Halakhah zu Chabakkuk 2:4

(Dalet) [This also explains the following.] Many were troubled as to why the Lord did not accept the repentance of the first Adam and ‘return the sword of death to its sheave.’ But it appears to me like what I wrote in Paragraph Gimmel in the name of the writings of Ari, that with the sin of man, the divine spirit [blown into man] returns to God – [even if it] returns back to [man when he repents]. And this is the intention of the saying of the Sages, may their memory be blessed, [that] a penitent ‘is like a newly born infant’; and [that] about him is it stated (Ps. 102:19), “that a people created will praise the Lord” (Yalkut Shimoni on Nach 855:12). According to this – before the sin of the first Adam, his composition was [completely] from [God], may He be blessed. And [so] he was designed by the hands of the Holy One, blessed be He, who gave him a portion of [Himself. Hence] it was fitting that it not wither and that it should remain in a man. However after the sin when the divine portion withdrew and then – when he repented – [God] returned the divine portion, it was as if [man] made himself; and he [then] had the aspect of “a people created.” And the works of man cannot remain in a man (such that he would live forever), but rather only in the species [as a whole]. And from then, ‘death has arisen through our window.’ And with this, [we can] understand that which is found in the Midrash (Eichah Rabbah 5:21), “‘Bring us back O Lord to You and we shall repent, renew our days as of old’ (Lam. 5:21) – as the days of the first Adam.” [This is] meaning that we want there to be an arousal from above first, and that the repentance be from the Holy One blessed be He; and afterwards, “we shall repent.” And then we shall [again] be designed by the hands of the Holy One, blessed be He, ‘and we shall live and not die.’ And this is like the days of the first Adam before his sin, in which only by doing the commandments of the Lord can he preserve the divine portion within him forever. And he will [then] always have the aspect of a well. And this is the intention of their statement,¹⁷The reference is not clear. See Jacobs, “Rabbi Aryeh Laib Heller's Theological Introduction,” Note 15. may their memory be blessed, [that] “And the righteous shall live by his faith” (Hab. 2:4), is meaning in his trust [of God]. As he does not have trust in all of his wealth, since money is not independent. But rather, ‘his heart is set with the Lord,’ and “he will live by his faith.” And that is what is called life – that which emanates from himself.