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Chapter 15
And with this, what is written will be understood (Malachi 3:18): “You will turn back and look, between a tzaddik (a righteous person) and a rasha (a wicked person), between one who serves Elohim and one who has not served Him.” The difference between one who serves Elohim and a tzaddik is this. “Serves” is a present-tense wording. He is in the middle of the work, and that work is the war with the evil yetzer (the urge), to overpower it and to drive it out of the small city, so that it will not clothe itself in the limbs of the body. This is truly a great work and a great toil, to fight it constantly. And that is the beinoni (the in-between person). But the tzaddik is called “a servant of Hashem (God)” as a descriptive name, like the name “sage” or “king,” for one who has already become a sage or a king. So it is with this one. He has already served and has completely finished the work of the war with the evil, until he drove it out and it went away, and his heart is a hollow space within him (based on Psalms 109:22).
In the beinoni there are likewise two levels: one who serves Elohim, and one who has not served Him. Even so, he is not a rasha, for he has never in his days committed any light transgression, and he has also fulfilled every mitzvah (a commanded deed) that it is possible for him to fulfill, and Torah study, which equals all of them, and his mouth has not ceased from the study-text. Only, he makes no war at all with the yetzer, to conquer it by the light of Hashem that shines upon the nefesh elokit (the soul from God) in the brain, which rules the heart, as mentioned above. This is because his yetzer does not stand against him at all, to stop him from his Torah and his service, and he has no need to fight it at all. For example, he is constant in his learning by his nature from birth, through the predominance of the black bile. Likewise he has no war from desire for women, because he is cold by his nature. And likewise with the other pleasures of this world, he lacks the feeling of enjoyment by his nature. Therefore he does not need to contemplate so much the greatness of Hashem, so as to bring forth from his understanding a spirit of knowledge and awe of Hashem in his brain, to guard himself from transgressing the commands of “you shall not do,” and love of Hashem in his heart, to cling to Him by fulfilling the mitzvot, and Torah study, which equals all of them. Rather, the concealed love that is in the heart of the whole of Israel is enough for him. They are called lovers of His name (Psalms 69:37). Therefore he is not called “one who serves” at all, for this concealed love is not his own act and his own work at all. It is our inheritance from our fathers, for the whole of Israel, as will be explained further on.
And so too, even one who is not constant in his learning by his nature, but has trained himself to learn with great constancy, and the habit has become a second nature for him, this concealed love is enough for him, unless he wants to learn more than his habit. And with this, what is written in the Gemara will be understood (Chagigah 9b): that “one who serves Elohim” is one who repeats his chapter one hundred and one times, and “has not served Him” is one who repeats his chapter one hundred times only. And this is because in their days the habit was to repeat every chapter one hundred times, as is stated there in the Gemara, a parable from the market of donkey drivers, who are hired for ten parasangs for one zuz and for eleven parasangs for two zuz, because that is more than their habit.
Therefore this one hundred and first time, the extra one beyond the habit to which he was trained from his youth, weighs as much as all of them, and it rises above them with greater rank and greater strength, so that he is called one who serves Elohim. For in order to change the nature of the habit, he must arouse the love for Hashem, by contemplating in his brain the greatness of Hashem, so as to rule the nature in the left cavity, which is full of the blood of the nefesh bahamit (the life-soul of the body) that comes from the kelipah (a husk that hides holiness), from which the nature comes. And this is a complete service for the beinoni. Or, to arouse the concealed love in his heart, so as to govern by means of it the nature in the left cavity. This too is called service: to fight the nature and the yetzer by arousing the concealed love in his heart. It is otherwise when he has no war at all. Then this love, on its own account, is not called his service at all.
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