"Tetzaveh — Part VI — “אוּרִים וְתֻמִּים”: Divine Guidance, Letters, and Prepared Consciousness"

6.3 — Baal Shem Tov: Hidden Letters in Every Letter

Revelation Is Illumination of What Is Already Latent

The Torah commands that the Urim and Tumim be placed within the Choshen HaMishpat:

שמות כ״ח:ל׳
“וְנָתַתָּ אֶל־חֹשֶׁן הַמִּשְׁפָּט אֶת־הָאוּרִים וְאֶת־הַתֻּמִּים.”

Ramban explains that these were Divine Names placed inside the breastplate. The Baal Shem Tov listens to the word Urim — illumination — and reveals something transformative: revelation is not always new information descending from above. Often, it is inner letters beginning to shine.

The stones already carried engraved names. Illumination did not carve new letters; it made existing letters radiant. Guidance, then, is not invention. It is disclosure.

This is true of Torah.
And it is true of the soul.

The Inner Alphabet

Chassidus teaches that every letter of Torah contains infinite layers. What we perceive depends on what within us is illuminated. The same applies to a person’s inner world. Every soul carries latent capacities — strength, compassion, discipline, longing, courage — but not all are lit at once.

You are not empty waiting to be filled.
You are engraved waiting to be illuminated.

Often what we call “clarity” is not new content but new light. The situation has not changed. The facts have not changed. What changes is the way they glow within us.

The Baal Shem Tov shifts the spiritual posture from searching for signs to cultivating sensitivity. Instead of asking, “What is Heaven sending me?” we begin asking, “What in me is ready to awaken?”

Illumination Requires Preparation

The Urim and Tumim were placed בתוך the choshen — over the heart. Illumination rested on structure. It did not float randomly. It emerged from sanctified alignment.

Inner letters tend to shine when three conditions are cultivated:

• Torah study sharpens perception.
• Tefillah softens and steadies the heart.
• Middos refinement removes egoic distortion.

When mind, heart, and character align, illumination becomes possible.

Guidance is not spectacle. It is refinement meeting light.

When Letters Light Up

Many people believe they lack spiritual capacity. They see others with depth or consistency and assume those “letters” were given to someone else.

The Baal Shem Tov would disagree.

If you have ever surprised yourself with patience you didn’t know you possessed, courage you didn’t know you could access, or clarity that emerged in quiet prayer — you have witnessed inner letters glowing.

The potential was there.
The illumination arrived.

Growth is not becoming someone else.
It is becoming legible to yourself.

Revelation Without Superstition

Part 6.2 — Ruach HaKodesh: Between Prophecy and Bas Kol has emphasized that Divine guidance is not magical thinking. The Baal Shem Tov deepens this by teaching that the miracle is not thunder from above but awakening from within.

The Urim did not function as fortune-telling devices. They illuminated engraved truth. In the same way, Torah does not implant a foreign personality into a Jew. It reveals the Divine imprint already there.

The more a person stands “לפני ה׳” — before Hashem — the clearer the inner alphabet becomes.

Sometimes illumination is dramatic.
More often, it is subtle.

And subtle does not mean small.

Application for Today — Illuminate What Hashem Placed Within You

You do not need to become someone else to grow.

You need to become more fully yourself.

The world trains us to chase dramatic transformation — new identities, new personas, new spiritual highs. But the Baal Shem Tov offers something deeper: your task is not reinvention. It is revelation.

There is strength in you that has not yet been exercised.
There is depth in you that has not yet been accessed.
There is steadiness in you that has not yet been trusted.

Instead of asking for spectacle, ask for light.

Open a sefer and linger long enough for one idea to penetrate.
Stand in tefillah and allow one honest sentence to emerge.
Refine one behavior that dims your clarity.

Over time, you will notice something subtle but powerful. The same Torah feels more alive. The same mitzvos feel more aligned. Decisions feel less chaotic and more grounded. Not because Heaven thundered — but because your inner letters began to glow.

The Urim and Tumim were placed בתוך the Choshen.

The light was drawn from within.

Hashem does not need to implant holiness into you.

He already engraved it.

Your avodah is to illuminate it — steadily, humbly, faithfully — until your own soul becomes a source of guidance.

📖 Sources

• Full sources available on the Mitzvah Minute Parshas Tetzaveh page under insights and commentaries