The Eleventh Commandment
244) The eleventh commandment is to give tithing [10% of the produce, Maaser] from the land. There are two commandments here: to give tithing from the land, and to bring the first fruits of the tree. It is written about the tithing from the land that was permitted to Adam HaRishon, “Every plant yielding seed,” and about the first fruit of the tree that was permitted to Adam HaRishon, it is written, “And every tree which has fruit yielding seed.” Why do these verses obligate us to give tithing and the first fruit, to give to the Creator and to not eat them, which is the opposite of the meaning?
Eating is sorting of the holy sparks out of the shells. Through eating, the holy sparks in the food connect to man’s soul into a flesh of his flesh, and the waste in the food comes out of his body. Finally, during one’s life, he collects all the holy sparks related to the completion of man’s soul, without which his completeness would be deficient. It is written in The Zohar that Adam HaRishon was not permitted to eat meat, as it is written, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, ...it shall be food for you,” and nothing more than that, no meat.
However, when he sinned and the evil inclination was absorbed in his body, Noah was told, “As the green plant, I have given you all, even meat.” Adam HaRishon was born complete. All the needed wholeness was already created in him, with respect to animals, as it is written, “Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name.”
In other words, he fully attained each of the animals’ names because they were sorted out for him in full. Hence, he was not given animals for sorting through eating, as they were already sorted for him by the Emanator. Only the still and the vegetative were lacking scrutiny, hence he was given only the yield of the land to eat and to sort, to collect the holy sparks out of them, which were needed to complete him.
But after the sin of the tree of knowledge, all the scrutinies were corrupted once more, and as the organs of his soul fell into the shells, all the animals were corrupted along with him and had to be sorted out once more. This is why Noah was also given animals to eat and to sort out, as well as the generations following him.
Adam HaRishon was created in the image of God, which are the Mochin in the four portions of the Tefillin, and they are his soul. However, after he was born in this holy Neshama [soul], through good deeds he was rewarded with scrutinizing and raising MAN, obtaining Haya, and afterwards, on the Sabbath day, with Yechida, as well, since the upper brightness was lost only after the Sabbath. Thus, he was permitted the tithing and the first fruit. Moreover, through eating the tithing and the first fruit, he was rewarded with scrutiny and raising MAN until he was rewarded with Haya and Yechida.
However, after the sin of the tree of knowledge, when all the scrutinies were corrupted once again and the evil inclination was absorbed in the Guf [body], the tithing and the first fruit were forbidden for us due to the evil inclination within us, for fear that we would blemish the upper holiness in them. Instead, we must give them to the priests and the Levites. When we keep these commandments of tithing and first fruit as we are commanded, we will have the strength to raise MAN and to extend Mochin of Haya on the Sabbath day, as Adam HaRishon extended through his eating of the tithing and the first fruit by himself.
This is the eleventh commandment, to tithe the tithing of the land, since once we have drawn the light of Neshama by wearing Tefillin, we must raise MAN through the two commandments of tithing and first fruit to draw Mochin of Haya. It follows that Adam HaRishon extended Mochin of Haya by eating the tithing and the first fruit by himself, but we, who are not permitted to eat them due to the evil inclination in our Guf, were given the commandment of giving them to the priests and the Levites instead. By that, we, too, were given the strength to draw those Mochin. The text brings evidence that the writing speaks specifically of tithing and first fruit because it is written, “I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth.” It is also written, “To the sons of Levi, behold, I have given all the tithe in Israel.” And as there it concerns the tithing, so in Adam HaRishon it concerns the tithing. We also learn it from the verse “Thus, all the tithe of the land, of the seed of the land or of the fruit of the tree, is the Lord's.”