Chapter 23: A Chariot, an Organ, and One: Mitzvos and Torah

In light of everything explained so far, we can now gain a clearer and fuller grasp of the Zohar’s statement: “The Torah and the Holy One, blessed be He, are entirely one,” and of what the Tikkunim say: “The 248 precepts are the King’s 248 limbs.”

For the mitzvos are the innermost will of the One Above and His true desire. This will is clothed in all the worlds, upper and lower, to give them life, because all their life and flow depend on the doing of the mitzvos by those below, as is known.

So the performance and observance of the mitzvos turns out to be the inner garment of the innermost Supernal Will. It is by means of this deed that the Supernal Will’s light and vitality are drawn down and come to rest within the worlds.

This is why the mitzvos are called “the King’s limbs”, by way of analogy. A person’s limbs serve as a garment for his soul and yield to it entirely. As soon as he decides to extend an arm or a leg, the limb responds immediately, without being told or ordered, and without the slightest pause, at the very moment the wish arises. In the same way, as an analogy, the vitality within the doing of the mitzvos is wholly nullified before the Supernal Will that rests in it, and serves it just as a body serves its soul.

Likewise the outer garment of the G‑dly soul of the one who performs the mitzvah, that is, its faculty of action, enters into the vitality of the mitzvah’s performance. It, too, then stands to the Supernal Will as a body stands to its soul, entirely given over to it.

Hence the limbs of the body that carry out the mitzvah, which house the G‑dly soul’s faculty of action while the mitzvah is being done, actually become a chariot (merkavah) for the Supernal Will. For instance: the hand handing out tzedakah to the needy or performing some other mitzvah; the feet going to fulfil a mitzvah; the mouth and tongue uttering words of Torah; the brain reflecting on Torah, on the fear of Heaven, and on how great G‑d is, blessed be He.

That is the sense of our Sages’ teaching, “The Avos are themselves the Chariot.” Every one of their limbs was holy and kept apart from worldly concerns; all their days they were a chariot for the Supernal Will and for nothing else.

Thinking and reflecting on Torah in the mind, however, and speaking words of Torah with the mouth, are the inner garments of the G‑dly soul; and the G‑dly soul itself, clothed within them, all the more so. All of these are joined in total union with the Supernal Will, which is more than merely being its chariot. For the Supernal Will is the very law one is pondering and discussing. Every halachah is a specific extension of the innermost Supernal Will, since this is what He, blessed be He, willed: that a given thing be permitted or valid, that a given person be exempt or acquitted, or the opposite. Likewise every arrangement of letters in Torah, Nevi’im and Kesuvim is an extension of His will and His wisdom, which are perfectly one with the Ein Sof (the Infinite One), blessed be He, for He is the One who knows and He is what is known, and so on.

That explains the saying quoted earlier, namely: “the Torah and the Holy One, blessed be He, are entirely one”, rather than only “limbs of the King”, which is what the mitzvos are.

So when a person is engaged in Torah, the Supernal Will, which is perfectly one with the Ein Sof, blessed be He, is fully disclosed, with no concealment whatsoever, in his G‑dly soul and its inner garments, namely its thinking and speaking. Consequently, for as long as he studies, this soul and these garments are themselves perfectly one with the Ein Sof, blessed be He, just as G‑d’s own “thought” and “speech” are one with His very being and essence, as chapter 21 explained. For nothing is apart from Him except where His Face is hidden, as was said there.

What is more, this union is greater and more powerful than the union of the Ein Sof light with the higher worlds. For the Supernal Will is openly present in the soul and garments busy with Torah, since that Will is the Torah itself. All the higher worlds, by contrast, are sustained by the light and life flowing out of the Torah, which is the will and wisdom of the Blessed One; as the verse says, “With wisdom You fashioned them all” (Tehillim 104:24). Wisdom, which is Torah, therefore stands higher than all of them. It is His will, blessed be He, termed “encompassing all worlds”: the dimension too lofty to enter the worlds, which instead animates and illumines them from above, as an encircling light. And this very dimension enters, in open revelation, into the soul and its garments of one who studies Torah, even though the student himself does not perceive it, and so on. [It is precisely because he is unaware of it that he can withstand it; the higher worlds could not.]

Here we see why engaging in Torah ranks so far above all other mitzvos, even above prayer, which unites the higher worlds. [The rule that someone who does not make Torah his full-time calling must stop learning in order to pray applies only because such a person pauses and breaks off from learning anyway.]

From this, the person of understanding (maskil) can bring a profound awe upon himself while studying Torah, by reflecting that his soul, together with its garments in his mind and on his lips, is fully and truly one with the Supernal Will and with the very Ein Sof light disclosed in them. Compared with that light, every world, high and low, counts for nothing, as utter zero and naught. It is so far beyond them that it does not truly enter them; rather it encompasses all worlds, encircling them from without, and grants them their core vitality. Only a faint ray enters within them, as much as they can withstand without being wholly dissolved.

That is what the verse means: “G‑d instructed us to keep all these laws, so as to fear G‑d…” (Devarim 6:24). [Of this lofty awe the Sages taught, “Without wisdom there can be no fear” (Avos 3:17); with respect to it Torah is called “the gate to the inner court”, as discussed elsewhere.] Not every mind, though, can contain awe of this kind. Yet even someone whose mind cannot hold this awe in any measure, whole or partial, because his soul is rooted low, in the lower grades of the ten sefirot of Asiyah, is not hindered in practice by lacking it, as chapter 41 will show.