Chasidut su Isaia 5:32

And if you do not understand this on your own, with your own mind, please listen to the words of Isaiah the prophet (Isaiah 5:7) - "For the vineyard of the Lord of Hosts is the House of Israel, and the seedlings of his delight are the men of Judah." The whole House of Israel is the vineyard of the Lord and the individual Jewish man is His precious [vine]. Hence the Lord delights in him - so long as he follows His path, the path of the Torah. So you too, Jewish lad, are a small vine. When we are speaking to you now, we do not know with whom we are speaking. And you also don't know who you are and who you will be, when you grow in your divine service and in your Torah. [Perhaps] you will be a tzaddik and a giant, the name of whom will spread from one end of the world to the other; or perhaps even a wealthy servant of God distinguished by Torah [knowledge] and fear [of God], a great philanthropist - good to the Heavens and good to the creations - who will be the glory of the entire Jewish people, such that every father and mother will bless their children by saying, "May the Lord make you like him." How well have we heard about many great men of Israel that were not noticed as being any greater than their friends when they were little. But when they dedicated themselves to His service, may He be blessed, they grew and succeeded. And they became ensconced forever at the head of the Jewish people; the entire House of Israel is sheltered under the shade of their Torah and their service. and we will continue to walk by their light until the advent of our messiah.

This indicates that it is not the performance of wonders, nor portents, which constitute the primary, essential nature of the prophet. Rather, it is his closeness to God. This is the little extent to which we, with our limited understanding, are able to surmise regarding the nature of the prophet: he purifies his body until it becomes as a soul,¹⁹⁴LeNefesh; that is, spiritualized. Vide Maimonides, Laws of the Foundation of the Torah 7:1. and through this purification he merits to complete deveykut with God, the ‘iron wall’¹⁹⁵For an early usage of this idiom, signifying separation between Israel and God, see Talmud Berakhot 32b. of materiality separating him from the holy has been nullified. When his entire essence becomes attached to the holy, his supernal avodah is as the doings of the sefirot and the service of the angels. Actually, his avodah is even higher, as his body is incorporated in this holiness and dveykut. This is not a soul which soars and clings to God when only when separated from the body, nor a soul which though within a body grasps what it grasps on its own. This is a body which has become soul; and two together—body and soul—perform heavenly avodah. The prophet also eats, and also has children (Isaiah 5:3).¹⁹⁶It is unclear what relevance the cited work—Isaiah 5:3—bears for the notion that prophets engaged in eating and procreation. These were all sefirotic actions—his eating is that of ‘eat, lovers, and drink,’¹⁹⁷See Songs of Songs 5:1. as it known from the Zohar: unifications of Hokhmah and Binah, Tiferet and Malkhut,¹⁹⁸Respective sefirotic elements, with male and female characters. See Glossary, ‘Sefirah/ot.’ and the birthing of souls—for the unifications of the prophet were his legacy. ¹⁹⁹See, for example, Zohar 3, Vayikra, 4:1.

Note that even though we will not itemize all the illnesses of the soul and their remedies in this book - like a peddler with his wares - nevertheless just like we spoke about the illnesses of laziness and laxness because they are so central and someone struck by them is unable to take the first step in the world of divine service; so too must we speak about the sickness of individualism here. For it is a hopeless illness; and one struck by it, God forbid, descends into the pit. And to our sorrow, it has spread a great deal today among those lads and young men who lack sense and have hearts of stone. Every such lad or young man thinks of himself as an independent self - he knows how to act and he knows what is good and bad for himself. So there are times when the teacher or the father will tell him something and guide him, yet it appears in the eyes of such a student that he knows better. And because of that, he looks at his teacher as a tyrant who is coming to force him to do something just because that's what [the teacher] wants. So the heart of the student is distanced from his rabbi through this - to the point that all of [the rabbi's] words, Torah and guidance will not [convince the student that the rabbi seeks his good]. So if the student does not hasten to expel this bad trait from his heart - to destroy it completely from within him to the point that nothing is left of it - his end will be bitter, God forbid: There is no hope for such a boy and no good virtue will come from him. And even the good things and good character traits planted into the hearts of all Jews will become corrupted, twisted and rotten in him; they will all turn to evil, God forbid. With his mind, he will actually learn the opposite [of what is intended], to call the bad, good; and the good, bad. He will use his traits for the bad - what we need to love, he will hate; and those things we need to distance, he will love and bring close. Also about him does the prophet lament (Isaiah 5:2), "he hoped it would yield good grapes; instead, it yielded bad grapes." The mind of a Jew and the good traits planted in him as a Jewish young man and that God had hoped would become good grapes - he made into bad grapes. Everything is corrupted and becomes poisonous grapes and bitter clusters.