READING: BETWEEN AFTER MIDNINGHT AND DAWN THURSDAY

Baal HaSulam. Rewarded – I Will Hasten It; Not Rewarded – in Its Time

Rewarded—I Will Hasten It; Not Rewarded—in Its Time

“If they are rewarded—I will hasten it; if they are not rewarded—in its time” (Sanhedrin 98, Jerusalem Talmud, Taanit 81:1). It is written, “No outcast shall be cast out from Him” (2 Samuel 14:14). Also, “If you sinned, what will you perform in Him?” (Job 35:6), since the power of His uniqueness has already been given in this creation for the moment when it is completed by itself, as in “Of all that You want, You have forgotten nothing and you have not omitted one thing” (Song of Unification for Friday). Also, “No work preceded Your work,” since He did everything well in its time and it is set well in advance.

However, what He did leave for His servants to grow in is the matter of “If they are rewarded, I will hasten it.” This is the meaning of the four hundred years that was said to Abraham the Patriarch between the divides, and they went out to 216 years, for this was the reward for their work. This is the meaning of being immersed in forty-nine gates of Tuma’a [impurity] and there was fear of the fiftieth gate, so the Creator pitied them and redeemed them, for there is the place of redemption for Israel. This was in return for their work, and this is the meaning of what he said, that He had them skip the end due to the hardship of enslavement.

This is what it means that in the days of the Messiah and the next world, the wicked become dust and are placed under the feet of the righteous (see Tosafta Sanhedrin, Chapter 13, 41). It is as in “These are for everlasting life, and these are for disgrace and everlasting contempt” (Daniel 12:2). This is also the meaning of “He takes his share and the share of his friend in the Garden of Eden” (Hagiga 15, Yalkut Shimoni, Jeremiah, Chapter 17, 299). Although in truth, “No outcast shall be cast out from Him” (2 Samuel 14:14), this is so when all of the time of the 6,000 years is completed, at the end of which there is that time of the end, whose Segula [power] is to reveal that light of the power of unification that corrects everything and returns it to the wholeness of unity. But by the power of the righteous and their deeds that hasten the end, meaning that that light that was to emerge by itself in its time, they extended it early through the power of their deeds. For this reason, the whole of the corrected world at that time belongs specifically to the righteous themselves. Moreover, they are rewarded with the part of their friends, who were not rewarded by their actions, and therefore have no interest in being at that time, since the world is already corrected and “sins will cease from the land” (Psalms 104:35). At that time, they exist specifically in a manner of dust and everlasting contempt.

This is the meaning of Kof–Tzadi [forming the word “end” in Hebrew], Reish–Dalet–Vav, being four hundred years [in Gematria], and Kof–Tzadi [190 in Gematria] years is the merit of the righteous, and this is the future redemption.

This is the meaning of “You will see your world in your life” (Berachot 17), since when the Sitra Achra [other side] sees that the soul overcomes with corrections, she pours out all her wrath on it until it is sometimes captured in its net. Then she has permission to push the soul through the 49th gate. The Sitra Achra wants to push her through the 50th gate, as well, but there is where she completely fails, as in “He has fallen into the hole which he made” (Psalms 7:16). “He is punished by the work of his own hands” (Pesachim 28), since the Creator Himself seemingly becomes revealed over her and redeems her