When Noah was given instructions to build an ark in order to save himself from the impending flood, the following verse is part of the description: “A window you will make for the ark and to a cubit finish it above. Put the entrance of the ark in its side, make it with a bottom, second and third floor” Noah 6:16). Based on this verse the Baal Shem Tov taught two of his most important teachings.
The first he drives from the fact that the ark has three distinct floors. Kabbalah and Chassidut teach that the ark of Noah was an archetypal model of the future Temple, and like the Temple, represented in a microcosm the creation, and the physical and spiritual worlds. The three floors of the ark, according to the Baal Shem Tov, symbolizes three rungs of consciousness which encompass all experience and reality: Worlds, Souls and Divinity. That which connects the physical world, the bottom floor, with the spiritual realms of Divinity, the upper floor, is the middle floor, the soul.
At the rung of worlds man searches for God, at the level of souls man attempts to serve God, at the highest rung man longs to unite with God. In relating to worlds man’s task is to uplift, ascending above the mundane and gravity bound weight of physicality. Souls are drawn to connect to other souls in intimacy and sharing friendship. The passion of the soul is ultimately to unite with God, losing all sense of individual separateness.
| Level | Service | Experience |
| Worlds | Searches | To Uplift |
| Souls | Serves | To Connect |
| Divinity | Unites | To Unite |
The three rungs of Worlds, Souls and Divinity and the interaction between them describe the constant processing of experience transpiring in our inner consciousness, as well as our daily encounter with outer reality.
The second teaching is based on the beginning of the verse – “a window you will make for the ark.” The word for window is tzohar which means “shining,” and the expression for ark, tayva also means ”word.” The Baal Shem Tov taught that when we say words of prayer we have to make them shine, we must infuse them with deep meaning and intent. By doing so they shine out to all the world and ultimately to God, while at the same time illuminate the deepest recesses of the soul. The ark becomes a metaphor of how prayer saves us from the raging waters of the world, giving us shelter and comfort in troubled times by keeping us always connected to God.
The Baal Shem Tov, based on previous teachings, especially those of the Arizal, emphasized the unique opportunity prayer offered to connect directly to God. By re-introducing song and meditation as integral elements of prayer he reformulated the experience of prayer for the masses into a joyous, deeply personal, spiritual experience. All Chassidic thought and custom follows upon the teachings of the Baal Shem Tov in this matter. He forged a renewed sense of how to make the words of prayer truly shine.
The students of the Baal Shem Tov recorded his various teachings regarding prayer into a treatise called Amud HaTefilla, the [Standing] Pillar of Prayer, which appears in the portion of Noah in the book The Baal Shem Tov on the Torah. The name of the quintessential prayer in Judaism is the amida, meaning “standing,” the same root as amud, pillar. The emphasis, as driven home by the name of the prayer, is of standing before God, for that is ultimately the stature He envisioned for humanity by creating man “in the image of God.”
The Baal Shem Tov then went one step further by uniting these two concepts of prayer and three levels of experiencing reality by explaining that every letter in fact contains these three levels of Worlds, Souls and Divinity. He concluded his famous letter to his brother-in-law Rabbi Gershon of Kitov with the following thoughts:
“Every word of your lips intend to unite: for in every letter there are Worlds, Souls and Divinity and they ascend and connect and unify with each other and afterwards the letters connect and unify to become a word, and then unify in true unification in Divinity. Include your soul with them in each and every state. And all the Worlds unify as one and ascend to produce an infinitely great joy and pleasure, as you can understand from the joy of bride and groom in miniature and physicality, how much more so in such an exalted level as this. Surely God will be your aid and wherever you turn you will succeed and reach greater awareness. “Give to the wise and he will become wiser.”
