Musar para sa Mga Bilang 35:34

To what may this be compared? To one whose house is full of mud and mire. Even if he will bring into his house the finest golden vessels, it will not be beautified thereby. He must first remove the mud and mire and then bring in the vessels. And so is it in our instance. The Jew has been given the power through his cleaving to Torah and mitzvoth to root in his soul the holiness of the L-rd, as it is written (Bamidbar 35:34): "I, the L-rd, dwell in the midst of Israel." But when is this? When he does not allow the yetzer to reside there through his false ideas or filthy thoughts. And this is the intent of "And you shall not go astray after your hearts and after your eyes, after which you stray." (That is, [this will occur] only if you guard yourselves in the future against your straying). "so that you remember and do all of My mitzvoth, etc." That is, if you are careful not to go astray, as mentioned above, the great result will follow that through the doing of the mitzvoth you will be holy to the L-rd. (As the Men of the Great Assembly have formulated for the blessing over a mitzvah: "who sanctified us with His mitzvoth." ["so that" refers to "and you will be holy" (i.e., "so that, in remembering and doing My mitzvoth, you will be holy to your G-d")]. But if, G-d forbid, you do go astray, the mitzvoth will not avail for your becoming holy. And this is the prophet's intent in (Jeremiah 4:3): "Plow for yourselves a furrow and do not sow upon thorns." Happy is he who reflects upon this. It will be good for him in this world and in the next.

When Israel sinned and as a result the Temple was destroyed, the שכינה went into exile with the Jewish people, seeing that it was a pledge G–d had entrusted to them. This is the mystical dimension of the verse: אלה פקודי המשכן, משכן העדות, "These are the "pledges" of the Tabernacle, the "pledges" of the "Testimony" (Exodus 38,21). This is the basis for the Rabbinic statement in Megillah 29 that Israel is beloved (by G–d) since wherever the people of Israel are exiled, the שכינה is exiled with them. When they were exiled to Egypt the שכינה was with them, as we know from Genesis 46,4, where G–d told Jacob: "I shall go down to Egypt with you." When the Jewish people went into exile in Babylonia the שכינה accompanied them, as we know from Isaiah 43,14: "For your sake I sent to Babylon." When Israel was exiled in Elam the שכינה accompanied them, as we know from Jeremiah 49,38: "I will set My throne in Elam." When the Jewish people went into the Roman exile the שכינה also went with them, as we know from Isaiah 63,1: "Who is this coming from Edom,…..it is I who contend victoriously, powerful to give triumph." When the people of Israel return to their land from exile the שכינה will also accompany them as we know from Deut. 23,35: ושב ה' אלוקיכם את שבותך ורחמך, "G–d will come back with your imprisoned ones and have mercy on you." We would have expected the Torah to say: והשיב, "He will bring back," instead of "He will come back." We also have a verse in Song of Songs 4,8: "With Me from Lebanon O bride, come with Me!" Rabbi Meir explains this as a parable: It is like a king saying to his servant "if you need to seek me out, I shall be with my son." This is the meaning of "who dwells with them in their defilement," which we have quoted earlier. All this although G–d had warned Israel not to defile their encampments or the land they would live on, for it is the land G–d Himself has His abode in.

Until now we have spoken about setting to rights the faculty of speech, the first fundamental, the demarcation between "man" and "animal," for which reason Scripture gives it precedence, viz. (Devarim 30:19): "For the thing is very near to you, in your mouth and in your heart [i.e., your thoughts] to do it." And now we shall speak a little about the faculty of thought, which resides in a man's heart, viz.: "and in your heart to do it." Scripture writes (Psalms 24:3-4): "Who shall ascend the mountain of the L-rd, etc.? …The clean of hands [i.e., one who is clean of theft] and the pure of heart." We learn from this that a man's thoughts must be pure and not intermixed with vanity. We say every day: "Make our hearts one, to love and to fear Your name, and let us not be ashamed, forever." This means what it says. It is known that what resides in a Jew's heart always, is faith in the L-rd, the G-d of the heavens and His Torah, this being the essence of holiness [as intimated in Bamidbar 35:39: "I am the L-rd who dwells in the midst of the children of Israel."] For this reason we ask the Blessed L-rd that He make our hearts one, to love and to fear His name, and that there not be intermixed in this another love. For if in his heart, the locus of thought, there also is planted a love for the vanities of the world, in the end, he will be shamed and mortified by it forever. For it is known that all of a man's affairs — both his acts and his thoughts, all will ascend above, before the L-rd, as we say in the Rosh Hashanah prayer: "For the remembrance of every creation comes before You, the acts of a man, etc., the thoughts of a man and his stratagems." And all will be set forth before the man, as it is written (Psalms 54:21): "I shall reprove you and I shall set it before your eyes," and the man will be greatly shamed.