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Chapter 4
And further, every nefesh elokit (the soul from God) has three garments. They are thought, speech, and deed of the 613 mitzvot (commanded deeds) of the Torah. For when the person fulfills in deed all the mitzvot of action, and in speech he occupies himself in the explanation of all the 613 mitzvot and their laws, and in thought he attains all that it is possible for him to attain in the plain senses, the hints, the homilies, and the secrets of the Torah, then the whole of the 613 limbs of his nefesh are clothed in the 613 mitzvot of the Torah.
And in particular, the aspects of wisdom, understanding, and knowledge in his nefesh are clothed in the attainment of the Torah, which he attains in plain sense, hint, homily, and secret, according to the capacity of his attainment and the root of his nefesh above. And the traits, which are awe and love and their branches and their offspring, are clothed in the keeping of the mitzvot in deed, and in speech, which is the study of Torah, which stands over against all of them. For the love is the root of all the 248 positive mitzvot, and from it they are drawn, and without it they have no true continuance. For the one who keeps them in truth is the one who loves the name of Hashem (God) and desires to cling to Him in truth. And it is not possible to cling to Him in truth except by keeping the 248 precepts, which are the 248 limbs of the King, so to speak, as we explained in another place. And the awe is the root of the 365 commands of “you shall not do,” for he is afraid to rebel against the King of the kings of kings, the Holy One, blessed be He. Or an awe more inward than this, that he is ashamed before His greatness to defy the eyes of His glory and to do what is evil in His eyes, every abomination of Hashem which He hates. These are the kelipot (husks that hide holiness) and the sitra achra (the other side). Their nourishment from the lower person, and their hold on him, is in the 365 mitzvot of “you shall not do.”
And behold, these three garments from the Torah and its mitzvot, though they are called garments for the nefesh, the ruach, and the neshamah, even so their rank is high and great, with no end and no limit, over the rank of the nefesh, the ruach, and the neshamah themselves. As it is written in the Zohar (Zohar II 90b), that the Torah and the Holy One, blessed be He, are all one. The meaning is that the Torah is the wisdom and the will of the Holy One, blessed be He, and the Holy One, blessed be He, in His glory and in His own self, is all one. For He is the knower and He is the knowledge, and so on, as was written above (above, chapter 2) in the name of the Rambam (Maimonides).
And though the Holy One, blessed be He, is called Ein Sof (the Endless), “and to His greatness there is no searching” (Psalms 145:3), and no thought grasps Him at all. And likewise in His will and His wisdom. As it is written (Isaiah 40:28): “There is no searching of His understanding.” And it is written (Job 11:7): “Will you find the searching of Elohim?” And it is written (Isaiah 55:8): “For My thoughts are not your thoughts.” Behold, on this they said (Megillah 31a): In the place where you find the greatness of the Holy One, blessed be He, there you find His humility. And the Holy One, blessed be He, contracted His will and His wisdom into the 613 mitzvot of the Torah and into their laws, and into the combinations of the letters of the Tanakh, and their homilies that are in the aggadot and the midrashim of our sages, of blessed memory, so that every neshamah, or ruach and nefesh, that is in the body of the person would be able to attain them with its knowledge, and to fulfill of them all that it is possible to fulfill, in deed, speech, and thought, and by this be clothed, in all its ten aspects, in these three garments.
And therefore the Torah was likened to water (Taanit 7a): as water comes down from a high place to a low place, so the Torah came down from the place of its honor, which is His will and His wisdom, blessed be He, and the Torah and the Holy One, blessed be He, are all one, and no thought grasps Him at all. And from there it journeyed and came down in the hiddenness of the steps, from level to level, in the chaining down of the worlds, until it clothed itself in bodily things and in the concerns of this world, which are most of the mitzvot of the Torah, as though all of them, and their laws, and in combinations of bodily letters, in ink upon the book, twenty four books that are in the Torah, the Prophets, and the Writings, so that every thought would grasp them, and even the aspects of speech and deed, which are below the level of thought, would grasp them and be clothed in them.
And since the Torah and its mitzvot clothe all ten aspects of the nefesh and all its 613 limbs, from its head to its foot, behold, the whole of it is bound in the bundle of life with Hashem, in fact, and the light of Hashem, in fact, surrounds it and clothes it from its head to its foot. As it is written (2 Samuel 22:3; Psalms 18:3): “my Rock, I take shelter in Him.” And it is written (Psalms 5:13): “Like a shield, favor crowns him,” which is His will and His wisdom, blessed be He, clothed in His Torah and in its mitzvot.
And therefore they said (Mishnah Avot 4:17): “One hour in turning back and good deeds in this world is finer than all the life of the world to come.” For the world to come is that they have enjoyment from the radiance of the Shekhinah (the divine presence), which is the pleasure of attainment. And it is not possible for any created being, even of the upper ones, to attain anything except some shining from the light of Hashem. And therefore it is called by the name “radiance of the Shekhinah.” But the Holy One, blessed be He, in His glory and in His own self, no thought grasps Him at all, except when it grasps and clothes itself in the Torah and in its mitzvot. Then it grasps and clothes itself in the Holy One, blessed be He, in fact, for the Torah and the Holy One, blessed be He, are all one.
And though the Torah clothed itself in lower bodily things, this is like one who embraces the king, by way of a parable, that there is no difference in the rank of his drawing near and his clinging to the king between embracing him when he wears one garment and when he wears several garments, since the body of the king is within them. And so if the king embraces him with His arm, even though it is clothed inside His garments. As it is written (Song of Songs 2:6; and there 8:3): “and His right hand embraces me,” which is the Torah that was given from the right, which is the aspect of kindness and of water.
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