לבושים are the means through which the כוחות הנפש (soul powers) express themselves. The soul possesses three primary garments: מחשבה (thought), דיבור (speech), and מעשה (action).
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The term “garments” indicates that these faculties are not the soul itself but surround and express it—similar to clothing worn by a person. Just as one can remove or change a garment at will, a person can likewise change their soul’s garments. In other words, at any moment, one has the ability to alter their thought, speech, or action, thereby changing how their inner self is expressed in the world.
Definition
Every divine soul (נפש אלוקית) possesses three garments: thought (מחשבה), speech (דיבור), and action (מעשה).[1] These garments express themselves in the 613 commandments (תרי"ג מצוות) of the Torah. When a person fulfills the precepts requiring physical action, occupies himself in expounding the 613 commandments with his power of speech, and comprehends all that is comprehensible to him in the Pardes of Torah with his power of thought, then the totality of the 613 "organs" of his soul are clothed in the 613 commandments of the Torah.[2]
The faculties of chabad in his soul are clothed in the comprehension of the Torah, and the מידות, namely fear and love, together with their offshoots and ramifications, are clothed in the fulfillment of the commandments in deed and in word, namely, in the study of Torah which is "equivalent to them all."[3]
These three "garments," deriving from the Torah and its commandments, are infinitely higher and greater than that of the nefesh, ruach, and neshamah themselves.[4]
The commandments produce “garments” for the soul, elicited from the light of the En Sof, blessed is He, from the level of sovev kol alminby the “arousal from below,” i.e., the (performance of the) command of G–d and the will of Supreme One, blessed is He.[5]
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