잠언 2:15의 Chasidut

And now, for the sake of our brothers and friends, who tremble at the word of God, seeking the Torah and loving its wisdom, I will now say, “Peace unto the lovers of God’s Torah!” Come, House of Yaakov, and you will walk in the light of God,⁴⁸¹Yeshayahu, 2:5. may God be with us as He was with our forefathers, He shall not forsake us and He shall not forget us.⁴⁸²Melachim 1, 8:57 He shall forever lead us by peaceful waters, our rest shall be in our very progression from strength to strength, to ascend the ladder fixed in the ground which rises to Heaven! As for our revilers, who ask why we bother to invest so much contemplation into the Torah until our strength is exhausted? Who claim that the simple explanations of the written and oral Torah is enough. To them, I will offer noble words⁴⁸³See Mishlei, 8:6. which draw the heart of man. Come and consider, see and behold! Taste and see that God is good⁴⁸⁴Tehillim, 34:9 to those who yearn for their souls to be restored by His perfect Torah.⁴⁸⁵See Tehillim, 19:8. Those who contemplate it in the depths of their hearts will see and understand that those who taste its depths will merit life. These are the things that man will do and through them he shall live for eternity. Do you not see now that the house of Yaakov is faithful and the house of Yosef is your provider?⁴⁸⁶Bereshit, 42:6. From the time the house was established, he has been faithful to sustain Israel with every word that comes out of the mouth of God upon which man lives.⁴⁸⁷“…he would make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but rather by all that comes forth from the mouth of G-d” (Devarim, 8:3). Interpreted in hasidic terms, this means that it is not physical sustenance that gives life, but the Divine essence within the food that enlivens. So, too, the author rails against those who neglect or deny the deeper meaning of the Torah, which is like being concerned only with the body and not the soul. On a more personal level, he seems to be attacking those who deny the validity of the unique (and controversial) interpretative approach of his grandfather, R. Mordechai Yosef of Izhbitz, and of his father, R. Yaakov. Those who reject it have “no portion in Yaakov and no inheritance in the house of Yosef.” This shall cast away those who say that they have no portion in Yaakov and no inheritance in the house of Yosef. Their ways are crooked⁴⁸⁸Mishlei, 2:15 and they pervert the explanations of the Torah, hanging their misunderstandings like a lyre, preaching all of their logic which has no basis in God’s Torah, not in the words of the Tanaaim and Amoraim of the oral law, and all that they imagine they hang on a great tree⁴⁸⁹That is, claim that they can based their false interpretation on valid, earlier sources. Here, too, the author may be critiquing those who claim that Maimonides was a rationalist, who did not deal with the secrets of the Torah. The author proved that claim wrong in the first half of this work. asserting, “This is the meaning of the Torah.” For these, the House of Yaakov will be a fire and the House of Yosef like a flame!⁴⁹⁰Ovadia, 1:18. They will see and learn. They will see how to reveal the Torah of God from the plain meaning of the words, for are not His words like fire,⁴⁹¹Yirmiyahu, 23:29. and all who desire its light with truth and faith can come and warm themselves? And likewise, as a flame it will burn all those who learn Torah in order to vex the scholars of the mysteries, and who wear it as a crown and wield it as an axe.⁴⁹²See the Talmud, Pirke Avot, 4:5 And now, House of Yaakov, walk in the light of God and come home. See and understand that all the words of the Torah written in this book are needed for every man of Israel, in every place and every time. And how all of the events recorded in the Torah can illuminate every soul and instruct him how to sustain his life and all that he goes through with justice.⁴⁹³Tehillim 112:5. For the words of the Torah are living and enduring for all eternity. All who contemplate the Torah grasp onto the tree of life, and it is life for those who hold onto it.⁴⁹⁴Mishlei, 3:18. May God illuminate our eyes to His Torah, and place His love and fear in our hearts, in order to do His will, and to serve Him with a whole heart.⁴⁹⁵From the liturgy of the morning prayer, in the blessing before the reading of the Shema Yisrael.