644. Passing the Dead before the Bride
Our sages said, “Passing the dead before the bride, and both before the king of Israel” (Ketubot 17a).
We should ask about this in ethics. This phrase shows us the order of the work of the Creator:
1) First, we must remove the bad that is within man’s heart. This is as in “The wicked in their lives are called ‘dead.’” Therefore, the bad is regarded as dead.
2) Then we go to the bride. The bride is called Shechina [Divinity], as it is written, “Go my beloved, toward the bride.” This pertains to faith, since before we remove the bad, we cannot be rewarded with faith, which is called “bride.”
3) “Both before the king of Israel.” This is the Torah, for the Torah is called “king,” and faith is called “kingdom of heaven” or “fear of heaven,” which means accepting the burden of the kingdom of heaven, for only after we are rewarded with receiving the Malchut [kingdom] can we be rewarded with the Torah.
Also, we should interpret in another way, according to the order of the preparation for the work of the Creator. At that time, the order is 1) Torah, called “king of Israel,” 2) bride, called “faith,” and 3) we go and bury the dead.
In the order of preparation, when we begin the work of the Creator, we must begin with the Torah, meaning to learn Torah. When we begin, we must begin in Lo Lishma [not for Her sake], and from Lo Lishma we come to Lishma [for Her sake], since the light in it reforms him. Afterward, when he learns Torah with the aim that the Torah will reform him, he is rewarded with faith, since faith is regarded as good, and its opposite is bad.
Subsequently, once he has been rewarded with faith, he can extract the dead from within him, for then he can bury the dead within him, as our sages said (Shabbat [Sabbath] 105b), “Which is a foreign God that is in a man’s body? It is the evil inclination,” and then he observes “And you shall root out the evil from within you,” as our sages said concerning King David, that he killed it through fasting.
Afterward begins a new order, for once he has rooted out the evil, he is rewarded with fear of heaven, since the first discernment is called “faith” in the sense of “fear of sin,” and the second quality of faith is called “fear of heaven.”
Afterward, we are rewarded with the Torah, called “king of Israel,” and the faith of the fear of heaven is called the “assembly of Israel.” It was said about this, “Learning Torah is equal to all of them,” since it is impossible to be rewarded with the Torah before we are rewarded with admitting a bride and extracting the dead.