Musar su Giobbe 1:1

The nineteenth principle is leaving the sin when it chances upon him and he is still at the height of his desire. And our Rabbis, may their memory be blessed, said (Yoma 86b), "Who is the penitent whose repentance reaches the Throne of Glory? When he is tested and comes out clean at the same time in the same place and with the same woman." [This is] meaning to say, when the sin avails itself to him, he is at the height of his impulse and his might is in the muscles of his belly like the first moment when he sinned; but he conquered his impulse and escaped from the iniquity due to his fear of God and the greatness of his fright. But for the one to whom it has not availed itself in this manner, he should augment his fear of God on a daily basis all of his days. And when he has reinvigorated the strength of his fear enough to conquer his impulse with this strength and his power over the power of the desire - does not the Examiner of hearts understand and the Fashioner of his soul know that if a test would come to him and it be like the first [situation], that he would save himself from his impulse? So behold that in front of God he is on the highest level of repentance. And that which King Solomon, peace be upon him, said (Proverbs 16:6), "Iniquity is atoned by kindness and truth; and evil is shunned through fear of the Lord" - its explanation is, and with fear of the Lord, to shun evil if it should chance upon him. And the word, shun, is an infinitive [here]; and the confirmation of this explanation is that it does not say, and shun (which would make shun a command). And that which is stated (Psalms 34:15), "Shun evil and do good"; [and] (Job 1:8), "who fears God and shuns evil" - its sense is that he should shun evil if it should chance upon him. For they do not say, shun the deed, but rather [shun] that which he comes close to doing. And our Rabbis, may their memory be blessed, said (Kiddushin 39b), "If one sits and does not transgress, he receives a reward as one who performs a commandment [...] - it is speaking of a case where an opportunity to commit a sinful act presents itself to him and he is saved from it."

And in another place in Scripture it is said: "One that feared God" (Job 1:1), and the Sages explained this, to mean that he feared the punishment of Heaven, of Gehenna, and the punishments of this world as well (Sotah 27b and 31a). And this quality is very far from true love for God. For a man should fear the Lord, may He be Blessed, like a man who loves his wife and she loves him and he fears to do anything against her lest he forfeit her love. So is this — and such is the meaning of the word Reshăfihă it's (love's) flames — the flames of the fire of love for the Creator may He be Exalted. Let a person fear to transgress God's commands lest he lose the love of the Creator, may He be Blessed.

The truth is that this test was due to Ishmael's and Isaac's dialogue, a competition who could serve the Lord better. Such a dialogue certainly reflected the "right" side of the emanations. Rabbi Yossi the Galilean describes the matter in Bereshit Rabbah 55,5 when he says that the words והאלוקים נסה את אברהם must be understood as "G–d placed Abraham on a high mast, like that on a ship." His meaning is that G–d simply wanted to demonstrate to the whole world the devotion of an Abraham to the most difficult demand G–d could make upon him. Nonetheless, there is no denying that Abraham had found a detractor in Satan, and we have it on the authority of the Zohar that any accusation leaves some impression that G–d has to address Himself to, even if He does not do so immediately. In such a situation G–d hands someone else to Satan as a ransom, as alluded to in Isaiah 43,4: ואתן אדם תחתיך, "I give men in exchange for you." Abraham was afraid that the effect of Satan's accusation against him might have negative effects on Isaac's descendants. This is why G–d told him immediately after the binding of Isaac (Genesis 22,21) that the ransom had already been assigned to Satan: עוץ בכורו, "Utz the first born of Nachor," otherwise known as job, as we know from Job 1,1 "there lived a man in the land of Utz, Job was his name." We know that G–d delivered the fate of this man into the hands of Satan (ibid.). The mechanics of how this ransom works are discussed at length in the Zohar.