R' Ashlag Ch. 48 (Part 1)

Chapter Forty-Eight:

Rabbi Yehudah Ashlag's "Introduction to the Zohar"

-- as translated and commented on by Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

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48.

1.

"By then engaging in the secrets of the Torah and in the reasons behind the mitzvot ... "
-- Which is to say, by then delving into the heart and soul of the Torah and its mitzvah-system by reflecting upon Kabbalistic texts that reveal such things, ...

"... you purify the animate part of your ratzon l’kabel to the degree that you engage in that."
-- For the deeper you delve into the secrets of the Torah and in the reasons behind the mitzvot, the surer will be your realization of the fact that we’re all driven by a lethal and all-consuming willingness to take-in rather than bestow, and the deeper will be your commitment to undo it.

"You (then) build-up the point of your Neshama engarbed in its 248 organs and 365 tendons. When its structure is completed and it becomes a (full) partzuf, it ascends upwards and engarbs the sephirah of Binah in the spiritual world of Asiyah, whose vessel is incomparably finer than the preceding ones, Tipheret and Malchut. And you then spread a great light from the Infinite into it which is termed 'Neshama-Light'”.
-- Refer to 44:2 which speaks of the stages you reach “when you fulfill all 613 mitzvot on a tangible level”; and to 44:3 which addresses the idea of your spiritual accomplishments corresponding to the “extent that (your) soul has (been) schooled” and granted insights, about the “full light (that) then helps you in your Torah and mitzvot efforts and enables you to reach (even) higher levels”, and about the connection between higher and lower levels of spiritual accomplishment.

(c) 2006 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

(Feel free to contact me at feldman@torah.org )

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