175. “The share of the Holy One, blessed be He, is to gladden etc.” The portion of the Holy One, blessed be He, is to gladden the poor as best as one can, for on these days, the festivals, the Holy One, blessed be He, comes to see these broken vessels of His. He enters their [place], and sees that they have nothing with which to rejoice, and He weeps for them and ascends upwards to destroy the world.

Explanation: In order to comprehend this section, and the accusation of the higher angels, one must first understand a midrash of the Sages (Bereshit Rabba 8:5), that upon the creation of the world, when [God] said to the angels, “Let us make man in our image” [Genesis 1:26], Kindness said: “Let him be created, for he performs acts of kindness.” Truth said: “Let him not be created, for he is all falsehoods.” Charity said: “Let him be created, for he performs charity,” and Peace said: “Let him not be created, for he is all conflict.” What did the Holy One, blessed be He, do? He took Truth and cast it to the ground, as it is stated: “And cast truth to the ground” (Daniel 8:12). See there.

The meaning [of this midrash] is as follows: There is a well-known statement of the Sages that a person should always engage in Torah and commandments even not for their sake, because from [doing them] not for their sake one comes to [perform them] for their sake (Pesaḥim 50b). The reason is that due to man’s lowly state, he cannot begin at the very outset by engaging in commandments in order to give satisfaction to his Maker. For “a man is born a wild donkey’s colt” (Job 11:12), and he is unable from his nature to make any kind of movement other than for his own benefit. He must therefore necessarily start by engaging in commandments not for their sake, [but instead, ] for his own advantage. And yet, by means of the actions [he performs] of commandments, he draws forth a shefa of holiness, such that through the shefa that he draws forth he will eventually come to engage in commandments for their own sake, which is in order to bring satisfaction to his Maker.

This is the meaning of Truth’s complaint about the creation of man, when [Truth] said that [man] is all falsehoods. [Truth] was complaining, [saying] how can such a man be created from the outset in order to engage in Torah and [its] commandments in complete falsehood, i. e., not for their own sake? However, Kindness declared: “Let him be created, for he performs acts of kindness,” since through the acts of kindness that he does, which are necessarily distilled acts for the purpose of giving, he is thereby gradually rectified until he can engage in all the commandments in order to give. Consequently, he is certain to eventually reach his goal of engagement for their own sake. This is why Kindness argued that he should be created.

Similarly, Peace complained that he was all strife, since he cannot engage in the commandments in order to give, but only together with a mixture of his own pleasure, and thus he is always in a state of conflict with the Holy One, blessed be He, because it seems to [the person] that he is completely righteous. He does not sense his own deficiencies at all; that is, he does not realize that all of his engagement in Torah and the commandments is not for their own sake, and he grows increasingly angry with the Holy One, blessed be He, when he does not receive the appropriate reward of a completely righteous person. He is therefore constantly changing his mind: At certain times he is in harmony with God, while at others he is in a state of conflict, Heaven forbid. This is why Peace claimed that [man] should not be created.

But Charity said: “Let him be created, for he performs charitable acts,” since through the commandment of giving charity to the poor, one gradually draws closer to the attribute of giving until he comes to engage [in Torah] for its own sake and he will be rewarded with eternal peace with the Holy One, blessed be He. Therefore, he should be created. After their arguments were heard, the Holy One, blessed be He, agreed with the angels Kindness and Charity, and cast Truth to the ground. This means to say that He permitted the initial engagement in commandments to be not for their sake, even though this is a falsehood. He thus “cast Truth to the ground” because He accepted the argument of Kindness and Charity that through the commandments of acts of kindness and giving charity to the poor, one will eventually arrive at the truth, which is to serve the Holy One, blessed be He, only in order to please Him. [The person] will eventually come to [perform them] for their sake, and then truth will rise from the ground.

This, too, is the mystical meaning of the breaking of the vessels which occurred before the creation of the world. Through the breaking of the vessels of holiness and their fall into the [worlds of] Beria, Yetzira, and Asiya of separation, sparks of holiness fell with them into the kelippot. From these [sparks], all the different kinds of pleasures and loves came into the domain of the kelippot, [and these kelippot] transfer them into man’s reception and for his pleasure. They thereby cause all sorts of transgressions, such as theft, robbery, and murder. However, at the same time He also gave us the Torah and [its] commandments. Even if one begins by engaging in them not for their own sake, but for one’s own pleasure, to satisfy his base lusts, in accordance with the powers of the breaking of the vessels, [the person] will thereby eventually come to [perform them] for their own sake. [Through this, the person] will merit the purpose of creation, which is to receive all the delight and pleasure of [God’s initial] intent for the Creation, in order to give Him satisfaction, as stated.

[The Zohar] thus states: “On these days, the Holy One, blessed be He, comes to see these broken vessels of His.” On the festivals, when a person observes the commandment to rejoice on a festival from all the abundance that the Holy One, blessed be He, has given him, the Holy One, blessed be He, goes to examine His broken vessels. [It is] through [these broken vessels] that man has been given an opportunity to engage in commandments not for their own sake, as stated. He wishes to see the extent to which [the vessels] have fulfilled their purpose of bringing man to [the state of performing them] for their own sake.

But He “sees that they,” the broken vessels, “have nothing with which to rejoice, and He weeps for them.” He sees that nothing has yet been distilled from them, i. e., they have not brought the person into [performing the commandments] for their sake at all, but rather he engages in the joy of the festival only for his own pleasure. He thus “weeps for them,” i. e., it is as though He regrets having broken them, since He broke them and cast Truth to the ground only for man’s benefit, so that he could begin to serve [God] not for [God's own] sake and then arrive at [performing the commandments] for [God's] sake. When He sees that man has not budged one iota from his selfish desires, this shows that He has broken them in vain, and He therefore weeps for them.

“[God] ascends upwards to destroy the world.” That is, it as though He is rising to remove the shefa from the world and destroy it. [This is] because if the [act of performing commandments] not for their sake is unable to bring man into [performing them] for their sake, the consequence is that the shefa itself is bad for him, since he thereby sinks further into the kelippa of [selfish] receiving. Consequently, it is better for man that [God] stops the shefa for him and destroys it entirely.