ספר ויקרא

Leviticus 21,9. “If the daughter of a priest defiles ‎herself through harlotry she has disgraced her father and is ‎to be put to death through burning.” We already know ‎that when someone in our domain of the universe commits a sin ‎that this leaves a corresponding “stain” or defect in the celestial ‎domain. In practice this means that sins committed on earth ‎strengthen the forces of the kelipot “peels” i.e. the forces ‎that surround holiness and thereby make it less effective or ‎ineffective, much as a peel prevents us from getting at the fruit ‎within it. The best remedy available to repair this spiritual ‎damage is by burning it in fire. “Burning” need not be a physical ‎process but can be service of the Lord with so much enthusiasm ‎that it bursts into “flames.” [The author does not depart ‎from the judicial meaning of the verse, according to which the ‎harlot who is a priest’s daughter will be sentenced to death by ‎burning. He merely superimposes an allegorical exegesis of the ‎verse. Ed.]According to the author’s allegorical explanation the word ‎בת‎, “daughter”, is to be understood as “the soul. The “harlotry” is ‎not to be understood literally, but as the harboring of ‎inappropriate thoughts, thoughts inspired by the evil urge.” The ‎only way to purge the soul from such thoughts is an intensified ‎dedication to serving the Lord. This may in due course turn this ‎person around, eventually so much so that by his very ‎התלהבות‎, ‎literally “going up in flames,” or allegorically, “enthusiasm,” he ‎can be transformed from being a sinner into a saintly personality. ‎In the final analysis, his very sin then became the cause that ‎made him into an individual whom G’d welcomes warmly. ‎