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Chapter 46
And there is a straight path before a man, the same for every nefesh (the lowest level of the soul), and the thing is very, very near: to arouse and to make shine the light of the love fixed and hidden in his heart, so that it shine with the force of its light like a burning fire, in the revelation of his heart and his mind, to surrender his nefesh to Hashem (God), and his body and his might, with all the heart and with all the nefesh and might, from the depth of the heart, in truth of its very truth, and especially at the time of the reading of the Shema and its blessings, as will be explained.
And it is this. When he lays to heart what the verse said (Proverbs 27:19): “As in water, face to face, so the heart of a man to a man.” The meaning is: as the likeness and the form of the face that a man shows in the water, so that very form appears to him there in the water, just so is the heart of a man who is faithful in his love for another man. This love arouses love in the heart of his fellow toward him as well, so that they be faithful lovers, each to the other, especially when he sees his fellow’s love for him.
Now this is the nature followed in the trait of every man, even if the two are equal in rank. How much more if a great and mighty king shows his great and powerful love to a common man, despised, low among men, and filthy, lying on the refuse heap, and comes down to him from the place of his glory with all his officers together, and raises him and lifts him from his refuse heap, and brings him into his palace, the palace of the king, a room within a room, a place where no servant and no officer enters, and joins with him there in a true union and nearness, and an embrace and a kiss, and the cleaving of spirit to spirit, with all the heart and nefesh. How much more will the love be aroused of itself, doubled and redoubled, in the heart of this common and low man toward the nefesh of the king, in an actual binding of the nefesh, from heart and nefesh, from the depth of the heart, without end. And even if his heart is like a heart of stone, it will surely melt and become water, and his nefesh will pour out like water, the nefesh actually expiring for love of the king.
Now like all these things, and like all this vision, and greater by far, very much, in doubles of doubles without end, our Elohim has done for us. For His greatness has no searching out, and He fills all worlds and surrounds all worlds. And from the holy Zohar and from the Ari of blessed memory, the multitude of the palaces and the worlds is known, until there is no number, and in every world and palace there are myriads of myriads of angels, without end and without limit. And as they said in the Gemara (Chagigah 13b), it is written (Job 25:3): “Is there a number to His troops?” and it is written (Daniel 7:10): “A thousand thousands minister to Him, and a myriad of myriads stand before Him,” and so on. And it answers: a thousand thousands, and so on, is the number of one troop, but to His troops there is no number. And all of them are counted before Him as actually nothing, and they are nullified in their very existence, like the nullifying of one actual word before the essence of the speaking nefesh and its very self, while its speech was still in its thought, or in the will and the longing of the heart, as mentioned above at length. And all of them ask, “Where is the place of His glory?” and they answer, “The whole earth is full of His glory”: they are Israel, His people. For the Holy One, blessed be He, set aside the upper ones and the lower ones, and He chose none of them except Israel His people, and He brought them out of Egypt, the nakedness of the land, the place of filth and uncleanness, not by an angel and not by, and so on, but the Holy One, blessed be He, in His glory and in His very self, went down there, as it is written (Exodus 3:8): “And I came down to rescue him,” and so on, in order to bring them near to Him in a true nearness and union, in an actual binding of the nefesh, in the manner of kisses, mouth to mouth, to speak the word of Hashem, this being the halakhah, and the cleaving of spirit to spirit, which is the grasp of the Torah and the knowledge of His will and His wisdom, for all is actually one. And also in the manner of an embrace, which is the fulfillment of the practical mitzvot, a mitzvah (a commanded deed), with the 248 limbs, for the 248 commands are the 248 limbs of the King, as mentioned above. And in a general way they divide into three aspects, right and left and middle, which are kindness, judgment, and mercy, the two arms and the body, and so on.
And this is what we say, “who has made us holy with His mitzvot,” like a man who betroths a woman, that she be joined with him in a complete union, as it is written (Genesis 2:24): “And he shall cling to his wife, and they shall be one flesh.” Exactly so, and beyond this without end, is the union of the nefesh elokit (the soul from God) that occupies itself in the Torah and the mitzvot, and of the vital soul and their garments mentioned above, with the light of Ein Sof (the Endless), blessed be He. And therefore Solomon, peace be upon him, likened this union in the Song of Songs to the union of a bridegroom and a bride, in clinging, longing, and desire, with embrace and kiss.
And this is what we say, “who has made us holy with His mitzvot”: that He raised us to the rank of the supernal holiness, blessed be He, which is the holiness of the Holy One, blessed be He, in His glory and in His very self. And holiness is a term of separation, that the Holy One, blessed be He, is separate from the worlds. And this is the aspect of surrounding all worlds, that which cannot clothe itself in them. For by the union of the nefesh and its being included in the light of Ein Sof, blessed be He, it then stands in the rank and the degrees of the holiness of Ein Sof, blessed be He, itself, since it is united and included in Him, blessed be He, and they become actually one.
And this is what is written (Leviticus 20:26): “And you shall be holy to Me, for I, Hashem, am holy, and I have separated you from the peoples, to be Mine.” And it says (Numbers 15:40-41): “And you shall do all My commandments, and you shall be holy to your Elohim. I am Hashem your Elohim,” and so on. The meaning is that by fulfillment of the mitzvot I am your God, as in “the Elohim of Abraham,” “the Elohim of Isaac,” and so on, for He is called so because the fathers were the aspect of a chariot for Him, blessed be He, and they are null and included in His light. And so it is with every nefesh of Israel at the time of occupation in the Torah and the mitzvot. Therefore the sages of blessed memory required (see Chullin 54b) that one rise and stand before anyone occupied in a mitzvah, even if he is an empty man and unlearned. And this is on account of Hashem, who dwells and clothes Himself in his nefesh at that hour. Only, his nefesh does not feel it, because of the screen of bodily matter that has not been refined, and it darkens the eyes of the nefesh from seeing visions of Elohim, as with the fathers and those like them, who saw their world in their lifetime.
And this is what Asaph said in the holy spirit, on behalf of the whole Community of Israel in exile (Psalms 73:22): “And I was brutish and I did not know. I was as beasts with You. And I am always with You.” That is to say, that even though I am like a beast while I am with You, and I do not know and I do not feel in my nefesh this union, so that dread and fear would fall upon it first, and afterward a great love in delights, or like flashes of fire, in the measure of the tzaddikim, a tzaddik (a righteous person), whose matter has been refined. And it is known that knowledge is a term for feeling in the nefesh, and it includes kindness and severity. Even so, I am always with You, for matter does not bar the union of the nefesh with the light of Ein Sof, blessed be He, who fills all worlds, and as it is written (Psalms 139:12): “Even darkness is not dark apart from You.”
And by this the weight of the punishment for the ban on work on the Sabbaths, and for leaven on Passover, will be understood, the same for every nefesh. For even in the nefesh of a wholly empty and unlearned man, the light of the holiness of Sabbath and festival shines, and he is judged in his nefesh with being cut off and with stoning, for the profaning of this holiness. And even a speck of leaven, or moving what is set aside, blemishes the holiness upon his nefesh, as it does the holiness of the nefesh of the tzaddik, for there is one Torah for all of us.
[And as for what is written, “beasts,” in the plural, it is to hint that before Him, blessed be He, even the aspect of supernal knowledge, which includes kindness and severity, seems like beasts and like bodily making, beside the light of Ein Sof, as it is written: “You made them all with wisdom” (Psalms 104:24). And it is called “a great beast,” as has been explained in another place. And it is the name Ban, equal in number to behemah, which is before Atzilut (Emanation).]
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