(15)Revealing the secrets of the Torah

(16) 6. What are the virtues of one who achieved cleaving to blessed God? They are not clearly expressed anywhere, except by subtle hints. However, in order to explain these matters in my article, I must reveal a little, as necessity dictates, and explain these matters with an analogy.

(17)The virtues of one who reached the state of cleaving
The body and its limbs are one. The entire body transfers thoughts and sensations to each individual body part. For example, if the body as a whole thinks that a certain body part will serve it or give it pleasure, that part immediately recognizes its way of thinking and produces the pleasure it conceived. Also, if a limb thinks it is too confined, the entire body will know its thoughts and sensations and move it to a more comfortable location. But if the limb is cut off from the body, they become two different entities. The body as a whole no longer knows the thoughts of the severed part. And the part no longer knows the thoughts of the body or able to serve or benefit it. If a physician reattaches the part to the body, the body part will again recognize the thoughts and needs of the entire body. And the body as a whole will again recognize what the body part requires.

(18) According to this analogy, we can also understand the virtue of a person who attained cleaving to God. I have already proved in my introduction to the book of the Zohar, section 9 in the first volume (and also in the booklet discussing the Smaller Gathering (Idra Zuta) that I published separately on the occasion of Lag Ba’omer) that the soul is a ray of illumination flowing from God’s essence. This illumination is separated from God in that God enclothed it with the desire to receive. For the plan for Creation to benefit his creatures created in every soul the desire to receive pleasure. And the dissimilarity of form in the desire to receive separated that illumination from God’s essence, making it into a separate part from him. Read the source there, for this is not the place to discuss it at length.

(19) It transpires that every soul was a part of God’s essence before its creation. Yet with Creation, that is, with the nature of the desire to receive pleasure inherent in it, it acquired a dissimilarity of form and was separated from the Creator, who is entirely about giving. For dissimilarity of form separates on the spiritual plane as the axe does on the material one, as explained above. Thus, the soul now completely resembles an amputated limb that is now severed from the body. Even though before the separation the limb and the whole body were one and used to transmit thoughts and sensations to each other; when the limb was amputated, they became two entities. The one does not know the other’s thoughts and needs. This is truer after the soul was enclothed with the body of this world. All communications it had before it separated from its essence were interrupted, and they are now two different entities.

(20) 7. The virtue of a person who attained to cleave to him again is now obvious. It means that he attained similarity of form with the Creator imprinted on him by transforming the nature of the desire to receive by means of the Torah and the commandments. It is that desire which separated him from God’s essence. He now transformed it into the desire to give, and all his actions are to benefit and give to others. By making his form identical to that of his maker, he is like a severed limb that was later reattached to the body. It can now again understand the thoughts of the entire body, as it used to before it was severed from it. The soul is the same; after it acquired a state of similarity to the Creator, it again knows his thoughts as it used to before it was separated from him due to the dissimilarity of form of the desire to receive. Then the verse is fulfilled in him, “Know the God of your father”) I Chronicles, 28:9) for he then attains full knowledge, which is divine intelligence, and attains all the mysteries of the Torah, as the Creator’s thoughts are the mysteries of the Torah.

(21) This is what Rabbi Meir meant in his words, “Whoever studies Torah for Torah’s sake merits many things… The Torah’s secrets are revealed to him, and he becomes as an ever-increasing wellspring…” (tractate Avot 6:1). This concurs with what we said that through engaging in the Torah for its own sake, that is, focusing on giving satisfaction to his maker when engaging in the Torah, instead of on any self-benefit, the person is assured to cleave to blessed Creator, which means that he will attain similarity of form in that all his actions will be to benefit others, not for self-benefit at all, just like the Holy One, blessed be He, whose every deed is only to benefit and give to others. By that a person cleaves again to the Creator as the soul had been before it was created. He therefore merits many things and attains the Torah’s secrets, for once he reunites with the Creator, he is aware again of the thoughts of the Holy One, blessed be He like a limb that is reattached to the body. And the thoughts of the Holy One, blessed be He, are called the secrets and interpretations of the Torah. And he becomes an ever-increasing wellspring because the screens that separate him from the Creator are taken down and he again becomes one with the blessed One, as he had been before he was created.