Chasidut su Salmi 128:78

God desires that man receive his reward based on his own efforts. Then it will be called (Tehillim, 128:2), “You will eat based on the work of your own hands, fortunate are you, and it will be good for you.” This is as the Jerusalem Talmud states (Orlah, 1:3), “Someone who receives his food from another is ashamed to look his benefactor in the face.” One who receives a free gift cannot receive it face to face. This is as it is said in the Gemara (Pesachim 118a), “What did David have in mind when he said, ‘His mercy endures forever’ twenty-six times?²⁸In Psalm 136. They correspond to the twenty-six generations from the creation of Adam until the giving of the Torah, which were all sustained purely on God’s benevolence.”²⁹In other words, until the generation that the Torah was finally given (the 26th from the creation of Adam), human beings were sustained through G-d’s benevelence, and not in response to their own deeds. This state, however, does not fulfill G-d’s intention for the world, and were the Torah not given, the world would not have been able to continue.

Therefore, from the moment the Torah was given, the world is no longer solely sustained by God’s benevolence. At the giving of the Torah, God showed even greater kindness, which is called, “eating from the effort of your hands” (Tehillim, 128:2).⁴³That is, human beings were not in a give-and-take relationship with God, and the life and vitality that He bestowed upon creation was an expression of His gratuitous love. However, with the giving of the Torah, mankind could now earn God’s goodness through fulfilling the Torah – “the effort of your hands.” This allows for an even greater degree of closeness. Even though everything still comes from God’s benevolence, it was God’s desire that with the giving of the Torah man should perform actions which enable him to be conscious of God’s light and the knowledge of God’s existence in this world. This is called, “the effort of man’s hands.” The Torah is the sum-total of all of the creation. With the Torah, every person capable of arriving at the entire level of understanding that God allotted for his creation. This is as it is said in the Zohar (Yitro, 83b): All of the later generations were summoned there, and they all received the Torah at Mount Sinai, each one as befit him. Everything in the Torah is applicable to every individual person. This is as the Zohar says (ibid.): “And God spoke all of these words, saying…” (Shemot, 20:1, directly before the Ten Commandments). “Spoke all of these words,” means – all of these meanings, all of these secrets, all of these mysteries, decrees and punishments. “Saying” – means in order for it to be a uninversal inheritance, as it is written (Devarim, 33) “Moshe commanded the Torah to us as an inheritance.” A story is told in the Midrash Rabbah (Vayikra, 9:3), “Rabbi Yannai saw a man who was finely dressed in the manner of a scholar. He invited him home, and in the course of the conversation discovered that he had no Torah knowledge whatsoever, not in the Gemara, Mishnah, or the Chumash. When the man wanted to lead the Grace following a meal, as is the custom for a guest, Rabbi Yannai said, ‘You may do so by saying these words: “A dog at Yannai’s bread.’” The man seized Rabbi Yannai by the collar and said, ‘You are withholding my inheritance!’⁴⁴That is, “you are denying me a relationship to the Torah.” Rabbi Yannai said, ‘What is your inheritance?’ The man said, ‘Once I was walking past a school, and I heard the children saying, “Moshe commanded us the Torah, an inheritance of the community of Yaakov.” The Torah does not say, “An inheritance of the community of Yannai,” but rather, “An inheritance of the community of Yaakov.”’”⁴⁵The continuation of the story: “Rabbi Yannai then wanted to know in what merit this man was eating at his table. The man said, ‘In my entire life, I always kept silent upon receiving an insult, and I never saw two people arguing and did not make peace between them.’ Embarrassed, Rabbi Yannai said in shame, ‘You possess such good behavior, and I called you a dog.’”

Indeed the awareness of your enjoyment is as we have described, but there is more to it. There are reasons behind your enjoyment, and these reasons are unknown to you. Similarly, this enjoyment that you are aware of, the satisfaction of victory, is rooted in something unknown to you. A portion of your soul has stripped away a polluted garment of evil hisragshus, and you have now gained the revelation of this portion of your soul. The secret reason behind your newly found enjoyment is the closeness to kedushah that your perseverance has afforded you. Yes, it has brought you closer, but be aware that you have come closer to the kedushah that exists within yourself. You have come closer to your soul. Consider how far away you had been, and the great step you now took to come back. You took an awakening of desire within you and used it to reveal a portion of your soul rooted in the face of the ox on God’s holy chariot, now revealed free of the evil garment. Therefore, dear Bachur and Avreich, if you truly want to take good care of your soul and be a baal nefesh, then don’t wait any longer and seize the opportunity. Take this revelation and awakening of your soul and use it in the same way that you did with the first and second kinds mentioned above, namely expanding the revelation and pouring it into a mitzvah or Torah study, which is equal to them all.²⁰⁴Peah, 1:1 see birchas haTorah. “Talmud Torah cneged culam” meaning that every form of Torah study assists and expands the revelation of the soul and aids in the rectification of desire. And it shall be well with you.²⁰⁵“ve’tov lach,” See Tehillim 128:2, “You shall eat the work of your hands; happy shall you be, and it shall be well with you.” The Talmud notes, “happy shall you be – in this world, and it shall be well with you – in the world to come.” Which means for our context that such inner work, the rectification of desire and the revelation of the soul as expanded by Torah and mitzvos will benefit the health and strength of man’s soul in the world to come.

(211) And for a person to reach this level at all, of checking themselves, there is one advice. A person is a mixture of good and evil, the body tends to what is physical and to bodily pleasures, and the soul tends to spiritual things, and in order to subdue the physical so the physical will too tend to spiritual things, and so that the physical becomes a shape, a person needs to break their desires of all those physical pleasures, and choose the way of Torah, that is " you shall eat bread with salt, and rationed water shall you drink; you shall sleep on the ground, your life will be one of privation, and in Torah shall you labor. If you do this, “Happy shall you be and it shall be good for you” (Psalms 128:2): “Happy shall you be” in this world, “and it shall be good for you” in the world to come" (Pirkei Avot 6:4). And the commentators already wondered regarding what is happiness in this world? And it seems to me that there is no privation greater than the great and permanent war against the evil inclination, which never stops day or night, as the great sage said "you came from a small war, prepare yourselves for a great war etc" (Duties of the Heart, Fifth Treatise on Devotion 5:6). And behold, the yetzer hara does not arouse itself only in regards to food and drink and physical pleasures, as it says "and Jeshurun got fat and kicked" (Deuteronomy 32:15); and "and you ate, you were satisfied and your heart grew haughty" (Deuteronomy 8:14); however, when a person conducts themselves in the ways of the Torah, the yetzer hara has no entrance to seduce that person, and therefore the person has rest from the great war, and from the sensation of privation of the yetzer hara, and so it is good for that person also in this world, as one is quiet and rests from the great war.