Musar su Isaia 26:76

And now, if we come to the count, let a man reflect upon the great zeal he should devote to this; that is, to strengthen himself and to pray with a minyan each day. For from one day alone, from the prayers of shacharith and minchah, he has thirty-eight Amens from nineteen blessings of prayer [i.e., the Amidah], respectively [(And our sages of blessed memory have said (Shabbath 119b): "If one is careful in the answering of Amen, the gates of Gan Eden are opened for him, as it is written (Isaiah 26:2): 'Open, you gates, and let there enter a righteous nation, keeper of emunim [faith].' Read it not "emunim," but "Amenim."'")], and eight times "Amen, yehei shemei rabbah," and another sixteen Amenim from the Kadishim and two Kedushoth and Barchu.

And in Parshath Pinchas: "If one toils in Torah, he merits the opening of many gates before him in this world, and many lights. When he departs from this world, it [Torah] precedes him and goes to all the keepers of the gates and calls out and says (Isaiah 26:2): 'Open, you gates, and let the righteous nation enter.' 'Prepare a seat for Ploni, servant of the King.' For there is no rejoicing for the Holy One Blessed be He except in one who occupies himself with Torah — how much more so, one who stays awake at night to occupy himself with Torah. For all the tzaddikim in Gan Eden listen to his voice, and the Holy One Blessed be He prides Himself in him."

And they have said further (Ibid. 5a): "All who occupy themselves with the study of Torah remove afflictions from themselves, as it is written (Iyyov 5:7): 'And the sons of reshef will be dispelled by uf,' 'uf' alluding to Torah, as intimated in (Mishlei 23:5): 'If you glance away [hatauf] from it [Torah], it will be gone,' and 'reshef,' [alluding] to afflictions, as in (Devarim 22:29): 'Wasted by hunger, embattled by reshef'" ["reshef," in that it follows 'hunger,' also denoting afflictions]. And, in Tanna d'bei Eliyahu: "If you see afflictions coming against you, run to words of Torah, and, immediately, the afflictions will flee, as it is written (Isaiah 26:20): "Go my people; enter into your chambers [of Torah], etc.'"

The fifth level is a negative commandment that [involves] an action: Our Rabbis, may their memory be blessed, said (Makkot 13b), “We give lashes for a negative commandment that [involves] an action.” And the [number of] lashes is forty minus one. And our Rabbis, may their memory be blessed, said (Sanhedrin 10a) that lashes comes instead of the death penalty. And they said (Sanhedrin 81b), “Someone who was lashed and repeats [the sin], we put into jail (kippah). And it is an obligation upon the reprimanaders to investigate the ways of the people and to know what they are stumbling in. Since there are many [negative commandments] - even though they observe many of the [negative commandments), they [also] negate many of them. For example, they keep most of the prohibitions of work on Shabbat - but there are types of work that part of the people are not careful about, since they are not known to them. And their mistakes are attributed to themselves, since they did not lodge among the sages and seek Torah from their mouths. Hence they transgressed the practices and will be punished, as it is stated (Isaiah 26:10), “But when the evildoer is spared, he learns not righteousness.” And there are rebels that stumble in them; for they did not become accustomed to them in their youth, in the houses of their fathers, to be careful about them. And they inherited [the ways of] the fathers, and did not listen to the voice of their teachers. [Hence] these are doing [these] sins wantonly.

And, in truth, when a man reflects upon this, he should be ashamed and humiliated. How should we not trust in the L-rd? I shall begin with my explanation of (Isaiah 26:4): "Trust in the L-rd forever; for in Kah, the L-rd, is the Rock of the worlds." I have explained that "forever" comes to teach us that even in our time, when we see some hester panim ("hiding of the Divine Countenance"), when the ordinance [of the L-rd] is not so manifest as it was before, in the time of the Temple, wherefore there are found some heretics and rebels against the Holy One Blessed be He, still, one should "trust in the L-rd."

And all of our words are included in the [aforementioned] verse, in short, viz. (Isaiah 26:4): "Trust in the L-rd forever" — even when Jerusalem is in ruins and Israel is in exile, wherefore there are many rebels against the Holy One Blessed be He — even so, trust in the L-rd and He will help you. For the ability is still in His hand as before, and He certainly did also not remove His will completely from the world. For if not so, the creation would have been entirely annulled. For it is known that the Holy One Blessed be He vivifies the whole creation, as they have formulated for us in the blessing of Yetzer ["Yotzer hameoroth"]: "Who renews in His goodness, every day, always, the act of creation." And, as it is written (Nechemiah 9:6): "and You give life to all of them [the heavens, etc.]." It is not written "You gave life" (as stated in the Zohar.) And this is the intent of the ending of the verse (Isaiah, Ibid.): "For in Kah, the L-rd, is the Rock of the worlds." As Chazal have stated (Menachoth 29b), that the Holy One Blessed be He created this world with the letter "heh" from His name; and the world to come, with the letter "yod." And "Rock" [tzur] signifies strength. That is, His name, "Kah" [yod-heh] is, up to this day, the strength of the world. (As we find in Othioth d'R. Akiva, that the ends of heaven and earth are sealed with His holy name.) And if He removed His will from them [heaven and earth], they would revert to vacuity and void, as before the creation. From all this we can understand the greatness of the trust that one should put in the Holy One Blessed be He.

The Holy One blessed be He desires only faithfulness (honesty). In regard to this scripture states: "G-d guards those who are faithful" (Tehilim 31:24), and "Open the gates and let the righteous people that keep faith enter in" (Isaiah 26:2), and "My eyes shall be on the faithful of the land so that they may dwell with Me" (Tehilim 101:6), and "are Your eyes not to faithfulness?" (Jeremiah 5:3).

Also, since one is prone to forgetfulness in these fine details, he will need diligent study in the books explaining these fine details to renew remembrance of them in his mind. Then certainly, he will be roused to fulfill them.

However, the factors which cause loss of this trait are all those detriments to the trait of Watchfulness, in addition to lack of proficiency in knowledge of the laws and ethics (Mussarim) as I wrote above. Our sages already stated: "an ignorant man cannot be pious" (Avot 2:5). For one who does not know cannot possibly do. Likewise they taught "great is study in that it brings one to doing" (Kidushin 40b).

This is likewise as the prophet said: "to Your Name and to Your remembrance is the lust of [our] soul" (Isaiah 26:8), and "my soul yearns for You in the night; my spirit within me seeks You" (Isaiah 26:9). And David himself said: "when I remember You on my bed, through the night watches I meditate about You" (Tehilim 63:7). Thus he described the pleasure and delight he experienced when speaking of and praising G-d, blessed be His Name. Likewise he said: "I will delight myself in Your Commandments, which I love" (Tehilim 119:47), and "Your testimonies are my delight..." (Tehilim 119:24).

This is likewise as the prophet said: "to Your Name and to Your remembrance is the lust of [our] soul" (Isaiah 26:8), and "my soul yearns for You in the night; my spirit within me seeks You" (Isaiah 26:9). And David himself said: "when I remember You on my bed, through the night watches I meditate about You" (Tehilim 63:7). Thus he described the pleasure and delight he experienced when speaking of and praising G-d, blessed be His Name. Likewise he said: "I will delight myself in Your Commandments, which I love" (Tehilim 119:47), and "Your testimonies are my delight..." (Tehilim 119:24).

He then proceeded to reveal to them additional insights of great depth, whereupon Rabbi Yehudah and Rabbi Yitzchak came and kissed him on the head and said, “Blessed is the Merciful One who allowed us to hear these things. And blessed is the Merciful One for not allowing these things to be wasted on that old man.” Then they arose and began walking. They spied a grapevine growing in a certain garden and the child began, “He will bind his donkey-foal to the vine and the son of the donkey-mare to the vine-branch” (Bereishis 49:11) — “The idea is this: The ‘foal’ and the ‘mare’ are two potent shells of impurity. In order to weaken their power so that they will not confuse the world the Holy One Blessed is He formed the world with the name Ya-h, as it is written, ‘For with Ya-h Hashem formed the worlds’ (Yeshayahu 26:4). “This is what is hinted at here, that the Holy One Blessed is He took the name Ya-h (י-ה) and included it within the word for ‘his foal.’ For the verse should have said simply ‘foal’ (עיר), but it said ‘his foal’ (עירה) instead, to include the letter heh of the name Y-h within it. “Similarly, the word ‘branch’ should have been written soreik (שׂורק) but instead it is written with an extra heh at the end, soreikah (שׂורקה), while the word ‘son’ is written with an extra yud — b’ni (בני) instead of ben (בן).” The child then went on to reveal to them other esoteric insights.

כי בי-ה ה' צור עולמים . This means that the universe, i.e. the עולם הבא, was created with the letter י, whereas the עולם הזה, the material world, was created with the letter ה. The Mishnah in Avot 5,1 already told us that G–d created the universe with ten מאמרות, directives. The first of these was אחדות, Unity, as we will explain later. The term דביקות, attachment, refers to something that is ongoing, everlasting, as we know from Deut.4,4, ואתם הדבקים בה' אלוקיכם, חיים כולכם היום, "you who have been cleaving to the Lord your G–d are all alive this day." The material world was created by five מאמרות, i.e. the letter ה. Our sages in Rosh Hashanah 21b, say that 50 שערי בינה, "gates of understanding," were created, and that Moses was given all of them except one. We know this because it says of Moses "ותחסרהו מעט מאלוקים," that You have made him only a little less than divine" (Psalms 8,6). In the introduction on his commentary on the Torah Nachmanides (Chavell edition page 3) describes this statement as meaning that all parts of creation such as the minerals, the various categories of vegetation, animal life and even human life, each required a special שער בינה by means of which they were brought into existence. This process continued until possession of an advanced שער בינה would enable a person to understand the psyche of fellow human beings, enable him to divine if his counterpart was a thief, an adulterer, etc. and even enable him to know if someone else who was suspected of disobeying the laws of ritual impurity concerning sexual relations with a menstruant woman was in fact guilty of such misconduct. Beyond that, a still higher שער בינה would give such a person access to knowledge about the motions and functions of the stars and planets. The total number of such שערי בינה is fifty, the fiftieth being reserved for the Creator alone, who had not revealed that potential to any creature. The wording in the Talmud, נבראו, "they have been created," suggesting that they had not remained only in the realm of G–d Himself, need not be understood literally, as the Talmud was concerned with describing what happened to the majority of these שערי בינה. So far Nachmanides. I personally, feel that the 50th שער בינה, an all embracing potential called hiyuli, primordial is the creative potential which has been withheld from any human being. Nachmanides possibly has this in mind when he refers to the verse in Psalms 33,9: “הוא אמר ויהי,” He said and it came into being."

See what is stated in the Zohar in Parashas Lech Lecha (83a) regarding the verse, “With my soul I desired You at night, even with my spirit within me I sought you out” (Yeshayahu 26:9). Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai explains that when a person climbs into bed and his soul departs, it is to the soul’s benefit if it is pure and free of blemish and iniquity and if all his ways are holy. For then his soul merits witnessing the pleasantness of Hashem and reflecting in His Temple.

David continues in verse 6: כי רגע באפו חיים ברצונו, "For He is angry but a moment, when He is pleased there is life." The life referred to is Eternal Life, whereas G–d's anger – its purpose everlasting good – is very brief.