“Rabbi Shimon said, ‘The Creator did not try Job and did not test him as He tested the rest of the righteous, since it is not written about him, ‘And God tried Job’ … and he was not told to give, but was handed over to the slanderer by the judgment of the Creator’” (The Zohar, TeTzaveh, Item 41).
We should understand the difference between Job, who is called “righteous gentiles,” and Israel. With Job, we see that the Creator did not try him, whereas with Abraham He did try him.
We see here that there is an act and there is an intention, and in both, there is the matter of a test. That is, to Abraham, the test was given in both action and intention whether his work of the Creator was with joy, meaning if he were happy that he was now doing the Creator’s will. With Job, he was tested only on the intention and not on the action, since it is implied that the Creator knew that he would not be able to endure a test on the action. For this reason, He tested him only with regard to the intention.
(We should also say that it is the same if we do not want to give and we believe that everything is guided by the Creator, so we should justify the Maker and not blemish our love for the Creator due to the absence of a few things that we think we need. That is… not receive from Him what one needs or give him what one needs.)
In this, there is a difference between the righteous gentiles and the righteous, since those two degrees exist in man. Before one achieves the degree of Israel, in the sense that man is a small world, he has the qualities of nations of the world, righteous gentiles, and Israel. When a person begins to walk on the path of the Creator, he is called “righteous gentiles.” At that time, his tests are only on the intention and not on the action, since he is not given trials in the action but only in the intention.
That is, there is a rule that every person has grievances against the Creator that He does not give him what he wants. He understands that the Creator must give him everything he needs, as it is written, “His mercies are over all His works,” and it is the conduct of the Good to do good. Thus, everything that one thinks he needs, it is as though he had it and the Creator took it away from him.
Thus, the act is not in his possession to say that he is tested not to do the action, since he was not given it to begin with. And as for the trial, it is as though he had these things that he is now demanding, and they were taken away from him, and all that he has in the trial is the intention. That is, we should say that all that the Creator does, He does for the best, and to be in joy and in love as though the Creator has given him all that he demands. This is called “trial on intention,” as it was with Job, but the intention is whether he can justify the judgment.
But when one is rewarded with the quality of Israel, he is given the trial in practice, too. That is, he is given all the good things, and the person himself must be ready to return it all and not receive any more than he is certain that it will be only in order to bestow.
It is like Purim, where Baal HaSulam said that the meaning of the Megillah [Purim scroll/book of Esther] means that then was a time of Hitgalut [revealing]. Haman said about this that we must walk in the manner of knowing. This is the meaning of “and do not do the king’s laws.” Conversely, Mordechai argued that the revelation comes only in order to withstand the test and to take upon themselves the concealment, which is a trial in action.