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Chapter 43
And behold, of this lower fear, which is for the fulfillment of each mitzvah (a commanded deed) of His, blessed be He, in the aspect of turning from evil and doing good, they said (Mishnah Avot 3:17): If there is no fear there is no wisdom. And in it there is an aspect of smallness and an aspect of greatness. That is, when this aspect of fear is drawn from contemplation of the greatness of Hashem (God), that He fills all worlds, and from the earth to the firmament is a journey of five hundred years, and so on, and between firmament and firmament, and so on, and the feet of the living beings are over against all of them, and so on (Chagigah 13a), and likewise the downward chain of all the worlds, higher and higher, up to the height of the levels. Even so, this fear is called an outer and lower fear, since it is drawn from the worlds. They are garments of the King, the Holy One, blessed be He, who hides Himself and conceals Himself and clothes Himself in them, to give them life and to sustain them, so that there be a something from nothing, and so on. Only, it is the gate and the opening to the fulfillment of the Torah and the commandments. But the upper fear, the fear of shame, an inward fear, which is drawn from the inwardness of the divinity inside the worlds: of it they said (Mishnah Avot 3:17): “If there is no wisdom, there is no fear”, for wisdom is the power of “what”, and “wisdom is found from nothing” (Job 28:12). And “Who is wise? One who sees what is born” (Tamid 32a). The meaning is, that he sees every thing, how it is born and comes to be from nothing into something, by the word of Hashem and the breath of His mouth, blessed be He, as it is said (Psalms 33:6): “and by the breath of His mouth, all their host”. And this being so, the heavens and the earth and all their host are nullified in their existence, actually, in the word of Hashem and the breath of His mouth, and they are counted as actually nothing, and they are nothing and actual zero, like the nullification of the light and the radiance of the sun in the body of the sun itself. And let a person not take himself out of the whole. For his body too, and his nefesh (the lowest level of the soul), and his spirit, and his neshamah, are nullified in existence in the word of Hashem, and His speech, blessed be He, is united with His thought, and so on, and as above [chapters 20 and 21] at length, by way of a parable from the soul of a person, that one utterance of his speech and of his thought is as actually nothing, and so on.
And this is what the verse said (Job 28:28): “Behold, the fear of Hashem, that is wisdom”. But it is impossible to attain this fear and this wisdom, except by fulfillment of the Torah and the commandments, through the outer lower fear. And this is what they said: “If there is no fear, there is no wisdom”.
And behold, in love there are also two levels: a great love, and a love of the world. A great love is a love in delights, and it is a flame that rises of itself, and it comes from above in the aspect of a gift, to one who is whole in fear, as is known concerning the saying of our Rabbis, of blessed memory (Kiddushin 2b): “It is the way of a man to go after a woman”, for love is called man and male, as it is written: “He remembered (zakhar) His kindness” (Psalms 98:3), and “a woman who fears Hashem” (Proverbs 31:30), as is known.
And without the fear coming first, it is impossible to reach this great love, for this love is from the aspect of Atzilut (emanation), for there, there is no cutting and no separation, God spare us. But a love of the world is the love that comes from understanding and knowledge of the greatness of Hashem, Ein Sof (the Endless), blessed is He, who fills all worlds and surrounds all worlds, and all is counted before Him as actually nothing, and like the nullification of one utterance in the intellectual soul while it is still in its thought, or in the longing of the heart, as above. By this contemplation, of itself, the attribute of love in the soul will strip itself of its garments. That is, it will not clothe itself in any thing of enjoyment and delight, bodily or spiritual, so as to love it, and it will not desire any thing in the world at all, except Hashem alone, the source of the life of all the delights, for all of them are nullified in existence and are counted as actually nothing before Him, and there is no comparison and no likeness at all between them, God spare us, as absolute nothing and zero has no comparison with eternal life. And as it is written (Psalms 73:25): “Whom do I have in heaven, and with You I desire nothing on earth. My flesh and my heart fail, the Rock of my heart”, and the rest, and as will be explained further on. And also one in whom the attribute of love in his soul is not clothed at all in any bodily or spiritual delight can set his soul ablaze, like sparks of fire and a strong flame and a flame that goes up to heaven, by the contemplation mentioned above, as will be explained further on.
And behold, this aspect of love sometimes comes before the fear, according to the aspect of the knowledge that gives birth to it, as is known [for the knowledge includes kindnesses and severities, which are love and fear, and sometimes the kindnesses come first, to descend and to be revealed]. And therefore it is possible for a rasha (a wicked person), and for a person of transgressions, to return out of love, born in his heart when he remembers Hashem his Elohim. And nevertheless the fear too is included in it of itself, only it is in an aspect of smallness and concealment, that is, the fear of sin, of rebelling against Him, God spare us. And the love is in the revelation of his heart and his mind. But this is a way of chance, and a directive for the hour, by a particular providence from Hashem, for the need of the hour, as the deed of Rabbi Elazar ben Durdeya (Avodah Zarah 17a). But the order of the fixed service, which depends on the choice of the person, needs one to put first the fulfillment of the Torah and the commandments by means of the lower fear, in an aspect of smallness at least, in turning from evil and doing good, so as to light up his nefesh elokit (the soul from God) with the light of the Torah and its commandments, and after that the light of love will shine upon it. [For “And you shall love” is, in numerical value, two times “light”, as is known to those who know the hidden wisdom]:
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