READING: BETWEEN AFTER MIDNINGHT AND DAWN SUNDAY

Baal HaSulam. Shamati, 217. If I Am Not for Me, Who Is for Me?

LESSON MATERIAL

217. If I Am Not for Me, Who Is for Me?

I heard on Adar Aleph 27

“If I am not for me who is for me, and when I am for myself, what am I?” This is an inherent contradiction. The thing is that one should do all of one’s work by way of “If I am not for me, who is for me,” that no one can save him, but “by your mouth, and by your heart to do it,” that is, a discernment of reward and punishment. However, to oneself, in private, one should know that “when I am for myself, what am I?” This means that everything is in private Providence and no one can do anything.

If you say that if everything is in private Providence, why is there the issue of working in the form of “If I am not for me, who is for me?” Yet, through working in the form of “If I am not for me, who is for me,” one is awarded private Providence, meaning attains it. Thus, everything follows the path of correction, and the distribution of added fondness, called “children of the Creator,” is not revealed unless it is preceded by work in the form of “If I am not for me, who is for me.”