"And you shall not fear the people of the land, for they are our bread; their protection has departed from them, and God is with us; do not fear them" (Numbers 14:9), it seems to me, with God's help, that it is known that the nations of the world have their strength from the sparks of holiness that are mixed in their "shell", for the sparks of holiness are their life and power. And therefore God commanded to kill off the Canaanites, as it is written "You shall surely destroy them etc." (Deuteronomy 12:2) and "You shall not let any soul live" (Deuteronomy 20:16), because there were many and mighty sparks of holiness in their shell, and if Israel had treated them well and kept them in the world, they would not have been able to separate those sparks of holiness, and on the contrary, the "shell" would have been strengthened more, but by Israel destroying them below and killing them off to fulfill the commandment of the Lord, they were able to crush and destroy also the "shell" and take out what was "swallowed from its mouth".

We wrote elsewhere with the help of Heaven that the nations of idolaters and their "shells" are similar to bread that the clarification comes out of it and is completed by four threshings.

The first one when they thresh the grain to remove the chaff from it which is its shell and in this threshing one level is made in clarifying sparks of holiness.

And the second one when they grind the wheat with millstones to make it flour and in this a second level is made in clarifying sparks of holiness.

And the third one when they knead the flour with water that the kneader needs to knead the dough and soften it with his hands and in this a third level is made in clarifying sparks of holiness.

And the fourth one after the bread is baked and the person threshes it with his teeth when he chews it. And in this the clarification of sparks of holiness from it is completed.

And these four steps of clarification are against four letters of the name of God, and therefore they established four blessings after eating food. And just as the purifying of bread needs to be with the threshings we have mentioned, so is the purification of sparks of holiness from the nation of idolatry and the "shell", which does not need to be by us; that we will crush them until they are destroyed. Therefore God did not destroy the Canaanites in the hands of heaven that he did not send them bad plagues in their land until they were destroyed, as he did to the Egyptians in the land of Egypt with ten plagues, rather he decreed that Israel would come to their lands and fight them and destroy them themselves, so that the clarification of sparks of holiness from their "shell" would be by Israel who would crush them themselves as they do with bread, and by this He destroys them in their place from heaven as He did to the Egyptians who did not need Israel to fight them. For this he said "for they are our bread", meaning God wanted to make them like bread that needs to be purified by man through the threshings that he does with it, and these "remove their shadow" - the good part - "from them". When the good part - which is sparks of holiness - is removed from bread, "and God" - the name of God which is against four steps of clarification mentioned above is "with us" to help us in war in order to complete purification of sparks of holiness by our hands, and therefore "do not fear them" now, that they remain existing and they were not destroyed by heaven.