אִם יִרְצֶה הַשֵּׁם
ג׳ כִּסְלֵו תשפ״ז
From Daily Zohar #3783 and #3784 of Reb Zion Nefesh, Zohar Toldot. Yesterday: Raise your flags (DZ 3782).
A map of the Daily Zohar, not a stenographic record. Neither this post nor these notes have been reviewed by Reb Zion Nefesh or the Daily Zohar.
Only the soul
Tzaddik yibachan: the righteous is tested (Psalms 11:5). What is the reason?
Rabbi Shimon said: because when the Holy One, blessed be He, is pleased with the righteous, it is written, Va-Hashem chafetz dak'o hecheli: yet it pleased Hashem to bruise him; He has put him to grief (Isaiah 53:10). And they explained it.
The next words of that verse are the explanation. Im tasim asham nafsho: when You make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see seed, he shall prolong days, and the pleasure of Hashem shall prosper in his hand.
His will is pleased only with the soul, and not with the body. The soul resembles the soul above. The body is not fit to take hold above, even though the likeness of the body is in a supernal secret.
That upper soul is the Shechinah. The body is drawn from the Shechinah in Malchut, and its form is in that supernal secret, and it is still not worthy of union with the Shechinah above.
A tried stone
Come and see. When He is pleased with a person's soul, lehanot [leha'ir] bah: to delight in her [to illuminate her], He strikes the body so that the soul will rule. While the soul is with the body, the soul cannot rule. When there is ra [nishbar] for the body: harm [broken], the soul rules.
The commentary reads the two as equal. As long as the soul and the body are equal, the soul has no control. When the body breaks, the soul rises and rules.
What is tzaddik yibachan? As it is said, even bochan: a tested stone, pinat yikrat: a precious cornerstone (Isaiah 28:16). Mechazek oto: He strengthens him.
In the lesson, souls are precious stones. Mud and layers hide the inner light, and the stone is ignored. Where the stone shows it can hold great light, He polishes it with whatever is needed to bring out the shine.
The stain, and the fish
The lesson continues. A person walking out of darkness toward the light finds every small dirt exposed, like a small stain on a white garment. The higher the light, the more the soul needs cleaning. He gives openings to clean small spots carried from earlier lives.
On the first meal of Shabbat the custom is to eat fish before the main meal, to raise souls of tzaddikim who had a temporary incarnation in the fish. Why must a soul that already reached the level of tzaddik come back? Even above, each level is a brighter light than the one below it. A flaw that did not show before shows in the new light, and a cleaning is required before the next ascent. The soul connects to a mitzvah, such as the blessing on the food, and the spots that delayed the ascent come off.
Pain, or a heavy trial, is His will that the person stay firm and accept the cleaning. The difficulty is for a time, and for his good. The body can hurt and grow weaker. The soul grows brighter.
His soul hates
The verse is one verse. The first half was the test. The second half is the hate.
Hashem tzaddik yibachan, ve-rasha ve-ohev chamas sane'ah nafsho: Hashem tests the righteous, and the wicked and the one who loves violence, His soul hates (Psalms 11:5).
The Zohar asks what sane'ah nafsho is. Would it enter your mind that the Holy One, blessed be He, is the one whose nefesh hates that wicked man?
The commentary answers that He has no aspect of nefesh. The level on which all the souls hang hates the nefesh of that wicked man. He does not want her at all, not in this world and not in the world to come. The commentary reads that level as Malchut.
Another reading: Nishba Adonai Havayah be-nafsho: the Lord God has sworn by His nefesh (Amos 6:8). On that reading, the nefesh of Hashem hates the wicked and the one who loves violence. Because of that, the righteous is tested. He tests the righteous because He loves him.
He forgot
Come and see. When the Holy One created the man, He commanded him in order to do him good. That command, in the commentary, is: do not eat from the Tree of Knowledge. He gave him wisdom and raised his level above. When he went down, he saw the desire of the yetzer hara and clung to it, and forgot all that he had risen to see in the upper glory of his Master.
One day's wine
Noah came. At the start it is written, Noach ish tzaddik tamim hayah: Noah was a righteous man, whole (Genesis 6:9). Afterward he went down. He saw strong wine, not clear, from one day. He drank from it, became drunk, and was uncovered.
Va-yesht min ha-yayin va-yishkar va-yitgal be-toch oholoh: he drank of the wine, and became drunk, and he was uncovered inside his tent (Genesis 9:21).
The commentary says desire for the self alone contaminates the soul level of nefesh. Read sane'ah nafsho again: the hate has a cause, the one who harmed her.
The test strengthens the tzaddik as a precious cornerstone, and the strike on the body is so the soul can rule. Noah was whole, and then the wine uncovered him. Is that wine the polish, or the cling that makes the nefesh hate him?
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