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Maggid Meisharim,Ki Tissa
(teachings from his
angelic mentor - see Rabbi Yosef Caro)
"If I am not for myself, who will be for me? And if I
am for myself, what am I?" (Avot 1:14).
"If I [in Hebrew, "ani"] am not for
myself, who will be for me" means that if I do not grasp hold of the "I", namely
malchut [which is called "ani",] who will be for me - that is, to
which of the supernal sefirot can I dedicate myself?
Malchut represents the authority of G-d, and
dedicating oneself to malchut means accepting upon oneself the yoke of
Heaven. If one does not accept the Yoke of Heaven, what holiness is there in
emulating any of the divine attributes?
"And if I am for myself, what am I" means when I grasp
the "I", i.e. malchut, and I take it "for myself", for the lower
malchut [, meaning malchut of the lowest world, Asiya, namely,
the human individual, in this case "myself,"] as it says [in the verse,] "Bone
of my bone, [flesh of my flesh," (Gen. 2:23) then] "what [in
Hebrew, "mah"] am I?" [This can be read as "I am MaH,"] meaning
that at that moment I join together the name Yud-Hei-Vav-Hei [expanded
to] the numerical value of MaH with ani, malchut.
[Note: The word used here for "bone," which is
indicative of the lower malchut, shares the same root as that of the word
"myself" in the mishna cited above and indeed refers to Man.]
In other words, when I take upon myself the Yoke of
Heaven (malchut) and make it part of me, there is revealed upon me the
Ineffable Name, whose transcendent, indefinable quality is alluded to in the
word "what" - MaH.
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