peoples to a clear language, that all of them will call upon the Name of Hashem, to serve Him with one shoulder.” Here the plurality is explicit—“peoples,” “all of them”—and yet the service is described as one, “with one shoulder.” This is not the erasure of difference but its orchestration. Each nation retains its language, its temperament, its particular gifts, but their shoulders are aligned beneath a single yoke.

In the language we have used: the Yachid‑core will be revealed within every organ of Nishmas Adam, such that each limb feels in its own way the life of the heart and brain. Israel will stand in its eternal role as mamleches kohanim v’goy kadosh, teaching daas Elokus and embodying Torah in all strata of existence. The nations will walk “each man in the name of his god,” that is, according to his ancestral path and culture, and yet “we will walk in the Name of Hashem our G‑d forever and ever,” meaning that the inner orientation of their paths will be toward the One Name.

There will be no contradiction: the nefesh Elokit of Israel will radiate as the conscious Yechidah of the Adam‑soul, while the Yachid‑point within the nations will no longer be wholly be’he’elem but will be aroused into palpable awe, love, and moral beauty. The same Divine breath that once seemed divided—here as covenantal inwardness, there as natural conscience—will be recognized as one ruach Elokim merachefes, hovering and resting on all flesh.

And this gives us, already now, a measure for our own avodah. The Jew, when he studies Torah and performs mitzvos, should know that he is not only seeking his personal perfection, nor even the perfection of his own people, but is acting as the heart and mind of a great body, drawing the Yechidah‑light into Nishmas Adam for the sake of all its limbs. When he refines his Chomer‑Life, his Tzurah‑Self, his Sadeh‑Heart and Or‑Witness, and subjugates them to the Yachid, he is preparing within the organism a clearer channel through which the Divine breath can flow into the nations as well, awakening their conscience and nobility.

And the righteous gentile, when he guards the sanctity of life, establishes courts of justice, refrains from theft and immorality, and acts with chesed because this is the command of the G‑d of Israel spoken in Torah, should know that he is not standing outside some closed circle, but is serving as a faithful limb within the same Nishmas Adam. His obedience, his humility before the Divine will, his refinement of the five strata in his own mode, are themselves the revelation of the Yachid‑core that was blown into Adam from the beginning.

In this way, “He blew into his nostrils a breath of life” becomes for each of us not only a distant description of a past moment, but a present calling. The one Divine breath is even now animating the human, seeking to return to its Source in love and service. To live from that breath means to receive it in the keli given to one—Torah and mitzvos for Israel, the Noahide covenant and uprightness for the nations—with bittul, with the readiness to say “Hineni” in the place where one stands.

Then the body of humanity will grow gradually more transparent to its own life. The many paths will be seen not as competing claims to truth but as differentiated responses to one Address. And when, in the time that is coming, “all flesh together will see that the mouth of Hashem has spoken,” it will be revealed retroactively that from the first “Let us make man” until that last great gilui, there has been only one breath, one image, one Nishmas Adam, returning at last, with all its organs, to the simple Oneness from which it came.