Perek 127

[Bentzion Meltzer]

The Baal Shem Tov taught:

The Nachmanides once told his son: "If you want to know if your Torah
study is an endeavor for its own sake, when you become filled with awe
and love while studying the Torah, then you will know that your Torah
study has found favor before G•d."

But why does "One who studies Torah for its own sake earns many
things"?1 And what does "studying Torah for its own sake" actually
mean?

Everything in creation, whether large or small, was created with the
letters of the aleph-bet, through the 231 different gates.2 When a
person sins, though, he causes holy souls, which are holy letters, to
fall away from their source of life and into the realm of the kelipot,
such as into the inanimate world or the animal world,3 for example.
But when a person mends his ways and studies Torah for its own sake,
that is, for the sake of the letter that he had caused to fall, by his
now studying Torah with awe and love, with the intention of elevating
the letter - a soul - from the realm of the kelipot and to raise it up
and return it to its Source Above, the Source of all letters, he is
also elevating all things whose existence arises from that letter to
their Source Above, for there are thousands and myriads of things in
between.4

This, then, is what the Mishnah means, "earns many things," for many
things were created from this letter, and this person has elevated
them all. And therefore the Mishnah concludes that this person is
beloved to G•d, and he loves G•d, for what greater love can there be
than between a person and a king to whom he has returned the prince
who had been in captivity for many years?5

1 Tractate Avot 6:1.
2 These are 231 pairs of different combinations and arrangements of
the 22 letters of the aleph-bet, which according to tradition, can be
used to create a golem. Charts can be found in Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan's
Sefer Yetzirah p. 309ff.
3 All the different letters and letter combinations represent
different levels of consciousness. Thus, when the letters "lose
consciousness," they fall into unconscious levels of existence, such
as the inanimate or the animal worlds. However, this is only "for
example," for when one loses his spiritual consciousness, one's own
soul, one's "letters," also falls into one's own human body, which is
itself part of the animal world, and one then becomes "focused" on
one's bodily needs and desires at the expense of one's soul.
4 In terms that we can understand, when one studies Torah, one should
look for the special message embodied in the letters of that lesson,
for the message that will make one more aware, more conscious of the
places and situations in one's life in which one acts without
consciousness of G•d. This is the elevating of the letters, the soul,
and one's consciousness. By so doing, one has elevated the collective
consciousness of all creatures.
5 Toldos Yaakov Yoseph, Achrei #6

Please spread the teachings of the Baal Shem Tov
v'nishmas my parents:
Yoel ben Avrohom and Malka bas Avrohom. May their
Neshamas have an Aliyah

Translation and Commentary by Rabbi Yehoshua Starrett and reprinted
with the kind permission of the Baal Shem Tov Foundation. Please visit
www.baalshemtov.com

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