READING: BETWEEN AFTER MIDNINGHT AND DAWN THURSDAY

Baal HaSulam. Letter 44

LESSON MATERIAL

Letter 44

Tammuz, Tav–Reish–Peh–Zayin, July, 1927, London

To the honorable students, may the Lord be upon them:

… and I must praise Rav … whom I feel closer to me than the rest of the students, and I am deliberately praising him in his presence, so he will give praise and thanksgiving to the Creator for it, that after my leaning away from him for a short while, he was rewarded with connecting to me to a great extent. It must be a present from the Creator.

And concerning my not answering his questions in private, it is because so is my way in important matters—to change addressees from one to the other so as to not give a grip to the Sitra Achra [other side]. Hence, each one must exert himself to understand all the letters, without minding the addressee whatsoever.

Do not suspect me that his words are not properly engraved in my heart. Rather, I carry the load with him in all his labors, troubles, and pains.

It is true that for some months now he has been mentioning before me the great pain he has had in the side of his head. I wanted to quickly write him a proven remedy, which is to exert in Torah, but my way has always been that before I make my remedy known, I ask of the Creator that he would obtain by himself. After he obtains by himself, I, too, will come and fill up the words, “For Judah and more to call,” and I will tell him the remedy.

This is why I so rejoiced when I received from him after some weeks, words of Torah about the verse, “And the man Moses was very humble,” that he discovered it with a genuine mind—that the whole matter of salvation is in obtainment of Hochma and the secrets of Torah. I praised and thanked the Creator for it.

But afterward, I received from him a letter from which I understood that he had broken, “Let he not break his word,” and once again he perceives ways and salvations prior to attaining the secrets of Torah, since he wrote me that the pain has once again gripped his entire head.

Therefore, I hereby remind him that he had already resolved that there will not be complete, eternal salvation before he attains the flavors of Torah, and the flavors of Mitzva [commandment]. Therefore, he must not regret, except over the attainments of the Torah.

It is known that the Creator does not marry His daughter to an uneducated man, as our sages said, “Anyone who marries his daughter to an uneducated man, it is as though he ties her and places her in front of a lion.”

… It is known that the woman is always called after the man: He is a Melech [king], she is a Malkah [queen]; he is Hacham [wise], she is Hochma [wisdom]; he is Navon [intelligent/understanding], she is Bina [intelligence/understanding], as it is as is written in Tikkuney Zohar. It therefore follows that the wife of an uneducated person is named “folly,” since he is a fool, who does not know how to be watchful with kings’ honor.

The permanent residence of the evil inclination is a heart that is empty of Torah. But the Torah and Hochma reject the evil inclination from the heart, bit by bit. And because he is a fool, a woman of folly is prepared for him—Klipat Noga [Noga shell], who seduced Eve.

This is what the writing says, “Anger rests in the hearts of fools.” You find a perfect reason why the king should not give his daughter to an uneducated man. Unless your soul truly desires the daughter of Jacob, you need not give many gifts, as is believed by the external ones, of Hamor—father of Shechem the Hivite. Rather, exert for attainment of flavors of Torah and flavors of Mitzva, not one of them missing, for then his desire and her desire will meet and unite with one another, and the love will complete its thing by itself, without any assistance from aside, meaning by humans.

Yehuda