181. “For the Torah teaches, etc.” Because the Torah teaches a person to walk along the path of truth. It provides him with counsel on how to repent before his Master, to revoke the decree. Even if it is sentenced upon him that the decree will not be revoked, it is immediately nullified and removed from him, and it does not reside upon a person in this world. For this reason, a person must engage in Torah day and night and never depart from it, as it is stated: “And you shall meditate on it day and night” [Joshua 1:8]. If one departs from the Torah or separates from it, it is as though he has separated from the tree of life.

Explanation: [Rabbi Shimon] began with a prayer, from the verse: “And Hezekiah turned his face to the wall,” which he interprets as referring specifically to the Torah. The idea is, as stated elsewhere (Zohar, Parashat Vaetḥanan, p. 4, 11), that his prayer was accepted because nothing separated between him and the wall, which is the mystical meaning of the holy Divine Presence.

[Rabbi Shimon] thus states here that this counsel was successful for him only through the power of the Torah, by means of which he achieved complete repentance, to the extent that there was nothing separating him from holy Divine Presence. Consequently, the sentence of death that was decreed upon him was nullified. This is why [Rabbi Shimon] concludes with “for this reason [etc. ],” because we see that the power of the Torah is so great that it can nullify a death sentence, [and therefore] “a person must engage in Torah day and night, and never depart from it.”