Chasidut su Salmi 111:78

I thank God with all my heart,³This opening is based on the verse in Tehillim (111:1). In the counsel⁴“Sod,” in Hebrew, means both counsel and mystery. “In the counsel of those who remain,” “b’sod hanisharim” in Hebrew, is a play on the words of Psalm 111, “b’sod yesharim,” “in the mystery of the upright of heart.” This leads us to the simple principle that the unknown becomes known through proper counsel, which is the aim of this treatise. It is also an allusion to the four major works penned by this author, collectively called Sod Yesharim, as mentioned in the introduction. As is often the case regarding the titles of Hasidic works, the numerical equivalent of the phrase, “sod yesharim,” is “Gershon Henokh.” (=630) It may be that this equation is the least significant of the mysteries contained in the pages of this book. of those who remain⁵“Those who remain and those who love,” refers to members of each generation who yearn for Divine truth. It is as though, at this point in the opening of the work, the author is inviting the souls of the great Torah masters of the past; for he is entering into a battle of the spirit, and not going alone. His polemic is not only armed and positioned with a regiment of prophetic spirits, but with the prophets themselves and the One who speaks to them. All God fearing men who enter into a dialogue with the soul and the “penimiyut,” or internal aspect of the Torah are a part of the counsel, and all who revere the message and morals of prophets and kabbalists and are worthy of the mystery. and those who love, ⁶cf. Megilla 6b, “אוהבי שרידים יושבי רקת”. According to Rashi, “lovers of Israel.” Those who thirst for God’s word, Those love His Torah with truth and wholeness. They do not learn the Torah as a woodsman sharpens his axe, in order to earn a living.⁷See Pirkei Avot, 4:5, Nedarim 62a, where the Sages speak sharply against those who use the Torah in order to gain honor or riches. Nor do they adorn themselves in it like a fur coat.⁸כאדרת שער, cf. Bereshit 25:25, “And the first came out all red, like a hairy garment.” Esav, the hunter, the man of the field, would put on the act of righteous to win his father, Yitzhak’s favor. Those who, “adorn themselves in the Torah as one wears a fancy coat,” were religious men whose saintliness was more an expression of self-aggrandizment than inner dedication. The author was known as a bold fighter, and not afraid to compare many of the self-styled scholars and holy men of his generation to Eisav. Yet they bend their ears to hear the words of the sages. Their hearts yearn to know the truth.

“The beginning of wisdom is the fear of God.” (Tehillim 111:10) The consciousness called the fear of God is the vessel a person needs to receive the Torah,¹⁷⁸On a simple level, “receiving the Torah,” means “observing the commandments”; on a deeper level, it means perceiving the very root of the Torah, which is a revelation of God. as it is written (Yeshayahu 33:6), “The fear of God is His storehouse,”¹⁷⁹That is, the fear of God holds and stores something; in this case, the Torah. and, as the first part of this verse says, “He shall be the stability (emunah) of your times.”¹⁸⁰The entire verse reads: “He shall be the stability of your times, a store of salvation, wisdom and knowledge, the fear of God is His storehouse” (Yeshayahu, 33:6). The Talmud (BT Shabbat 31a) regards each of the attributes as hinting to another order of the Mishnah: “Stability-Faith” - Zera’im (Seeds); “Your times” – Moed (Festival); “Strength” – Nashim (Women); “Salvation” – Nezikin (Damages); “Wisdom” – Kodoshim (Holy Things) and “knowledge” –Tehorot (Purities). The order of Zera’im deals with the laws of planting, harvesting, tithes, etc. It is alluded to by the word “emunah” (meaning both faith and stability) because a person with faith in God will plant. (See, Tosefot, ibid., who cites the Jerusalem Talmud.) There is a deeper relationship between these two uses of the word, as well. In Judaism, in general, faith is not necessarily an abstract feeling or concept, but a level of stability and unwavering commitment, in the sense of “faithfulness.” “Nevertheless,” says the Talmud, “without the fear of God as a storehouse, one has nothing.”¹⁸¹The last statement, “The fear of God is His storehouse,” does not hint at a particular body of knowledge or tract, but rather to the key ingredient needed in order to preserve the knowledge of all the preceding categories. Without the fear of God, or the intense awareness of God’s conduct of the world, joined with an understanding that God both rewards and punishes, the treasures will be lost. In other words, without the fear of God one cannot truly fulfill the Torah. The first consideration is faith,¹⁸²The verse from Yeshayahu begins with a reference to emunah (stability, faith) and ends with a reference to fear of God (the storehouse). This alludes to the author’s statement above, that faith precedes fear, while fear gives context to faith. which is the root of the fear of God, whereas the fear of God is the vessel which holds faith. But what kind of faith are we talking about? It is the kind in which a person believes that God is all-powerful and exalted. On this, the Zohar writes:¹⁸³Introduction, 11b.“In the beginning God created…” This is the very first commandment, which is called, “Fear of God.” The fear of God is called, “the beginning,” as it is written, “The beginning of wisdom is the fear of God,” and (Mishlei 1:7), “The fear of God is the beginning of knowledge.” It is the gate one must enter in order to arrive at faith.¹⁸⁴The reader may notice a contradiction here. Above, R. Gershon Henokh stated that faith preceeds fear of God; here, the Zohar states that fear of God precedes faith. As will become clear below, there are two types of faith: a deep, inner certainty in God’s existence, which leads to fear andn awe of Him, and a higher type of faith, which actually transcends the limited intellect and the duality of this world, which is the result of this type of fear. In this way, the whole world depends on this commandment. There are three aspects to the fear of God. The first two lack a correct foundation, which the third one has. The first kind is when a person fears God in order that He not bring harm upon his children,¹⁸⁵In retribution for the father’s own sins. or in order not to personally suffer physical retribution or financial loss.¹⁸⁶Such as on account of his transgressions. He fears God constantly for these reasons, yet his fear lacks a foundation. The second kind is when person fears God in order not to suffer punishment in the world-to-come or in Hell.¹⁸⁷Gehinom, more accurately translated as purgatory. These two kinds of fear are not true expressions of the fear of God. The third and true expression is when person fears God solely because He is the Great and Sovereign Ruler of the universe, the root and source of all the worlds, and that everything is considered as nothing before Him, as it is written (Daniel 4:32), “All the inhabitants of the world are considered as naught before Him.” One should place all of his desire on this place which is called “fear.”¹⁸⁸Notice how the author, using this passage from the Zohar, has changed the definition of fear. It is no longer centered upon the human being and his concerns, reducing God’s greatness in the process; rather, it opens a person to the absolute transcendence of God and takes him beyond his petty concerns – ultimately into a Divine realm that transcends logic and duality, as we will see below.

“Blessings upon the head of a righteous man” (Proverbs 10:6). This is why the Talmud begins with Tractate Blessings (Berakhot), for it is the essence of everything: “Know the god of your father” (Chronicles I 28:9), and afterwards, “serve him,” for you have to know for whom you are serving. This is why a person says a blessing before each ritual act, to dedicate all of his actions to God, as the verse says, “In all your ways, know him” (Proverbs 3:6), as Maimonides wrote. This is accomplished by making the blessing, as the rabbis said the requirement [in terms of necessary age for making a blessing] is a child who knows to whom he is blessing (Bavli, Berakhot, 48a), as opposed to the rest of the mitsvot which have no requirement of knowing to whom one is making the blessing, such as phylacteries or the like. It is clear that the essence of a blessing is the knowledge of to whom the blessing is being made, and blessings were instituted for this purpose. This is the beginning of entering into Torah, as the verse says, “The beginning of wisdom is the fear of God” (Psalms 111:10). Fear of God is achieved through “I have placed God before me always” (Psalms 16:8), as Rabbi Moses Isserles wrote in a comment at the beginning of Oraḥ Ḥayyim. This explains why all blessings begin with direct, second-person, address (lashon nokhaḥ), because right at the beginning of the blessing God must be present (nokhaḥ) before a person’s eyes, as if God is standing in front of and commanding him. The conclusion is in third-person, because God immediately disappears, as the verse says, “Over his nestlings he hovers” (Deuteronomy 32:11), making contact and then moving away, as is known.

Deuteronomy 18,4. “and the first shearing of your ‎flocks you shall give to him. (the priest).” ‎‎
[Our author explains the meaning of the word: ‎גז‎ in ‎terms of how different attributes of G’d are derived from the ‎numbers 3 and 7. As the subject is one for advanced students of ‎Kabbalah, I have decided to omit it Ed.].‎

Exodus 3,1. “he came to the mountain of G’d, to ‎Chorev.” ‎חכמה‎, “wisdom,” is also known as ‎חרבה‎, a point ‎made by the Raa’vad in his introduction to the Sefer ‎Yetzirah describing G’d’s essence. David, in psalms 111,10 ‎defines the basic ingredient of wisdom as reverence for G’d. This is ‎the deeper meaning of Moses having being afraid to “look” at G’d, ‎as reported in verse 6 of our chapter.‎

Going back to Rashi’s first commentary on the first word in the Torah, where he quoted ‎Rabbi Yitzchok saying that the reason that the Torah does not commence with the first verse in ‎Exodus chapter12, is that the Torah wanted to allude from the beginning by teaching the concept ‎כח מעשיו הגיד לעמו לתת להם נחלת גויים‎, “He revealed to His people His powerful works by giving ‎them the heritage of (other) nations.” (Psalms 111,6) This is important to know in the event that ‎the nations will dispute the Jewish people’s claim to the Land of Israel as being their heritage. As ‎the Creator and hence, owner, of the entire universe, G’d has the right to allocate parts of it to ‎whoever He chooses.
Expressed differently, since in the words of the introduction to the Zohar, page 5, (based ‎on Proverbs 8,30 (Torah speaking) “then I was with Him (G’d) as an artisan,” i.e. G’d ‎used the Torah and its letters as the tool with which to create the universe; it follows that every ‎part of the universe is imbued with some letter of the Torah.
Just as man is charged to perform the Torah’s commandments with the various limbs of his body, ‎‎(248), so earth is also charged with the task of performing “commandments” appropriate to its ‎composition. The expressions ‎פי הארץ‎, ”the earth’s mouth,” or ‎עין הארץ‎, “the earth’s eye,” are ‎more than just figures of speech. Each of our limbs exudes the living essence of the letter of the ‎Torah that corresponds to a specific commandment that limb is supposed to perform. Joshua was ‎able to conquer seven lands (of the Canaanites) because he understood what it was that enabled ‎each specific land to remain “alive.” Similarly, every city in those countries had been charged since ‎creation with performing certain duties vis a vis its Creator. Joshua’s knowledge of ‎these duties enabled him to “conquer” these towns and countries with a minimum of Jewish blood ‎being shed in the process.‎
According to the introduction of the Zohar page 5, there is no part of the physical ‎universe that does not in some way reflect the meaning of one of the letters in the Torah. If any of ‎these cities were to confront the invading Jewish armies by calling them “robbers,” Joshua was ‎able to remind them that the previous residents in these towns had only leased the land, but had ‎never owned it, as it is G’d’s property. What could be more natural than that the Jewish people, ‎who by definition serve their Creator by observing the commandments of the Torah, should now ‎make their home on this part of the earth. This is what the psalmist meant when he quoted G’d as ‎having revealed to His people the inherent strength of all His works, ‎כח מעשיו הגיד לעמו‎. Wish that ‎G’d were to grant each one of us the wisdom and the purity of heart to be conversant with the ‎specific commandment that is incumbent upon each limb in our body to perform.‎

Another approach to the last paragraph. it is the ‎duty of every Jew to serve his Creator at all times from ‎feelings of awe and fear and to look at fellow Jews with ‎a benevolent attitude, interpreting actions that appear ‎inappropriate in a favourable light, and not to harm ‎any fellow Jew; the first step in serving G’d is always ‎based on fear, awe. Man’s awe when serving G’d ‎results in a mixture of awe and satisfaction, pleasure. ‎Moses had attained this level of possessing wisdom ‎while at the same time remaining in awe of the ‎Creator, as we know from psalms 111,10 ‎ראשית חכמה יראת ‏ה'‏‎, “all wisdom has its beginning in a feeling of awe and ‎respect of G’d,” and is therefore symbolic of ‎יראה‎, while ‎Aaron’s name contains the letters ‎נהר א‎, i.e. the letter ‎אלף‎ of the word ‎יראה‎, and the letters spelling “water” in ‎the sense of a blissful stream, providing irrigation, the ‎first such water that we find in Genesis 2,10 i.e. ‎ונהר יוצא ‏מעדן‎, “and a river originated from Eden, and irrigated, ‎etc.” Awe and fear lead to satisfaction ‎תענוג‎. Seeing that ‎the term ‎יראה‎, awe, cannot be an attribute of the ‎Creator, and ‎תענוג‎, the feeling of pleasurable ‎satisfaction preceded the dispensation by G’d of His ‎largesse to Israel, (the process being comparable to ‎what our sages meant when they said that “the cow is ‎more intent of nursing the calf than the calf is ‎consciously looking for its mother’s milk,”) when it ‎comes to the results of Moses and Aaron intervening in ‎the process of preparing Pharaoh to release the ‎Israelites, Moses is mentioned first when the Torah ‎writes: ‎הם המדברים אל פרעה מלך מצרים להוציא את בני ישראל ‏ממצרים‎, “they were the ones speaking to Pharaoh to ‎permit the Children of Israel to leave ‎Egypt.”[By mentioning Aaron last, the Torah ‎associated him with the execution directly; he was ‎mentioned immediately before the word ‎להוציא‎, “to ‎release,” i.e. the type of largesse about to be dispensed ‎by G’d to the Jewish people. Ed.].‎
I have heard in the name of my revered teacher ‎Rabbi Dov Baer from Mezerich that he explained ‎Proverbs 10,1 ‎בן חכם משמח אב‎, “a wise son brings joy to ‎his father,” as Solomon paraphrasing the relationship ‎between Jews loyal to Torah and their Father in heaven. ‎When a Jew serves his Father in heaven he causes Him ‎satisfaction and joy. Similarly, when someone makes ‎complimentary remarks about fellow Jews, G’d also ‎derives pleasure from such compliments. We are not to ‎serve G’d for selfish reasons at all, such as the reward ‎we have been promised for doing this. We must strive ‎to provide G’d with satisfaction from our service to ‎Him. This is so although there are a few benedictions ‎in the 19 benedictions of the amidah, the ‎central prayer, in which we ask for something for ‎ourselves, such as intelligence to serve G’d properly, ‎the ability to repent our sins, and a cure for our ‎diseases. Seeing that G’d derives pleasure from our ‎prayers, even these benedictions in which we turn to ‎Him for help, also give Him pleasure. G’d derives ‎pleasure from the very fact that we, His people, enjoy ‎our existence on earth. This is what the sages had in ‎mind when they responded to the question ‎‎(Bereshit Rabbah 3,4) ,‎מהיכן נבראת האורה‎ “from ‎where did the light in which G’d garbed Himself ‎originate?” The word for “light” in that ‎‎Midrash is ‎אורה‎ as opposed to ‎אור‎, the light G’d ‎had created on the first day (Genesis 1,3) ‎‎[There the word for “light” was in the ‎masculine mode, whereas in the Midrash it is in the ‎feminine mode, reminding us that it was something ‎passive, received. Ed.] The answer given by ‎Rabbi Shmuel ben Nachman in that Midrash is that it ‎originates from the site on which the Holy Temple was ‎built. The Talmud, pursuing this subject also asked ‎whence the light originated from.‎
‎[I have not been able to authenticate what ‎follows, supposedly in the Talmud. Ed.]‎
The Talmud wonders whence the light in which G’d ‎drapes Himself originates. Seeing that the word ‎אורה‎ ‎used for “light,” is in the feminine mode it must have ‎been created at some time, having been the recipient ‎of input from another source. Seeing that man needs ‎to serve the Lord for the sake of providing Him with ‎pleasurable satisfaction, ‎תענוג‎, as opposed to our ‎receiving blessings and material benefits in the earthly ‎part of the universe, the question is logical. The ‎answer given in the Talmud to the question posed is ‎that G’d derives pleasure from man’s service which ‎enables Him to dispense His largesse to man. He even ‎enjoys prayer when it is offered as a means to secure ‎this largesse. The reason He does so is because the ‎very fact that He has reason to dispense this largesse is ‎a source of satisfaction for Him.‎

[At this point, some editions of the Kedushat ‎Levi contain an additional lengthy paragraph dealing with ‎what Moses had in mind when he told the people that G’d’s ‎demands on them were minimal, i.e. ‎‏ ועתה מה ה' אלוקיכם שואל ‏ממכם‎ in 10,12.
The gist of that paragraph is that the author, ‎instead of as is customary distinguishing between two levels of ‎יראת ה'‏‎, “fear of the Lord,” viewing the lower level of that as fear ‎of punishment for sins committed, whereas the loftier level being ‎a recognition and feeling overwhelmed by the greatness of G’d, ‎does not consider fear of punishment as even a “low” level of ‎יראת ‏ה'‏‎. As this editor has not attained the author’s level of ‎comprehending such concepts sufficiently, I have not dared to ‎try to translate his words into English. Ed.]‎

When the psalmist, in psalms 111,4 says of G’d: ‎זכר עשה ‏לנפלאותיו‎, “He has made a memory for His wonders,” the question ‎arises why ”wonders” need to be commemorated by a special ‎זכר‎? ‎We would have thought that their very having occurred is their ‎memorial! The psalmist answers this unspoken question in the ‎latter half of the same verse when he says: ‎חנון ורחום ה'‏‎, ‎‎“Hashem is gracious and compassionate.” At the sea of ‎reeds G’d demonstrated that in spite of His being compassionate ‎He deliberately suppressed this attribute by drowning the ‎Egyptians in order to “save” the Israelites. This “canceling” of one ‎of His major attributes on account of the interests of the Jewish ‎people is what are referred to both by the psalmist, and by Moses ‎in the shirat hayam, the song of thanksgiving, as ‎נפלאותיו‎ or ‎פלא‎, “wonderful, amazing.”‎
The second type of ‎ישועה‎, “rescue” is when G’d garbs Himself ‎in the “clothing” worn by nature, i.e. makes use of natural law ‎without disturbing its normal function. A well known example of ‎such an event is the “miracle” of Purim, which according to all ‎that we know about it did not contain any elements that could be ‎described as interference with the natural course of events.‎
Achashverosh married Esther, and due to his jealousy of ‎Haman who he thought had tried to rape his wife Esther, he ‎hanged Haman. A similar “miracle” resulted in the festival of ‎Chanukah, the king or chief general of the Seleucids lusting after ‎Yehudit and trying to rape her, resulting instead in his being ‎killed by her, and his army becoming demoralized. In both the ‎examples mentioned, many thousands of gentiles, antisemites, ‎were killed in due course.
The subject becomes easier to ‎understand by means of a parable. A King built a palace for his ‎son; originally, he had meant for his son to live in that house. ‎After a while, some wicked people expelled the son from this ‎house. It would be appropriate for the house that had served as ‎the protector of its inhabitants to not only protest this action ‎but to take counter measures. However the house, i.e. the stones, ‎are immobile, as pointed put by Chabakuk 2,11. Seeing that the ‎stones of the house are immobile, they are powerless. The world ‎was created for the sake of the Jewish people, i.e. the world is our ‎‎“house,” as G’d has told Pharaoh that the Jewish people are His ‎firstborn son when viewed in terms of the parable. (Exodus 4,22) ‎When the gentile nations dispossess us or kill us, the “world” ‎ought by rights to rise up in our defense. As this is not possible, ‎the owner of the world, G’d, will do this instead. This is why the ‎numerical value of the word ‎טבע‎, nature loosely translated as ‎‎“world,” is the same as the numerical value of the word ‎אלה-ים‎, ‎G’d, i.e. 86. When “nature” smites the gentile nations, it is the ‎same as G’d smiting them. The world is the sum total of the ‎Creator’s creative activity. G’d may be perceived as its father. The ‎expression ‎מעשה בראשית‎, a simile for the 6 days of G’d’s creative ‎activity, contains the word ‎ראשית‎, “beginning,” i.e. that the final ‎product of G’d’s creative activity had been planned from the very ‎beginning, i.e. as a home for the Jewish people, who are the whole ‎purpose of G’d’s beginning the creation of the universe. At the ‎conclusion of this process, ‎אחרית‎, the Creator garbed Himself in ‎what we are fond of calling ‎טבע‎, “nature,” and all that this term ‎entails. When Moses said in Deuteronomy 32,18 ‎צור ילדך תשי‎, “you ‎‎(his people) neglected the Rock that begot you,” his words ‎expressed similar sentiments.‎
Before someone opens his mouth to say something, a person ‎considers if the words he is about to utter are the ones ‎appropriate for expressing his wish. If he wishes to make a ‎request, he thinks about how best to phrase such a request in ‎order that it may be granted. By changing his mode of speech, he ‎becomes a totally new person. When G’d issued directives to ‎create the universe, He created the whole world with these oral ‎directives. (Compare psalms 33,6 ‎בדבר ה' שמים נעשו‎, “the heavens ‎came into existence by a single word of the Lord”.) When it comes ‎to “saving” this world from impending destruction, using the ‎טבע‎, “nature,” as His instrument, He deals with something that is ‎established, and therefore employs a different means than the one ‎He had employed when bringing something into existence. ‎According to our author the word ‎טבע‎ is closely related to the ‎word ‎חנוכה‎, completing a training program, consecration, i.e. ‎establishing a kind of order, norms, imprinting a form on ‎something, as in ‎מטבע‎, coin. G’d no longer needs to resort to ‎something brand new, i.e. miracles.‎
When Esther is described as ‎אילה‎, a strong animal, (feminine ‎of ‎איל‎, ram) i.e. fully mature, our sages referred to the period of ‎overt miracles in Jewish history having come to an end in her ‎time, so that the salvation of the Jewish people in which she was ‎instrumental did not require G’d’s intervention by upsetting the ‎rules of nature through a miracle.
‎[If G’d were forever to have to resort to miracles to ‎achieve His purpose in the universe, this would reflect a basic ‎flaw in that universe. When at the end of the Purim story the ‎Jews are described as voluntarily accepting what they had ‎accepted at Sinai under tremendous pressure, this too is a ‎compliment to G’d, whose children had matured. Ed.]‎
The sages (at the beginning of 40,10) are quoted as seeing in ‎one of the branches which the cup bearer saw in his dream, the ‎young priests, the ones who would perform the sacrificial service ‎in the Temple in due course. If we revert to the allegorical ‎approach that the author has adopted, the ‎פרחי כהונה‎ that the ‎Talmud spoke about are the sacrifices offered in the Temple, ‎which are symbolic of how miracles become converted into ‎norms, ‎טבע‎, seeing that most communal offerings are closely tied ‎to certain days, weeks, months, or years, and these in turn ‎symbolise how what had come into existence as an overt miracle ‎at the creation, had been transformed into what we call natural ‎phenomena, i.e. manifestations in nature that are not only ‎predictable but can be calculated thousands of years in advance.‎
‎[The author tries again to bring the subject of ‎Chanukah into this portion, as the portion is always read around ‎that time of year, draws on the Talmud Shabbat 21 where the ‎subject is Chanukah. Ed.] The Talmud there stipulates ‎that the best time for lighting the Chanukah candles is the period ‎immediately following sunset until it has become so dark that no ‎more pedestrians are about. (There was no street lighting in those ‎days) Our author sees in this a symbol of the gradual switchover ‎from G’d performing overt miracles to working through letting ‎טבע‎ perform most of His intervention in the affairs of man. The ‎expression for complete darkness, used by the Talmud is ‎עד שכלתה ‏רגל מן השוק‎, usually translated as “until the pedestrians have ‎ceased walking in the public domain.” Seeing that the word ‎רגל‎ ‎does not only mean “foot, but is also directly related to ‎רגילות‎, ‎something habitual, he understands the Talmud as hinting at this ‎‎“getting used to seeing no more brilliant miracles,” as the period ‎following “sunset.” The expression used by the Talmud for sunset ‎is ‎שקיעת החמה‎, the word ‎חמה‎, “sun,” referring to something overt, ‎highly visible.‎ ‎

Based on all that we have seen, “We now know how to run after the knowledge of God, for His presence is prepared as the morning.”⁴⁷⁶Hoshea, 6:3. Here the Malbim notes that since the absolute knowledge of God is impossible, for at the pinnacle of knowledge one knows that he really doesn’t know (God being infinite), what remains is to find a way to increase one’s knowledge, for then, the more a person knows, the more he will be inspired to pursue further knowledge of God. And for this declaration, God answers us, saying, “for Israel, I shall be as the dew. She shall bloom as the rose, and cast her roots as the great trees of Lebanon.”⁴⁷⁷Hoshea, 14:6. All of this is “the beginning of wisdom, which is the fear of God,”⁴⁷⁸Tehillim, 111:10. leading all who fulfill the Torah to good understanding and to sing God’s praises, which stand forever.