The 16 expressions of forgiveness

To be mekayem the girsah,  [לישעם] in Tanya Shar hayichud (and an explanation of אבן).

By Rabbi Mendy Greenstein 

See Tanya chapter 7 of שער היחוד, close to the end of the perek.

 In explaining the צירופים and permutations of the Hebrew letters that compose the spiritual life force of each creation, the Alter Rebbe brings the word אבן, as an example. In bringing this word as an example, the Alter Rebbe correlates the idea that the divine light extends as a soul to the inanimate with the idea that all creation flows through divine speech. He says, 

״אבן״, דרך משל, שמה מורה כי שרשה משם העולה ב״ן במספרו ועוד אלף נוספת משם אחר (לישעם) הידוע ליוצרה.

"The word 'Even', for example, its name hints to its source in the name that has the gematria 52 making up the letters - ב״ן as well as an extra Alef "leyesham", known to the one who formed it."

There is also brackets there that point out נר׳ דצריך להיות ״לטעם״, that it makes more sense for the wording to be "for a 'reason' known to the one who formed it."

However, it's known that the Alter Rebbe's language was very precise and the Rebbe would often try and reconcile other girsa and a havah aminah, "since they are also part of Torah."

To that end, here is, in general, how the name אבן is explained by Sharei Gan Eden (p. 110), a sefer that is brought down by the Rebbeim:

The אבן is hinted to in the verse, concerning a closed garden, the garden ov Eden, גן נעול - גן גמטריא אבן. All of the names of Hashem, ע״ב, ס״ג מ״ה, as spelled out, have ten letters. The name ב״ן, however, only has nine. The other names are "rich" in comparison to the name ב״ן which is דל, impoverished in comparison. The name ב״ן represents the feminine aspect, מלכות, and is the gematria בכ״ל, the concept of the "daughter" of Avraham. 

Now about this state is the verse, דלותי ולי יהושיע - "when I am impoverished, you will save me". To accomplish this we must "enrich"  the name ב״ן by adding a letter to its מלוי, to make it 10 letters, like the other names. 

To do this you take the name מ״ה, Hashem's name as it is spelled with Alefs, and compare it to the gematria of its nekudos, ,שוה, חולם קמץ. They make up the ר״ת שחק the heavens and verse, מי בשחק יערוך לה׳ , "who in the heavens do we compare to Hashem". Here we are comparing שחק to שם ה׳. Each nekuda is a yud and each "firmament" - straight line nekuda (in the komatz), is a vov. 

So the nukudos add up to 46, one more than the gematria of the name מ״ה. This extra alef is given to the concept of מלכות as in the verse האלף לך שלמה - the "alef" (lit. Thousand) is to you Shlomo. This alef is added in between the vovs of שם ב״ן, the wisdom of מ״ה given to Shlomo, וה׳ נתן חכמה לשלמה. This, then, becomes the name אב״ן corresponding with the verse אבן מאסו הבונים היתה לראש פינה, the stone that was despised (impoverished) became the cornerstone. It then also attains riches like the other names.

The ideas of placing the alef in between the two vovs is hinted to by the saying of our sages that there is an animal in the islands of the sea that climbs up the mountains when the world needs rain, it places it head between its knees and crys and crys. Then the rain comes down.

Coming back to the Tanya, we see that the source of this extra אלף in ב״ן to make אבן comes from the secret of the verse דלותי ולי יהושיע. Perhaps we could say that the girsa could be read:

 ...משם אחר, ״לי יהושיע״ הידוע, ליוצרה.

Or לי יהושיעם, in the plural, to account for the ׳ם׳ at the end. So it would read in the Tanya, "...and an extra alef added from another name, in the secret of לי יהושיע, as is known (הידוע), in order to form this name (we could read ליוצרה as "in order to form it, as apposed to "to its maker").