[Avodah] Knowledge of the Law is not enough

[Yitzchok Levine]

The following is from RSRH's essay Adar IV that appears in Volume II 
of the Collected Writings of RSRH. I have posted the entire essay at 
http://www.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/collected_writings.html  YL


Knowledge of the Law alone is not enough to gain Paradise in the 
world to come; if that Paradise is to be won and the earth is also to 
be transformed into a Paradise, this Law must be not only known but 
also observed. And there remains a very wide gap between the 
knowledge of the Law in theory and its observance in practice. True, 
the precept is a lamp and the Teaching is the light that shows us the 
way to Olom Habah, the way to Paradise on earth and Paradise beyond, 
the way to the Tree of Eternal Life. But upon this same path there is 
also the deceiving Tree of Knowledge; there is the serpent which 
tempts you:  "Why do you need instructions from Above to teach you 
what is good  what is evil? Open your eyes and see what is good to 
eat and a delight for the eyes and the mind! All that is pleasant is 
good, and whatever is repugnant to your mind and to your senses is 
evil. Sensuality is Divine, and your discriminating intelligence was 
given you from Above!" And so, even though man may hold the lamp of 
God in hands and the light of God may shine before his eyes, he might 
walk upon the path of sin and sell his Paradise on earth and in 
heaven the fleeting pleasures of the moment-unless God's fatherly 
chastisement, in the form of pain and suffering, will be there to 
warn him against the temptings of the serpent. Ultimately, in his 
struggle against his afflictions, his better self will rise again and 
will guide him back to the path that leads to the Tree of Life. 
Indeed, that is why God has placed the warning and ever-changing 
flaming sword of affliction  alongside the cherubim of His Torah and 
mitzvoth in order to guard for man the path to the Tree of Life Thus, 
even as the lamp of God's precept and the light of His Teaching show 
man the path which he should choose, the sufferings ordained for him 
by Divine Providence to test and to train him will guide him, 
cleansed and uplifted, so that he will indeed walk upon that path.

This is the noble meaning of suffering in the life of every man. Each 
one of us is like a world history in miniature reflecting the 
cleansing and chastening
guidance of Divine Providence. For each and every one of us, every 
v'y'he, every gift that has come to him as a truly permanent gift was 
always the product of
a past filled with trials and sorrows. Rarely have we been permitted 
to remain in possession of gifts that fell to us without pain and 
sacrifice, without trouble
and toil, destined to prepare us to become worthy of that gift. But 
that which man has acquired through pain and sacrifice, for which he 
has risked his very life,
can be compared to plants imbedded in soil that was thoroughly turned 
over before receiving the seed, and it will be inextricably bound up 
with every drop of
his blood, every impulse of his nerves. It will be rooted deeply 
within man and become his most personal possession.
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