אַחַת מִתּוֹרוֹת הַבַּעַל שֵׁם טוֹב:

כִּי תִרְאֶה חֲמוֹר — כַּאֲשֶׁר תִּסְתַּכֵּל בְּעִיּוּן טוֹב בְּהַחוֹמֶר שֶׁלְךָ שֶׁהוּא הַגּוּף, תִּרְאֶה — שׂוֹנַאֲךָ — שֶׁהוּא שׂוֹנֵא אֶת הַנְּשָׁמָה הַמִּתְגַּעְגַּעַת לֵאלֹקוּת וְרוּחָנִיּוּת, וְעוֹד תִּרְאֶה שֶׁהוּא — רוֹבֵץ תַּחַת מַשָּׂאוֹ — שֶׁנָּתַן הקב"ה לְהַגּוּף שֶׁיִּזְדַּכֵּךְ עַל יְדֵי תּוֹרָה וּמִצְוֹת וְהַגּוּף מִתְעַצֵּל בְּקִיּוּמָם. וְאוּלַי יַעֲלֶה בִלְבָבְךָ — וְחָדַלְתָּ מֵעֲזוֹב לוֹ — שֶׁיּוּכַל לְקַיֵּם שְׁלִיחוּתוֹ, כִּי אִם תַּתְחִיל בְּסִגּוּפִים לִשְׁבּוֹר אֶת הַחוּמְרִיּוּת, הִנֵּה לֹא בְזוֹ הַדֶּרֶךְ יִשְׁכּוֹן אוֹר הַתּוֹרָה, כִּי אִם — עָזוֹב תַּעֲזוֹב עִמּוֹ — לְבָרֵר אֶת הַגּוּף וּלְזַכְּכוֹ וְלֹא לְשַׁבְּרוֹ בְּסִגּוּפִים.

A teaching of the Baal Shem Tov:1

[It is written:]2

When you see the donkey (chamor) — that is, when you carefully inspect your chomer,3 your body, you will see…

one who hates you4 — for it hates the soul that longs for G‑dliness and spirituality. Furthermore, you will see that it is…

lying under its burden — G‑d intended that the body be refined by studying Torah and observing mitzvos, but it is lax in fulfilling its task.

Hence you might think that you should…

refrain from helping him to fulfill its mission, and instead, mortify yourself in order to break [the body’s] material tendencies.

However, this will not cause the light of the Torah to dwell [within you]. Instead,...

you must certainly help him — by refining and purifying your body, rather than breaking it through self-affliction.

Delving Deeply

Two tzaddikim once met and discussed their different strivings in Divine service. One of them reported that in his efforts to subdue his attraction to material things, he had succeeded in numbing the sensations of his palate. All food tasted the same to him.

His colleague countered: “Is your ability to control your sensations so weak that you have to kill them?! It isn’t difficult to divorce oneself from involvement in the world. The challenge of Divine service is to live in the world, but to use it for G‑d’s purpose.”

G‑d created the world so that He would have a dwelling place among mortals,5 so that the material plane should not be perceived as something opposed to the spiritual plane, but as something to be permeated by it. In this vein, our Sages6 described the verse,7 “Know G‑d in all your ways” as “a little passage on which all the fundamentals of the Torah depend” — for the purpose of our entire Torah observance is to infuse all our worldly activities with G‑dliness.