תורה 57

The students of Rabbi Yosi son of Kisma asked him: “When will the son of David come?” He answered them: “When this gate will fall and be rebuilt, fall and be rebuilt, and fall. Then, before they have enough time to rebuild it, the son of David will come.” (Sanhedrin 98a)

Shaalu et Rebbi Yosi ben Kisma: When will the son of David come?…

Know! an angel is created from each and every word spoken by God (Chagigah 14a). Each and every word is divided into many sparks, in the aspect of “like a hammer shattering rock” (Jeremiah 23:29), and commensurate with the amount of sparks, a like number of angels are created. The angel created from the word that encompasses the sparks is the ruler and head of the angels created from the sparks, and they are his troops. {There is not a blade of grass below that does not have an angel from Above, striking it and telling it, “Grow!” ( Bereishit Rabbah 10:7).}

Each angel is put in charge of something. Even all the trees and grasses have [angels] appointed over them. As our Sages, of blessed memory, said: “There is not a blade of grass below that does not have an angel from Above.” Each angel receives its vitality from the word, and transmits [that vitality] into the thing in its charge—i.e., some grass or other thing over which it is appointed.

These two capacities—i.e., the capacity the angel has to receive and the capacity to transmit—are called the aspect of hands. With the right hand it receives its vitality, and with the left hand it transmits [it], corresponding to, “striking it and telling it, ‘Grow!’” The striking is an aspect of the left side.

We see, then, that all healing is dependent upon the Torah, in the aspect of “a healing for all his flesh” (Proverbs 4:22). This is because the Torah gives strength to the angels, and the angels transmit [it] to the grasses, so that the grasses heal through the power of the Torah.

But when someone blemishes [his] faith in the Torah sages and violates their restrictions, his punishment has no cure, in the aspect of (Avodah Zarah 27b): “Perhaps a ‘snake’ of the sage has bitten him, for which there is no cure.” For someone who violates their restrictions thereby removes the hands of the angels according to how he strays from the words of the rabbis.

This is the meaning of (Deuteronomy 17:11), “Do not stray from the word they declare to you, either to the right or the left”—according to the manner in which he strays. If he strays to the right of the path set forth by the rabbis, he removes the right [hand from] the angel and it is unable to receive. If he strays to the left, he removes the left hand from the angel and it is unable to transmit. And when one of the angel’s hands is impaired, this person has no cure, because the grass needed to cure him lacks the power to heal, for no one transmits to it.

This is the aspect of (Deuteronomy 28:61), “a punishment that is not mentioned in [this book of] the Torah.” This is the death of Torah sages—i.e., the death that Torah sages bring upon some person. For the illness that affects a person because he transgressed the words of the rabbis has no cure, so that he dies from the illness. This death is the result of “a punishment that is not mentioned in the Torah,” because matters not mentioned in the Torah were given over to the sages, and we are commanded to hear it from them. Yet there is a person who ridicules their words and has no faith in what they say, for it seems to him that from the Torah’s perspective it is not so. As a result, he is afflicted with a punishment that has no cure, and he dies from it.

There are also afflictions of love that assail a person who is righteous. He is plagued with afflictions, yet his cure is not dependent on herbal remedies because he is a righteous person who has not impaired the hands of the angel, so that the hands are whole. This is the meaning of “for I am sick with love. His left arm is under my head and his right arm embraces me” (Song of Songs 2:5-6). That is, “sick with love” might assail a certain person, yet his cure is not dependent on the above mentioned hands because from his side the hands are whole, corresponding to “His left arm is under my head….”

This is: Rabbi Yochanan came to a Tanna who was plagued with afflictions and said to him, “Do your afflictions please you?” “No,” he answered, [“neither them not their reward”]. “Give me your hand,” he said. [He gave him his hand, and Rabbi Yochanan stood him up.] (Berakhot 5b) .

Rabbi Yochanan assumed that these afflictions were afflictions of love, which is why he asked him, “Do your afflictions please you?” He asked him if he was pleased by the afflictions—i.e., if they were afflictions of love—and he answered him, “No.” Thus, when Rabbi Yochanan heard that they were not afflictions of love, he thought that perhaps [the Tanna] had impaired the hands, God forbid, and this is why he had no cure. This is why he said to him, “Give me your hand,” in order to determine if, as mentioned above, he had violated the words of the rabbis, God forbid. Thus as soon as he gave him his hand, he stood him up. For they were not afflictions of love, nor had he impaired the hands. This is the reason he was able to recover and get up from his illness.

And this is: “With his strength he pulls the mighty. Let him rise up, he who has no faith in life” (Job 24:22). Since he has no faith in the Torah sages, who are called “alive”—as our Sages, of blessed memory, taught (Berakhot 18b): “Benayahu the son of Yehoyada, the son of a living man”; even after they have passed away, the righteous are called “alive”—he therefore succumbs to an illness which causes him to have no faith in his life; i.e., there is not a single person who has faith that he will recover from this illness, because his punishment is incurable, as mentioned above.

His rectification is to raise up fallen faith and have faith in the sages. This is the meaning of “Let him rise up, he who has no faith in life”—i.e., he who had no faith in the sages, who are called “alive,” let him raise up this fallen faith. Through this he will get up from this illness, which until now no person had faith that he had any cure for his punishment. But through his faith he is healed, because through faith in the sages he rectifies the aspect of the hands of the angels, and they receive and transmit potency to the grasses so that he can be healed.

This is “With his strength he pulls the mighty”—i.e., the angels, who are called “mighty.” They all return to him his KoaCh (strength)—i.e., the Kaf - Chet (28) sections of the hands—and infuse divine grace into whatever they are appointed over. Then, he has a cure, because the words of the sages create and rectify the aspect of the hands, as mentioned above.