Nefesh HaChayim, An Introduction by the Author's Son

Bring a book and observe his modesty, for he set aside his own opinions in favor of the great texts, and played himself down so as to set down his understanding in these few concise essays, lowly in comparison to his very high worth. It’s well known that God’s word came to Eliyahu the pious53The Vilna Gaon (may his soul-Neshama rest in Eden), and the concealed aspects of wisdom were revealed to him—his illuminating words have already been published. And he had command of ten times54Paraphrasing Shmuel Bet 19:44 more of the recondite texts, as my father the genius (OBM—may his soul-Neshama rest in Eden) described at length in his introduction to the Sifra D’tznee-oota. (And my father, the genius (OBM) told me that all of our teacher Eliyahu’s writings on the recondite aspects of Torah were written before he reached the age of forty, for then he received an additional measure of Beena 55Ref.: Ahvote 5:25 and no longer had the time to record all that was revealed to him.) And my father (OBM) collected the finely refined flour from all of his teacher’s (OBM) treasure houses56Reb Itzele seems to make a play on words here, using the phrase beit n’kha-ote (perfumery) while perhaps implying beit n’khote (treasure house), so as to understand, based on his own efforts, the hints to the hidden meanings of the Ari’s (OBM) Derekh Etz Chayyim57This is the book that is now known as the Etz Chayyim., and they were engraved on the most immediately accessible parts of his heart/mind. In his humility, he spread and inserted the tiniest amount into these essays. And he created an opening the size of the eye of a needle, which for one whose heart is open, is an entrance to a great hall. With the breadth of his understanding he engraved and quarried58Heb.: cha-kahk v’cha-tzahv—Reb Itzele here uses descriptors from the meditative text Sefer Y’tzeera these words. He weighed them, converted them and refined them towards the way of Torah and service and fear/awe of God, so as to teach the path on which they should walk and what they should do. All along his soul-Neffesh desired to provide merit for the masses by creating something suitable for all people. Truthfully, his soul-Neffesh’s mission was still single-minded when it ascended to the heavens.59In this paragraph Reb Itzele seems to say that Rav Chayyim wrote the Neffesh Ha-chayyim for two purposes: to help the masses learn how to behave, and also to provide an acceptable entrance to the recondite aspects of Torah for those whose hearts are open to that potential.