However all this pertained when Israel was on a higher plane, when the Divine Presence dwelt among Israel in the Beit Hamikdash. Then the vitality of the body came only through the divine soul, from the internal of the life-giving power issuing from the Infinite, through the Tetragrammaton, as described above.

B ut after that they had fallen from their estate, and through their actions caused the mystery of the exile of the Divine Presence. "By your sins was your mother expelled," meaning that the benevolence flowing forth from the latter hai as mentioned descended far down, from plane to plane, until it entered into the Ten Sefirot of nogah. The benevolence and vitality proceed through the hosts of heaven and those charged over them to every living physical being in this world, even to vegetation. "There is no blade of grass that has no spirit above..."

Thus even the sinful and deliberate transgressors of Israel may receive vitality for their bodies and animal souls, exactly as other living beings do, for "They are compared and equal to beasts." In fact their nurture is granted them with even greater emphasis and force, as explained in Zohar, Pkudai. Every benevolence and vitality granted mortal man while he commits evil in the eyes of G‑d, in deed or speech, or by musing on sin... all issues to him from the chambers of the sitra achra described there in the Zohar.

Man possesses choice, whether he shall derive his nurture from the chambers of the sitra achra or from the chambers of holiness, from whom flow all good and holy thoughts ...

For "One opposing the other did G‑d make ..." The chambers of the sitra achra derive their vitality from the embodiment within them and the descent within them of the issue of the Ten Sefirot of nogah comprising "good and evil," the Tree of Knowledge ... as known to the initiate.

"Jacob is the cord of His possession." The analogy is to a cord whose one end is above and its other end below. When one pulls the lower end he will move and pull after it the higher end as well, as far as it can be pulled.

The root of the soul of man and its source is in the latter hai, as we have explained earlier. Through his evil deeds and thoughts he "pulls" and draws down the life-force issuing from the hai into the chambers of the sitra achra, as it were, from which he receives his thoughts and deeds. Because he, the sinful person, draws the flow of vitality into the sitra achra, he receives his "share" of vitality first. This will suffice for the understanding.

Hence the statement, "Not within bur hands is the reason for either the tranquility of the wicked ..."— in our hands, in this time of exile after the destruction. This is the sense of the "Exile of the Shechinah," as it were, His granting benevolent life-force to the chambers of the sitra achra that He despises.

But when the sinner performs the appropriate penance, then he removes from them the life-force he brought to them originally through his deeds and thoughts. By his repentance he returns the flow issuing from the Shechinah to its proper place.

This then is "tashuv hai tata'a" returning the latter hai from its state of exile. "G‑d will return those of you who return," meaning with those who return. Our Sages have commented on this verse, "He shall bring back is not said ..."