The mishnah studied here is the second of the fourth chapter, the mishnah of Ben Azzai: run after the light mitzvah (commandment) as after the weightiest, and flee from sin, for one mitzvah draws another mitzvah in its wake and one sin draws another sin. It continues the mishnah of Ben Zoma, which defined who is rich, who is strong, who is wise and who is worthy of honor. The question Rav Raphaël Benizri places at the center is that of the very nature of the mitzvah: is it an order or a bond — does it belong to constraint or to necessity? The whole lecture seeks to show that a practice which remains at the stage of constraint turns into its opposite.
The Rav begins with the figure of Ben Azzai himself: a master without the title of rabbi, who died young, whose learning embraced every field, and for whom true idolatry consists in fragmenting what forms a whole. This demand for unity, which holds for the body as for the universe, will govern the whole reading that follows — up to the assertion that the mitzvot form a single block, of which one alone, fulfilled to its very depths, contains them all.
The heart of the lecture distinguishes three levels in the mitzvah, on the model of nefesh, ruach and neshamah: its body, its spirit and its essence, the last being total gratuitousness. To this the Rav adds a reflection on the running that the mitzvah demands, on the reward which is nothing other than a new mitzvah, and on the yetzer (the inclination), which is not evil in itself but becomes sin when one oversteps one’s own needs. Questions from the audience then turn to the relationship between the light of the Torah and that of the mitzvah, and to what becomes of a mitzvah performed outside the Jewish people.
What this lecture teaches
This mishnah continues that of Ben Zoma. Ben Zoma defined the rich man as one who is content with his lot, the strong man as one who manages to master himself, the wise man as one who seeks to learn from every person, and the one worthy of honor as one who respects others. Ben Azzai comes to complete these words. One will note, moreover, that neither Ben Zoma nor Ben Azzai bears the title of rabbi: they bear their father’s name, because they died young. It is said that they passed away in the very prime of their youth, and that they were called this way to perpetuate the memory of their fathers — son of Zoma, son of Azzai. In truth, their one attribute was the respect and love they bore their parents, to the point of setting aside their own names.
True idolatry consists in fragmenting. These men distinguished themselves by a learning that embraced many fields and by an openness of mind that confined itself neither to thought, nor to halakhah, nor to Kabbalah, but succeeded in covering every aspect of the revealed word and in seeing them as a whole. For the human body is a whole, and so is the universe: one must not focus on a single aspect or a single organ while ignoring the rest; one must find a harmony of the whole, in the body as in the mind. This is what we proclaim morning and evening when we affirm Oneness: we divide nothing, neither on the level of the world of creation nor on the level of the world of the spirit.
His masters were to him like the peel of garlic — and this is no contempt. Ben Azzai was a disciple and study companion of Rabbi Akiva, and a disciple of Rabbi Yehoshua ben Chananya. His was a quick and incisive mind, and we know that one who digs and wants to get to the bottom of things tends to unsettle the teaching of his masters. That was not the case with him. Garlic is strong in flavor, and its peel has no flavor at all — yet it is the peel that protects what is inside. Such, for him, was the teaching of his masters: it enveloped and protected this mind that sought the truth at the bottom of things.
He crossed a threshold from which there is no return. Ben Azzai was among those who dared, in their lifetime, to cross the threshold of knowledge of the world beyond, and it is said that he died of it. For there are thresholds one sometimes passes, and then one no longer belongs to this world: one is in the world of the angels, in the world of ideas, entirely cut off from the reality here below. This is also why he had no married life. Yet he taught that one who avoids the mitzvah of procreation is as though he sheds blood, and he was reproached for this. His answer was that he could not, that his soul was held elsewhere, and that he left it to others to fulfill. He is counted among those who were cruelly put to death.
The question is whether the mitzvah is an order or a bond. The word tzav, “order,” suggests that the Torah is a constraint. Admittedly, in early education there is no escaping it: a person’s education begins with certain rules that must be accepted. But when one remains at the stage of this constraint alone, it becomes a practice of idolatry, for the simple reason that it is no longer we who fulfill the mitzvah, but an outside force that imposes it on us. To become the lackey of that force is blameworthy.
To be zahir in the mitzvah is to read through it. The expression is translated as “being careful in the practice of the mitzvah”; it also means reading through the mitzvah. The mitzvah is a lamp and the Torah a light: the Torah is the greater, but it is a diffuse light, whereas the lamp is what one carries into the crevices and corners in order to see. At this level the mitzvah is higher than the Torah, because the Torah remains at the level of a general theory, while the mitzvah brings light into the most inaccessible places.
There are three levels in the mitzvah, as in man. By our creation we are endowed with nefesh, the physical reality of the being; with ruach, the spirit; and with neshamah, the essence. So it is with the mitzvah: there is its body, and these are often the mitzvot we practice out of habit, because they cost nothing and commit us to nothing; there is its spirit, which we understand and grasp, but which may remain a noble thought, a desire to study, a quest for learning, without our having touched the essence. And there is its essence, when it is performed lishmah, “for its own sake”: total gratuitousness, in which we become partners in the will we share with the Creator.
The mitzvah breathes a soul into the world and keeps it from stagnating. It is what makes regeneration possible. This was said of the Land of Israel, of which it is written that it devours its inhabitants: those who settle there while losing the sense of growth, who let themselves drift in an endless monotony, with nothing new, without aspiration or will to surpass themselves, become victims of their own settling. One must not simply sit upon the land; one must move forward.
The mitzvah is a bond, and to break it is to condemn oneself to isolation. The word shares its root with the one that denotes togetherness. There is indeed a notion of order, and I am subject to the mitzvah just as I am subject to those who brought me into the world, until I can assert my own autonomy. But the mitzvah carries a threefold meaning for me: it allows me to move forward and to renew myself, to live with my fellow and to forge a bond with the society around me, and above all to go out toward the Creator. To break this bond is to condemn oneself to utter solitude.
A mitzvah is never a purely individual act. Of the 248 positive commandments, we personally fulfill some sixty at most; the others are carried out in common accord with all the other members of society. It is enough for someone to perform the redemption of the firstborn donkey — for not everyone owns a donkey — for me to take part in it, and for it to be done on behalf of all Israel. All the mitzvot we perform have a social, national, even universal resonance.
The vav is what stabilizes and gives reality. Scripture does not say “this is the Torah” but “and this is the Torah”: it is the introduction of this letter that gives reality to all the elements of the universe, to our own life and to the society of which we are made, with its nuances and its diverse elements, which are not all alike. The Rav adds a reading by correspondence of letters, in which the first two letters of the word mitzvah point to a part of the Name that we do not perceive: there is thus a hidden meaning in the mitzvah, a fabric that allows man to keep in touch with a notion of perfection and of aspiration beyond his problems.
The mitzvah does not offer itself: it calls us to run. Ben Azzai says to run after the light mitzvah. Running draws a person out of his torpor and his routine; it is a swift activity, a setting in motion. There are of course light mitzvot and weighty mitzvot: building a parapet on the roof of a house is self-evident, and the morning blessings fit into the gestures of personal hygiene. And there is the mitzvah of Shabbat, when one must close the shop while everyone else is opening, and devote oneself to an intense spirituality — which is not easy.
The reward of a mitzvah is a mitzvah. In practice there is neither light nor weighty: the diligence you show in a mitzvah that costs you nothing will earn you another, far more important mitzvah. You must not seek your profit or your happiness in it, nor use the mitzvah as a cloak of religion, which is mere hypocrisy. The true mitzvah is to be able to pass on to another, and that is its reward: a personal elevation, which takes place slowly. You do not know where a mitzvah will lead you; so one must not stop to choose between those that are hard and those that are not.
The yetzer is not evil in itself. Just as you are asked to run after the mitzvah, so you must flee from sin, for one sin draws another sin. Sin means listening to oneself, gratifying one’s impulses, seeking to take advantage of everything on offer. Yet impulse itself is inherent in our life, and without it we could not go on living: what we call the evil inclination in fact has a creative core; it is what gives society the drive it needs to move forward and survive. Sin begins when one stops there and oversteps the limits of one’s own needs; and once caught in that spiral, one can no longer break free.
The mitzvot form a single block, and one alone contains them all. One who goes to the depths of a single mitzvah is as though he had practiced all the mitzvot of the Torah, because he has reached their essence. Just as it is forbidden to fragment the elements of thought, so one must preserve this unity in the realm of practice and of self-realization. And there is, in the practice of the mitzvah, a way of drawing the Divine Presence into this world: since the whole of the mitzvot is what reveals the Divine Being, by cleaving to them we allow it to dwell here.
No word, no element is without purpose — any more than you are. If something seems strange and you set it aside for now, it is because its time has not yet come; in itself, it is important. So it is with your own person. The Rav applies this to his own generation: before me there were other generations, and if I have come in this one, it is because it is in this generation that I must fulfill my mission. This is my hour, and it is here that my mission has meaning; now that I have been created, I must act as though I had existed only to fulfill it.
A question from the audience leads to the two hehs of the Name. Asked about the claim that the mitzvah would be higher than the Torah, the Rav explains that this letter appears twice in the Divine Name: one part of the mitzvah is ineffable, beyond our understanding, and escapes us; the other is its physical and natural expression, that of the present moment and of practice. The first envelops the Divine Being; the second is the present reality that we study, learn and carry out in all its forms.
The same good deed is not a mitzvah if it is detached from the whole. Asked whether the notion of mitzvah is reserved for the Jewish people, the Rav answers that many laws belong to universal morality — not to steal, not to lie, not to bear false witness — and that the Jewish people is not alone in practicing them. The difference lies in the way they are practiced. The mitzvah is a unity; when we fulfill one, we practice it within that unity and attach it to it. As long as it is not attached, it is neither whole nor complete, and it may even become a personal cult: it is my nature to give, it is my nature to hold fast to the truth — but that is not enough.
Full transcript of the lecture
We now take up the study of the second mishnah of chapter four, which we will read next Shabbat. This mishnah completes the words of Ben Zoma, who defined the rich man as the one who is content with his lot, who rejoices in his portion; the strong man as the one who manages to master his inclination; the wise man as the one who seeks to learn from every person; and finally the one worthy of respect, of dignity, of honor, as the one who respects others — who respects the other creatures of the world. And now comes Ben Azzai. You will notice that Ben Zoma and Ben Azzai do not have the title of rabbi; rather, they bear a name of filiation, taken from their fathers, Zoma and Azzai. It is said that they were orphaned at a young age, and so they were called in this way — it was a way of perpetuating their fathers’ memory, by calling them son of Zoma, son of Azzai.
In truth, their one attribute was the respect and the love they bore their parents, to the point of setting aside even their own names. These men distinguished themselves by their learning, which embraced many fields and was particularly attuned to an openness of mind through the Torah. It confined itself neither to the realm of thought, nor to the realm of halakhah, nor to the realm of Kabbalah, but succeeded in covering every aspect of the revealed word and in seeing it as a whole. True avodah zarah, idolatry, is to fragment things and to take them as, let us say, independent elements. The human body is a whole, and so is the universe — the physical universe and the spiritual universe as well — and so one must not focus solely on one aspect or one organ while ignoring all the rest.
One must find the harmony of the whole, both in the body and in the mind. That is indeed how things work. This is the proclamation of Oneness that we never cease to proclaim, morning and evening: namely, that we do not divide, we split nothing apart — neither on the level of the world of creation nor on the level of the world of the spirit. Ben Zoma was indeed — I say Ben Zoma, but we are studying Ben Azzai — Ben Azzai was the man of that openness of mind, such that through his study an intense light always shone forth. Yet this man did not sin through pride; on the contrary. He regarded his masters — he was a disciple and study companion of Rabbi Akiva, and a disciple of Rabbi Yehoshua ben Chananya as well — and yet he said that the chakhamim (the Sages), his masters, were to him ki-kelipat ha-shum, like the peel of garlic. There is nothing contemptuous in this; quite the contrary.
He had a quick and incisive mind. You know that when one digs and wants to get to the bottom of things, one may even tend to unsettle the teaching of one’s masters; that was not his case. Just as garlic is charif, very strong in its flavor, while its peel protects it yet has no flavor at all — it merely protects what is inside — so it was with the teaching of his masters. The teaching of his masters always enveloped his mind, which sought the truth at the bottom of things. For we know that Ben Azzai was among those who dared, in his lifetime, to cross the threshold of knowledge of the world beyond, and it is said that he died of it — because there are thresholds that one sometimes passes, and then one no longer belongs to this world.
One is in the world of the angels, in the world of ideas; one becomes completely cut off from the reality of this world. This, moreover, is why Ben Azzai had no married life and never married. Some say he was wed to the daughter of Rabbi Akiva, but only for a very short time. And yet it was he who taught that whoever avoids fulfilling the mitzvah of peru u-revu, the mitzvah of procreation, is as though he had committed bloodshed — and he was reproached for this. And what was his answer? […] “I cannot. I leave it — let it pass to other people; but as for me, I am incapable of it, it is beyond me.” That is why he was regarded as one absent from this world. And he is counted among the ten — the ten victims, the ten great men who were cruelly put to death by…
To what does Ben Azzai invite us? First of all, he makes us ask about the meaning of the mitzvah. What is the mitzvah? Is it an order, is it a bond — does it belong to constraint or to necessity? One could answer: all of these at once. But the term tzav, “order,” would lead you to think that the Torah is a constraint, that the mitzvah is a constraint. Admittedly, in education there is no escaping it: a person’s education passes first and foremost through certain rules that must be accepted. But when one remains at the stage of this constraint alone, it becomes avodah zarah — it becomes a practice of idolatry. Why? For the simple reason that it is not we who fulfill the Torah, who fulfill the mitzvah; it is an outside force that imposes this on us — and to become the servant of that outside force which compels us to the mitzvah is blameworthy! One must come to be zahir be-mitzvah. Zahir be-mitzvah is translated as “being careful in the practice of the mitzvah.” But zahir be-mitzvah also means reading through the mitzvah. Ki ner mitzvah ve-Torah or (Proverbs 6:23): the mitzvah is a lamp; the Torah is a greater light, but it is a diffuse light.
But when one comes to bedikat chametz (the search for leaven), when one truly wants to eliminate everything that may be lingering around us, within us — for that one uses or ha-ner, the light of the lamp. It is with the lamp that one goes into the crevices, into the holes, to see. And indeed, at this level, the mitzvah is higher than the Torah, because the Torah remains at the level of a general theory, whereas of the mitzvah it is said: ner mitzvah, the lamp of the mitzvah. The lamp brings light into the places most inaccessible to light. And that is why, in the same way — just as by our creation we are endowed with nefesh, which is the physical reality of the being, ruach, which is the spirit, and neshamah, which is the essence —
so in a mitzvah there is nefesh, ruach and neshamah. There is the body of the mitzvah — and sometimes these are the mitzvot we practice simply out of habit, or because they cost us nothing and commit us to nothing. And there is the ruach of the mitzvah, the spirit of the mitzvah: we understand it, we grasp it. This can remain at the level of a noble thought, of a desire to study, of a quest for learning — and yet we have not touched the essence of the mitzvah. The essence of the mitzvah is when it is performed lishmah — lishmah means “for its own sake.” There is a total gratuitousness in the will of the mitzvah, since it is the will we share with the Creator of the universe; and so we wish, in a sense, to be partners in the mitzvah, which keeps the world from stagnating — for the mitzvah is what breathes a soul into the world and allows us to regenerate ourselves. This was said even of the Land of Israel: eretz okhelet yoshveha, “a land that devours its inhabitants” (Numbers 13:32). How can a land devour its inhabitants? Those who settle in the land and no longer have the sense of growth, who let themselves drift in a monotony without the least novelty, without new aspirations, without a will to surpass themselves — they become victims of their settling on this land, of their occupation of this land.
One must not be yoshev, merely sitting on the land; one must truly move forward. And what allows us to move forward is the mitzvah, because the mitzvah is what makes us walk together — not only with our fellow — for the notion of tzavta, togetherness, is a bond: the mitzvah is a bond. There is a notion of order, yes. And I am the subject of the mitzvah, as I am the subject of the Creator, as I am the subject of those who brought me into the world, until I can assert my autonomy, my independence. So the mitzvah is a bond, and to break this bond is to condemn oneself to total isolation, to solitude, to annihilation. It is in this that the mitzvah carries a threefold meaning for me.
It truly allows me to move forward, to renew myself; to live with my fellow, to forge a bond with the world around me, with the surrounding society; and above all to go out toward the Creator — as it is said: ve-atem ha-devekim ba-Shem Elokeikhem, “and you who cleave to Hashem your G-d” (Deuteronomy 4:4). Cleaving — in what way? Well, the chakhamim did not mince their words: they said that the mitzvot are elements of the Divine, that they constitute the Divine. […] He Himself observes the mitzvot — ve-shamru et mishmarti: they will observe what I Myself observe. The mitzvah has a sefirotic reality, which lies beyond our understanding, which breaks the chains of this universal straitjacket in which we are held, and which allows us to have an overall view of everything: of myself, of my place within society, of the society that is indeed around me and at my service, and of my Creator —
He who grants me life; and this life is mitzvah. Now this mitzvah is the whole of the Torah. It is true that the Torah — the whole of the Torah — is 613 mitzvot: there are 248 positive actions and 365 negative commandments. And, parenthetically: of these 248 positive commandments, we personally perform sixty at most; the others are done in common accord with all the other members of society. It is enough, for example, for someone to perform the mitzvah of peter chamor, the redemption of a firstborn donkey, or the tithe of animals, the tithe of sheep — not everyone owns sheep, not everyone owns a donkey or a mare. So it is enough for someone to perform it, and for me to take part, to be there.
He has done it for all of Israel, because all the mitzvot we perform have a social, national, even universal resonance. How can this be explained? There is no explanation — because the mitzvah is, in a sense, the Divine Name enveloped, clothed. The vav-heh of mitzvah is the vav-heh of Yod-Kei-Vav-Kei, of the Name Yod-Kei-Vav-Kei. The vav-heh is the world here below, and the vav is the letter of truth. It is the letter we find in vavei ha-amudim — “the hooks of the pillars” — in the Torah; it is the letter of the Torah: Ve-zot ha-Torah. We do not say Zot ha-Torah but Ve-zot ha-Torah, “and this is the Torah” (Deuteronomy 4:44), with the introduction of the vav — because the vav is what stabilizes everything; it is what gives reality to all the elements of the universe, to all the elements within us, in our own life, and to the whole of the society of which we are made, with its nuances and its diverse elements, which of course are not all alike.
Whether one who strives — one who multiplies, who applies himself to performing the greatest number of mitzvot — or one who limits himself to the measure of what is indispensable, the essential is that he direct everything toward Heaven, that is, in a spirit of total gratuitousness, without [expecting] anything in return. The mitzvah is lishmah. The vav-heh is what it shares with Yod-Kei-Vav-Kei, the vav-heh of the Divine attribute. But the yod-heh, in itself, is also a Divine attribute. You know that there are various readings of the Torah through the Hebrew alphabet: either in the order alef-bet, or in the order where tav replaces alef, shin replaces bet, resh replaces gimel, and so on.
This is called Atbash. There are others; I give you this one. To the letters mem-tzadi there correspond, in the Atbash alphabet, yod-heh. That is to say, there is a hidden meaning of the mitzvah which corresponds to the part of the Divine that is not uttered — to the yod-heh — only we do not perceive it. Our Sages have said that the Divine Being in itself is made of this fabric, so that man may keep in touch with this notion of perfection, of fullness, of an aspiration that reaches beyond his own problems. So now, what does Ben Azzai say? Hevei ratz le-mitzvah kalah — “run after the light mitzvah.” The mitzvah does not simply offer itself; it invites us to run. It invites, it walks, it is an activity; it draws a person out of his torpor, out of his routine. But of course there are small mitzvot and great mitzvot. There are light mitzvot — for example the mitzvah of ma’akeh, of building a parapet, of putting a parapet around a roof when one builds a house; they are, let us say, self-evident.
The mitzvah of the morning washing, of the morning blessings, and so on — that is part of hygiene. And then there is the mitzvah of Shabbat, when one must close the shop while everyone else is opening — while everyone else is opening! — the mitzvah of Shabbat, when one must truly devote oneself to an intense spirituality. That is hard; it is not easy to keep a Shabbat with all its demands. Yes — but he says: in practice there is no kalah and no chamurah, no light and no weighty. Hevei ratz le-mitzvah kalah: the diligence you show in practicing a mitzvah that would cost you nothing — that very diligence will open for you the gates of a mitzvah ten times more important, because it will be a mitzvah: sekhar mitzvah mitzvah, the reward of a mitzvah is another mitzvah. In the mitzvah you must not seek to find your happiness, your profit.
One must not simply use the mitzvah as a cloak of religion. The true mitzvah, the fulfillment of a mitzvah, is to be able to pass on to another, higher mitzvah — and that is its reward: its reward is a personal elevation that takes place slowly, because one mitzvah draws another mitzvah in its wake. So one must not stop to pick and choose among the mitzvot, weighing which are hard and which are not. She-ein attah yode’a mattan sekharan shel mitzvot — “for you do not know the reward given for the mitzvot” (Avot 2:1). You do not know where a mitzvah will lead you. And conversely: u-vore’ach min ha-averah, “and flee from sin.” […] Just as you are asked to run after the mitzvah, to act with zeal, so you must flee from averah, sin — because sin, as we said earlier, is listening to oneself, gratifying one’s impulses, answering one’s cravings and seeking to take advantage of everything on offer.
Yet the impulse is itself inherent in our life, because without it we indeed could not go on living. The yetzer — we have spoken of this before — what we call the evil inclination is in reality not [evil]; it has a creative core. It is what supplies society with the drives it needs in order to move forward, in order to survive. But averah is when one stops there and oversteps the limits of one’s own needs. Then averah goreret averah — one sin draws another sin, one sin draws another sin — and, just as with the mitzvah, the door opens, toward the world, the universe of debauchery. Here too one must know that this self-destruction of the being — sekhar averah averah, “the reward of a sin is a sin” — once we are caught in this spiral, we no longer have any way out.
What Ben Azzai adds to the teaching of Ben Zoma — namely: eizehu chakham, eizehu gibbor, eizehu ashir, eizehu mekhubbad, who is wise, who is strong, who is rich, who is worthy of respect — […] — he tells us: take care, all of this stands first of all under the sign of humility […]. I can realize myself in the realm of wisdom, in the realm of wealth, in the realm of honor, in the realm of strength, only by the path of sekhar mitzvah mitzvah, “the reward of a mitzvah is a mitzvah,” or of sekhar averah averah, “the reward of a sin is a sin.” So the mitzvah itself is a single block.
All the mitzvot form one block. One who practices a mitzvah in its fullness, one who goes to the depths of a single mitzvah, is as though he had practiced all the mitzvot of the Torah, because he has indeed reached the essence of the mitzvah as a whole. Indeed, when the Torah speaks of all the mitzvot, it says kol ha-mitzvah, “the whole commandment” (Deuteronomy 8:1): it uses the singular for the entirety of the mitzvot. We must say: take care — here too, in this domain as in the domain of thought, it is forbidden to fragment the elements of thought, and one must preserve the overall view in all things and in all domains, including the domain of practice, of self-realization. Now there is, in the realm of the mitzvah, in the practice of the mitzvah, a way of drawing the Divine Presence into this world.
Since, then, the world of the mitzvot is what reveals the Divine Being, by applying them, by cleaving to them, we allow the Divine Being to dwell through us. And this is also why [Ben Azzai] used to say: Al tehi baz le-khol adam, ve-al tehi maflig le-khol davar, she-ein lekha adam she-ein lo sha’ah, ve-ein lekha davar she-ein lo makom — “Do not despise any person, and do not dismiss anything, for there is no person who does not have his hour, and there is no thing that does not have its place” (Avot 4:3). […] Its moment has not yet come — that is all. If the thing seems strange and you have set it aside, it is because for now its time has not come; but in itself it is important. Any word, any element has its importance — just like you, just like your own person.
We say this always. […] I myself — it is in this age that I am called to exist; but before me there were generations upon generations, and in those generations I did not appear, I could not exist. If I have come in this generation, it is because it is in this generation that I must fulfill my mission. It is because this is my hour, and it is here that my mission has meaning. […] Now that I have been created, I must act as though I had existed only to fulfill my role at this very moment. […]
That is the reflection on the words of Ben Azzai. If you have questions about Ben Azzai… — “I would have two questions. Your study — and I thank you very much for it — made me think of be-orkha nir’eh or, ‘in Your light we see light’ (Psalms 36:10). So I understand that from the mitzvot, from the practice of the mitzvot, we see the Torah in a unity of light. Is that it? And my second… In that sense, the mitzvah would not be higher than the Torah, but rather a light […].” — There you are. Well, listen: there is one point I did not mention. There are two hehs in the Divine Name, Yod-Kei-Vav-Kei. I say that there is a part of the mitzvah that is ineffable, that is not within reach of our understanding, that escapes us.
That is the first heh. And there is the physical, natural expression of this mitzvah […]. So the first heh is the fabric of the mitzvah that envelops the Divine Being and gives it the Torah — and the Torah we are studying, we are learning, we are carrying out in all its forms. But to do so, the second heh is a heh of the present reality, of the practice of the very moment, of the physical expression we give to the life of the spirit. — “And a second question: is the practice, or even the notion, of mitzvah reserved for the Jewish people? We see quite clearly that at times non-Jewish people do something of which one could say, ‘There, that is a mitzvah.’ Can it be counted within this whole of mitzvot practiced by the Jewish people, or do we make a separation?
For some it is perhaps a good deed, and for others it is a mitzvah, tzedakah, and so on.” — Well, there are mitzvot that fall within the bounds of logic: for example, that one does not steal, does not lie, does not bear false witness. It is not only the Jewish people that practices them; I believe this belongs to universal morality. There are many laws that belong to universal morality. But the way of practicing them is different. The way — because these laws, once detached from the whole… I told you that the mitzvah is a block, a unity; consequently, when we practice a mitzvah, we practice it within that unity, we always attach it to that unity, to that whole. And as long as we do not attach it to the whole, it is not complete, it is not perfect; it may even, in the extreme, become a personal cult, a foreign worship. Why? Because it is my nature: it is my nature to give charity, it is my nature to hold fast to the truth, not to lie, not to harm others — but that is not enough.
And so that the mitzvah I practice may be — may form one body with the whole of the Torah. That is how it abides in its permanence. Another question…
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