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Chapter 20
Now, this is known to all. The mitzvah (a commanded deed) and the warning of foreign worship, which are the first two utterances, “I am” and “You shall not have,” are the whole of the entire Torah. For the utterance “I am” includes all 248 mitzvot to be done, and “You shall not have” includes all 365 mitzvot not to be done. Therefore we heard “I am” and “You shall not have” alone from the mouth of the Mighty One, as the sages of blessed memory said (Horayot 8a), because they are the whole of the entire Torah.
To explain this matter well, one must first recall, briefly, the matter and the nature of the oneness of the Holy One, blessed be He, who is called singular and unique. All who believe hold that He alone is, truly as He was before the world was created, when He was alone. As it is said (in the blessing “who sanctifies His name in public,” which follows the short Shema of the offerings before the prayer): “It is You before the world was created. It is You since the world was created,” and so on. The meaning is that He is truly without any change, as it is written (Malachi 3:6): “I am Hashem (God). I have not changed.” For this world, and likewise all the upper worlds, work no change in His oneness, blessed be He, by being brought into being from nothing into what is. Just as He alone was singular and unique before they were brought into being, so He alone is singular and unique after He brought them into being. This is because all before Him counts as nothing, and as nothing and emptiness, truly. For the coming into being of all the worlds, upper and lower, from nothing into what is, and their life and their continuance that keeps them from turning back into nothing and emptiness as they had been, is nothing other than the word of Hashem and the spirit of His mouth, blessed be He, clothed in them.
By way of a likeness, it is as with the nefesh (the lowest level of the soul) of a person when he speaks one utterance. That utterance alone is truly as nothing, even beside the whole of his speaking nefesh, which is the aspect of its middle garment, namely its power of speech, with which it can speak utterances without end and without limit. How much more so beside the aspect of its inner garment, which is the thought from which the utterances are drawn, and which is their life. It need not be said beside the essence and the being of the nefesh, which are its ten aspects mentioned above, wisdom, understanding, and knowledge, and so on, from which are drawn the letters of this thought, clothed in this utterance when he speaks. For thought is also an aspect of letters, like speech, only they are more spiritual and finer. But the ten aspects, wisdom, understanding, and knowledge, and so on, are the root and the source of the thought, and there is not yet in them an aspect of letters, before they clothe themselves in the garment of thought.
For example, when some love and desire falls into a person’s heart, before it rises from the heart to the brain to think and to reflect on it, there is not yet in it an aspect of letters, only a plain wish and a yearning in the heart toward that thing which is precious to him. How much more so before the appetite and the desire had fallen into his heart for that thing, when it was only in the power of his wisdom, his intellect, and his knowledge, so that it was known to him that that thing is precious, pleasant, good, and fair to attain and to cling to, for instance to learn some wisdom or to eat some tasty food. Only after the desire and the appetite have already fallen into his heart by the power of his wisdom, his intellect, and his knowledge, and afterward it has turned and risen from the heart to the brain to think and to reflect on it, how to bring his appetite out from potential into act, so as to attain the food, or the learning of the wisdom, in act, here aspects of letters are born in his brain. They are letters in the tongue of each people, in which they speak and reflect on all the matters of the world.
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