Yichud: Unity with YHWH
By
James Scott Trimm

Our Messiah Yeshua said:

11 From now on, I am not in the world: but these are in the world. And I come to you, Set-Apart Father: keep them in Your Name that You gave Me, <that they be one, as we are. >
12 While I was with them in the world, I kept them in Your Name; those whom You gave Me I have kept, and not one of them is lost: except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled.
13 And now I come to you. And these things I speak in the world that My joy might be full in them.
14 I have given them Your word: and the world hated them because they were not of the world, as I am not of the world.
15 I do not ask that You take them from the world: but that You keep them from evil,
16 For they are not of the world, as I am not of the world.
17 Father, sanctify them by Your truth: for Your word is truth.
18 As you sent Me into the world, also I send them into the world.
19 And for their sakes, I sanctify My nefesh, that they also might be sanctified in truth.
20 And I do not ask for the sake of these alone, but also for the sake of those who will have trust in Me, through their word.
21 That all might be one, as You are My Father, in Me, and I am, in You: that they also might be one in us, that the world might believe that You sent Me.
22 And the glory that You gave Me I gave to them, that they might be one, as we are one.
23 I am in them, and You are in Me, that they be perfected into one: and that the world, might know that You sent Me, and that You have loved them, as also You loved Me.
(John 17:11-23 HRV)

Now there are three important things (among many other) that we can learn from these words:

1. Messiah wishes us to have Yichud (unity) with YHWH just as he has Yichud with YHWH.  And how do we attain Yichud (unity)?  Here we learn that Messiah wishes us to be one with one another through our unity with Messiah and YHWH who are also one.

2. Messiah teaches us that this unity is achieved through the Word of YHWH, also referred to here as the “truth” (And we know from Ps. 119:142, 151 that the Torah is truth).

3. Messiah teaches us that through this Yichud (unity) his joy of fills us.

So how do we obtain Yichud (unity) with YHWH through the Torah, and how does that Yichud fill us with the joy of Messiah?

The key is that the Torah and YHWH are one.  As we read in the Tanya:

…the Torah and the Holy One, blessed be He, are one. The meaning of this is that the Torah, which is the wisdom and will of the Holy One, blessed be He, and His glorious Essence are one, since He is both the Knower and the Knowledge, and so on,…

For the Holy One, blessed be He, has compressed His will and wisdom within the 613 commandments of the Torah, and in their laws, as well as within the combination of the letters of the Torah, the books of the Prophets and the Hagiographa, and in the exposition thereof which are to be found in the Agadot and Midrashim of our Rabbis of blessed memory. All this in order that each neshamah, or ruach and nefesh in the human body should be able to comprehend them through its faculty of understanding, and to fulfil them, as far as they can be fulfilled, in act, speech and thought, thereby clothing itself with all its ten faculties in these three garments….
(Tanya Chapter 4)

The Torah expresses the very mind of YHWH.

Now the human soul may be divided into its intellectual and emotional aspects.  The intellectual aspects comprise the upper three sefirot, while the emotional aspects encompass the seven lower sefirot.  As we read in the Tanya:

Now, each distinction and grade of the three— nefesh, ruach and neshamah— consists of ten faculties, corresponding to the Supernal Ten Sefirot (Divine manifestations), from which they have descended, which are subdivided into two, namely, the three “mothers” and the seven “multiples,” to wit: chochmah (wisdom) binah (understanding) and da at (knowledge); and the “seven days of Creation:” chesed (kindness), gevurah (power), tiferet (beauty), and so on.

Similarly is it with the human soul, which is divided in two— sechel (intellect) and middot (emotional attributes). The intellect includes chochmah, binah and da at (ChaBaD), whilst the middot are love of G-d, dread and awe of Him, glorification of Him, and so forth. ChaBaD [the intellectual faculties] are called “mothers” and source of the middot, for the latter are “offspring” of the former.
(Tanya Chapter 3)

Now through our intellect, we receive the Wisdom of the Torah, and having heard the Wisdom of Torah we subject it to Understanding.  When Wisdom (chochmah) is subjected to Understanding (binah) the result is Knowledge (da’at)… it is Knowledge that brings Wisdom and Understanding together.  When we receive as Wisdom a precept of Torah, and that precept like a seed enters into Understanding then that precept becomes part of us as our Knowledge.  As we read in the Tanya:

Specifically: the faculties of ChaBaD in his soul are clothed in the comprehension of the Torah, which he comprehends in Pardes, to the extent of his mental capacity and the supernal root of his soul.
(Tanya Chapter 4)

Now, when an intellect conceives and comprehends a concept with its intellectual faculties, this intellect grasps the concept and encompasses it. This concept is [in turn] grasped, enveloped and enclothed within that intellect which conceived and comprehended it.

The mind, for its part, is also clothed in the concept at the time it comprehends and grasps it with the intellect. For example, when a person understands and comprehends, fully and clearly, any halachah (law) in the Mishnah or Gemara, his intellect grasps and encompasses it and, at the same time, is clothed in it.
(Tanya Chapter 5)

And as we read in 1Corinthians:

12 Now we have not received the spirit of the world, but the Spirit that is from Eloah, so that we might know the gifts that were given to us from Eloah,
13 Which also we speak, not in the teaching of words of the wisdom of sons of men, but in the teaching of the Spirit, and to spiritual men we compare spiritual things.
14 For the son of man who is in the nefesh, does not receive spiritual things, for they are foolishness to him, and he is not able to know that which is judged spiritually.
15 Now the spiritual man judges all things, and is not judged from man.
16 For who knows the mind of YHWH that he might instruct Him? But we have the mind of the Messiah.
(1Cor. 2:1-16)

From this knowledge comes faith, and the seven “middot” or emotions.  Thus when we study Torah and that knowledge of Torah becomes a part of us and expresses itself in our thoughts, our words and our deeds, then we have Yichud with YHWH and that Yichud flows down through the seven middot expressing itself in the fear of YHWH and the joy of the love of YHWH.  As we read in the Tanya:

And the middot, namely fear and love, together with their offshoots and ramifications, are clothed in the fulfilment of the commandments in deed and in word, namely, in the study of Torah which is “The equivalent of all the commandments.”
(Tanya Chapter 4)

 

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