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Zohar

Selections from the Zohar for this week's Torah Reading
 
Note: Bold text is a translation of the original; regular text is explanation
 

SHOFTIM

 

"Appoint judges and police in all your cities and they shall judge the people righteously" (Deuteronomy 16:18). Rabbi Yehudah began expounding: "How I love Your Torah; all day long it is my conversation" (Psalms 119:97). This verse emphasizes the connection of Torah to day, the attribute of chesed (loving kindness). However, the following verse, "I arise at midnight to thank You for Your righteous laws" (Psalms 119:62) emphasizes the connection of Torah to night, the attribute of gevurah or din (strict justice). Since both of these verses were written by King David we need to understand what practical instruction he was giving us do we follow the path of loving kindness or the path of strict justice?

 

Come and see: As the king of Israel, David had to lead the people like a shepherd guards his flock, so that they would not deviate from the path of truth. Therefore, at night when there is a lack of clarity and one cannot see one's way the verse states, "I arise at midnight to thank You for Your righteous laws" the path of strict justice is necessary. He would then occupy himself with Torah and with devotional songs to the Holy One, blessed be He until daylight. He would awaken the dawn, as the verse states, "Awake my soul awake I shall awaken the dawn" (Psalms 57:9). And at daybreak he would say, "How I love Your Torah; all day long it is my conversation." What does this mean "all day long it is my conversation?" Didn't he have to attend to the affairs of state?[1] But from this we learn that anyone who makes expends effort in Torah to get to judge a dispute so that the complete truth will be revealed is as if he fulfilled the entire Torah. Since the Torah is God's wisdom, which is infinite, therefore each ruling and each concept etc. as it is in God's wisdom is also infinite. Accordingly, when a judge brings out the truth in a dispute or in a judgment he reveals the infinity of God's wisdom, which is all of the Torah.[2] And that is why the verse states, "all day long it is my conversation," for King David strove to run the affairs of state according to God's wisdom as revealed in the Torah.[3]

Another explanation: Come and see: During the day David occupied himself with Torah in order to complete justice. This seems to be contradictory, for strict justice (din) is the attribute of night, as explained above. Similarly, at night he occupied himself with songs and praises of God, which is a chesed type of activity, until daybreak. It would seem that he ought to have occupied himself with chesed activities during the day. Why did he strive during the day to complete justice? In order to include the left in the right. "Completing justice" here has the additional connotation of rectifying the strict severity of the attribute of din. For this reason King David occupied himself with judgment during the day, in order to rectify the severity of strict justice. By dealing with din mattes in an environment of chesed the din is sweetened. And at night he occupied himself with songs and praises until daybreak in order to bring the attribute of day into night.

(Zohar II, 27a)

[1]. Ziv HaZohar.

[2]. See Rabbi Nachum of Tzernobel's Me'or Einayim, Bereishit.

[3]. Ziv HaZohar.

Shir HaShirim
- Song of Songs -
according to Zohar
 
Note: the original text is in bold. Regular type is commentary
 
1:7 Tell me, Beloved of my soul, how You pasture your fold; and in the heat of the day how she lies, Why should a veil cover my eyes
 

Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai began his discourse: "Know this day and take to heart that God is the Lord; in the heavens above and on the earth below, there is nothing else" (Deuteronomy 4:39). Fortunate are those who toil in Torah to understand the wisdom of their Master! They know and gaze at the supernal mysteries The wisdom that a person requires can be divided into the following categories:

1) To know and investigate the secret of his Master.

2) To know himself. A person must know who he is; how he was created; from where he comes; to where he is going; how to rectify his body, and that in the future he will have to give an accounting before the King.

3) To know and scrutinize the mysteries of the soul what is the nature of the soul within him, where it came from, and what it came to this body for, a body that came from a putrid drop,[1] here today and gone tomorrow.

4) To examine and know this world in which he finds himself and how to rectify it, and then examine the supernal mysteries of the higher world, in order to know his Master.

 

All of this a person must investigate deeply from within the secrets of the Torah. Now go and see: Anyone who goes to that world without knowledge of the secrets of Torah, even though he has many good deeds he will be rejected from all the gates of that world.

 

Have a look at what is written here: "Tell me," the soul says to the Holy One, blessed be He, "tell me the secrets of the supernal wisdom how You sustain and conduct the supernal world. Teach me the secrets of wisdom that I did not know and that I have not learned until now, so that I will not be humiliated when I come to those lofty levels! For until now I have not gazed upon them."

 

Have a look what is written next:  The Holy One, blessed be He replies to the soul: "If you don't know, O fairest of women" If you have not looked deeply into wisdom the Torah's secrets before you came here, and you do not know the secrets of the supernal worlds, then go, for you are not worthy to enter here without knowledge. "Go and search for the sheep where they went" return to the world to be reincarnated again[2] so that you will come to know those sheep whom people crush with their heels alluding to those humble men who some regard as worthless,[3] who know the supernal secrets of their Master. From them you will learn to look deeply and to know. From them you must learn.

(Zohar Chadash p. 70d)

 

[1]. Cf. Avot 3:1.

[2]. Sulam.

[3]. See Zohar III, 17b; Sulam.

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