ייִדישער מחשבֿה אויף חבקוק 3:8

The following figurative language is employed in Scripture in referring to the death of the Egyptians in the Red Sea: “The waters saw thee; they were afraid: the depths also were troubled, etc. The voice of thy thunder was in the heaven: the lightnings lightened the world; the earth trembled and shook” (Ps. 77:17-19). “Was the Lord displeased against the rivers?” etc. (Hab. 3:8). “There went up a smoke out of his nostrils,” etc. (Ps. 18:9). “The earth trembled,” etc. (Judges 5:4, in the Song of Deborah). There are many other instances; but those which I have not quoted can be explained in accordance with those which I have cited.

In Bereshit Rabba we read that in commenting on the Divine words, “The eternal God is a refuge” (lit., a dwelling, Deut. 33:27), our Sages said, “He is the dwelling of His world, the world is not His dwelling.” This explanation is then followed by the remark, “The horse is secondary to the rider, the rider is not subservient to the horse; this is meant by ‘Thou wilt ride upon thy horses’” (Hab. 3:8). Consider and learn how they described the relation of God to the sphere, asserting that the latter is His instrument, by means of which He rules the universe. For whenever you find our Sages saying that in a certain heaven are certain things, they do not mean to say that in the heavens there are any extraneous things, but that from a certain heaven the force emanates which is required for the production of certain things, and for their continuing in proper order. The proof for my statement you may find in the following sayings of our Sages—“The ‘arabot, in which there are justice, charity, right, treasures of life and peace, treasures of blessing, of the souls of the righteous, of the souls and the spirits of those to be born, and of the dew by which God will at some future time revive the dead, etc.” It is clear that the things enumerated here are not material, and do not occupy a place—for “dew” is not to be taken in its literal sense.—Consider also that here the phrase “in which,” meaning “in the ‘arabot,” is used, and not “over which,” as if to say that all the things existing in the universe derive their existence from powers emanating from the ‘arabot, which God made to be the origin and the place of these powers. They are said to include “the treasures of life”; a perfectly true and correct assertion! For all existing life originates in that treasure of life, as will be mentioned below (chap. lxii., and II. chap. x.). Reflect on the fact that the souls of the righteous as well as the souls and the spirits of those to be born are mentioned here! How sublime is this idea to him who understands it! for the soul that remains after the death of man, is not the soul that lives in a man when he is born; the latter is a mere faculty, while that which has a separate existence after death, is a reality; again, the soul and the spirit of man during his life are two different things: therefore the souls and the spirits are both named as existing in man; but separate from the body only one of them exists. We have already explained the homonymity of ruaḥ (spirit) in this work, and also at the end of Sefer ha madda‘ (Mishneh torah Hil. teshubah, 8:3-4) we treated of the homonymity of these expressions.