31- How I Love Your Teaching
“How I love Your Torah [law/teaching], it is my conversation all day long. Your commandments make me wiser than my enemies.”
There are many kinds of “What”: 1) “What is this work for you?” 2) “What does the Lord your God require of you?”
The “Whats” contradict one another. One “What” speaks of moving away from the Creator and the other “What” speaks of nearing to the Creator. Doresh [requires] comes from the words Doresh be Shlomcha [sends His regards]. Yet, both are regarded as Torah, meaning both come to teach us one thing, which a person must learn in practice.
We can understand that “What does the Lord your God require of you” means that one must learn and understand so as to know what to do. But what does “What is this work?” come to teach us?
Since the verse says it, clearly, one must feel this state in all its lowliness. Why do I need all this? Ostensibly, it would be better if man never entered that state, and if such thoughts come to him, it would be better if he did not pay attention to them.
We see that there is no answer to the question of the wicked one other than “Blunt his teeth,” which is as our sages said, “And you shall memorize them, so that the words of Torah will be sharp within your mouth, so that if someone were to ask you something, do not hesitate before you speak but tell him right away” (Kidushin 30a). What can one tell him about this “What”? The other “What,” meaning “What does the Lord your God require of you? Only to fear Me?”
In other words, we must know that the first “What,” the Lord your God asked, and not you, meaning that the Creator brought this “What” into your mind, since there is no other force in the world, as it is written, “There is none else besides Him.”
Clearly, the Creator will not create a creation that is against Him. Rather, He created this thought so as to fear Him, which is the acceptance of the burden of the kingdom of heaven above reason, for through the wicked one’s question, he must take upon himself a new acceptance of the burden of the kingdom of heaven, called “fear,” each time anew.
The power to be able to overcome and take upon himself the burden of the kingdom of heaven is through Torah and Mitzvot [commandments], whereby observing them, a person is cleansed from his evil, for only then will he be able to accept the burden of the kingdom of heaven.
This is the meaning of “God has made it that He will be feared,” that all the bad situation that we feel is only so that man will not remain in the state he is in. That is, unless a person rises on the degrees of greatness of the Creator, he will not be able to overcome, and only when one feels the greatness of the Creator does his heart surrender. This is regarded as having to climb the degrees of fear of the Creator.
It follows that these questions cause him to need the Creator to open his heart and eyes to be rewarded with the greatness for the Creator. Otherwise, he suffices for the fear of heaven he has acquired through his upbringing. But when the wicked one’s question keeps coming to him, it is not enough for him and he needs to constantly ascend up the degrees of greatness of the Creator.
This is the meaning of “How I love Your Torah [teaching].” Through the “What” question, there is a cause and a reason to be rewarded with the love of the Torah, since otherwise, we cannot answer the “What” question, but only to the extent of the acceptance of the burden of the kingdom of heaven in Ohr Yashar [Direct Light], and we can be rewarded with this only though the light in Torah and Mitzvot. Therefore, “it is always my conversation,” since the “What” question always comes.