והנה על מילת הערלה ממש, כתיב: ומלתם את ערלת לבבכם, אתם בעצמכם Now, concerning the excision of the foreskin itself it is written: “And you — yourselves — shall excise the foreskin of your heart.” Each and every Jew is able to remove this himself, for repentance tears down the veil with which his desires […]

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וכן כל ניצוץ פרטי מהשכינה שבנפש כל אחד מישראל Similarly, every particular spark of the Shechinah, inherent in the soul of every individual Jew, יוצאת מהגלות והשביה לפי שעה emerges for the moment from exile and captivity בחיי שעה, זו תפלה during that23 “momentary life which is prayer” — ועבודה שבלב מעומקא דלבא during the […]

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אך מודעת זאת כי אתערותא דלעילא היא באתערותא דלתתא דוקא But it is well known that an arousal from above comes only in response to an arousal from below, A man’s soul is stimulated from above only in response to the spiritual service that he initiates here below. Even an effusion of Divine benevolence that […]

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וזהו: צדק לפניו יהלך In these terms, too, we can understand the meaning of [the above-quoted phrase], “Righteousness (or charity) shall go (yehaleich) before Him (lefanav).” לפניו הוא מלשון פנימיות The word lefanav shares a root with pnimiyut (“inwardness”), ויהלך הוא מלשון הולכה and yehaleich — the causative form of the verb, which appears in […]

ויעש דוד שם “And David made a name.”1 The simple meaning of the verse is either (as Rashi explains) that David gave the Jewish people a good name by burying the dead of their enemies, or (as other commentators explain) that David made a name for himself through his heroism. ופירש בזוהר הקדוש, משום שנאמר: […]

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