חלק ב — תורה 78

4A. Know! all the aforementioned ordinary people—whether a scholar who engages in Torah study for its own sake, {because when one engages in Torah st udy not for its own sake, his st udy does not contribute to settling the world. Study not for its own sake is solely a personal need, but even in this there are levels. Only when one engages in study for its own sake is he engaging in settling the world.} who when he sets aside his studies is a genuinely ordinary person, or the other ordinary types—each one, commensurate with his connection to Torah, draws life while in a state of simplicity from the concept of the world’s existence prior to the receiving of the Torah.

For prior to the receiving of the Torah, the world existed solely through His kindness. There was as yet no Torah and no mitzvah performance through which to perpetuate the world. The world essentially existed through His kindness alone. The tzaddik, while in a state of simplicity, separate from the Torah, receives life-force from that element [of kindness].

This is the concept of the Treasury of Unearned Gifts. For there is a treasury with unearned gifts. Someone with no merit at all receives from there (Shemot Rabbah 45:6). This Treasury is surely not prepared for the wicked. If it were, the wicked person would be greater than the tzaddik, since the wicked person certainly has no merit whatsoever. Should he, on account of this, receive from the Treasury of Unearned Gifts? However, in reality, the wicked person definitely does not receive from there. Rather, this Treasury of Unearned Gifts is for the tzaddik alone, that is, at the time the tzaddik is an ordinary person, as mentioned above. He then receives from this Treasury of Unearned Gifts.

This corresponds to prior to the receiving of the Torah, when the world existed solely through unearned kindness, as in “for His kindness is everlasting,” which refers to the era before the Giving of the Torah. {As is brought in the Talmud, Pesachim (118a) : To what do those twenty-six “for His kindness is everlasting” correspond? They correspond to the twenty-six generations….} For then there was no Torah at all, and people were occupied solely with settling the world and derekh eretz (worldly occupation), as our Sages, of blessed memory, taught in the Midrash: Greater is derekh eretz, for it preceded the Torah by twenty-six generations (Vayikra Rabbah 9:3). The world essentially existed then through unearned kindness alone.

4B. In truth, the Torah surely existed then as well, prior to the receiving of the Torah, because the Torah is eternal. However, then, before the Giving of the Torah, the Torah was hidden and concealed. That is, the entire Torah is encompassed in the Ten Commandments, and so, before the Giving of the Torah the Ten Commandments were hidden within the Ten Utterances through which the world was created. It follows, that the entire Torah was hidden and concealed within the settling of the world, which was created through the Ten Utterances.

Thus in all the words of the world and all the deeds and works—whether of a woodchopper or some other occupation—the Torah is hidden in all of them, for everything was created through the Ten Utterances in which the Torah was hidden and concealed before the Giving of the Torah. And the tzaddik, at the time he separates from the Torah and corresponds to an ordinary person, receives life-force from this aspect of before the Giving of the Torah.

And this is the concept of the aforementioned derekh (road) to the Land of Israel from which the tzaddik draws life while in a state of simplicity. This is because the power of the Land of Israel’s sanctity is in essence produced by the concept of “He informed His people of the power of His acts, to give them the heritage of the nations” (Psalms 111:6). This is as Rashi comments on the verse Bereishit: The reason Scripture begins with “In the beginning” (Genesis 1:1) is to prevent them from saying, “You are robbers….” Scripture therefore began with “In the beginning,” [to make known] that God created everything, and by His wish He gave it to them, and by His wish…. It follows, that the Land of Israel’s power in essence stems from the Ten Utterances through which the world was created, which are the concept of “the power of His acts.” Through this Israel was able to go and conquer the Land of Israel.

4C. And here, too, in the Diaspora, this concept applies. There are instances when Israel, the holy nation, comes to places which were extremely distant from the sanctity of Israel, for example, a place which originally belonged to idolaters and even now is ruled by one who is very distant from Israel’s sanctity. Jews come there, conquer the place and sanctify it, making it a Jewish place. This, too, is the concept of the Land of Israel, and they could have said, “You are robbers. You conquered this place which is not yours.” However, through “the power of His acts,” the concept of Ten Utterances, we are permitted to conquer the entire world and sanctify it with the sanctity of Israel, because God created it and of His own will gave it to us.

It follows, that the Ten Utterances enclothed in worldly occupation—namely, in settling the world, since the world was created through them—are the road to the Land of Israel. Thus, through the concept of the Ten Utterances it is possible to conquer the Land of Israel. This is the concept of derekh eretz (worldly occupation). It is the derekh (road) and path to eretz—i.e., to Eretz Yisrael (the Land of Israel). This is because derekh eretz, which is settling the world that was created with the Ten Utterances, is itself the road and path to the Land of Israel, as mentioned above. This is derekh eretz—it is the derekh to Eretz Yisrael .

And through this derekh eretz, namely, the derekh of the Land of Israel—i.e., the Ten Utterances with which the world was created, in which the Torah is hidden and through which the world existed on His kindness during the twenty-six generations that preceded the Giving of the Torah—through this itself the tzaddik vitalizes himself while in a state of simplicity, not studying Torah. He then vitalizes himself through the concept of the Torah hidden within the world, in all the words and all the works which were created through the Ten Utterances, where the Torah is hidden, as mentioned above.