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Baal HaSulam

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There Is None Else Besides Him Shechina [Divinity] in Exile The Matter of Spiritual Attainment What Is the Reason for the Heaviness One Feels when Annulling before the Creator in the Work? Lishma Is an Awakening from Above, and Why Do We Need an Awakening from Below? What Is Support in the Torah, in the Work? What Is, “A Habit Becomes a Second Nature,” in the Work? What Is the Difference between a Shade of Kedusha and a Shade of Sitra Achra? What Are Three Things that Broaden One’s Mind in the Work? What Is “Hurry, My Beloved,” in the Work? Joy with Trembling The Essence of Man’s Work A Pomegranate What Is the Exaltedness of the Creator? What Is the Day of the Lord and the Night of the Lord, in the Work? What Does It Mean that the Sitra Achra Is Called “Malchut without a Crown”? My Soul Shall Weep in Secret – 1 What Is “The Creator Hates the Bodies,” in the Work? Lishma [for Her sake] When One Feels Oneself in a State of Ascent Torah Lishma You Who Love the Lord, Hate Evil He Will Save Them from the Hand of the Wicked Things that Come from the Heart One’s Future Depends and Is Tied to Gratitude for the Past What Is “The Lord Is High and the Low Will See”? - 1 I Shall Not Die but Live When Thoughts Come to a Person The Most Important Is to Want Only to Bestow Anyone Who Pleases the Spirit of the People A Lot Is an Awakening from Above The Lots on Yom Kippur and with Haman The Advantage of a Land Concerning the Vitality of Kedusha What Are the Three Bodies in Man? An Article for Purim The Fear of God Is His Treasure And They Sewed Fig Leaves What Is the Measure of Faith in the Rav? What Is Greatness and Smallness in Faith? What Is the Acronym Elul in the Work? Concerning Truth and Faith Mind and Heart Two Discernments in the Torah and in the Work The Domination of Israel over the Klipot In the Place Where You Find His Greatness The Primary Basis The Most Important Are the Mind and the Heart Two States If You Encounter This Villain A Transgression Does Not Extinguish a Mitzva The Matter of Limitation The Purpose of the Work – 1 Haman from the Torah, from Where? Torah Is Called Indication Will Bring Him Closer to His Will Joy Is a “Reflection” of Good Deeds Concerning the Rod and the Serpent A Mitzva that Comes through Transgression Round About Him It Storms Mightily Descends and Incites, Ascends and Complains I Was Borrowed on, and I Repay From Lo Lishma, We Come to Lishma Concerning the Revealed and the Concealed Concerning the Giving of the Torah – 1 Depart from Evil Man's Connection to the Sefirot First Will Be the Correction of the World With a Mighty Hand and with Fury Poured Out My Soul Shall Weep in Secret – 2 Confidence Is the Clothing for the Light After the Tzimtzum World, Year, Soul There Is a Discernment of the Next World, and There Is a Discernment of This World On All Your Offerings You Shall Offer Salt One's Soul Shall Teach Him The Torah, the Creator, and Israel Are One Atzilut and BYA Concerning Achor be Achor Concerning Raising MAN The Prayer that One Should Always Pray Concerning the Right Vav and the Left Vav What Is “He Drove the Man Out of the Garden of Eden so He Would Not Take from the Tree of Life”? What Is the Fruit of a Citrus Tree, in the Work? And They Built Arei Miskenot Shabbat Shekalim All the Work Is Only Where There Are Two Ways – 1 To Understand the Words of The Zohar In The Zohar, Beresheet Concerning the Replaceable Explaining the Discernment of Luck Concerning Fins and Scales And You Shall Keep Your Souls Concerning Removing the Foreskin What Is Waste of Barn and Winery, in the Work? Waste of Barn and Winery Spirituality Is Called That Which Will Never Be Lost He Did Not Say Wicked or Righteous The Written Torah and the Oral Torah – 1 A Commentary on the Psalm, “For the Winner over Roses” And You Shall Take You the Fruit of a Citrus Tree Whose Heart Makes Him Willing And the Saboteur Was Sitting A Bastard Wise Disciple Precedes a Commoner High Priest What the Twelve Challahs on Shabbat Imply Concerning the Two Angels If You Leave Me One Day, I Will Leave You Two Two Kinds of Meat A Field that the Lord Has Blessed Breath, Sound, and Speech The Three Angels The Eighteen Prayer Prayer Still, Vegetative, Animate, and Speaking He Who Said, “Mitzvot Do Not Require Intention” You Labored and Did Not Find, Do Not Believe To Understand the Matter of the Knees Which Have Bowed to Baal That Disciple Who Learned in Secret The Reason for Not Eating Nuts on Rosh Hashanah She Is Like Merchant-Ships Understanding What Is Written in Shulchan Aruch His Divorce and His Hand Come as One A Shabbat of Beresheet and of the Six Thousand Years He Who Delights the Shabbat A Sage Comes to Town The Difference between Core, Self, and Added Abundance Dew Drips from that Galgalta to Zeir Anpin The Shechina in the Dust Tiberias of Our Sages, Good Is Your Sight Who Comes to Purify In the Sweat of Your Face Shall You Eat Bread – 1 The Lights of Shabbat Wine that Causes Drunkenness Clean and Righteous Do Not Kill The Difference between the First Letters and the Last Letters Zelophehad Was Gathering Wood Concerning Fear that Sometimes Comes Upon a Person The Difference between the Six Workdays and Shabbat How I Love Your Torah The Holiday of Passover The Essence of the War Only Good to Israel There Is a Certain People What Is He Will Give Wisdom Specifically to the Wise A Commentary on The Zohar The Work of Reception and Bestowal The Scrutiny of Bitter and Sweet, True and False Why We Need to Extend Hochma Sing unto the Lord, for He Has Done Pride And Israel Saw the Egyptians For Bribe Blinds the Eyes of the Wise A Thought Is a Result of the Desire There Cannot Be an Empty Space in the World The Cleanness of the Body Lest He Took from the Tree of Life I Am Asleep but My Heart Is Awake The Reason for Not Eating at Each Other's Home on Passover And It Came to Pass in the Course of Those Many Days The Reason for Concealing the Matzot Concerning the Giving of the Torah – 2 Concerning the Hazak We Say After Completing the Series What the Authors of The Zohar Said There Is a Difference between Corporeality and Spirituality An Explanation to Elisha's Request of Elijah Two Discernments in Attainment The Reason Why It Is Called Shabbat Teshuva The Customs of Israel Concerning a Complete Righteous You Shall Not Have in Your Pocket a Big Stone In The Zohar, Emor – 1 The Matter of Preventions and Delays Why We Say LeChaim Concealment And If the Way Be Too Far for You When Drinking Brandy after the Havdala Atonements Three Partners in Man Three Lines In The Zohar, Emor – 2 Honor Moses and Solomon The Discernment of Messiah The Difference between Faith and Intellect The Uneducated, the Fear of Shabbat Is on Him Make Your Shabbat a Weekday, and Do Not Need People Choosing Labor All the Work Is Only Where There Are Two Ways – 2 The Action Affects the Thought Every Act Leaves an Imprint The Time of Descent The Lots One Wall Serves Both The Complete Seven Rewarded - I Will Hasten It A Grip for the External Ones Book, Author, Story Freedom To Every Man of Israel The Hizdakchut of the Masach Spirituality and Corporeality In the Sweat of Your Face Shall You Eat Bread – 2 Man's Pride Shall Bring Him Low The Purpose of the Work - 2 Wisdom Cries Out in the Streets Faith and Pleasure Receiving in order to Bestow Labor Three Conditions in Prayer A Sightly Flaw in You As Though Standing before a King Embrace of the Right, Embrace of the Left Acknowledging the Desire Known in the Gates Concerning Faith Right and Left If I Am Not for Me, Who Is for Me? The Torah and the Creator Are One Devotion Suffering Multiple Authorities The Part Given to the Sitra Achra to Separate It from the Kedusha Clothing, Sack, Lie, Almond Yesod de Nukva and Yesod de Dechura Raising Oneself The Written Torah and the Oral Torah – 2 The Reward for a Mitzva–a Mitzva Fish before Meat Haman Pockets The Lord Is High and the Low Will See - 2 The Purity of the Vessels of Reception Completing the Labor Pardon, Forgiveness, and Atonement He Who Ceases Words of Torah and Engages in Conversation Looking in the Book Again My Adversaries Curse Me All the Day For Man Shall Not See Me and Live Happy Is the Man Who Does Not Forget You and the Son of Man Who Exerts in You The Difference between Mochin of Shavuot and that of Shabbat at Minchah Seek Your Seekers when They Seek Your Face Call Upon Him When He Is Near What Is the Matter of Delighting the Poor on a Good Day, in the Work? Examining the Shade on the Night of Hosha’ana Rabbah All the Worlds Prior to the Creation of the Newborn An Explanation about Luck A Thought Is Regarded as Nourishment Let His Friend Begin

Ramchal

Agra

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Baal HaSulam / Round About Him It Storms Mightily

61. Round About Him It Storms Mightily

I heard on Nisan 9, April 18, 1948

Our sages say about the verse, “And round about Him it storms mightily,” that the Creator is meticulous with the righteous as a hairsbreadth. He asked: If they are generally righteous, why do they deserve a harsh punishment?

The thing is that all the borders we speak of in the worlds are from the perspective of the receivers, meaning the lower ones limit and restrict themselves to some degree, and thus remain below, since above, they agree to everything that the lower ones do. Hence, to that extent the abundance extends below. Therefore, by their thoughts, words, and actions, the lower ones cause the abundance to come down from above in this manner.

It turns out that if the lower one regards a minor act or word as if it is an important act, such as considering a momentary pause in Dvekut [adhesion] with the Creator as breaking the gravest prohibition in the Torah, then there is consent above to the opinion of the lower one, and it is considered above as though he really broke a serious prohibition. Thus, the righteous says that the Creator is meticulous with him as a hairsbreadth, and as the lower one says, so it is agreed above.

When the lower one does not feel a slight prohibition as a serious one, from above they also do not regard the trifle things he breaks as great prohibitions. Hence, such a person is treated as though he is a small person, meaning his Mitzvot [commandments] are considered small, and his transgressions are considered small, too. They are regarded as having the same weight, and he is generally considered a small person.

However, one who regards the trifle things and says that the Creator is meticulous about them as a hairsbreadth is considered a great person, and both his transgressions and his Mitzvot are great.

One can suffer when committing a transgression to the extent that he feels pleasure when performing a Mitzva [commandment]. There is an allegory about this: A man did a terrible crime against the kingship and was sentenced to twenty years in prison with hard labor. The prison was outside the country in some desolate place in the world. The sentence was carried out right away and he was sent to the desolate place at the end of the world.

There, he found other people who were sentenced by the kingdom to be there like him, but he became sick with amnesia and forgot that he had a wife and children, friends and acquaintances. He thought that the whole world is nothing more than the desolate place with the people who are there, that he was born there, and he did not know of more than that. Thus, his truth is according to his present feeling and he has no regard for the actual reality, only according to his knowledge and sensations.

There he was taught rules and regulations so that he would not break the rules once more, and keep himself from the transgression written there, and know how to correct his actions so as to be brought out from there. In the books of the king, he learned that one who breaks this rule, for example, is sent to a punitive land far from any settlement. He is impressed by this harsh punishment and has grievances at why such harsh punishments are given.

Yet, he would never think that he himself is one of those who broke the rules of the state, that he has been sentenced harshly, and the verdict has been carried out. And since he became sick with amnesia, he will never feel his actual state.

This is the meaning of “and round about him it storms mightily”: One must consider his every move, that he himself had already broken the king’s commandment, and has already been banished from the world. Now, through many good deeds, his memory begins to work and he begins to feel how far he has become from the settled place of the world.

He begins to engage in repentance until he is taken out from there and brought back to the settled place, and this feeling comes specifically through one’s work. He begins to feel that he has grown far from his origin and root until he is rewarded with Dvekut with the Creator.