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Rabbi Shimeon - Alas for the man who regards the Torah as a book of mere tales and profane matters
Identifier
014852
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
A description of the experience
Gershom Scholem – On the Kabbalah and its symbolism
Rabbi Simeon said: Alas for the man who regards the Torah as a book of mere tales and profane matters…… The tales of the Torah are only her outward garments.
If anyone should suppose that the Torah herself is this garment and nothing else, let him give up the ghost.
Such a man will have no share in the world to come.
That is why David [Psalms 119: 18] said: 'Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy Torah,' namely, that which is beneath the garment of the Torah. Come and behold: there are garments that everyone sees, and when fools see a man in a garment that seems beautiful to them, they do not look more closely.
But more important than the garment is the body, and more important than the body is the soul…..
Fools see only the garment, which is the narrative part of the Torah; they know no more and fail to see what is under the garment. Those who know more see not only the garment but also the body that is under the garment.
But the truly wise, the servants of the Supreme King, those who stood at the foot of Mount Sinai, look only upon the soul, which is the true foundation of the entire Torah, and one day indeed it will be given them to behold the innermost soul of the Torah.