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Chapter 10
Now, when a person strengthens his nefesh elokit (the soul from God) and fights so much with the nefesh bahamit (the life-soul of the body), until he drives out and purges the evil that is in it from the left chamber, as it is written (Deuteronomy 13:6, and elsewhere): “and you shall purge the evil from your midst”, and the evil is not turned into actual good, he is called a tzaddik (a righteous person) who is not complete, and a tzaddik and it is bad for him. That is, there is still in him a very small bit of evil in the left chamber, only it is bent and null before the good because of its small amount. Therefore it seems to him that he drove it out and it went away from him completely. But in truth, if all the evil in him had passed and gone away completely, it would have been turned into actual good.
And the explanation of the matter is this. For behold, a complete tzaddik, whose evil has been turned to good, and who is therefore called a tzaddik and it is good for him, comes to this by the complete removal of the filthy clothes from the evil. That is, to loathe very much the pleasures of this world, taking pleasure in them in the pleasures of human beings, so as to fill the cravings of the body alone, and not for the service of Hashem (God), because they are drawn and they flow from the kelipah (a husk that hides holiness) and the sitra achra (the other side). And everything that is from the sitra achra, the complete tzaddik hates it with the fullest hatred, because of the greatness of his love for Hashem and of his holiness, in a great love, in delights, and a surpassing fondness, as mentioned above. For they stand one against the other, as it is written (Psalms 139:22-23): “With the fullest hatred I hated them. They became enemies to me. Search me and know my heart”, and so on. And according to the measure of the greatness of the love for Hashem, so is the measure of the greatness of the hatred for the sitra achra, and of the loathing of the evil at its fullest. For the loathing is the opposite of the love, exactly as the hatred is.
And a tzaddik who is not complete is one who does not hate the sitra achra with the fullest hatred. Therefore he also does not loathe the evil at its fullest. And wherever the hatred and the loathing are not at their fullest, some trace of love and of pleasure must remain toward that side, and the filthy clothes have not been removed completely, in every respect. Therefore it has not been turned into actual good, since it still has some hold in the filthy clothes. Only it is null in its small amount, and it counts as nothing. Therefore he is called a tzaddik, and the bad is bent and null before him. And for this reason his love for Hashem is also not at its fullest. Therefore he is called a tzaddik who is not complete.
Now this level divides into tens of thousands of levels, in the matter of the aspect of the small amount of evil that remains, from one of the four bad elements, and in the matter of its being null in its small amount, by sixty, by way of a comparison, or by a thousand and by ten thousand, and the like, by way of a comparison. And these are the aspects of the many tzaddikim in all the generations, as it is found in the Gemara (Sanhedrin 97b), that eighteen thousand tzaddikim stand before the Holy One, blessed be He. But as for the rank of a complete tzaddik, this is what Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai said (Sukkah 45b): I have seen sons of ascent, and they are few, and so on. For this is why they are called sons of ascent, because they turn the evil about and raise it to holiness, as it is found in the Zohar, in the Introduction, that when Rabbi Chiya wanted to go up to the hall of Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai, he heard a voice coming forth, and it said: Who among you turns darkness into light, and tastes the bitter as sweet, before they come here, and so on.
And they are also called sons of ascent, because their service too, in the aspect of “and do what is good”, in fulfilling the Torah and each mitzvah (a commanded deed) of it, is for the need of the One above, and higher and higher, up to the peak of the ranks, and not so as to cling to Him, blessed be He, alone, to quench the thirst of their nefesh (the lowest level of the soul) that thirsts for Hashem, as it is written (Isaiah 55:1): “Ah, every thirsty one, go to the water”, and as is explained in another place. Rather, as they explained in the Tikkunim (Tikkunei Zohar 1b): Who is a devout one? One who acts kindly with his Owner, with His nest, to unite the Holy One, blessed be He, and His Shekhinah (the divine presence) in the lower worlds. And as it is written in the Faithful Shepherd, the portion Tetze: like a son who labors for his father and his mother, who loves them more than his own body, and his nefesh, and his ruach, and his neshamah, and so on, and he gave his body over to death for them, to redeem them, and so on, and as is explained in another place. [And the two of them come to one and the same thing. For by the siftings that they sift from nogah, they raise feminine waters, and higher unions are made, so as to bring down masculine waters. These themselves are the waters of the kindnesses in each and every mitzvah of the 248 positive commands. All of them are aspects of kindnesses and masculine waters, that is, a drawing down of the holiness of His divinity, blessed be He, from above downward, to be clothed in the lower worlds, as is explained in another place.]
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