Chapter 24: The Opposite of a Mitzvah: Sin, and the Soul in Exile

“The one set against the other”: this refers to the Torah’s 365 prohibitions and to every rabbinic prohibition. Because they run counter to the Blessed One’s will and wisdom, being their direct opposite, they are cut off completely from His unity and oneness. They belong with the sitra achra and the kelipah termed “idolatry” (avodah zarah) and “alien gods”, on account of the concealment of the Supreme Will’s Face, as described earlier.

The same applies to a Jew’s soul that derives from kelipas nogah and its three garments: thought, speech and deed. When these garments are invested in any of the Torah’s 365 prohibitions or in a rabbinic prohibition, they, together with the soul itself that wears them, become fully joined to that sitra achra and kelipah termed “idolatry”.

Indeed, they become subservient to it, sinking far beneath it in lowliness and baseness. For the kelipah, which wears no physical body, is aware of its Creator. It never defies Him by carrying out its task, dispatching its harmful agents, unless the Omnipresent, blessed be He, has sent it, heaven forbid. So Bilaam declared: “I am unable to transgress G‑d’s word…”

And though it bears the name “idolatry”, its powers refer to Him as “the G‑d above all gods”. Opposing His will is impossible for them, since they are aware that their life and being come from Him: they are fed from the outermost, “back of the back” level of the Supreme Will, which surrounds them. The only flaw is that this nourishment and vitality is exiled within them, so that they regard themselves as gods, and this amounts to denying His oneness.

Even so, they never reject G‑d outright by declaring “He does not exist”. They name Him “the G‑d above all gods”, acknowledging that their life and being descend to them from His will. That is why they never act against it.

If so, the person who goes against His will, blessed be He, is much, much lower and baser than the sitra achra and kelipah called “idolatry” and “other gods”. He is more utterly separated than it from the unity and oneness of the Holy One, blessed be He, and it is as though he denies His oneness more than it does, G‑d forbid.

So it is written in Etz Chaim (Gate 42, close of chapter 4): the evil of this material world is the sediment of the gross kelipos…, the last stage of the refining process…; and so every matter in this world is hard and bad, and the wicked hold sway in it…

That is why our Sages commented on the verse “Should a man’s wife go astray (tisteh)”: “No one sins [unless a spirit of folly (shtus) has come into him].” Even a woman who strays, frivolous as she is, would have overcome the pull of her passion were it not for that spirit of folly. It veils and masks the hidden love of her G‑dly soul, which yearns to hold fast to belief in G‑d, His unity and oneness, and never to be parted from His oneness, heaven forbid, even if it cost her life to refuse to serve an idol, heaven forbid, even by a mere bow with no inner belief at all. How much more, then, would she overcome her urge and her lust for adultery, since that is a far smaller pain than dying, may G‑d spare us.

Her treating adultery differently from bowing to an idol is itself a spirit of folly from the kelipah. That spirit reaches the G‑dly soul up to its chochmah, but not into chochmah itself, because the light of G‑d rests in chochmah, as chapter 19 explained.

In absolute truth, though, even a minor transgression places the one who does it in opposition to the Supreme Will, blessed be He, and cuts him off from His unity and oneness more completely than the sitra achra and kelipah termed “alien gods” and outright “idolatry”, and more than everything that flows from it into this world: the impure domestic and wild animals and birds, and the insects and reptiles. As the saying has it, “The gnat preceded you.” Even the gnat, which consumes and never excretes, the lowest kelipah and the most remote from holiness [holiness being the giving even to what is utterly remote], stands ahead of the sinner in the downward flow of life from the Supreme Will, blessed be He. Much more so the remaining impure creatures, and the predatory beasts too: none of them deviates from its assigned role, and His decree preserves their spirit, “and though it does not see, [its mazal, its spiritual source, does see].” So the verse says: “Fear and terror of you will fall upon every animal of the land,” and our Sages taught: “A wild animal attacks a person only if he looks to it like a beast.” Before tzaddikim, whose faces never lose the divine image, every predator submits, as the Zohar relates concerning Daniel among the lions.

If so, one who sins and goes against His will, blessed be He, even with a light sin, is at the time of the act at the utmost distance from the supreme holiness, which is His unity and oneness, blessed be He, more than all the unclean creatures and the creeping and crawling things that receive their flow from the sitra achra and the kelipah of idolatry.

As for saving a life overriding the other prohibitions, and the rule “let him transgress and not be killed”: this is as our Sages explained, “The Torah said: desecrate one Shabbos for him, so that he may keep many Shabbosos.” It is not because of how light or severe the sins are.

[Proof of this: Shabbos is severe and equal to idolatry regarding the slaughtering of one who habitually transgresses one particular commandment (Yoreh De’ah, section 2), which is not so for one who habitually transgresses in forbidden relations. And even so, saving a life overrides Shabbos but not forbidden relations. Rather, it is a decree of Scripture.]

Once the sin has been committed, however, if it is not among the sins punished by kares [spiritual “excision”] or by death at Heaven’s hand, his G‑dly soul has not died entirely or been severed from its root in the living G‑d; its bond with its root and its grip on it have merely been weakened somewhat by this sin,

Note: The ways the soul is cleansed and punished, in Gehinnom or in this world, vary with the degree and kind of harm done to the soul and to its root above: each iniquity and sin has its own punishment, to wash away the stain and repair the harm. Even among the sins that carry death or kares, not all do the same harm.

then his vital, animal soul, which is clothed in his body, and his body too, return and rise up from this sitra achra and kelipah, and come close to the holiness of the G‑dly soul clothed in them, which believes in the One G‑d. Even at the time of the sin it was faithful to Him, blessed be He; only it was in a state of real exile inside the animal soul from the sitra achra, which makes the body sin and brings it down with it to the depths of She’ol, lower and lower, beneath the impurity of the sitra achra and the kelipah of idolatry, may G‑d save us.

No exile is worse than this: falling “from a lofty rooftop [into a deep pit]”. For, as chapter 2 explained, every Jewish soul is rooted and sourced in supernal Wisdom, which is one with Him…

Picture a man who seizes a king by the head, drags him down, and thrusts his face into a latrine overflowing with filth. No disgrace could exceed this, even if it lasts only a moment. For the kelipos and the sitra achra are termed “vomit and excrement”, as is known.