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and vanities of this world, that does not want to eat and sleep What Is God’s Payment for? entire character of a person and of his service here in this world.
but only yearns for Torah and prayer, for performing the mitzvot And practically speaking, the will is the character of a person’s
and achieving closeness to the Creator, and that derives wondrous Therefore, we can understand why the Creator brought the soul life! A person without will is dead, and a person with will is alive.
delight from everything that expresses the Creator’s will. But that down into this world of concealment and the evil inclination. It was
would mean that a person would be taking pleasure without work, so that the soul will have free will. Then everything good that it I once went to a yeshiva to deliver a talk. I saw that although the
receiving unearned delight. What would be the point of creating attains comes to it only because it has worked and overcome the students were learning and praying, they were gloomy and rigid,
such a world and sending souls there? They could have remained powers of evil that opposed it. almost dead. I asked them, “Is this a yeshiva or a cemetery!?”
in the upper world and received unearned delight. What would be
gained if in the lower world as well we received all delights without If there were no free will, there would be no work for which it If a person’s Torah learning doesn’t inspire him to constantly
any work, everything for free? That would be the work of Hashem deserves reward. That is why the Holy One, blessed be He, created arouse his will, then the very core of that learning is missing. As
without the work of man, and so that would bring us back to the this world. The Hebrew word for “world,” olam, is related to the verse states, “I, too, gave them rules that were not good and
dilemma of the bread of shame. In such a world, there would be the word he’elem, “concealment,” because this world conceals judgments through which they should not live” (Ezekiel 20:25).
no delight: either a person would be so bored that he would no the existence of the Creator, and it conceals the true delight—i.e.,
longer want to go on living, or he would be so entirely aflame with closeness to the Creator—which is a spiritual, eternal delight. The This is the opposite of the verse, “You shall observe My rules
an outpouring of the soul for the Creator that he would not be able Creator brought the soul down into the body, which hides the true and My judgements, which a person will do and live by them”
to live and exist. delight from the soul. And He gave the body an evil inclination (Leviticus 18:5). Hashem gave us the Torah so that we may truly live.
that pulls it to physical pleasures that completely conceal the true “You who cling to Hashem your God are alive, all of you today”
Therefore, the Creator placed man in a world of complete delight. This concealment is the root of free will, because if (Deuteronomy 4:4). “Life” is will. It is clinging to Hashem—because
concealment and opacity, obstacles, obstacles and difficulties, it were easy for a person to feel the delight of closeness to only clinging to the Life of lives is called life. And how do we
and in a body that is entirely physical and far from feeling the Creator and the sweetness of the Torah and of prayer, cling to Hashem? Only by means of will, yearning and longing for
the pleasure of Hashem. In addition, He created within man he would run after Hashem, so that all of the powers of evil closeness to Him and for doing His will.
a powerful evil inclination that incites and entices him day couldn’t overcome him. That is because, when we feel true
and night and that misleads him with every sort of delusion delight, all evil is completely nullified. Thus, a person would “Life” means that a person is filled with a desire for Hashem, a
and temptation in order to distance him from his purpose attain goodness without work and effort, and he would lack desire for learning Torah, a desire to pray.
and from the true delight of the soul. Hashem gave the evil free will.
inclination the power to overcome a person and rule over “Life” means that a person is filled with a positive will.
him. Hashem did all of this so that every good thing that a If a person cannot choose freely between good and evil, but only The purpose of our Torah, which is the “Torah of life,” is to
person does will be the result of his absolute free will and of has the option of choosing good, what will he receive reward for? bring a person to a state in which he is alive at every moment of
his toil and effort, and he will then truly deserve to receive He hasn’t toiled. And even if he does receive reward, he won’t gain
reward. And the reward that he receives will be complete benefit from it, because he is receiving it without having earned it— every day of his life—that he overflows with yearning, with good
and strong aspirations. He looks forward with yearning to the time
delight, because it is reward for his good activity. and that constitutes the bread of shame. All reward is predicated of prayer, to meet with the Creator, to thirstily drink every word
upon the basis of free will, and free will is the outcome of the of the holy Torah, to experience the holiness of the Sabbath and to
Perfectly Precise opposition between the body and the soul. keep every mitzvah.

Everything in this world, from a dust mote to the sun, exists for the The Creator would have had no problem in creating a rosy world More…
sake of free will. “Once [Rabbi Nachman] told me, ‘Everything in which we would see Him directly and take delight in our closeness
that you see in the world, everything that exists in the to Him, a world in which everything is good and no evil exists. A person attains perfection when he is always filled with the desire
world, is all for the sake of free will and for the sake of And He would have had no difficulty in creating a person with a to do Hashem’s will, when his inner being burns with a mighty,
testing you” (Wisdom of Rabbi Nachman 300). That being so, our luminous, pure body that does not desire any of the temptations