Chapter twenty-two of the Tanya confronts a paradox: if God's speech never separates from God, and if that speech is what sustains all of creation, then how can evil exist at all?
Rabbi Schneur Zalman introduces the concept of panim (פנים), "face" or "inner will," and achorayim (אחוריים), "back" or "reluctant will." God sustains the holy through His "face", with desire, delight, and direct intention. God sustains the unholy through His "back", reluctantly, indirectly, the way a person throws something to an enemy over his shoulder without looking.
This is why the forces of impurity are called elohim acherim (אלהים אחרים), "other gods." The word acherim ("other") shares a root with achorayim ("back"). They receive their life force not from God's inner desire but from the most external, reluctant expression of divine energy. It is enough to sustain them but not enough to truly enliven them.
This explains why the sitra achara, the "other side", is associated with death and defilement. It receives only the faintest trace of divine light. It survives, but barely. It exists in what the Tanya calls a state of "actual exile", divine sparks trapped in shells that suppress and conceal them.
And this, the Tanya says, is the ultimate purpose of Torah and mitzvot (commandments). The Torah was given to Israel specifically to extract those trapped sparks, to rescue the divine light imprisoned in the shells and restore it to holiness. Every commandment performed, every word of Torah studied, pulls another spark free. Every sin pushes sparks deeper into captivity.
The Torah "employs human language" precisely because it had to descend into the physical world, the world most saturated with shells and concealment, to reach the sparks trapped there. The Torah did not remain in heaven because heaven had no sparks to rescue. The mission was always here, in the lowest world, where the light is hardest to find and the extraction is most valuable.
Yet, since “the Torah employs human language,”1 Berachot 22a. the “word” of the Omnipresent, blessed is He, is actually called “speech,” like the speech of a human being, for in truth it is so, by virtue of the descent and flow of the life-force to the lower planes, by means of many and powerful contractions of various kinds, in order that many diverse creatures be created from them. Indeed, so great and powerful are the contractions and concealment of the Countenance that even unclean things, kelipot and sitra achara, can come into being and be created, receiving their life and existence from the Divine word and the breath of His mouth, blessed be He, in concealment of His Countenance and by virtue of the downward gradations. Therefore are [the kelipot] called2 Hebrew text should read נקראים instead of נקרא. “other gods” (אלהים אחרים), for their nurture and life are not of the so-called “Countenance” but of the so-called “hinder-part” (אחוריים)3 A gloss based on the words אחוריים – אחרים. of holiness; “hinder” exemplifying the act of a person giving something unwillingly to an enemy, when he throws it to him over his shoulder, as it were, having turned away his face from him since he hates him. So, on high, the term “Countenance” exemplifies the inner4 A gloss based on the words פנימיות – פנים. quality of the Supernal Will and true desire, in which G–d delights to dispense life from the realm of holiness to everyone who is near to Him. But the sitra achara, and unholiness, is “an abomination unto G–d which He hates,”5 Deuteronomy 12:31. and He does not give it life from His inner will and true desire as if He delighted in it, Heaven forbid, but in the manner of one who reluctantly throws something over his shoulder to his enemy; [He does so] only to punish the wicked and to give a goodly reward to the righteous who subjugate the sitra achara. This is [why it is] called the “hinder-part” of the Supernal Will. Now, the Supernal Will, of the quality of “Countenance,” is the source of life which animates all worlds. But since it is in no way bestowed on the sitra achara, and even the so-called “hinder-part” of the Supernal Will is not actually clothed in it, but merely hovers over it from above, therefore it is the abode of death and defilement—may G–d preserve us! For the tiny amount of light and life that it derives and absorbs into itself from the so-called “hinder-part” of the supernal holiness is, as it were, in a state of actual exile in it, as an aspect of the esoteric doctrine of the exile of the Shechinah, referred to above.6 Ch. 19. Therefore, also, it is termed “other gods,” since it constitutes actual idolatry and denial of the unity of the Supreme King of kings, the Holy One, blessed is He. For inasmuch as the light and life of holiness are, as it were, in a state of exile, within it, it does not surrender itself in any degree to the holiness of the Holy One, blessed is He. On the contrary, it surges upward like an eagle, saying, “I am, and there is nothing besides me,”7 Isaiah 47:8; Zephaniah 2:15. or as the utterance, “My river is mine, and I have made myself.”8 The quotation is a combination of Ezekiel 29:9 and 29:3. That is why the rabbis, of blessed memory, said that arrogance truly compares with idolatry,9 Sotah 4b. for the essence and root of idolatry is that it is regarded as a thing in itself, sundered from the holiness of the Omnipresent; it does not imply an outright denial of G–d, as is stated in the Gemara that they [the heathens] call Him “the G–d of gods,”10 Menachot 110a. thus only presuming themselves also to be entities and independent beings. But thereby they separate themselves from the Omnipresent, blessed is He, since they do not surrender themselves to Him, blessed be He. For the supernal holiness rests only on what is surrendered to Him, blessed be He, as is explained above.11 Ch. 6. Therefore they are called in the holy Zohar12 I:158a. “peaks of separation.” But this constitutes a denial of His true unity, where everything is as nothing compared with Him and truly nullified before Him, blessed be He, and before His will, which animates them all and constantly gives them existence out of nothing.
