ספר במדבר

Numbers 13,17. “ascend from here in the south and ‎climb the mountain from which you will be able judge the ‎nature of the land.” The rule is that when engaging in the ‎attempt to elevate “sparks”, i.e. spiritually fallen people, one ‎must first attach oneself firmly to G’d’s attribute of ‎חסד‎, loving ‎kindness. The location of that attribute traditionally is the south, ‎דרום‎, another word for ‎נגב‎, south, means ‎חסד‎, i.e. breaking the ‎hold of the evil urge over one’s various ‎תאוות‎, lust and cravings. ‎We have already explained this elsewhere in connection with ‎psalms 119,98 ‎מאויבי תחכימני מצותיך כי לעולם היא‎, “Your ‎commandments make me wiser than my enemies, they always ‎stand by me.” The “enemy” in this verse is the evil urge, Satan, a ‎force that G’d employs to test man’s ability to resist temptation. ‎Man’s basic error in relating to the satisfying of his cravings is ‎that he imagines that by indulging his cravings he attains true ‎satisfaction, well being without more cravings. He does not realize ‎that the only craving that will result in such satisfaction is his ‎desire to provide pleasure for his Creator. This is what the ‎psalmist means when he describes the fulfillment of his craving ‎for the service of the Lord as one that is enduring.This idea is also alluded to when Moses said to the men ‎‎“touring” the land of Canaan ‎ועליתם את ההר‎, “you will ascend the ‎Mountain,” the “mountain” being the evil urge.We have a statement in Sukkah 52 in which the evil ‎urge is referred to as ‎הר‎, “mountain.” The Talmud there refers to ‎the post-messianic era during which G’d is presented as ‎‎“slaughtering” the evil urge in the presence of both the righteous ‎and the wicked. The evil urge in that story appears to the ‎righteous as a mountain, whereas to the wicked he appears as a ‎thin hair. Both the righteous and the wicked weep when looking ‎at the evil urge. The wicked weep as they cannot believe that ‎they had been unable to overcome such a weak adversary, ‎whereas the righteous weep as in retrospect they marvel at ‎having conquered such a high mountain. According to the report ‎in the Talmud, G’d agrees with the wicked having reason to berate ‎themselves for failing to have conquered their cravings. The ‎righteous’ amazement was due to their realizing that they had ‎used the very efforts by Satan to indulge their material cravings ‎as a tool to serve the Lord with the kind of overpowering desire ‎that had enabled them to completely dehumanize, i.e. turning ‎the ego, ‎אני‎ into an ‎אין‎, a creature devoid of material desires, by ‎concentrating on the source from which all the divine souls ‎originate. There is an additional allusion to this subject when ‎Moses added that the “tourists” are also to evaluate the cities in ‎the land of Canaan i.e. ‎ומה הערים‎? In the words of the Talmud in ‎‎Pessachim 88, when discussing the difference between Moses ‎and Avraham, the Talmud distinguishes between an early stage in ‎serving the Lord, when to Avraham G’d appeared to have His ‎residence on top of the mountain, i.e. (Isaiah 2,3) whereas to ‎Yaakov He had already appeared as a “house-guest” (in the same ‎verse). Moses had attained a level where he could completely ‎divest himself of ego, as when he said of both himself and his ‎brother Aaron: ‎ונחנו מה‎, “what do we as personalities amount ‎to?,” making sure that he omitted the letter ‎א‎ in the wordאנחנו ‏‎, ‎when referring to himself and Aaron. (Exodus 16,7-8). When the ‎‎tzaddik is aware of all the three nuances in serving the Lord, ‎he will succeed in elevating the “sparks” together with him and as ‎a result subject Satan to a humbling experience.‎