Chapter 41: Awe first: the servant and the son

Still, a person must keep firmly in view, at every moment, where divine service begins, what it rests on and what its root is. Here it is: fear is the source of “depart from evil” and love the source of “do good,” but stirring up love by itself is not sufficient for doing good. At the very minimum one has to begin by stirring up the natural fear concealed in every Jewish heart, the fear of defying the King Who reigns over all kings, the Holy One, blessed be He, a point discussed earlier, and bring it out into the open in his heart, or if not there, then at least in his mind.

What this means is that, at the least, he should turn over in his thoughts how great the Ein Sof (the Infinite), blessed be He, is, and how His sovereignty reaches across every world, the higher ones and the lower ones. He “fills every world and surrounds every world,” as Scripture says, “Is it not I who fill the heavens and the earth?” And yet He sets the higher and lower worlds to one side and rests His sovereignty particularly upon His people Israel as a whole, and upon this man himself, for each person must say, “For my sake the world was created.” He, in turn, takes that sovereignty on himself and makes G‑d his King, to serve Him and carry out His will in every task a servant performs.

“And see, G‑d is standing over him,” and “His glory fills the entire earth,” and He is watching him and “probes his innermost thoughts and his heart” to see whether his service is what it ought to be. His service before Him must therefore be filled with awe and trembling, as someone does who stands before a king.

He should dwell on this thoroughly and for a good while, to the full reach of his mind and thought and as long as his time permits, before he takes up Torah study or a mitzvah, before he puts on his tallis or his tefillin, for instance.

He should further reflect that the light of the Ein Sof, blessed be He, the light that surrounds every world and fills every world and is the Will above, is vested in the letters of the Torah and in its wisdom, and in the tzitzis and the tefillin. As he learns, or as he puts them on, he brings that light down upon himself, that is, upon the “portion of G‑d from above” housed in his body, so that it is swallowed up and dissolves into His light, blessed be He.

With the tefillin specifically, [he should intend] that his divine soul’s chochmah and binah (wisdom and understanding) dissolve and be swallowed up in the chochmah and binah of the Ein Sof, blessed be He, which are vested precisely in the sections “Kadesh” and “Vehayah ki yeviacha” [two of the four sections inside the tefillin]. In practice: he is not to put his soul’s wisdom and understanding to work for anything other than G‑d. In the same way, his soul’s daas (knowledge), which contains chesed and gevurah, the love and the fear in his heart, should dissolve and be swallowed up in the daas above, which also contains chesed and gevurah and is vested in the sections “Shema” and “Vehayah im shamoa.” That is the meaning of the Shulchan Aruch’s words: “to bring the heart and the mind into submission….”

As he wraps himself in tzitzis, his intention should follow the Zohar: he is drawing down onto himself the sovereignty of G‑d, blessed be He, His rule over every world…, which is conferred on us precisely by way of this mitzvah. It is in the spirit of “Set a king over yourself.”

And then, even if all this reflection does not bring any visible fear or trembling into his heart, still, he has taken the sovereignty of Heaven on himself and drawn the fear of Him over himself in his mind’s thought and his brain’s will, and that acceptance is wholly genuine, without a doubt, since every Jewish soul is by nature unwilling to defy the holy King, blessed be He. Therefore the Torah he learns, or the mitzvah he does, on the strength of this acceptance and this fear in his mind, is counted as “perfect service” (avodah shleimah), just like any service a servant renders to the master who is his king.

It is different when his learning and his mitzvah come from love alone, from wanting to cleave to Him by means of His Torah and mitzvos. That does not count as “a servant’s service,” whereas the Torah commands, “And you shall serve G‑d your G‑d…,” and “Him you shall serve….” The Zohar puts it this way (Parashas Behar): “Just as an ox first has the yoke put on it so that it may bring benefit to the world…, a person too must first take on himself the yoke of Heaven’s kingship…, and if he lacks this, holiness does not settle upon him….” [And the Raaya Mehemna there, page 111b, says:] every person needs both qualities, both levels: being a “servant” and being a “son.”

There is, it is true, a “son” who is a “servant” as well; but that level cannot be attained unless one first has the higher fear (yirah ila’ah), as those versed in these matters know.

Further: take even a person who feels no fear or shame at all, even in mind and thought, because his soul stands low, deriving from the lower grades of the ten sefiros of Asiyah. Even so, because his service is meant as service of the King, it counts as complete service (avodah gemurah). Fear and service are two distinct mitzvos among the 613, and the absence of one does not hold up the other.

Beyond that, he really does keep the mitzvah of fear too, by calling the fear to mind. For in that hour and that moment, at any rate, the fear of Heaven is upon him, at least as much as the fear one has of an ordinary person, not a king at all, who is looking on, which would keep him from doing anything that person would think wrong. That too is fear, as Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai told his students: “May it be [G‑d’s] will that your fear of Heaven be like your fear of flesh and blood…, for you know that when someone sins he says, ‘Let nobody see me….’”

This kind of fear, though, is named the “lower fear” (yirah tata’ah) and “fear of sin,” the fear that precedes wisdom, whereas the “fear of shame” is the “higher fear”…, for “one fear is not like another….” Yet with no fear whatsoever, love by itself will not carry [his service] aloft, just as one wing will not lift a bird; fear and love are the pair of wings [as the Tikkunim says].

In the same way fear by itself is a single wing and will not carry his service aloft, though it does earn the title “a servant’s service.” He needs the quality of a “son” as well: at the least, to stir up the natural love concealed in his heart and bring it out at least into his mind, keeping in his thought and will his love for the One G‑d and his wish to cleave to Him, blessed be He.

That is what he should intend as he takes up this Torah or this mitzvah: that his divine soul and his vital soul, together with their garments, should cleave to Him, as described earlier.

Our Sages, however, taught: “A person should never cut himself off from the community.” So his intention should be to join and bind to Him, blessed be He, the root of his own divine soul together with the root of every Jewish soul. That source is the breath of His mouth, blessed be He, named Shechinah because it rests and is vested in every world, bringing them to life and keeping them in existence; and it is what grants him this very power of speech to say words of Torah, or this power of action to carry out this mitzvah.

The union happens as the light of the Ein Sof, blessed be He, is brought down here below by engaging in the Torah and mitzvos, where that light is vested.

His intention should be to bring His light, blessed be He, over the root of his own soul and the root of every Jewish soul and so unite them. (What this union means is explained at length further on; look there.) That is the sense of the words “To unite the Holy One, blessed be He, with His Shechinah, on behalf of all Israel.”

Note: This also softens the gevuros (severities) within the chasadim (kindnesses), as the middos blend and unite when the Will of the One on high, blessed be He, is revealed. That Will is revealed above in response to the stirring from below, its disclosure here below in the engagement with Torah and mitzvos, which are His Will. As the Idra Rabbah and Mishnas Chassidim (Tractate Arich Anpin, chapter 4) teach, the 613 mitzvos of the Torah issue from the “whiteness” of Arich Anpin, which is the Will above, the wellspring of the chasadim.

Granted, for his heart to hold this intention sincerely and really long for this higher union, his heart would need an “abundant love” (ahavah rabbah) directed to G‑d alone, wishing only to bring Him gratification, not to slake the thirst of his own soul that thirsts for G‑d, but “as a son who exerts himself for the parents he loves above his own body and life…” [as cited earlier from the Raaya Mehemna]. Even so, everyone should train himself in this intention.

For even if it is not wholly sincere in his heart, so that he wants it with his entire heart, there is still some small measure of his heart that genuinely wants it, thanks to the natural love in every Jewish heart for doing the will of the One on high, blessed be He. And this is what His will truly is: the higher union in Atzilus, which is brought about by the stirring from below, by the divine soul uniting with the light of G‑d vested in the Torah and mitzvos it engages in, and dissolving into that light until the two are actually one, as described earlier. Through that, the Holy One, blessed be He, the source of Torah and mitzvos, is joined as well to the source of his divine soul, the one called Shechinah. These two correspond to the two levels of “filling every world” and “surrounding every world,” discussed at length in another place.

As for his own soul uniting with the light of G‑d and dissolving into it until they are one, that is something every Jew wants in full truth, with his entire heart and soul. For the natural love concealed in every Jewish heart makes him want to cleave to G‑d and never to be divided, severed or set apart in any manner from His Oneness and Unity, blessed be He, though it cost him his life.

Engaging in Torah, mitzvos and prayer is, moreover, an actual giving over of the soul (mesirus nefesh), like the soul’s departure from the body when seventy years are done. At that point it gives no further thought to what the body needs; its thought is joined to and vested in the letters of Torah and prayer, which are G‑d’s own word and thought, blessed be He, and the two are actually one. That is all the souls do in Gan Eden, as the Gemara and the Zohar describe, except that there they enjoy the delight of grasping the light of G‑d and dissolving into it.

That is why [the Sages] placed at the opening of the morning blessings, before prayer, the words: “My G‑d, the soul You placed in me is pure…. You blew it into me…, and in time You will take it from me….” Meaning: because You blew it into me and will in time take it from me, I already now hand it back to You, to join it to Your Oneness, as Scripture says, “To You, G‑d, I raise up my soul.” That is, I bind my thought to Your thought and my speech to Your speech by way of the letters of Torah and prayer, and above all when I address G‑d directly as “You,” as in “Blessed are You,” and so on.

This readiness to give his soul over to G‑d is how he should open the morning blessings, “Blessed are You….” It is likewise how he should open the set session of learning that follows straight after prayer. And at midday too, before he starts to learn, this preparation is needed at the least. For as is known, for beinonim the essential preparation “for its own sake” (lishmah), where it is indispensable, comes at the start of the learning. Compare a get (bill of divorce) or a Torah scroll: each has to be written for its own purpose or it is unfit, and yet it suffices for the scribe to declare as he starts writing, “I am writing for the sake of the sanctity of a Torah scroll,” or “for him and for her….”

If he learns for many hours on end, he should bring this preparation to mind at least once an hour. Each hour a fresh flow comes down from the higher worlds to sustain the lower ones, and the previous hour’s flow goes back up to its source [the pattern Sefer Yetzirah calls “running and returning”], carrying up with it every bit of Torah and every good deed done below. For each of the day’s twelve hours is ruled by one of the twelve permutations of the Name Havayah, blessed be He, and the night by the permutations of the Name Adnut, as is known.

Now, his whole purpose in giving his soul over to G‑d through Torah and prayer, and in bringing the G‑dly spark within it back up to its source, should be solely to bring gratification before Him, blessed be He, like the joy a king feels when his only son returns to him freed from captivity and prison, as described earlier.

Every Jewish soul holds this intention honestly and fully, at every moment and hour, thanks to the inborn love handed down to us from our forefathers. Even so, one has to set aside times to contemplate G‑d’s greatness so as to reach fear and love that grow from understanding, and with all that, perhaps…, as described earlier.