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Chapter 24
And one set over against the other: these are the 365 mitzvot not to be done, each a mitzvah (a commanded deed), of the Torah, and all the prohibitions of the rabbis. Since they are against His will and His wisdom, blessed be He, and truly their opposite, they are separated from His union and His oneness, blessed be He, in a truly complete separation, like sitra achra (the other side) and the kelipah (a husk that hides holiness), which are called foreign worship and other Elohim, because of the hiding of the face of the supernal will, as mentioned above.
And so too the three garments of the nefesh (the lowest level of the soul) from the kelipah of nogah in Israel, which are thought, speech, and deed, clothed in the 365 prohibitions of the Torah and of the rabbis. And so too the essence of the nefesh itself that is clothed in its garments: all of them are truly united with sitra achra and with this kelipah, which is called foreign worship. And not only this, but they are nullified and secondary to it, and much worse and lower than it. For it is not clothed in a material body, and it knows its Master, and it does not rebel against Him so as to carry out its work by a dispatch of its evil angels otherwise than by the mission of the Place, blessed be He, God spare us, as in the saying of Balaam (Numbers 22:18): “I am not able to pass the mouth of Hashem (God),” and the rest. And although it is called foreign worship, still they called Him “God of gods,” and they are not able to cross His will, blessed be He, at all, because they know and grasp that He is their life and their continuance, for they suck from the aspect of the back side of the back side of the supernal will, blessed be He, which encompasses them. Only, their sucking and their life that is inside them is in an aspect of exile inside them, so that they reckon themselves as divinity, and this is a denial of His oneness. But nevertheless they do not deny, and they have not belied Hashem completely so as to say “He is not.” Rather they called Him “God of gods,” that is, their life and their continuance that is drawn and comes down upon them from His will, blessed be He. Therefore they never transgress His will, blessed be He. If so, the person who transgresses His will, blessed be He, is very much worse and lower than the sitra achra and the kelipah called foreign worship and other Elohim. And he is in the utmost separation from the union and the oneness of the Holy One, blessed be He, more than it is, and it is as if he denies His oneness more than it does, God spare us. As it is written in Etz Chaim, Gate 42, end of chapter 4, that the evil in this material world is the dregs of the coarse kelipot, and so on, and it is the furthest end of the sifting, and so on, and therefore all the deeds of this world are harsh and evil, and those who are a rasha (a wicked person) prevail in it, and so on.
Therefore the sages of blessed memory said (Sotah 3a), on the verse (Numbers 5:12) “If his wife turns aside,” “No person commits a transgression,” and so on. For even a woman who commits adultery, whose mind is light, would have ruled over the spirit of her appetite, were it not for a spirit of folly in her that covers, hides, and conceals the hidden love in her nefesh elokit (the soul from God), to cling to faith in Hashem and to His union and His oneness, and not to be parted, God spare us, from His oneness, even if they take her nefesh from her, to serve foreign worship, God spare us, and even by bowing alone, with no belief in the heart at all. How much more so to conquer the yetzer (the urge) and the appetite for adultery, which are sufferings lighter than death, may Hashem keep us. And the difference, for her, between the prohibition of adultery and the prohibition of bowing to foreign worship is likewise a spirit of folly of the kelipah, which clothes the nefesh elokit as far as the aspect of wisdom in her, but not so as to include it, because of the light of Hashem clothed in wisdom, as mentioned above.
But in the innermost truth, even a light transgression, the one who commits it transgresses the supernal will, blessed be He, and he is in the utmost separation from His union and His oneness, blessed be He, more than sitra achra and kelipah, which are called other Elohim and actual foreign worship, and more than all the things that stream from it in this world, which are unclean beasts, unclean wild animals and birds, and detestable creatures and creeping things, and as in the saying (Sanhedrin 38a) “A gnat came before you.” The meaning is that even a gnat, which takes in and does not put out, and which is the lowest kelipah, distant from the aspect of the holiness that sends its flow at the furthest remove, comes before the person who sins, in the chain of descent and the lowering of the life from the supernal will, blessed be He. How much more so the other unclean living creatures, and even savage beasts, for none of them changes its assigned task, and their spirit has kept His charge, blessed be He, and even though he does not see, and so on (Megillah 3a). And as it is written (Genesis 9:2): “Dread of you and terror of you shall be upon every beast of the land,” and as explained by the sages of blessed memory (Shabbat 151b), that no savage beast rules over a person unless he appears to it as a beast. And those who are a tzaddik (a righteous person), from whose faces the image of Elohim does not depart, all savage beasts are subdued before them, as it is written in the Zohar (Zohar, part 1, 191a) concerning Daniel in the lions’ den.
If so, the sinner who transgresses His will, blessed be He, even in a light transgression, at the time of the deed is at the utmost distance from the upper holiness, which is His union and His oneness, blessed be He, more than all the unclean living creatures and the detestable creatures and the creeping things that receive their flow from sitra achra and the kelipah of foreign worship. And as for this, that the saving of a nefesh sets aside the other transgressions, and also that one should transgress and not be killed, that is as explained by our sages of blessed memory (Yoma 85b): “The Torah said, Break one Sabbath for him, so that he may keep many Sabbaths,” and not because of the lightness of the transgressions and their weight. [Know this, for the Sabbath is severe and is weighed as equal to foreign worship regarding slaughter by one who rebels in a single matter, in Yoreh Deah, section 2, which is not so of one who rebels in forbidden sexual relations. And even so, the saving of a nefesh sets aside the Sabbath, and not forbidden sexual relations. Rather, it is a decree of the verse.]
But after the deed of the sin, if it is among the transgressions that do not carry cutting off and death at the hands of heaven, so that his nefesh elokit does not die completely and is not cut off from its root in the living Elohim, only that its cleaving and its hold on its root is damaged somewhat by this sin [Gloss: And according to the measure and the distinctions of the aspect of the damage in the nefesh and in its root above, so are the distinctions of the aspect of the cleansing and the punishment, in Gehinnom or in this world. For each iniquity and each sin there is a particular punishment, to scour and to remove the filth and the damage. And so too, those liable to death and to cutting off do not all cause damage equally.] then his vital nefesh bahamit (the life-soul of the body), clothed in his body, and likewise his body, return and rise from sitra achra to the holiness of the nefesh elokit clothed in them, which believes in Hashem, one. And even at the time of the sin it was in faith with Him, blessed be He, only it was in an aspect of actual exile inside the nefesh bahamit from sitra achra, which makes the body sin and brings it down with it into the depths of Sheol, lower and lower, beneath the uncleanness of sitra achra and the kelipah of foreign worship, may Hashem keep us. And there is for you no exile greater than this, from a high roof, and so on, and as explained above, that the root and the source of the souls of the whole house of Israel is from supernal wisdom, and He, blessed be He, and His wisdom are one, and so on. And it is like the likeness of one who seizes a king by his head and brings him down and hides his face inside a latrine full of excrement, for there is for you no insult greater than this, even if he does so only for a while. For the kelipot and sitra achra are called vomit and excrement, as is known.
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