Translation:Likutei Moharan/45
Mechaat Kapayim BaTefillah (Clapping while Praying). This rouses the aspect of wings, from which the spoken word comes, as is written (Ecclesiastes 10:20), “for a winged creature will tell the word”; and as is written (Ezekiel 1:8), “They had human hands below their wings.”
We see, then, that when a person’s ebullience is expressed in his hands, the <wings rouse the lungs>, from which the spoken word evolves. However, it is still necessary to prepare and rectify a mouth so as to receive the spoken word within it.
And the way the mouth evolves is by clapping hands. This is because each hand has five fingers. Striking the lights, the right hand against the left hand — i.e., five times five — is equal to twenty-five. And striking the left hand against the right hand — five times five — is also equal to twenty-five. Twice twenty-five is fifty. This corresponds to the fifty times the exodus from Egypt is mentioned in the Torah. For it was through the aspect of the Jubilee that they went out of the Egyptian exile (Zohar II, 46a).
Now, the essence of the Egyptian exile was that the spoken word was in exile. This is the reason Moshe was “heavy of mouth” (Exodus 4:10). But by means of redemption the aspect of mouth evolves. We see, then, that the mouth evolves by means of the Fifty Gates of Understanding. This is the aspect of “Who gave man a mouth?” (ibid.:11) — specifically MI (Who); <a word to the wise being sufficient.>
We see, then, that by clapping — the five fingers of the right hand against the five of the left hand and the five of the left hand against the five of the right hand — the aspect of mi comes about. Through it a mouth evolves, as in, “Mi gave man a mouth?” And the mouth receives the words from the lungs, as in, “for a winged creature will tell the word.” And the wings are roused through the ebullience expressed in man’s hands, as in, “They had human hands below their wings.”
We see all this empirically, that the hands are opposite the lungs. Due to this the Codifiers said: If the wing is broken close the body, [the bird] is unkosher (Shulchan Arukh, Yoreh Deah 53:2). For as a result, the lung has certainly been punctured.