Chapter 40: Love and Fear: The Wings of Torah and Mitzvos

Yet until he goes back and learns that same subject lishmah, for its own sake, what he learned cannot climb even into the ten sefirot that shine in Yetzirah and in Asiyah. The sefirot are G‑dliness itself; the light of the Ein Sof, blessed be He, is actually vested and made one with them, and as the Tikkunim puts it, “lacking fear and love it does not rise to stand before G‑d.” Such learning goes up only as far as the “chambers” and “dwellings”, the outer, external part of the worlds, which is where the angels have their place. Rabbi Chaim Vital, of blessed memory, says the same (Shaar HaNevuah, chapter 2): Torah learned with no kavanah brings angels into being in Yetzirah, and mitzvos performed with no kavanah bring angels into being in Asiyah. And every angel is a compound of matter and form.

Torah learned plainly not for its own sake, though, such as learning so as to be known as a scholar and the like, never ascends at all, not even as high as the chambers and dwelling of the holy angels. It is held down here, in our physical world, the dwelling of the kelipos,

Note: So the Zohar says (part III, 31b and 121b; look there): “That word goes up and pierces the heavens … and stirs what it stirs: if it is good, then good ….” And at 105a: “A word of Torah makes a sound, and that sound goes up ….” And at 168b: “The sounds of Torah and of prayer pierce the heavens ….”

just as the Zohar comments on the verse “What gain has a man from all his labor at which he labors beneath the sun?”: “Even labor in Torah, when he labors for the sake of his own honor ….” This is what the saying means, “Fortunate is the one who arrives here [above] holding his learning in his hand”: his learning was not left behind down in this world.

[Why, then, should Torah depend on kavanah in order to ascend,] when the Torah is entirely one with the Holy One, blessed be He, He and His will being one? The answer: the Holy One, blessed be He, does fill every world to the same degree, yet the worlds themselves differ. The difference lies on the side of those who receive, and it is twofold. One: the upper worlds take in a far greater light, beyond any measure, than the lower worlds do. Two: what they take in reaches them with fewer “garments” and “veils” around it. In both respects this world stands at the bottom. The light here has been narrowed as far as it can go, and that is why this world is coarse and material. And even that narrowed light arrives wrapped in layer upon layer of garments and veils, until it is finally clothed in kelipas nogah in order to sustain everything clean and permitted in this world, the vital, speaking soul of a human being among them.

Now take the vital soul when it says words of Torah or of prayer with no kavanah. Those words are holy letters, and the kelipas nogah of the vital soul does not act as a veil that conceals or covers, in any degree, the holiness of G‑d vested in them. Compare its idle speech, where that holiness is concealed and covered, as it is in the vital soul of every other clean living thing. True, there is no place devoid of Him, but He is “the most concealed of all the concealed” and bears the name “a G‑d Who hides Himself”; and likewise the light and vitality He sends forth are concealed within many heavy layers of garments and veils, until they come to be vested and hidden in the garment of nogah. With the holy letters of Torah and prayer this is not the case. Just the opposite: there the kelipas nogah itself is transformed into good and taken up into that holiness, as was explained earlier. Even so, the light of His holiness within them is narrowed to the last degree, since a voice and spoken words are physical things.

When a person prays with kavanah, though, or learns Torah with kavanah lishmah, the kavanah is vested in the spoken letters, for it is what they spring from: it is on its account and for its sake that he utters them. And so it carries them up to where it stands, among the ten sefirot of Yetzirah or of Beriah, according to whether the kavanah grows out of fear and love that come from understanding or from nature, and so forth, as described earlier.

In that place the light of the Ein Sof, blessed be He, radiates openly. That light is the will of the One on high, blessed be He, which is vested in the letters of the Torah being learned and in the kavanah behind them, or in the prayer and the kavanah behind it, or in the mitzvah and the kavanah behind it. There it radiates with an immense, boundless splendor, a splendor that can in no way radiate or come into view while the letters and the mitzvah remain here in the material world. That will wait for the close of history, when the world will be raised above its materiality and “G‑d’s glory will be revealed …,” as was set out at length earlier.

Note: Revealed there as well is the higher union (yichud elyon) that every mitzvah and every act of Torah learning brings about. It is the union of His middos, blessed be He, as they blend with one another, so that the gevuros (the forces of severity) are softened by the chassadim (the forces of kindness). This happens through an “hour of goodwill” of the Ein Sof on high, blessed be He, radiating in a powerful, sweeping revelation, called forth by the “stirring from below”: the doing of the mitzvah or the learning of Torah, where the will of the Ein Sof above, blessed be He, is vested. The principal union, however, takes place much higher, in the world of Atzilus. There His middos, blessed be He, are present in their essence, united with the Ein Sof, blessed be He, Who emanated them; and there too is the essential will of the Ein Sof on high, blessed be He. In Beriah, Yetzirah and Asiyah only a reflected glow of these radiates, in every world to the measure of that world. The soul of the one engaged in this Torah or mitzvah may not come from Atzilus. Still, the higher will vested in the mitzvah, which is the very halachah and Torah he is learning, is itself G‑dliness, the light of the Ein Sof Who emanates all, blessed be He; for He and His will are a single thing. It is through that will, blessed be He, that He emanated His middos, and they are one with Him. So when His will is revealed by this learning and this mitzvah, the middos blend with one another and the gevuros are softened by the chassadim, in that hour of goodwill.

This makes it clear why fear and love go by the name “wings”, as Scripture says, “and with two it flew” (Rabbi Chaim Vital, of blessed memory, explains in Shaar HaYichudim, chapter 11, that a bird’s wings correspond to a man’s arms …). The Tikkunim, too, teaches that people who occupy themselves with Torah and mitzvos in fear and love are named “sons”; if not, they are named “chicks”, too young to fly.

Note: Tikkun 45 says the bird is Metatron: the yud is its head, the vav its body, the two hei’s its two wings, and so on. That is the world of Yetzirah, called by the name Metatron, where the “bodies” of the Mishnah’s rulings are found. Its head is the intellect, chochmah, binah and daas: the inward dimension of those rulings, their mysteries and their reasons. Its two wings are fear and love, the two hei’s: the higher hei stands for love, and the lower hei for the lower fear, which is taking on the yoke of Heaven and trembling before G‑d, like the trembling one feels before a king. That fear is external and visible. The higher fear is different: a fear born of shame, belonging to “what is concealed is for G‑d our G‑d”. It is rooted in the higher wisdom, the yud of the Name Havayah, blessed be He, as the Raya Mehemna states.

A bird’s wings, after all, are not what it essentially is, and its life does not hang on them in the least, as the Mishnah teaches: “If its wings were taken off, it is still kosher.” Its essence is the head and the body; the wings only help those to fly. Torah and mitzvos are like this, to use the comparison. They are the essential thing: the higher union, brought about by the higher will that comes to light through them. Fear and love raise them up to the place where that will, the light of the Ein Sof, blessed be He, and the union are disclosed, which is to say, to Yetzirah and Beriah.

Note: Or even to Asiyah, to its ten holy sefirot, which are where the mitzvos of deed belong, and Scripture as well. With Mishnah, though, the union and the light of the Ein Sof, blessed be He, become manifest in Yetzirah, and with Talmud in Beriah. In other words: learning Scripture draws the union and the light of the Ein Sof, blessed be He, from Atzilus all the way to Asiyah; learning Mishnah, only as far as Yetzirah; learning Talmud, only as far as Beriah. All of them take place in Atzilus. Kabbalah, however, does not extend from Atzilus into Beriah, Yetzirah and Asiyah at all; so Pri Etz Chaim teaches.

Fear and love are themselves counted in the 613 mitzvos, and still they bear the name “wings”. The reason is that love exists for the sake of service done out of love. Love that does not issue in service is “love of delights”: taking delight in G‑d, a taste in advance of the World to Come and of the reward given there. And Scripture says, “This day, to perform them,” while “tomorrow” is “to be rewarded for them.”

As for someone who has not attained that level of tasting the World to Come, yet whose soul does crave and thirst for G‑d and yearn for Him the whole day long, and who still will not slake that thirst with the Torah’s water lying right before him: he resembles a man who stands in the middle of a river shouting, “Water! Give me water to drink!” This is the prophet’s reproach to such a person: “Ho, all who are thirsty, come to the water.” Read simply, the verse is hard to understand, for whoever is thirsty and wishes to learn will go and learn of his own accord; why should the prophet have to call out “Ho” to him? This is discussed at length in another place.