Likutei Moharan 22:1/ליקוטי מוהר"ן כ״ב:א׳

1The fifth chapter of Sifra De’ Tzniuta [states]:

2“‘In the beginning, the Lord created.’ ‘In the beginning’ is a complete-statement; ‘He created’ is a half-statement. Father and son. Hidden and revealed. Upper Eden, which is hidden and concealed. Lower Eden.” (Zohar II, 178b)

3Know! there is a seal and there is Chotem B’tokh Chotem (a seal within a seal).

4A seal. For there are those who rebuke the generation. They correspond to the feet and are called feet because they are “the teachers of God”—i.e., they teach God, as it were, giving Him advice. And they go as His emissaries to the Jewish people, rebuking them and returning them to the Holy One. By virtue of this they are called feet, because of the advice; as Rashi comments on, “And all the people that are at your feet” (Exodus 11:8): “who go in the ways of your advice.” And [they are called feet] by virtue of the going, for they go as His emissaries to rebuke.

5Now, when the Holy One issues a decree of judgment in the world—the judgment is the Torah, for it has to be a Torah-judgment—and because they [the tzaddikim] are “the teachers of God,” He takes counsel with them and reveals to them the Torah-judgment which has been decreed against the generation. They [the teachers] cover over this Torah-judgment and seal it—corresponding to (Song of Songs 4:12), “a spring sealed up”—so that the outside forces do not draw nourishment from it, so that it should not be made into a harsh judgment, God forbid. This corresponds to (Isaiah 8:16), “Seal the Torah among My disciples”—that is, the Torah-judgment is sealed by “the teachers of God,” so that the outside forces should not draw nourishment from it.

6And they, when the Torah judgment is revealed to them, they go and rebuke the generation in order to have them improve their ways, so as to mitigate the judgment. And even when they reprove, they are careful to seal and conceal [the judgment], so that the outside forces do not draw nourishment, as in (Job 33:16), “With their reproof it is sealed up.” Because of this they are synonymous with the concept of seal.

7Expulsion and dispute, the very opposite of peace, abound in the world. This is as in (Job 18:18), “And from the world he will be banished”— chotem (seal) becomes nidat (banished), for they are numerically equivalent, as is brought. These “teachers of God” increase peace in the world; as is written (Isaiah 54:13), “And all your children shall be the teachers of God, and great shall be the peace of your children.” For they go to mediate and make peace between the Jewish people and their Father in heaven. Before the Holy One, they minimize the matter and offer endorsement on their behalf. But before the Jewish people, they magnify the transgression greatly. This is what we find of Moshe, he said to the Holy One (Exodus 32:11), “Why unleash Your wrath against Your people?”;

8And when the evil of the generation overpowers the seal and destroys it, God forbid, the peace in the world is then destroyed. whereas to the Jewish people he said (ibid.:30), “You have committed a terrible transgression.”