אגרת התשובה

However, all this pertained when Israel was on a higher plane, when the Shechinah dwelled among Israel in the Beit Hamikdash. Then the vitality of the body came only through the divine soul, from the internal of the life-giving power issuing from the Infinite, through the the Name of Havaya, blessed is He, as described above.

But after that they had fallen from their estate, and through their actions caused the mystery of the “Exile of the Shechinah.”1Megillah 29a. “By your sins was your mother expelled,”2Isaiah 50:1. meaning that the benevolence flowing forth from the latter hey as mentioned descended far down, from plane to plane, until it entered into the ten sefirot of nogah.3The term nogah (brightness, or shining) is found in Ezekiel 1:4. Kabbalah and Chasidut tell of the “three kelipot” (husks or shells) that are evil, of the sitra achara, the “other side” in opposition to purity and holiness. Nogah, an intermediate stage between holiness and defilement, is composed of good and evil and can be directed either way. The prohibited (forbidden food, say), the evil, derives from the three impure kelipot, and the permitted from nogah. A nogah “neutral” (like permissible food) may satisfy a gross physical appetite and be degraded, or it might be consumed for a higher purpose and be elevated. (See Likkutei Amarim, Part I, ch. 7, et al.) In our text, the life-force that had issued from a state of purity and holiness now descends to this nogah state, and can fall even further, as the text proceeds to explain. The benevolence and vitality proceed through the hosts of heaven and those charged over them to every living physical being in this world, even to vegetation. “There is no blade of grass that has no spirit….”4“…on High that smites it and commands it: ‘Grow!’” Bereishit Rabbah 10:6.

Thus even the sinful and deliberate transgressors of Israel may receive vitality for their bodies and animal souls, exactly as other living beings do, for “They are compared and equal to beasts.”5Psalms 49:13.

In fact, their nurture is granted them with even greater emphasis and force,6A play on Genesis 49:3. as explained in Zohar, Pekudei. Every benevolence and vitality granted mortal man while he commits evil in the eyes of G–d, in deed or speech, or by musing on sin…all issues to him from the chambers of the sitra achara described there in the Zohar.

Man possesses choice, whether he shall derive his nurture from the chambers of the sitra achara or from the chambers of holiness, from whom flow all good and holy thoughts….

For “G–d has made one thing opposite the other….”7Ecclesiastes 7:14. The chambers of the sitra achara derive their vitality from the embodiment within them and the descent within them of the issue of the ten sefirot of nogah comprising “good and evil,” the Tree of Knowledge…,8Before Adam partook of the forbidden fruit, good and evil were distinct. Upon sinning, the demarcation became blurred with no pure good or pure evil in the world. Through his service of G–d, overcoming temptation to sin, for example, man separates good from evil, “purifying” the material world. as known to the students of Kabbalah.

“Jacob is the cord of His inheritance.”9Deuteronomy 32:9. The analogy is to a cord whose one end is above and its other end below. When one pulls the lower end, he will move and pull after it the higher end as well, as far as it can be pulled.

The root of the soul of man and its source is in the latter hey, as we have explained earlier. Through his evil deeds and thoughts he “pulls” and draws down the life-force issuing from the hey into the chambers of the sitra achara, as it were, from which he receives his thoughts and deeds. Because he, the sinful person, draws the flow of vitality into the sitra achara, he receives his “share” of vitality first.10I.e., as stated above, “with even greater emphasis and force.” This will suffice for the understanding.

Hence the statement,11Avot 4:15. “Not within our hands is the reason for either the tranquility of the wicked…”—in our hands, in this time of exile after the destruction. This is the sense of the “Exile of the Shechinah,” as it were, His granting benevolent life-force to the chambers of the sitra achara that He despises.

But when the sinner performs the appropriate penance, then he removes from them the life-force he brought to them originally through his deeds and thoughts. By his repentance, he returns the flow issuing from the Shechinah to its proper place.

This then is “tashuv hey tataah,” returning the latter hey from its state of exile. “G–d will return those of you who return,”12Deuteronomy 30:3. meaning with those who return. Our Sages have commented on this verse, “He shall bring back is not said….”13Megillah 29a “…but ‘He shall return.’” to teach us that the Holy One, blessed is He, returns with them from the exiles.”