it does not seem tenable to sever the realistic from the fictional in a clear-cut way, as the latter is what engenders the former, although it may be commonly assumed by scholars that the opposite is true.

Through the act of self-sacrifice brought about by the all-consuming love one has for God, the individual causes the descent of the “supernal delight”

The homiletical genius of the Rebbe, a quality familiar in diverse masters, consisted of his ability to meet the moment always, to offer a genuine replication, an utterance both derivative and innovative. The reverberation, therefore, cannot simply be passed over.

Both the “secret” and the “secret that is in the secret” relate to the ontological status of the soul, but the latter, in particular, underscores that the soul is embedded in the essence of divinity, which is to say, the soul is consubstantial with God.

the particular, in all of its unpredictability, sheds light on a universal that must repeatedly articulate its universality from the vantage point of the particular.

the error of assuming that kabbalah and Ḥasidism are “one entity expressed in different forms.” In an effort to correct this miscalculation, he explained that the former is the study of esoteric matters by a limited group of people, the elect (yeḥidei segullah) of a given generation, whereas the latter is about publicizing these secrets to afford e

As Naftali Loewenthal surmised, the selective employment of Lurianic concepts by Shneur Zalman was an attempt “to make the teachings of the Maggid and the Baal Shem Tov rationally meaningful to a Hasidic following which was composed of scholarly men who, in the main, made no claim to pneumatic attainment.”

From this vantage point, it is possible to view the life of Schneerson as a form of self-effacement, which rendered him feminine in relation to his predecessor, a point immortalized in the fact that he is buried to the left of his father-in-law.

Utterance of the mystery in a linguistic garb, whether oral or written, is possible because of the inherent impossibility of its being uttered.