Yechidah (יחידה) — the unique, singular level of the soul

Core definition

Yechidah ("the unique one," feminine form) is the highest of the soul's five levels — nefesh, ruach, neshamah, chayah, and yechidah ("five names were called to it," as in Bereishis Rabbah). It is the soul's very essence, the point at which the soul is not merely close to the Holy One but actually one with Him, and it receives from the divine Yachid (the Singular One) itself. Unlike the lower levels, which are faculties invested in vessels — nefesh in the liver, ruach in the heart, neshamah in the brain — chayah and yechidah are encompassing lights (or makif) with no limiting vessels, the lamed-mem of tzelem, the soul's mazal above inner investment [31667/maamar_014 :: Overview].

How the Rebbeim develop it

Above even chochmah. An Acharon shel Pesach maamar explains that yechidah stands above even chochmah, and the difference turns on bitul (nullification). Chochmah is bitul: there is something that is nullified — "if there is nothing at all, bitul is not applicable; only when there is something is bitul applicable," and that bitul comes from seeing the essence. In yechidah, by contrast, the matter of bitul does not apply at all, because in essence it "is not a separate thing from Divinity." It is called yechidah from "Yachid is Havayah" (I Divrei Hayamim 17:20, in the liturgy): "it is the essence of the soul, which is bound and united with the essence of the Ein Sof, blessed be He," truly united with Divinity in inter-inclusion — "like the inter-inclusion of a candle-flame in a torch" — and not in bitul as through the sight of chochmah. Yechidah is "actual attachment and cleaving," as Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai said: "With one bond I am bound to Him, I am attached to Him, I burn for Him"; and "the soul of my master shall be bound in the bond of life with Havayah" (Shmuel I 25:29) — "with Havayah Himself" [31667/maamar_014 :: עב׳ 261–280].

The soul's essence in every Jew. This highest level is not the property of a few. Yechidah is the essence of the soul "which is examined within it" — so that "though it goes here and there," through the avodos of intellect and emotions with their ascents and descents, "my image remains engraved forever" (Shir HaShirim 8:6). From it comes the simple and essential faith, imprinted and inherited in the heart of every Jew, "even in simple people and ignoramuses" — "for this is from the aspect of yechidah in the soul" [31667/maamar_014 :: עב׳ 282–288]. The same maamar makes yechidah the source of mesirut nefesh for Torah and mitzvos in the last exile [31667/maamar_014 :: Overview].

The simple will. A "Mashcheni acharecha narutzah" maamar develops yechidah as the simple will: "yechidah is the aspect of the simple will, above chochmah," called by the feminine term because it receives from the aspect of "Yachid." It is directed only to the world's Yachid — "Whom have I in heaven" (Tehillim 73:25), wanting nothing of Gan Eden and the like — and it is "above delight," since the will rules all powers. The two wills are contrasted throughout: the will by the intellect (born from neshamah/chayah, limited, with a stop, divided) versus the simple will of yechidah (above reason and da'as, without boundary, never stopped, no division). This simple will is present "in each one of Yisroel," even in the nefesh of nefesh [31642/maamar_021 :: p.קעז summary].

"Zeh l'umas zeh" — the reverse's yechidah. The same maamar confronts the verse "from the lions (mikfirim, plural) my yechidah" (Tehillim 22:21): why plural? Because even the opposite side has its yechidah — but in holiness yechidah is the simple will without division, receiving from the utterly simple Yachid ("therefore in the aspect of yechidah, receiving from Yachid, there is no aspect of levels' division at all"), whereas the reverse's yechidah is only "the will's strength, above the intellect" — strong but divided, bound in separate things ("the souls of Esav," plural). The difference is drawn with the parable of the student's binding (in the influence, which changes) versus the son's binding (in the father's soul's essence, which never changes) [31642/maamar_021 :: pp.קעח–קעט summaries].

Given only from above. Chayah and yechidah cannot invest in a body mixed of good and evil; they are given only from above, "like the innerness of Adam Kadmon." Moshe, with no mixture of evil, was their vessel, and at Moshiach's coming all Israel will have them revealed — their illumination already shines on the festivals, as at Acharon shel Pesach, the Baal Shem Tov's "Moshiach's meal" [31667/maamar_014 :: Overview].

Key distinctions

1. Yechidah vs. chochmah — chochmah is bitul (something nullified before the essence's sight); yechidah is beyond bitul: essential unity with Divinity, like a flame inter-included in a torch, not nullified [31667/maamar_014 :: עב׳ 263–274]. 2. Encompassing vs. invested — nefesh, ruach, neshamah are invested in vessels (liver, heart, brain); chayah and yechidah are or makif, the soul's mazal above investment [31667/maamar_014 :: Overview]. 3. The will by the intellect vs. the simple will — the intellect's will is limited, stops, and is divided; yechidah's simple will is without boundary and never stopped [31642/maamar_021 :: p.קעז summary]. 4. Holiness's yechidah vs. the reverse's — in holiness, one simple will without division, receiving from the Yachid; on the opposite side, the will's strength above the intellect but divided among many things [31642/maamar_021 :: pp.קעח–קעט summaries].

Related concepts

Sources