The Creator sends a cure before the blow. We should ask, If there is no blow, how can we speak of a cure?
We should understand that we find with our sages that the Torah is called Tushia because it Mateshet [exhausts] a person’s strength (Sanhedrin 26b). Our sages said, “If one’s head aches, let him engage in Torah” (Iruvin 54a). Baal HaSulam interpreted that first we need Torah, to see that man’s strength is not as it should be, meaning that “one’s head aches” implies that he has foreign thoughts. “His stomach aches,” meaning that all he wants is to receive into his own stomach.
In medicine, one who receives a medicine but is not sick, the medicine harms him. Hence, first he needs to learn Torah, since through the Torah he will see that he is sick, and then he will receive the Torah and will be healed from his illnesses.
It follows that we grasp the Torah in two manners: 1) that he is sick, for which the Torah is called Tushia, for it Mateshet [exhausts] man’s strength, and all his power and vitality are only from the quality of a beast. In order to correct this, there is Torah in manner number 2) when it heals him from all the illnesses.
By this we should interpret that the Creator sends the cure before the blow, meaning the Torah, which is called “cure,” precedes the blow, for the Torah brings him the recognition of evil.
Afterward, when he suffers the blow, meaning the measure of the evil in him, “he fixes a bandage from the blow itself,” meaning from the Torah, which makes him see that he is stricken in his qualities. Subsequently, the Torah heals him.
It therefore follows that if he has no recognition of evil, how can he be rewarded with the good? This is why we need both discernments in the Torah.