Musar על מנחות 58:18

The seventh: "He will again have mercy on us" - behold, the Holy One, blessed be He, does not follow the trait of flesh and blood. [That trait is that] if [someone] angers him - if he is appeased from him, he is a little appeased, [but] not like the previous love [he had for him]. But if a person sinned [to God] and he repents, his stature is greater with the Holy One, blessed be He, [than before]. And this is [the meaning of] "In the place that penitents stand, [even] completely righteous ones cannot stand" (Berakhot 34b). And the reason is like they explained in the chapter [entitled] HaBoneh (it is in Menachot 29b in our texts) regarding why [the letter,] hey is made like a portico: "Such that the one that wants to exit from his world [may] exit." The explanation is that the world was created with a hey. And the Holy One, blessed be He, created the world widely open to the side of evil and sin. There is no side that does not have physicality, the evil impulse and defect - like a type of portico. It does not have fences but rather has a large breach, open towards the side of evil, to the bottom side. How many openings are there for anyone who wants to exit from his world - he cannot turn to a side that he will not find a side of sin and iniquity to go out to the external forces (chitsonim)! But it is [also] open from above; so that if he repents, he will be accepted. And they asked, "Let him be taken back through [the bottom]!" [They answered,] "the matter will not help." They [meant] with this that one who repents will not suffice to be fenced from iniquity [with a fence] like the fence of the righteous ones, since they has did not sin - a small fence suffices for them. However a small fence will not suffice for the sinner that sinned and repented. Rather, he needs to fence himself with several difficult fences, since he already breached the small fence once. If he approaches there, his impulse seduces him easily. Rather he needs to distance himself with a very great distancing. And for this [reason], he does not enter through the opening of the portico, where the breach is there. Rather, he ascends and enters through the small opening, [such that] he makes several difficulties and mortifications for himself and [thereby] closes the breaches.

Spelling out what one has done wrong reveals one's inner thoughts, and makes it less likely that such a sin would be committed again. It reveals one's belief that G–d is aware of all his deeds. Having admitted that one had been foolish in sinning and resolving not to do so again, helps to secure G–d's goodwill. G–d, after all, is most interested in the welfare of His creatures. So far the Sefer Hachinuch.

And know that guarding the tongue from evil includes guarding it from all aspects of speech that are intended to do harm or to antagonize his friend, such as lashon hara, rechiluth, machloketh, cursing, "whitening of the face" [in shame], and wronging with words. One who wishes to merit guarding his tongue must strengthen himself greatly in the trait of trust, as explained in the beginning of Chapter X, so that he not come to harm one who [adversely] affects his affairs, and not come to speak demeaningly of him or quarrel with him or curse him or whiten his face or antagonize him, but trust in the L-rd that He will make up in some other way for the loss that the other causes him. And Chazal have said (Menachoth 29b): "All who place their trust in the Holy One Blessed be He — He is a haven for them both in this world and in the world to come." "All who place their trust" includes even [an instance] where the "needs of Heaven" are not affected; how much more so when one restrains himself from quarreling with his friend who affected his affairs [adversely], for the sake of Heaven, fearing that he would not be able to hold back, when angry, from speaking things that are improper according to the din, wherefore he "overlooks his traits and trusts in the L-rd" and beseeches Him to provide for him in some other way, in which instance the Holy One Blessed be He will certainly be a haven for him in this world, too.

The meaning of מתחלה עלה במחשבה לברא את העולם במדת הדין, does not mean that G–d thought something at the beginning, and then changed His mind, G–d forbid; it means that G–d was concerned with the root of things, the שורש. The root is the "beginning," from which all other developments evolve. The root is in a domain concealed from us, נעלם. It is the beginning of any further expansion. Things become visible from that point on. G–d was able to apply the מדת הדין to those people whose soul was rooted in the שרש, the hidden domain since they possessed the חיה and יחידה dimension of soul. This approach also explains the answer G–d is reported to have given to Moses to whom He had shown a vision of the life and death of Rabbi Akiva, and who questioned how G–d could allow such a man to be tortured to death (Menachot 29). The words G–d reportedly used were שתוק, כך עלה במחשבה לפני , "Be silent so it suits My plan." Normally, we understand this answer as a warning not to question G–d's ways when these seem beyond our understanding. However, this is not what G–d meant to convey by this answer. G–d simply explained that people such as Rabbi Akiva who are part of the בני עליה can be judged by higher standards than ordinary people, and therefore G–d applied the מדת הדין when judging them.

Let us return to the subject of Nadav and Avihu. These two sons of Aaron did not restrain themselves and, as a consequence beheld a vision that was beyond the capacity of their bodies; this was what caused their death. Theirs was the death described as precious to the Lord in Psalms 116,15. Their "death" should not be considered a regular death, and we must not think of it in terms of their being punished for a sin and having to die. On the contrary, they had achieved such a close affinity with G–d that their souls simply remained in the Celestial Regions, i.e. בקרבתם לפני ה'. This is the reason Moses told Aaron that theirs was an example of בקרובי אקדש, "I will be sanctified through those who are close to Me" (10,3). What this means is that their very death was the beginning of their life in the Hereafter. They may therefore be perceived as having entered the פרדס and having emerged unscathed. Since their departure from earth occurred when they were publicly preparing to enter into the most intimate relationship with G–d, it was of the "על פני כל העם אכבד" type, viz. 10,3. Rabbi Akiva suffered a similar fate when he died on קדוש השם, a martyr at the hands of the Romans. He sanctified G–d's name after having emerged from the פרדס, albeit sometime later. When the angels demurred about the fate of Rabbi Akiva and the other nine Martyrs, [cf. the liturgical prayer אלה אזכרה in the Mussaph service of the Day of Atonement. Ed.] G–d silenced them by saying that this was His decision. Here too we find that Aaron remained silent after Moses had explained the nature of his sons' "deaths" to him. This then is the explanation of the first Mishnah in Avot.

כי בי-ה ה' צור עולמים . This means that the universe, i.e. the עולם הבא, was created with the letter י, whereas the עולם הזה, the material world, was created with the letter ה. The Mishnah in Avot 5,1 already told us that G–d created the universe with ten מאמרות, directives. The first of these was אחדות, Unity, as we will explain later. The term דביקות, attachment, refers to something that is ongoing, everlasting, as we know from Deut.4,4, ואתם הדבקים בה' אלוקיכם, חיים כולכם היום, "you who have been cleaving to the Lord your G–d are all alive this day." The material world was created by five מאמרות, i.e. the letter ה. Our sages in Rosh Hashanah 21b, say that 50 שערי בינה, "gates of understanding," were created, and that Moses was given all of them except one. We know this because it says of Moses "ותחסרהו מעט מאלוקים," that You have made him only a little less than divine" (Psalms 8,6). In the introduction on his commentary on the Torah Nachmanides (Chavell edition page 3) describes this statement as meaning that all parts of creation such as the minerals, the various categories of vegetation, animal life and even human life, each required a special שער בינה by means of which they were brought into existence. This process continued until possession of an advanced שער בינה would enable a person to understand the psyche of fellow human beings, enable him to divine if his counterpart was a thief, an adulterer, etc. and even enable him to know if someone else who was suspected of disobeying the laws of ritual impurity concerning sexual relations with a menstruant woman was in fact guilty of such misconduct. Beyond that, a still higher שער בינה would give such a person access to knowledge about the motions and functions of the stars and planets. The total number of such שערי בינה is fifty, the fiftieth being reserved for the Creator alone, who had not revealed that potential to any creature. The wording in the Talmud, נבראו, "they have been created," suggesting that they had not remained only in the realm of G–d Himself, need not be understood literally, as the Talmud was concerned with describing what happened to the majority of these שערי בינה. So far Nachmanides. I personally, feel that the 50th שער בינה, an all embracing potential called hiyuli, primordial is the creative potential which has been withheld from any human being. Nachmanides possibly has this in mind when he refers to the verse in Psalms 33,9: “הוא אמר ויהי,” He said and it came into being."

Whereas we perceive the full four- lettered name (when spelled according to the גלגול system) to be totally apart from anything developmental, the sequence of the letters י-ה-ו י-ה, י, (what they represent) are all part of the מרכבה, the part of G–d's visible entourage that is represented by the alphabet, i.e. א-ת, plus the five "final" letters ם-ן-ץ-ף-ך, which gives us a total of 27 letters. The letter י represents (10 אבגד). The letters י-ה represent (15 אבגדה), the letters י-ה-ו of the four-lettered name represent (21 אבגדה) of that part of the מרכבה.