Let us explain further and fully elucidate the expression tefisa (apprehension) in the words of Elijah, "No thought can apprehend Thee."

Now, when an intellect conceives and comprehends a concept with its intellectual faculties, this intellect grasps the concept and encompasses it. This concept is [in turn] grasped, enveloped and enclothed within that intellect which conceived and comprehended it.

The mind, for its part, is also clothed in the concept at the time it comprehends and grasps it with the intellect. For example, when a person understands and comprehends, fully and clearly, any halachah (law) in the Mishnah or Gemara, his intellect grasps and encompasses it and, at the same time, is clothed in it. Consequently, as the particular halachah is the wisdom and will of G‑d, for it was His will that when, for example, Reuben pleads in one way and Simeon in another, the verdict as between them shall be thus and thus; and even should such a litigation never have occurred, nor would it ever present itself for judgment in connection with such disputes and claims, nevertheless, since it has been the will and wisdom of the Holy One, blessed be He, that in the event of a person pleading this way and the other [litigant] pleading that way, the verdict shall be such and such— now therefore, when a person knows and comprehends with his intellect such a verdict in accordance with the law as it is set out in the Mishnah, Gemara, or Posekim (Codes), he has thus comprehended, grasped and encompassed with his intellect the will and wisdom of the Holy One, blessed be He, Whom no thought can grasp, nor His will and wisdom, except when they are clothed in the laws that have been set out for us. [Simultaneously] the intellect is also clothed in them [the Divine will and wisdom].


Hence the special superiority, infinitely great and wonderful, that is in the commandment of knowing the Torah and comprehending it, over all the commandments involving action, and even those relating to speech, and even the commandment to study the Torah, which is fulfilled through speech. For, through all the commandments involving speech or action, the Holy One, blessed be He, clothes the soul and envelops it from head to foot with the Divine light. However, with regard to knowledge of the Torah, apart from the fact that the intellect is clothed in Divine wisdom, this Divine wisdom is also contained in it, to the extent that his intellect comprehends, grasps and encompasses, as much as it is able so to do, of the knowledge of the Torah, every man according to his intellect, his knowledgeable capacity, and his comprehension in Pardes.

Since, in the case of knowledge of the Torah, the Torah is clothed in the soul and intellect of a person, and is absorbed in them, it is called "bread" and "food" of the soul. For just as physical bread nourishes the body as it is absorbed internally, in his very inner self, where it is transformed into blood and flesh of his flesh, whereby he lives and exists— so, too, it is with the knowledge of the Torah and its comprehension by the soul of the person who studies it well, with a concentration of his intellect, until the Torah is absorbed by his intellect and is united with it and they become one. This becomes nourishment for the soul, and its inner life from the Giver of life, the blessed En Sof, Who is clothed in His wisdom and in His Torah that are [absorbed] in it [the soul].

This is the meaning of the verse, "Yea, Thy Torah is within my inward parts."

It is also stated in Etz Chayim, Portal 44, ch. 3, that the "garments" of the soul in the Gan Eden (Paradise) are the commandments while the Torah is the "food" for the souls which, during life on earth, had occupied themselves in the study of the Torah for its own sake. It is [similarly] written in the Zohar. As for the meaning of "For its own sake," it is [study with the intent] to attach one's soul to G‑d through the comprehension of the Torah, each one according to his intellect, as explained in Peri Etz Chayim.

(The "food" [of the soul] is in the nature of Inner Light; while the "garments" are in the nature of Encompassing Light. Therefore our Rabbis, of blessed memory, have said, "The study of the Torah equals all the commandments." For the commandments are but "garments" whereas the Torah is both "food" as well as "garment" for the rational soul, in which a person is clothed during learning and concentration. All the more so when a person also articulates, by word of mouth; for the breath emitted in speaking [the words of the Torah] becomes something in the nature of an Encompassing Light, as is explained in Peri Etz Chayim.)