Bibbia Ebraica
Bibbia Ebraica

Musar su Isaia 12:78

Shaarei Teshuvah

And likewise should he put fasts, tears and abstaining himself from delights in the place of afflictions - as it is stated (Psalms 109:24), “My knees give way from fasting; my flesh is lean, has lost its fat.” And it is stated (Joel 2:12), “Turn back to Me with all your hearts, and with fasting, weeping, and lamenting.” And he should always sigh from the bitterness of his heart, as we mentioned in the first Gate about repentance. And he will place the abundance of bitterness in the place of afflictions, as it is stated (Proverbs 18:14), “A man’s spirit can sustain (yekhalkel) him through illness; but low spirits - who can bear them?” The explanation is that when the body becomes sick, the soul will sustain it [during ] its sickness - from the usage (in Malachi 3:2),“But who can bear (mekhalkel) the day of his coming?” [Here] it means to say - help the body and sustain it by speaking to its heart and comforting it to accept [difficulties] and to carry [them]. But when the soul is sick and low from grief and worry, who will console the soul, and who will hold it up and sustain it? Behold, worry and bitterness of the heart are heavier than sickness of the body - for the soul sustains the body in its sickness; whereas when the soul is sick and low from its grief, the body will not sustain it.
So if you find the sinner suffering, [with] troubles happening to him, justifying his judgement and accepting the rebuke with love - this will be a shield for him from the many afflictions that would be fit to come upon him. [It is] as it is stated (Psalms 76:11), “The rage of men shall acknowledge You, when You gird on the remnant of fury.” Its explanation is, when the pain of a man acknowledges You - meaning that a man acknowledges You at the time of his pain. It is from the usage (Job 6:2), “If my anger were surely weighed” - the meaning [of anger, like rage in Psalms 76:11,] is pain. “The remnant of fury” that had been opened to come upon the man - like the content of (I Kings 20:11), “Let not him who girds on his sword boast like him who opens it!” - gird and hold them back and do not bring them upon him. And this is by way of a comparison to one who opens his sword, but [then] returns it to its sheath. And it is stated (Isaiah 12:1), “Although You were wroth with me, Your wrath has turned back and You comfort me.” And likewise about the matter of acknowledgement for the good, it is stated (Psalms 52:11), “I praise You forever, for You have acted; I will hope in Your name, for it is good, in the presence of Your faithful ones.” Its explanation is - I will praise You for the good that You have done with me; and because of this, I will hope for the constancy of Your goodness. And it is stated (Psalms 116:13), “I will raise the cup of slavations and call out in the name of the Lord”; (Psalms 116:3-4) “I came upon trouble and sorrow. And I invoked the name of the Lord.”
And our Rabbis, may their memory be blessed, said (Midrash Tehillim 79) about the matter of that which is written (Psalms 3:1), “A song of David, when he fled,” “‘Justice done is a joy to the righteous’ (Proverbs 21:15) - the trait of the righteous is to pay their debts and to sing to the Holy One, blessed be He. [There is a relevant] parable about a housholder that had a sharecropper, and that sharecropper was in debt to him. That sharecropper [then] made a threshing floor [from his produce], gathered it together and made a pile. The householder came and took the pile, and the sharecropper entered his house empty-handed. But he was happy that he entered empty-handed. They said to him, ‘You left your threshing floor with your hands on your head (empty), and you are happy?’ He said to them, ‘Even so, the bill is [now] cancelled; I have paid my debt.’”
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Shenei Luchot HaBerit

The concept of שלמות הבנין and the acquisition by Jacob of the merit of חסד של אמת converge into one overall concept. The word ארץ appears here three times, (verses 3-4-7) We also encounter the expression היכל השם three times in Jeremiah 7,4. The Sanctuary called היכל השם is situated in a sacred ארץ. In commenting on Isaiah 12,6: כי גדול בקרבך קדוש ישראל, "For The Holy One of Israel will be great in your midst," our sages state that G–d will not take up residence in the Jerusalem "above" until He has been able to do so in the Jerusalem "below." The plain meaning of that statement is that the Jerusalem "below" is the Sanctuary in the Holy Land, ארץ ישראל, the Temple whose speedy rebuilding we pine for every day. This Temple is on a site that corresponds to the Sanctuary in the Celestial Regions. The Sanctuary in the Celestial Regions in turn is the סוד, mystical dimension of the ארץ העליונה, the "Earth" of the upper regions, also known as ארץ חפץ. Chabakuk 2,20 says of that land: וה' בהיכל קדשו הס מפניו כל הארץ, "And the Lord is in His Sanctuary, be silent before Him all the earth!" The Sanctuary of G–d, היכל, discussed here is that of the attribute known as א-ד-נ-י, the numerical value of which equals 65, the same as the numerical value of the word היכל. These two words also have the same numerical value as the word הס in the verse from Chabakuk quoted. The היכל is the ארץ של ישראל סבא, the land of the founding father of the Jewish people, Israel, otherwise known as תפארת ישראל a mystical dimension of the Ineffable Name.
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Shenei Luchot HaBerit

There are even higher regions than these. We find the deeper meaning of the coming of G–d to the Jerusalem on earth as per Isaiah 12,6, the name of G–d used: the Ineffable Name of G–d י-ה-ו-ה. In the היכל קדשו, we encounter a union between the name א-ד-נ-י, and the name י-ה-ו-ה seeing we have the equivalent of the name א-ד-נ-י in the letters of the word היכל, and the four-lettered Name in the same expression. The mystical dimension of a union in the terrestrial world is expressed by the letter ו, combined with the letter ה, i.e. י-ה-ו-ה is divided into two parts. The mystical dimension of a זווג, union, in the Celestial Spheres is the letter י followed by the letter ה. The Jerusalem of the Celestial Spheres is the union between the emanations חכמה and בינה. These principles are explained in the Zohar and quoted in Pardes Rimonim chapter 13 of the treatise called מהות והנהגה.
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Orchot Tzadikim

And thus if a man has any kind of troubles he must rejoice even so. And thus said the Sages : "Beloved are troubles" (Berakoth 5b). And the Sages said also : "He who rejoices in his pain brings salvation to the world" (Ta'anith 8a). And a man should accustom his mouth to say : "This too is for good" (Ta'anith 21a), or "All that the merciful God has done He has done for good" (Berachot 60b). For there are many apparent evils whose end is good, and thus did our Rabbis teach and interpret this portion of Scripture, "I will give thanks unto thee, O Lord; for thou wast angry with me, thine anger is turned away, and thou comfortest me" (Is. 12:1). They explained it with a parable of two men who walked, intending to board a boat. One of them had a thorn stuck into his foot so that he could not board the boat and when his companion boarded the boat the man bruised by the thorn began to curse his "evil fortune". After a time he heard that the boat had sunk and all the people in it had died. Then did he begin to praise the Creator, may He be Blessed, for he realized that the incident with the thorn had saved his life (Niddah 31a). Therefore, should a man rejoice with troubles and with other injuries that may befall him, for he does not know what good will be derived from them in the future. And thus did Nahum the man of Gamzu conduct himself (Ta'anith 21a).
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