Chapter III

To love G-d "with all your soul" involves wresting away from the yetzer hora its pleasure in material matters. This can be accomplished only after much effort and long meditation on the verse:1 "Behold I have placed before you today life and goodness, death and evil."

At the conclusion of the section, the verse states:2 "[therefore] choose life." The life and death referred to are spiritual. The [true] life and existence of every physical being is the G-dliness which creates and vivifies it, for only G-dliness is truly alive and good, as the verse states:3 "And G-d the L-rd is truth, He is G-d who is life."

Physical matters are "death and evil." We observe that when physical things lose their life-force they rot. The physical pleasure in material matter has no divine life-force, and as such is intrinsically loathsome. The animal soul will lose its delight in corporeal matters upon reflecting that all matter contains waste products, and that all physical pleasures are intrinsically loathsome.

Yet even when the animal soul realizes that spiritual good is better than physical good, it is not prepared to forego its physical delights. Rather, it desires both matters [to delight in G-dliness and at the same time] to delight in permitted physical matters. Indeed, even permissible matters should be desired only for their ability to nurture, and not for the pleasure they contain.

The spiritual service necessary for the attainment of either of these two levels of love begins during prayer. Prayer is the time when the G-dly soul makes the animal soul understand the goodness of G-dliness, and causes it to agree that one should only desire the benefits found within physical matters, and not their pleasures and delights. The main spiritual service, however, comes during the rest of the day, when a person is immersed in worldly matters.

Both levels of love can be achieved only by waging war against the yetzer hora and animal soul, which fiercely oppose [the efforts of the divine soul]. Even when the G-dly soul emerges victorious and a person achieves the ability to love with all his heart and soul, he has only attained what is inherently finite.

However, the third kind of love "with all your might" is an intrinsic love of G-d possessed by the soul; a love that transcends logic. A manifestation of this love is a Jew's readiness to give his very life and withstand all tests [for the sake of G-d]. This love is indeed found within each and every Jew, for "a Jew is neither able nor desirous of being severed, G-d forbid, from G-dliness."

The animal soul presents no opposition to this level of love. [In terms of man's spiritual service,] attainment of this level represents [one's personal] exodus from Egypt, and freedom from all [spiritually restraining] bonds and limitations.

[The three wells dug by Yitzchok are symbolic of these three levels of love.] The three wells4 were called Eisek, Sitnah and Rechovos, in that order. The first two levels of love ["with all your heart and with all your soul"] reflect the eisek and sitnah ["dispute" and "enmity"] which were raised by Yitzchok's opponents, [similar to the first two levels of love, which are disputed by the yetzer hora and animal soul]. Concerning the well Rechovos it is written:5 "And they did not dispute its ownership," for this represents love "with all your might," and this well has no opponent.

[Before Yitzchok dug the undisputed well of Rechovos,] the verse states: "And he moved from there and [only then] dug another well." In order for a person to love with all his might, he must first "move from there," i.e., remove himself from the corporeality contained within physical matters, and see to it that all physical matters are elevated to their source in G-dliness.

Herein lies the answer given the wise son: Superficially, it would seem that the wise son's question is similar to that of the wicked son [i.e. what is the meaning of the mitzvos which are being done?] However, the wise son only questions the significance of the physical performance of mitzvos. The answer to his question is that the divine purpose of Torah and mitzvos is to purify and elevate physical matter [and therefore mitzvos are performed physically]. This, too, is the intent of the chevlei Moshiach to awaken Jews to teshuvah, so that we speedily merit the Redemption through our righteous Moshiach.

In summary: Loving G-d "with all your soul" involves removing from the animal soul its pleasure and delight in physical matters by giving it to understand the goodness inherent in G-dliness. The first two levels of love [with all one's heart and with all one's soul] encounter opposition. However, love "with all your might" is not subject to opposition, just like the well of Rechovos which was not contested by the shepherds of Grar. The "well of Rechovos" can only be attained through the physical performance of mitzvos and teshuvah, which also eases the chevlei Moshiach, and causes us to speedily merit the greeting of our righteous Moshiach.