Traveling and resting as struggle and Shabbos

איתא בגמ' ויהי בנסוע ובנוחה הוא ספר בפני עצמו.

It is taught in the Gemara that "And it was when the Ark traveled" and "and when it rested" constitute a book unto itself (Shabbos 116a).

The two verses marked off by inverted nuns are considered a separate "book" of the Torah. The Sefas Emes will explain why these two verses — traveling and resting — encompass the whole Torah.

והוא כלל כל התורה דאיתא קוב"ה ואורייתא וישראל סתים וגליא כמ"ש בזוה"ק שזה ב' שמות יעקב וישראל ע"ש פ' במדבר.

And it is the whole of the Torah, for it is taught that the Holy One, the Torah, and Israel each have a "hidden" (sasim) and a "revealed" (galya) dimension, as written in the Zohar — and these are the two names Yaakov and Yisrael; see there, Parashas Bamidbar.

Everything — Hashem, Torah, and Israel — has a concealed inner aspect and a revealed outer one. These two dimensions correspond to the two names of the Patriarch: "Yaakov" (the revealed, lower struggle) and "Yisrael" (the hidden, elevated state).

ובחי' יעקב הוא המלחמות שכל ימיו הי' לו מלחמות עם עשו ולבן.

And the aspect of "Yaakov" is the battles, for all his days he had wars with Esav and Lavan.

The name Yaakov represents struggle and conflict — a life of contending with Esav and Lavan, the forces that oppose holiness.

ואח"כ כשבא לבחי' ישראל הוא בחי' סתים ומנוחה בחי' שבת קודש.

And afterward, when he came to the aspect of "Yisrael," it is the aspect of the hidden and of rest — the aspect of the holy Shabbos.

The elevated name "Yisrael" represents the inner, hidden dimension and a state of menuchah — the tranquility and completeness of Shabbos, beyond struggle.

ובימי המעשה הוא בחי' גליא והוא ימי מלחמה להלחם עם הסט"א שהטבע מסתיר ומעלים הקדושה אבל איש ישראל צריך להלחם ולברר ולהעיד כי כל הטבע הכל מאתו ית"ש בלבד.

And on the weekdays (yemei hama'aseh) it is the aspect of the "revealed," and they are days of war — to fight with the sitra achra, for nature conceals and hides the holiness; but a Jew must wage war, clarify (berer), and testify that all of nature is entirely from Him, may His Name be blessed, alone.

The weekdays are the "Yaakov"/revealed mode: a battlefield. Physical nature masks the Divine, so a Jew's avodah is to fight the sitra achra, sift out the holy sparks, and bear witness that everything in nature flows from Hashem alone.

וזהו בנסוע הארון.

And this is "when the Ark traveled."

"Traveling" — movement, exertion — corresponds to this weekday mode of struggle and clarification.

כמו שרמזו בנסוע גי' יעקב.

As they hinted, "binso'a" (when it traveled) has the gematria of "Yaakov."

The numerical value of the word for "traveling" equals that of "Yaakov," confirming that the traveling-verse corresponds to the Yaakov dimension of weekday struggle.

והוא בחי' ימי המעשה.

And this is the aspect of the weekdays.

The traveling of the Ark thus embodies the working days — the realm of effort and battle.

וינוסו משנאיך.

"And let those who hate You flee" (Bamidbar 10:35).

The traveling-verse continues with the routing of Hashem's "enemies" — which the Sefas Emes will now reinterpret.

וכי מי שונא לבורא עולם רק שהסט"א מסתיר ומעלים שלא לראות חסדי ה' וטובו אשר הם מלאים בכל העולם.

For who could "hate" the Creator of the world? Rather, it is the sitra achra that conceals and hides, so that one not see the kindnesses of Hashem and His goodness, which fill the entire world.

No one truly hates the Creator; the only "enemy" is the concealing force, the sitra achra, that blinds us to the chesed and goodness of Hashem that actually pervade all of creation. "Let those who hate You flee" means the dispelling of that concealment.

ובנוחה הוא בחי' שבת ושם ישראל כנ"ל.

And "and when it rested" is the aspect of Shabbos and the name "Yisrael," as above.

The resting-verse corresponds to Shabbos and to the elevated name Yisrael — the realm of menuchah where the concealment lifts and the inner light is revealed.

וב' אלו כלל כל התורה זכור ושמור מ"ע ומל"ת סור מרע בחי' המלחמה.

And these two are the whole of the Torah — "Zachor" and "Shamor," positive mitzvah and prohibition, "turn from evil" being the aspect of the battle.

The two verses encompass the Torah's two motions: "Shamor"/"turn from evil" is the weekday war against the sitra achra (restraint, the prohibitions), the Yaakov dimension.

ועשה טוב אין טוב אלא תורה בחי' שבת קודש יעשה כולו תורה ומיוחד רק לבנ"י ושם אין מגע נכרי ונק' יום מנוחה.

And "do good" — and "there is no good but Torah" (Avos 6:3) — is the aspect of the holy Shabbos: one becomes entirely Torah; and it is unique only to Bnei Yisrael, where no stranger has any contact, and it is called a "day of rest."

"Zachor"/"do good" is the Shabbos/Yisrael dimension: the positive, inner state in which a person becomes wholly suffused with Torah. Shabbos belongs exclusively to Bnei Yisrael, untouched by the outside, a true day of menuchah.

ודור המדבר היו ב' הבחי' בשלימות כמ"ש עפ"י ה' יחנו ועל פי ה' יסעו.

And the generation of the wilderness had both aspects in perfection, as it says, "by the word of Hashem they encamped, and by the word of Hashem they journeyed" (Bamidbar 9:23).

The wilderness generation lived both modes flawlessly: both their resting ("encamping" — the Shabbos/Yisrael aspect) and their traveling ("journeying" — the weekday/Yaakov aspect) were entirely directed by Hashem's word.

[וכ' ז"פ על פי ה' והרמז לז' הבלים וקולות שבמזמור הבו לה' דכתיב בדבר ה' שמים נעשו.

[And "by the word of Hashem" is written seven times, hinting at the seven "havalim" (utterances) and voices in the psalm "Ascribe to Hashem" (Tehillim 29), as it is written, "By the word of Hashem the heavens were made" (Tehillim 33:6).

The phrase "by the word of Hashem" appears seven times in the passage, corresponding to the seven "voices of Hashem" in Tehillim 29 and the creative "word" by which the heavens were made — seven channels of Divine speech.

אבל ברוח פיו כל צבאם הוא התפשטות כת הדיבור לכל העולמות גם בטבע והם התיקונים שנעשו בארץ והם ז' בחי' הנ"ל]:

But "and by the breath of His mouth all their host" (Tehillim 33:6) is the spreading-out of the power of speech to all the worlds, even into nature; and these are the rectifications (tikkunim) accomplished on earth, which are the seven aspects mentioned above.]

Beyond the heavens, "the breath of His mouth" extends the Divine creative speech into every world, even into physical nature. These seven channels are the tikkunim worked out on earth — the same seven "voices" through which Israel's encampings and journeyings are directed by Hashem's word.

Summary: The two short verses of "when the Ark traveled" and "when it rested" form a book unto themselves because they encompass the whole Torah's two dimensions — the revealed "Yaakov" mode of weekday struggle, fighting the sitra achra and testifying that all nature is from Hashem (Shamor, "turn from evil"), and the hidden "Yisrael" mode of Shabbos rest, becoming wholly Torah (Zachor, "do good"). The wilderness generation lived both perfectly, "encamping and journeying by the word of Hashem," through the sevenfold Divine speech that extends even into nature.