1. There Is None Else Besides Him
2. Shechina [Divinity] in Exile
3. The Matter of Spiritual Attainment
4. What Is the Reason for the Heaviness One Feels when Annulling before the Creator in the Work?
5. Lishma Is an Awakening from Above, and Why Do We Need an Awakening from Below?
6. What Is Support in the Torah, in the Work?
7. What Is, “A Habit Becomes a Second Nature,” in the Work?
8. What Is the Difference between a Shade of Kedusha and a Shade of Sitra Achra?
9. What Are Three Things that Broaden One’s Mind in the Work?
10. What Is “Hurry, My Beloved,” in the Work?
11. Joy with Trembling
12. The Essence of Man’s Work
13. A Pomegranate
14. What Is the Exaltedness of the Creator?
15. What Is Other Gods in the Work?
16. What Is the Day of the Lord and the Night of the Lord, in the Work?
17. What Does It Mean that the Sitra Achra Is Called “Malchut without a Crown”?
18. My Soul Shall Weep in Secret – 1
19. What Is “The Creator Hates the Bodies,” in the Work?
20. Lishma [for Her sake]
21. When One Feels Oneself in a State of Ascent
22. Torah Lishma
23. You Who Love the Lord, Hate Evil
24. He Will Save Them from the Hand of the Wicked
25. Things that Come from the Heart
26. One’s Future Depends and Is Tied to Gratitude for the Past
27. What Is “The Lord Is High and the Low Will See”? - 1
28. I Shall Not Die but Live
29. When Thoughts Come to a Person
30. The Most Important Is to Want Only to Bestow
31. Anyone Who Pleases the Spirit of the People
32. A Lot Is an Awakening from Above
33. The Lots on Yom Kippur and with Haman
34. The Advantage of a Land
35. Concerning the Vitality of Kedusha
36. What Are the Three Bodies in Man?
37. An Article for Purim
38. The Fear of God Is His Treasure
39. And They Sewed Fig Leaves
40. What Is the Measure of Faith in the Rav?
41. What Is Greatness and Smallness in Faith?
42. What Is the Acronym Elul in the Work?
43. Concerning Truth and Faith
44. Mind and Heart
45. Two Discernments in the Torah and in the Work
46. The Domination of Israel over the Klipot
47. In the Place Where You Find His Greatness
48. The Primary Basis
49. The Most Important Are the Mind and the Heart
50. Two States
51. If You Encounter This Villain
52. A Transgression Does Not Extinguish a Mitzva
53. The Matter of Limitation
54. The Purpose of the Work – 1
55. Haman from the Torah, from Where?
56. Torah Is Called Indication
57. Will Bring Him Closer to His Will
58. Joy Is a “Reflection” of Good Deeds
59. Concerning the Rod and the Serpent
60. A Mitzva that Comes through Transgression
61. Round About Him It Storms Mightily
62. Descends and Incites, Ascends and Complains
63. I Was Borrowed on, and I Repay
64. From Lo Lishma, We Come to Lishma
65. Concerning the Revealed and the Concealed
66. Concerning the Giving of the Torah – 1
67. Depart from Evil
68. Man's Connection to the Sefirot
69. First Will Be the Correction of the World
70. With a Mighty Hand and with Fury Poured Out
71. My Soul Shall Weep in Secret – 2
72. Confidence Is the Clothing for the Light
73. After the Tzimtzum
74. World, Year, Soul
75. There Is a Discernment of the Next World, and There Is a Discernment of This World
76. On All Your Offerings You Shall Offer Salt
77. One's Soul Shall Teach Him
78. The Torah, the Creator, and Israel Are One
79. Atzilut and BYA
80. Concerning Achor be Achor
81. Concerning Raising MAN
82. The Prayer that One Should Always Pray
83. Concerning the Right Vav and the Left Vav
84. What Is “He Drove the Man Out of the Garden of Eden so He Would Not Take from the Tree of Life”?
85. What Is the Fruit of a Citrus Tree, in the Work?
86. And They Built Arei Miskenot
87. Shabbat Shekalim
88. All the Work Is Only Where There Are Two Ways – 1
89. To Understand the Words of The Zohar
90. In The Zohar, Beresheet
91. Concerning the Replaceable
92. Explaining the Discernment of Luck
93. Concerning Fins and Scales
94. And You Shall Keep Your Souls
95. Concerning Removing the Foreskin
96. What Is Waste of Barn and Winery, in the Work?
97. Waste of Barn and Winery
98. Spirituality Is Called That Which Will Never Be Lost
99. He Did Not Say Wicked or Righteous
100. The Written Torah and the Oral Torah – 1
101. A Commentary on the Psalm, “For the Winner over Roses”
102. And You Shall Take You the Fruit of a Citrus Tree
103. Whose Heart Makes Him Willing
104. And the Saboteur Was Sitting
105. A Bastard Wise Disciple Precedes a Commoner High Priest
106. What the Twelve Challahs on Shabbat Imply
107. Concerning the Two Angels
108. If You Leave Me One Day, I Will Leave You Two
109. Two Kinds of Meat
110. A Field that the Lord Has Blessed
111. Breath, Sound, and Speech
112. The Three Angels
113. The Eighteen Prayer
114. Prayer
115. Still, Vegetative, Animate, and Speaking
116. He Who Said, “Mitzvot Do Not Require Intention”
117. You Labored and Did Not Find, Do Not Believe
118. To Understand the Matter of the Knees Which Have Bowed to Baal
119. That Disciple Who Learned in Secret
120. The Reason for Not Eating Nuts on Rosh Hashanah
121. She Is Like Merchant-Ships
122. Understanding What Is Written in Shulchan Aruch
123. His Divorce and His Hand Come as One
124. A Shabbat of Beresheet and of the Six Thousand Years
125. He Who Delights the Shabbat
126. A Sage Comes to Town
127. The Difference between Core, Self, and Added Abundance
128. Dew Drips from that Galgalta to Zeir Anpin
129. The Shechina in the Dust
130. Tiberias of Our Sages, Good Is Your Sight
131. Who Comes to Purify
132. In the Sweat of Your Face Shall You Eat Bread – 1
133. The Lights of Shabbat
134. Wine that Causes Drunkenness
135. Clean and Righteous Do Not Kill
136. The Difference between the First Letters and the Last Letters
137. Zelophehad Was Gathering Wood
138. Concerning Fear that Sometimes Comes Upon a Person
139. The Difference between the Six Workdays and Shabbat
140. How I Love Your Torah
141. The Holiday of Passover
142. The Essence of the War
143. Only Good to Israel
144. There Is a Certain People
145. What Is He Will Give Wisdom Specifically to the Wise
146. A Commentary on The Zohar
147. The Work of Reception and Bestowal
148. The Scrutiny of Bitter and Sweet, True and False
149. Why We Need to Extend Hochma
150. Sing unto the Lord, for He Has Done Pride
151. And Israel Saw the Egyptians
152. For Bribe Blinds the Eyes of the Wise
153. A Thought Is a Result of the Desire
154. There Cannot Be an Empty Space in the World
155. The Cleanness of the Body
156. Lest He Took from the Tree of Life
157. I Am Asleep but My Heart Is Awake
158. The Reason for Not Eating at Each Other's Home on Passover
159. And It Came to Pass in the Course of Those Many Days
160. The Reason for Concealing the Matzot
161. Concerning the Giving of the Torah – 2
162. Concerning the Hazak We Say After Completing the Series
163. What the Authors of The Zohar Said
164. There Is a Difference between Corporeality and Spirituality
165. An Explanation to Elisha's Request of Elijah
166. Two Discernments in Attainment
167. The Reason Why It Is Called Shabbat Teshuva
168. The Customs of Israel
169. Concerning a Complete Righteous
170. You Shall Not Have in Your Pocket a Big Stone
171. In The Zohar, Emor – 1
172. The Matter of Preventions and Delays
173. Why We Say LeChaim
174. Concealment
175. And If the Way Be Too Far for You
176. When Drinking Brandy after the Havdala
177. Atonements
178. Three Partners in Man
179. Three Lines
180. In The Zohar, Emor – 2
181. Honor
182. Moses and Solomon
183. The Discernment of Messiah
184. The Difference between Faith and Intellect
185. The Uneducated, the Fear of Shabbat Is on Him
186. Make Your Shabbat a Weekday, and Do Not Need People
187. Choosing Labor
188. All the Work Is Only Where There Are Two Ways – 2
189. The Action Affects the Thought
190. Every Act Leaves an Imprint
191. The Time of Descent
192. The Lots
193. One Wall Serves Both
194. The Complete Seven
195. Rewarded - I Will Hasten It
196. A Grip for the External Ones
197. Book, Author, Story
198. Freedom
199. To Every Man of Israel
200. The Hizdakchut of the Masach
201. Spirituality and Corporeality
202. In the Sweat of Your Face Shall You Eat Bread – 2
203. Man's Pride Shall Bring Him Low
204. The Purpose of the Work - 2
205. Wisdom Cries Out in the Streets
206. Faith and Pleasure
207. Receiving in order to Bestow
208. Labor
209. Three Conditions in Prayer
210. A Sightly Flaw in You
211. As Though Standing before a King
212. Embrace of the Right, Embrace of the Left
213. Acknowledging the Desire
214. Known in the Gates
215. Concerning Faith
216. Right and Left
217. If I Am Not for Me, Who Is for Me?
218. The Torah and the Creator Are One
219. Devotion
220. Suffering
221. Multiple Authorities
222. The Part Given to the Sitra Achra to Separate It from the Kedusha
223. Clothing, Sack, Lie, Almond
224. Yesod de Nukva and Yesod de Dechura
225. Raising Oneself
226. The Written Torah and the Oral Torah – 2
227. The Reward for a Mitzva–a Mitzva
228. Fish before Meat
229. Haman Pockets
230. The Lord Is High and the Low Will See - 2
231. The Purity of the Vessels of Reception
232. Completing the Labor
233. Pardon, Forgiveness, and Atonement
234. He Who Ceases Words of Torah and Engages in Conversation
235. Looking in the Book Again
236. My Adversaries Curse Me All the Day
237. For Man Shall Not See Me and Live
238. Happy Is the Man Who Does Not Forget You and the Son of Man Who Exerts in You
239. The Difference between Mochin of Shavuot and that of Shabbat at Minchah
240. Seek Your Seekers when They Seek Your Face
241. Call Upon Him When He Is Near
242. What Is the Matter of Delighting the Poor on a Good Day, in the Work?
243. Examining the Shade on the Night of Hosha’ana Rabbah
244. All the Worlds
245. Prior to the Creation of the Newborn
246. An Explanation about Luck
247. A Thought Is Regarded as Nourishment
248. Let His Friend Begin
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What Is Support in the Torah, in the Work?
 

6. What Is Support in the Torah, in the Work?

I heard in 1944

When one learns Torah and wants all his actions to be in order to bestow, one must try to always have support in the Torah. Support is considered nourishment, which is love, fear, elation, and freshness and so on. One should extract all this from the Torah, meaning the Torah should give him these results.

However, when one learns Torah and does not have these results, it is not considered Torah since Torah refers to the light clothed in the Torah, as our sages said, “I have created the evil inclination; I have created the Torah as a spice.” This refers to the light in it, since the light in it reforms him.

We should also know that the Torah is divided into two discernments: 1)Torah, 2) Mitzva [commandment]. In fact, it is impossible to understand these two discernments before one is awarded walking in the path of the Creator by way of “The counsel of the Lord is with those who fear Him.” This is so because when one is in a state of preparation to enter the Creator’s palace, it is impossible to understand the path of truth.

However, it is possible to give an example that even a person in the preparation period can somewhat understand. It is as our sages said (Sutah 21): “Rabbi Yosef said, ‘A Mitzva protects and saves while practiced. The Torah protects and saves both when practiced and when not practiced.’”

The thing is that “when practiced” refers to when one has some light. One can use this light that he obtained only while the light is still with him, as now he is in gladness because of the light that shines for him. This is discerned as a Mitzva, meaning that he has not yet been rewarded with the Torah, but elicits a life of Kedusha [holiness] only from the light.

This is not so with the Torah: When one attains some way in the work, one can use the way he has attained even when he is not practicing it, that is, even while he does not have the light. This is so because only the illumination has departed from him, but he can use the way that he attained in the work even when the illumination leaves him.

Still, we must know that while practiced, a Mitzva is greater than the Torah when not practiced. When practiced means that now one receives the light. This is called “practiced,” when one receives the light in it.

Hence, while one has the light, a Mitzva is more important than the Torah when one has no light, meaning when there is no vitality of the Torah. On one hand, the Torah is important because one can use the way one has acquired in the Torah. On the other hand, it is without vitality, called “light.” In a time of Mitzva one does receive vitality, called “light.” Therefore, in this respect, a Mitzva is more important.

Thus, when one is without vitality, he is considered “wicked,” since now he cannot say that the Creator leads the world in a manner of “The Good Who Does Good.” This is called that he is called “wicked,” since he condemns his Maker, as now he feels that he has no vitality, and has nothing to be glad about so he can say that now he thanks the Creator for giving him delight and pleasure.

One cannot say that he believes that the Creator leads His guidance over others in a manner of good and doing good, since we understand the path of Torah as a sensation in the organs. If one does not feel the delight and pleasure, what does it give him that another person has delight and pleasure?

If one had really believed that Providence is revealed as good and doing good to his friend, that faith should have brought him delight and pleasure from believing that the Creator leads the world with a guidance of delight and pleasure. If it does not bring him vitality and joy, what is the benefit in saying that the Creator does watch over his friend with a guidance of good and doing good?

The most important is what one feels in one’s own body—whether he feels good or bad. A person enjoys his friend’s pleasure only if he enjoys his friend’s benefit. In other words, we learn that with the sensation of the body, the reasons are not important. It is only important if he feels good. In that state, he says that the Creator is “good and does good.” If one feels bad, he cannot say that the Creator behaves with him in a manner of good and doing good. Thus, precisely if he enjoys his friend’s happiness, and receives high spirits from this, and feels gladness because his friend feels good, then he can say that the Creator is a good leader.

If one has no joy, he feels bad. Thus, how can he say that the Creator is good and does good? Therefore, a state where one has no vitality and gladness is already a state where he has no love for the Creator and ability to justify his Maker and be happy, as is appropriate with one who is granted with serving a great and important King.

In general, we must know that the upper light is in a state of complete rest, and the whole expansion of the holy names occurs by the lower ones. In other words, all the names that the upper light has come from the attainment of the lower ones. This means that the upper light is named according to their attainments. Put differently, one names the upper light according to the way in which one attains it, meaning according to one’s sensation.

If one does not feel that the Creator is giving him anything, what name can he give to the Creator if he does not receive anything from Him? Rather, when one believes in the Creator, every single state that one feels, he says that it comes from the Creator. In that state, one names the Creator according to one’s feeling.

If one feels happy in the state he is in, he says that the Creator is called “The Good Who Does Good,” since this is what he feels, that he receives good from Him. In that state, one is called Tzadik [righteous], since he Matzdik [justifies] his Maker (the Creator).

If one feels bad in the state he is in, he cannot say that the Creator is sending him good. Therefore, in that state one is called Rasha [wicked], since he Marshia [condemns] his Maker.

However, there is no such thing as in-between, when one says that he feels both good and bad in his state. Instead, one is either happy or unhappy.

This is the meaning of what our sages said (Berachot 61), “The world was not created, etc., but either for the complete wicked or for the complete righteous.” This is because there is no such reality where one feels good and bad together.

When our sages say that there is in-between, it is that with the creatures, who have a discernment of time, you can say in-between, in two times, one after the other, as we learn that there is a matter of ascents and descents. These are two times: once he is wicked, and once he is righteous. But at the same time, for one to feel good and bad simultaneously, this does not exist.

It follows that when they said that the Torah is more important than a Mitzva, it is precisely when he does not engage in it, meaning when he has no vitality. Then the Torah is more important than a Mitzva, which has no vitality.

This is so because one cannot receive anything from a Mitzva, which has no vitality. But with the Torah, one still has a way in the work from what he had received while he was practicing the Torah. Although the vitality has departed, the way remains in him, and he can use it. There is a time when a Mitzva is more important than Torah, meaning when there is vitality in the Mitzva and no vitality in the Torah.

Thus, when not practiced, meaning when one has no vitality and gladness in the work, one has no other counsel but prayer. However, during the prayer one must know that he is wicked because he does not feel the delight and pleasure that exist in the world, although he makes calculations that he can believe that the Creator gives only good.

Yet, not all the thoughts that one has are true in the way of the work. In the work, if the thought leads to action, meaning a sensation in the organs, so the organs feel that the Creator is good and does good, the organs should receive from this vitality and gladness. If one has no vitality, what good are all the calculations if now the organs do not love the Creator because He imparts them with abundance?

Therefore, one must know that if he has no vitality and gladness in the work, it is a sign that he is wicked because he is unhappy. All the calculations are untrue if they do not lead to action, meaning to a sensation in the organs that he loves the Creator because He imparts delight and pleasure to the creatures.