Chapter 37: Building G‑d’s Home: Mitzvos, Charity and Torah

This ultimate completion, in the era of Mashiach and when the dead come back to life, is the unveiling of the Infinite light, the Ein Sof, here inside the physical world. And it hinges on what we do and how we serve G‑d through all the long years of exile.

The reason: a mitzvah is what earns its own reward (see Avos 4:2). In performing it, a person brings the Infinite light down from on high and lets it settle into the physical stuff of this world, into objects that until then belonged to kelipas nogah and drew their vitality from it. Such are all the clean, permitted materials used for a practical mitzvah: the parchment of tefillin, of a mezuzah, of a Torah scroll, for the Sages taught that “nothing may be used for Heaven’s work except what is clean and may be eaten” (Shabbos 28b, 108a); an esrog that is free of orlah;

Note: Orlah stems from the three wholly unclean kelipos, which can never be elevated, as Etz Chaim explains. The same applies to any mitzvah that is reached by way of a transgression, Heaven forbid.

money for tzedakah that was honestly come by; and so on.

Once a person carries out G‑d’s instruction and desire with these objects, the vitality inside them ascends, melts away and merges into the Infinite light, which is His desire vested in them. For in a mitzvah G‑d does not conceal Himself at all; nothing there masks His light.

So too the energy of the animal soul that moves the body’s limbs as the mitzvah is done: it too is invested in the deed. It leaves the kelipah, joins the sanctity of the mitzvah, which is G‑d’s desire, and melts into the Infinite light.

Torah learning, reciting the Shema, praying and similar acts work the same way. Strictly speaking they are not physical deeds belonging to kelipas nogah, yet the law rules that merely thinking is not the same as speaking (Berachos 20b): no one discharges his obligation until his lips form the words. The law further rules that moving one’s lips counts as a deed (Bava Metzia 90b). The G‑dly soul has no way to sound words through lips, mouth, tongue and teeth, physical organs that they are, other than by means of the animal soul, which inhabits the body’s limbs. Hence the more force someone puts behind his words, the larger the share of animal-soul energy that goes into them.

That is what the psalmist means by “Every bone in me will declare [G‑d, who compares to You?]” (Psalms 35:10). It is also what the Sages taught: “When [the Torah] is arranged in all 248 limbs, it endures; otherwise it does not endure” (Eruvin 54a). Forgetting is caused by the kelipah of the body and of the animal soul. Their source is kelipas nogah, which can at times be absorbed into holiness: this happens when a person exerts himself and pours his entire strength into the sanctity of learning or of prayer.

Go further. The animal-soul energy that dresses itself in spoken words of Torah or prayer and the like, or in practical mitzvos, draws all its growth and vitality from the blood, and the blood belongs to kelipas nogah itself. It was formed from everything the person ate and drank, all of which stood under nogah’s rule and lived from it. Now that food is transformed from bad into good and taken into holiness, by way of the animal-soul energy it produced, which has now entered these words or this deed. Words and deeds like these are G‑d’s deepest desire itself, where He hides nothing. So the vitality of the food also merges into the Infinite light, which is His desire, and with it the animal-soul energy merges and ascends.

In this way the whole of kelipas nogah, which is the general vitality of this coarse, physical world, will also ascend. That will happen once the collective soul, the G‑dly soul of the entire Jewish people, which branches into 600,000 particular souls, carries out, every single soul of it, all 613 commandments of the Torah:

the 365 prohibitions, which keep the animal soul’s 365 blood vessels from drawing sustenance and vitality, by way of a transgression, from the three wholly unclean kelipos, the source of the Torah’s 365 prohibitions and of the rabbinic laws that branch off them. Once fouled by those three kelipos, the animal soul would be unable to ascend to G‑d, for those kelipos never ascend; they are destined to be utterly abolished, as the verse says, “I will drive the unclean spirit out of the land” (Zechariah 13:2); and the 248 positive commandments, which bring the Infinite light down here, so as to lift the entire animal soul, in all 248 limbs of the body, up to G‑d, attaching and merging it with Him in complete oneness, a true union, in keeping with His desire for a home among the lowest of realms. They thus become a vehicle for Him, as were our forefathers.

So once the animal soul of the whole Jewish people has become a holy vehicle for G‑d, the general vitality of this world as well, now kelipas nogah, will emerge from its defilement and grime and ascend into holiness, itself becoming a vehicle for G‑d. That is when His glory is unveiled, “and every creature of flesh will see it as one” (Isaiah 40:5), and He will show Himself to them in the beauty of His majestic might; “the entire earth will be full of G‑d’s glory” (Numbers 14:21); and the Jewish people will see face to face, as they did when the Torah was given, as it says, “It was shown to you so that you would know: the L‑rd alone is G‑d; apart from Him there is no other” (Deuteronomy 4:35).

And that is how the three wholly unclean kelipos will be abolished and erased entirely: at present their sustenance and vitality from holiness reaches them only by way of kelipas nogah, which sits between them and holiness.

The conclusion: whether the days of Mashiach and the revival of the dead come to full realization, meaning the unveiling of His glory and G‑dliness and the expulsion of the unclean spirit from the land, depends on two things. One is bringing G‑d’s light, the Infinite light, onto the animal soul of the whole Jewish people, through all 248 of its limbs, by its keeping the 248 positive commandments. The other is driving the unclean spirit out of that animal soul by its observing the 365 prohibitions, so that its 365 blood vessels draw no sustenance from that source.

The reason is that the Jewish people, composed of 600,000 particular souls, is what animates the entire world, which exists for their sake (cf. Rashi on Genesis 1:1). Each of them contains, and is linked with, the vitality of a 1/600,000 share of the world. Elevating that share to G‑d depends on the elevation of that person’s animal soul: it rises as he makes use of this world for what his body and animal soul need in serving G‑d, such as food and drink, his house and everything he owns.

The 600,000 particular souls are roots; every root splits into 600,000 sparks, and each spark is a single neshamah. The nefesh and the ruach in each of the four worlds, Atzilus, Beriah, Yetzirah and Asiyah, divide in just the same way.

Every spark descended into this world, though the descent is enormous and an exile in every sense. However great a tzaddik he becomes, serving G‑d with awe and with an intense love full of delight, he will never regain the closeness to G‑d, the awe and love, that he had before entering this coarse world, nor even a fraction of it. The two do not compare in the slightest, as anyone with sense understands, for the body cannot contain it, and so forth. Why, then, did the spark descend and take on a body and an animal soul? Solely to mend them and to free them from the evil of the three unclean kelipos, by keeping the 365 prohibitions and the laws that branch from them; and to lift his animal soul, together with its share of the whole world, and attach and merge them with the Infinite light. He draws that light onto them by keeping all 248 positive commandments through his animal soul, since it is the animal soul that carries out every practical mitzvah, as was said earlier.

Etz Chaim (Gate 26) likewise states that the neshamah itself requires no mending at all … and had no reason to enter this world … other than to bring down light that mends them … And this is precisely like the hidden meaning of the Shechinah’s exile, whose purpose is to sift out the sparks …

All this explains why the Sages extolled tzedakah so greatly, declaring it the equal of every other mitzvah together (Bava Basra 9a). The Jerusalem Talmud consistently calls it simply “the mitzvah,” since in everyday speech tzedakah went by that name: it is the core of the practical mitzvos and outranks them all. Every one of those mitzvos exists only to lift the animal soul to G‑d, because the animal soul performs them and enters into them, merging with the Infinite light that is vested in them. And no mitzvah takes in the animal soul as fully as tzedakah. In any other mitzvah a single faculty of the animal soul is invested, and only for as long as the mitzvah takes. But when a person gives tzedakah out of what he earned with his own effort, the full vigor of his animal soul certainly went into the labor or trade that brought in this money. By giving it away to tzedakah, he lifts his entire animal soul up to G‑d.

Even someone who does not support himself by his own labor is in the same position: this money could have bought the things that sustain his animal soul’s life, so in giving it he hands his soul’s very life over to G‑d.

Hence the Sages’ teaching that tzedakah hastens the redemption (Bava Basra 10a). A single gift lifts a large portion of the animal soul, more of its faculties and vigor than a person would lift through a number of other practical mitzvos.

The Sages also taught that Torah learning matches all the mitzvos together (Mishnah, Peah 1:1). That is because learning engages the faculties of speech and thought, the animal soul’s innermost garments. Moreover, when someone learns with concentration and comprehension, the animal soul’s very faculties of chabad (wisdom, understanding, knowledge), in their core and substance, which belong to kelipas nogah, are drawn into holiness itself.

Beinonim, it is true, cannot take hold of the core and substance of their emotional faculties, chesed, gevurah, tiferes and the rest, and turn them into holiness. The reason is that evil holds a firmer grip on the emotions than on chochmah, binah and daas, because there [the kelipos] take in more nourishment from holiness, as those versed in Kabbalah know.

There is a further reason, and it is the chief one for Torah learning’s superiority over every mitzvah. It rests on the teaching of the Tikkunim cited earlier (chapter 23), that “the 248 mitzvos are the King’s 248 limbs.” In a human being, by way of illustration, the vitality in the 248 limbs bears no comparison at all to the vitality in the brain, the intellect with its three faculties of chabad. In the same way, to use an illustration infinitely removed from the reality, the Infinite light vested in the practical mitzvos cannot compare with the Infinite light vested in the chabad of Torah’s wisdom, as each person absorbs it according to his intelligence and comprehension.

This holds even though he understands it only in its physical garb, for Torah is likened to water, which flows down from a height …, as was explained earlier (chapter 4).

Even so, the Sages taught, “What counts most is not learning but doing” (Avos 1:17), and Scripture says, “This day, to carry them out” (Deuteronomy 7:11) [the present world is the place for deeds]. Learning is set aside for a practical mitzvah that no one else can carry out (Moed Katan 9b). For “that is all of a human being” (Ecclesiastes 12:13): the goal for which he was created and sent down into this world is that G‑d should have a home precisely among the lowest beings, where darkness is changed into light, until G‑d’s glory fills this entire physical world itself and “every creature of flesh will see it as one,” as explained earlier.

But where others can perform the mitzvah, learning is not set aside for it (Moed Katan 9b), although all of Torah is nothing but an elaboration of the practical mitzvos. The reason is that Torah is, so to speak, the wisdom and understanding of Ein Sof itself (its chabad). Someone immersed in it brings down onto himself the Infinite light with a force and character incomparably beyond the light he brings down through the mitzvos, which are “the King’s limbs.” Hence Rav Sheshes’ words: “Be glad, my soul! It was for you that I learned Scripture, for you that I learned Mishnah” (Pesachim 68b), as discussed at length elsewhere.

The flow of radiance that a person, through learning Torah, draws down and makes shine from the Infinite light onto his own soul and onto the souls of the whole Jewish people, namely onto the Shechinah, Knesses Yisrael, the wellspring of every Jewish soul, as later chapters will explain (chapters 41, 52), has a name: kriah, “calling,” as in the phrase korei baTorah, “calling out in the Torah.” By learning, he summons the Holy One, blessed be He, so to speak, to come to him, the way someone summons a friend to join him, or the way a little child calls out to his father to come and stay close, not to go away and leave him on his own, Heaven forbid.

So the verse reads, “G‑d is close to everyone who calls on Him, to everyone who calls on Him with truth” (Psalms 145:18), and “truth means nothing but Torah” (Tanna Devei Eliyahu Zuta, chapter 21): calling Him by way of Torah in particular. Someone who does not summon Him through learning, and only cries “Father! Father!”, is a different case; over such a person the prophet grieves, “No one calls out Your Name” (Isaiah 64:6), as explained elsewhere. One who understands will take this to heart and arouse in himself deep awe as he learns, as explained earlier (chapter 23).