תורה 33

3 . Now, there are two types of days: good days and bad days. As is written (Ecclesiastes 7:14), “So on a day of good fortune enjoy the good fortune; and on a day of misfortune, look.” That is, a person has to look there very well. He will certainly find good days—i.e., Torah—there.

The days are called midot (attributes), as is written (Psalms 39:5), “[what is] the midah (measure) of my days.” And the attributes are the Torah, because the Torah is entirely comprised of the attributes of the Holy One. For the Torah speaks of love and fear and the other attributes. And with [the Torah] the Holy One created worlds, as is written (Proverbs 8:30), “I was with Him as a amone (nurseling)”—do not read this amone but oman (a craft) (Bereishit Rabbah 1:1). And the letters of the Torah are what give life to each and every thing.

However, the lower the level, the more the letters of the Torah there are contracted from what they were on the higher level. They do not shine as much as they did above, on the higher level, so as not to provide it with more light and life-force than is fitting. We see, therefore, that even in the abode of the evil forces—i.e., the bad days, which are the bad attributes and the languages of the nations—there, too, it is possible to find the Torah letters. But, because of the increased garments and the expanded contraction, the Torah letters—i.e., the good days—do not show through, due to the bad days and the darkness that rest upon them.

But when someone subdues his evil inclination—i.e., the bad days, the bad attributes—the evil is then completely unsettled by the good days they contain, so that the letters are more prominent and show through more brightly. For, initially, they did not shine all that much. This was because they had not received light from Above, so that the bad days would not receive more than necessary for their minimal survival. But now that the evil is eliminated and the Torah letters are all that remain, they receive abundant light from Above.

Thus it is that when the person who subdues his inclination—i.e., subdues the bad days—talks to non-Jews or sees their behavior, then immediately the evil that rests upon the good/the Torah letters is eliminated and falls away, and the Torah letters become more prominent. Then, he knows the Torah in that thing.

{“Bless God, O His angels; mighty ones who do His word, so as to hear the sound of His word” (Psalms 103:20).} This is as is written in the holy Zohar (I, 90a): “Bless God, O His angels; mighty ones who do His word”—these are those who overcome their inclinations, who are literally comparable to angels. “Who do His word”—they make this word; “so as to hear the sound of His word”—they merit hearing voices from Above. For the Torah is called “word,” as is written (Psalms 105:8), “the word He commanded for a thousand generations.”

And the more the letters of the Torah contract and become clothed in further contractions and garments, the more the Torah is concealed and hidden. However, the person who removes the Torah letters from the garments is thus comparable to one who builds the Torah.

For example: There are Torah letters that are so scattered and spread out in the languages of the nations that no one knows of them because they are obscured and covered over by the bad days. Now this person—who is “like an angel of the God of Hosts” by virtue of his subduing his inclination/the bad days—when he comes, then the evil/the nations’ languages are subdued and eliminated completely in his presence. As a result, the Torah letters are left more prominent.

And when they are stripped of the corporeal garments—of the languages of the nations/bad attributes/bad days—then these Torah letters receive a greater light than they originally received. Originally, they received only commensurate with the life-force appropriate for that place—so as not to provide [the evil forces] with greater sustenance than is befitting them.

As is recorded in the writings of the Ari: Until he cannot tell the difference between cursed is Haman and blessed is Mordekhai (Megillah 7b) —that is, the sustenance he draws to the evil forces should be only enough to ensure their existence and no more.

{See Pri Etz Chaim, Kavanot Purim 6, where it is explained that we have to draw life-force to the holiness concealed within the evil forces, but that this must be a very constricted life-force; this being the deeper meaning behind the drunkenness of Purim. See there.}

But when the letters are removed from the evil forces, they then receive abundant light from Above. This is the meaning of “who do His word, so as to hear the sound of His word.” When we make and build the Torah, which was originally scattered and spread out in the nations’ languages and in the bad attributes and bad days, then it is “so as to hear the sound of His word,” and we merit hearing voices from Above. That is, the word, which is the Torah, receives abundant light from Above.

This is hearing the Torah. And this is the aspect of “we will do and we will hear” (Exodus 24:7). For, initially, we make and build the Torah letters, so that the letters become prominent and come together. Then, afterwards, “we will hear”—we merit hearing voices from Above. That is, the Torah letters receive greater life-force and more abundant light than they received initially, when they were clothed in the nations’ languages and the bad days.