Chasidut su Ecclesiaste 7:20

What has he done with the years of his life? He now asks himself, “what could I have done with my years?” How fortunate he would be if he had led every day of his life according to the Torah, in purity and piety. At the very least he would have learned to conduct himself in the proper way. That is to say, at the very least he would have eaten, drank, even conducted his business, with the express intention that it was all only in order to allow him to serve God. Even if he did not reach the level where all of his actions were completely dedicated to the service of God, at least he would have kept that goal in mind. If he could do it again, at the very least he would keep the consciousness of this yearning for closeness to God, His kedushah, and His Torah before him at all times. If only he could go back in time, he would always look deep inside himself, and see clearly every defect of his character, every blemish of his soul, and work with all of his strength to fix them and become whole. And even though it is a nearly impossible task to fix everything that has been mentioned, and no one, not even the greatest Tsaddik can stand before the heavenly court in total innocence,¹⁴⁹Koheles, (7:20), “for there is no righteous man in the land who shall do (only) good and not sin.” still, he would have known that he would be punished in Gehinom for those infractions, and after paying his debt, the Blessed One would return to him and bind his soul in the source of Life. Yet now surely he would not be so fortunate. Even if he had something in his defense that could aid in his acquittal on high, still, since he feels his own guilt and negligence so strongly, how could he even think about being released from doing hard time in hell? He shudders at the thought.

The meaning is that there are many channels of abundance through which the abundance travels by any means until it arrived below to the person. But the person’s corruption below causes blockage in the channels; and that is how he comes, by way of his corruption, to the place of the judgments. The judgments stand and accuse and do not allow the life-force, the abundance, to travel to this person; and this is called “blocking the channels.” The virtue of tithing is to transcend the judgments and sweeten the judgments until the judgments consent to the influence of the blessing below, on account of their having been sweetened. And we must understand why this is: for it is known that “In the measure with which a man measures, so is he measured” (Sotah 8b); however a person behaves below, in a certain characteristic, so is it aroused above. If he arouses [in himself] the characteristic of compassion, the same is aroused above as well; and through this he causes sweetening of the judgment. But if, God forbid, the opposite, etc. And therefore through tithing – which is tzedakah – this also causes compassion above on account of his arousing the characteristic of compassion below. And so it is for all the characteristics: a person must offer himself to the Good and imitate his Creator as our Sages of Blessed Memory said, “Just as [God] is compassionate, etc.” (Massekhet Soferim 3.13). Now, regarding Abraham it says, Abraham was old, well advanced in days, which is duplicative language. But it is known that the upper characteristics are called the “thirteen arrangements of seniority;” and that is the connotation of old, that he had arrived at all the “arrangements of seniority,” which are called old. In upper days, he offered himself, with all the characteristics and days, to the upper Good – the place where there are no judgments at all. And that is [the meaning of] “By what merit:” “merit” [z’khut] connotes success as in, “I did not succeed [zakhiti] etc.” (Mishnah, Berakhot 1.5). Surely there is not a righteous man on earth [who does good and never sins] (Ecclesiastes 7:20), but here it is written, and the LORD, “He and His house of judgment,” implying that [the judgments] consented to bless [Abraham]! And is it possible that there would not be a single judgment to obstruct the descending of abundance? So they taught, “By the merit of tithing” as it is written, And Abram gave him a tenth of everything (Gen. 14:20); as is stated above, that this sweetened the judgments until they consented, “He and His house of judgment” all together, to a complete blessing as we have explained.