Kedoshim [Holy]

1-2) Several times did the Torah testify to people, several times did she raise her voice to all sides to awaken them, yet they are all asleep in their slumber in their iniquities, neither looking nor noticing with which face they rise to the upper judgment day, when the upper king claims from them the affront of Torah, who yells against them. They do not turn their faces to her because they are flawed in everything, not knowing the faith of the upper king. Woe unto them and woe unto their souls.

The Torah testifies to him and says, “Whoever is a fool, let him come here, ‘Heartless, she said to him.’” Heartless is one who has no faith because one who does not engage in Torah, there is no faith within him and he is flawed in everything.

4) Happy are the righteous who engage in Torah and know the ways of the Creator. They sanctify themselves in the sanctity of the King and are holy in everything. Because of it, they draw a spirit of Kedusha from above, their sons are all true righteous, and are called “sons of the king,” “holy sons.”

7-8) When the Creator created the world and wished to discover depths out of the concealments, and light out of darkness, at that time they were mingled in one another. For this reason, out of darkness came forth light, and out of concealment came forth and revealed the deep. One came out of the other. Out of good came forth bad, and out of Rachamim [mercy] came forth Din [judgment]. Everything is included in one another, the good inclination and the bad inclination, right and left, Israel and the rest of the nations, white and black. Everything depends on one another.

The whole world is seen only in one bonding, attached in its entanglement: Midat ha Din [quality of judgment] and Midat ha Rachamim [quality of mercy], Malchut and Bina, attached and entangled in one another. Therefore, when the world was sentenced in the inclusive Din, it was sentenced with Rachamim, with Malchut included in Bina. Were it not so, the world would not have been able to exist for even one moment.

11) Man is never purified unless with words of Torah. This is why words of Torah do not take Tuma’a, since she, the Torah, is poised to purify the impure. There is healing in the Torah, as it is written, “It will be health to your navel and marrow to your bones.” There is purity in the Torah, as it is written, “The fear of the Lord is pure; it stands forever.” “Stands forever” means that it always stands in this purity and it is never removed from it.

13-14) The Torah is called “holy,” as it is written, “For I the Lord am holy.” This is the Torah, the high and holy name. For this reason, one who engages in it is purified and then sanctified, as it is written, “You shall be holy.” “Shall be,” which is a promise that through the Torah you will be holy.

“And you will be unto me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” The sanctity of the Torah is holy, more than all other holinesses. The holiness of the upper hidden Hochma transcends all. There is no Torah without Hochma [wisdom], and there is no Hochma without Torah. It is all in one degree and all is one.

18) One who wishes to be sanctified with his Master’s will should serve only from midnight onward or at midnight because at that time the Creator, ZA, is in the Garden of Eden, Malchut, and high Kedusha awakens. Then is the time for the rest of the people to be sanctified. Disciples of the wise, who know the ways of Torah, midnight is their time to rise and engage in Torah, to bond with the Assembly of Israel, Malchut, and to praise the holy name, Malchut, and the holy king, ZA.

22) Let one come and exert in the one. The Creator, who is one, will exert in one, who is Israel, since the king exerts only in one who is worthy of him. This is why it is written, “And He is at one, and who can return Him?” That is, the Creator is present and found only in one, as one who was established in high Kedusha to be one, in Israel. Then he is in one, and not in another nation.

25) “You will be holy for I the Lord ... am holy.”

Happy are Israel for not establishing this matter in another place, for not wanting anything for their Kedusha but to cling unto Him, as it is written, “For I the Lord ... am holy,” to cling unto Him and not to another. This is why “You will be holy for I the Lord your God am holy.”

31) It is written, “And you who cleave to the Lord.” Happy are Israel, who cling to the Creator. Because they cling to the Creator, everything clings together to one another.

52) There is no separation between Torah and Mitzva because the Torah is the whole and the Mitzvot in her are her details, and they are one. The Creator is true, His law is true law, He is His law and commandment as they are one.

53-55) “The glory of God is to conceal a matter.” From those who do not exert in this glory, the Mitzvot, conceal the matter from them. It is said about them, “The fools carry disgrace.” These are the ignorant who do not exert in the glory of Torah, and how do they say, “Our Father in heaven, hear our voice, have compassion and mercy on us and accept our prayer”? The Creator will tell them, “And if I am a father, where is My glory,” meaning where is your exertion in My Torah and Mitzvot to do My commandments, for one who does not know the commandments of his Master, how will he serve Him?

The exception is he who hears from sages and does, although he does not know of his own. This corresponds to “We shall do and we shall hear,” that he hears from sages and does.

54) Rabbi Shimon came and kissed Moses’ hands. He said, “You must be a son from the world of Atzilut, as in His firstborn son, Tifferet, the son of upper AVI, that Atzilut is His undoubtedly. No other son preceded you in thought, speech, or action.” Moses said, “You and the friends, and the heads of the seminary that are here with me are without any cessation at all and without mixture of the Sitra Achra, in the form of the world of Atzilut.” They all kissed each other and were known in brotherhood, and wept.

57-58) One who puts himself to death over the Torah, who is precious, the Torah exists in him and does not part from him. But one who does not exert in it, even though he follows the commands of sages, hearing from sages and doing, he is their servant, a slave and not a son. But if he is a faithful servant, his master makes him ruler of all that he owns.

But one who does not engage in Torah and does not serve the sages, to hear the Mitzvot from them, to keep “We shall do and we shall hear,” but sins and transgresses in “You shall not do” is similar and equal to the idol-worshipping nations of the world, the children of SAM and the serpent, of whom it was said, “The fools carry disgrace,” for they did not wish to receive the Torah. Anyone in whom there is no Torah, there is no glory, as it was said, “The wise shall inherit glory.”

74) David’s beauty shines to all the worlds. His head is a skull of gold, embroidered with seven decorations from seven kinds of gold, and the fondness of the Creator is before him. For his love for Him, he said to the Creator to turn His eyes back and look at him, when he said, “Turn to me and pardon me,” because they are beautiful in everything, as it is written, “Turn your eyes away from me.” It is so because when those eyes of Malchut look at the Creator, arrows of love awaken in this heart from mortars in supernal love. For the great flame of the supernal love for Him, he said, “Turn your eyes away from me,” meaning turn Your eyes from me to another side, for they are burning me with a flame of love. It is written about it in David, “And he was ruddy, with beautiful eyes and a handsome appearance.” And because of this high and beautiful David, with whom the Creator’s love and passion is to cling to him, David said, “Turn to me and pardon me.”

92) One who walks on the straight path in the Torah, and one who engages in it properly always has a good portion for the next world, since the words of Torah that he utters from his mouth go and roam the world and rise up. And several high and holy angels connect to that speech, which rises on a straight path, crowns in a holy crown, and bathes in the river of the next world, Bina, which stretches out of Eden, Hochma. It is received in it and swallowed within it. And that high tree, ZA, delights around the river causing ZA to receive the illumination of the river from Bina. At that time, an upper light extends and comes out, and crowns in that person the whole day.

94) One whose passion is to engage in Torah but finds no one to teach him, and for the love of Torah, he speaks in it and stutters in it in stuttering, not knowing, each word rises and the Creator is happy with that word and accepts it, planting it around that stream, Bina. Those words become big trees, great lights that are called “willows of the brook,” as it is written, “In her love she always errs.”

95-96) Happy are they who know the ways of Torah and engage in it honestly, for they plant the trees of life above, extending Mochin to ZA, the tree of life, and they are all healing to his soul. This is why it is written, “There was a true law [Torah] in his mouth.” But is there a Torah that is not true? Indeed, as it was said that if one who does not know instructs teaching, it is not truth. And one who learns something from him learns something that is not true. This is why it is written, “There was a true law [Torah] in his mouth.”

Yet, one must learn the Torah from any person, even from one who does not know, since by that, he will awaken in the Torah and will come to learn from one who knows. Afterwards, it will be found that he has been walking in the Torah on a true path. One should always engage in the Torah and its commandments even if he does not work Lishma [for her sake], because from Lo Lishma [not for her sake] he will come to Lishma.

100) The Creator rebukes the man with love in concealment. If he accepts His rebuke, good. If not, He rebukes him and leaves him among those who love him. If he accepts, good. If not, He rebukes him openly, in front of everyone. If he accepts, good. If not, He leaves him and does not rebuke him any longer, for He leaves him to go and do as he pleases.

122) The Zohar explains three discernments:

1. The governance of the middle line, which sustains the two lines—right and left—and makes peace between them by setting up the illumination of the right from above downward, and the illumination of the left from below upward. The great punishment of one who blemishes the order of the middle line is that he draws illumination of the left from above downward. This was the sin of the eating from the tree of knowledge.

2. The measure of the flaw of one who connects Dinim de Nukva and Dinim de Dechura [female judgments and male judgments respectively] with one another, unlike the way of the correction of the middle line, when Dinim de Dechura were added to Dinim de Nukva, and the ruin is great.

3. The bonding of two kinds of Dinim with one another in the way of the complete correction of the middle line. At that time the Dinim of both are cancelled and the perfection of the two lines—right and left—properly appears.

108) When the Creator created the world, He established every single thing, each in its side, either on the right or on the left, and appointed high forces on them. Hence, you have not even a tiny blade of grass on earth that does not have a superior force over it in the upper worlds. And all that they do with each one, and all that each and everyone does is all by intensification of the upper force appointed over it from above.

130) Happy are the righteous in this world and in the next world. It is written about them, “The path of the righteous is as the light of dawn,” for in the future the serpent that was initially in the Nukva, suckling from Malchut, will be gone and Dechura will come to be in his place, as in the beginning, in a never ending Zivug, for there will no longer be someone to separate the Zivug, and everything will be complete.