Chasidut к Мишлей 8:30

Going back to Rashi’s first commentary on the first word in the Torah, where he quoted ‎Rabbi Yitzchok saying that the reason that the Torah does not commence with the first verse in ‎Exodus chapter12, is that the Torah wanted to allude from the beginning by teaching the concept ‎כח מעשיו הגיד לעמו לתת להם נחלת גויים‎, “He revealed to His people His powerful works by giving ‎them the heritage of (other) nations.” (Psalms 111,6) This is important to know in the event that ‎the nations will dispute the Jewish people’s claim to the Land of Israel as being their heritage. As ‎the Creator and hence, owner, of the entire universe, G’d has the right to allocate parts of it to ‎whoever He chooses.
Expressed differently, since in the words of the introduction to the Zohar, page 5, (based ‎on Proverbs 8,30 (Torah speaking) “then I was with Him (G’d) as an artisan,” i.e. G’d ‎used the Torah and its letters as the tool with which to create the universe; it follows that every ‎part of the universe is imbued with some letter of the Torah.
Just as man is charged to perform the Torah’s commandments with the various limbs of his body, ‎‎(248), so earth is also charged with the task of performing “commandments” appropriate to its ‎composition. The expressions ‎פי הארץ‎, ”the earth’s mouth,” or ‎עין הארץ‎, “the earth’s eye,” are ‎more than just figures of speech. Each of our limbs exudes the living essence of the letter of the ‎Torah that corresponds to a specific commandment that limb is supposed to perform. Joshua was ‎able to conquer seven lands (of the Canaanites) because he understood what it was that enabled ‎each specific land to remain “alive.” Similarly, every city in those countries had been charged since ‎creation with performing certain duties vis a vis its Creator. Joshua’s knowledge of ‎these duties enabled him to “conquer” these towns and countries with a minimum of Jewish blood ‎being shed in the process.‎
According to the introduction of the Zohar page 5, there is no part of the physical ‎universe that does not in some way reflect the meaning of one of the letters in the Torah. If any of ‎these cities were to confront the invading Jewish armies by calling them “robbers,” Joshua was ‎able to remind them that the previous residents in these towns had only leased the land, but had ‎never owned it, as it is G’d’s property. What could be more natural than that the Jewish people, ‎who by definition serve their Creator by observing the commandments of the Torah, should now ‎make their home on this part of the earth. This is what the psalmist meant when he quoted G’d as ‎having revealed to His people the inherent strength of all His works, ‎כח מעשיו הגיד לעמו‎. Wish that ‎G’d were to grant each one of us the wisdom and the purity of heart to be conversant with the ‎specific commandment that is incumbent upon each limb in our body to perform.‎

Truly, from God’s perspective, natural governance is actually miraculous governance, in that God’s providence and governance extends to every detail of creation. The recognition of this governance is from man’s understanding, so that he sees only how the world runs according to nature. However, God relates to the man of perfect faith with individual providence. According to this, if one believes that all of creation runs miraculously, then hidden miracles will be revealed before him, for he views even nature’s law as miraculous. Whereas for a person who does not believe, the miracles will remain hidden. With this in mind, we can see that it was easy for Rabbi Hanina ben Dosa to pray, “May the One who makes the oil burn make the vinegar burn.” He saw how the natural phenomenon of the combustion of oil only happens due to God’s command, and for this reason his prayer was effective. Through faith, man can even arouse the supernal governance to reveal itself in this world. This is as the Zohar states,³⁸⁸I n the previous quote from Parshat Beshalach. that since Israel believed in God, they managed to awaken revealed miracles before the Egyptians. When a person witnesses such miracles, he then sees how two complete opposites can happen at once, as was explained previously. When man is confronted with the impossibility of the simultaneous occurrence of opposites, it is due to the concealment of nature. In fact, God established creation’s normative perception to be through natural governance. However, God fixed permanent faith within the innermost heart of Knesset Yisrael – the Community of Israel – so by means of this faith they may connect to God even above natural governance. This is as it is written in the Zohar (Tikkun 21, 57b): “He is her nurse (oman), and she is His faith (emunah).”³⁸⁹אומן, artist, is the same letters as אמונה, faith. This is explained in the Mei HaShiloach, Parshat Bereshit, on the passage in the Midrash Rabbah: Rabbi Hoshayah began and said (Mishlei, 8:30), “I was a nurse (amon) for him, and I was his delight every day.” Amon means a teacher, amon means covered, amon means hidden. There are those who say, amon means the capitol, amon means artist. According to Rav Mordechai Yosef, this Midrash tells of the development of man’s form from its very first root, hidden in God’s essence, until its revelation in a complete and mature state, signified by man’s ability to reproduce and bring forth a new generation. This process precisely follows the way God created the world. The world was initially hidden in God’s essence, and then emerged in a revealed form where the supernal light breaks forth in every new being. The Zohar says (Terumah, 170b), “This is why man finding a mate is as difficult as the splitting of the Red Sea.” Both cases entail the simultaneous occurrence of opposites.³⁹⁰In both cases the miraculous governance is happening within the natural order. All this occurs at the root of faith, for from God’s perspective, He is the “nurse” of creation, yet from the side of Knesset Yisrael, the matter depends upon faith. A nurse must provide for everything the child needs at all times. For the nurse, everything must be ready, even though the child, with his limited knowledge, does not really know what he will need. For this reason, he must always have faith that the nurse will provide him with whatever he will need. This kind of faith is the connection between the nurse and the infant. For the infant, it is a kind of connection above his ability to comprehend. In this way, we see that emunah in the heart can reach beyond man’s intellectual comprehension and awaken God’s will to open the supernal light, which is beyond time or any border in nature. This relates to the teaching that the redemption from Egypt happened before its proscribed time. God, so to speak, caused His power of redemption act, even though the Children of Israel were not yet ready, as it is written (Shir HaShirim 2:8), “The voice of my beloved! Behold, He comes, leaping over the mountains, skipping over the hills.”³⁹¹Meaning to say, the redemption “skipped” over the natural unfolding of events, which would have demanded the Jewish people to stay slaves in Egypt for two centuries more. The Zohar (Parshat Noah, 61b) also says that the redemption from Egypt happened before its time. So too, the wars fought by Israel in the days of Yehoshafat were also miraculously before their time. We find that the miracle in Egypt was brought about by a cry from the depth of the heart. The Zohar (Shemot, 20b) says that the when the Hebrew word “za’aka – cry” is used, it means that it is coming directly from the heart, as it says in Eicha (2:18), “Their hearts cried out to God.” Such cries are closer to God than prayers. Purely by means of emunah in the heart, as explained above, a person can come before God through the heart’s cries, even though he cannot offer any intelligible prayer. He cannot dress the sorrow of his heart in the letters and words of the prayer, as he cannot find the strength to pray. In this way he can wake up God’s highest will, solely through faith flowing from the depth of his heart. We find it written of Yehoshafat (Divrei HaYamim 2, 20:3), “And Yehoshafat was afraid, and he went to ask God, and called upon all the inhabitants of Yehuda to fast.” He said to God, “we have no power before this great multitude which has set upon us, we do not know what to do, our eyes are only upon You.” And indeed, he was answered by Yahaziel’s prophecy (ibid 20:15), “Do not be afraid of this great multitude, for this battle is not yours, but God’s. You shall not need to fight this battle. Stand still, and witness the salvation of God with you.” And after this, “Yehoshafat stood and said, Hear me, inhabitants of Yehuda and Jerusalem, Believe in Hashem your God. So shall you be established. Believe in His prophets and you shall prosper.” Here we see that the miracle happened due to a great overpowering of emunah. It was then that they saw above nature, as the story continues, “And the people of Yehuda went to the lookout over the desert and turned to the multitude of their enemies, and behold, their carcasses were falling to the ground and they had none to rescue them.” When man prepares faith in his heart, he can effect miracles through his service of God, for the power to make miracles comes from a great surge of service in the depths of the heart. This is as it is said in the Gemara (Megillah, 27a), “All of the wonders that Elisha accomplished, were done through prayer.”³⁹²Note that earlier, in chapter 13, the author said that it is forbidden to pray for miracles, inasmuch as prayer can only reach the dimension that we can grasp, whereas miracles originate from a higher place. Perhaps he means here that it was not the prayers themselves that produced the miracle, but the faith in G-d underlying the prayers; for faith, emunah, transcends the borders of our limited perception. Alternatively (as we will shortly see), Elisha’s prayers did not effect a total transformation of nature, since his perception of G-d was not as clear as that of Moshe or certain other prophets. Thus, G-d performed miracles for him through the nature order, and not above it.