David Asks for Fear, Joy, and Torah

David the king, peace be upon him, further said: I feared in the midst of my joy, and I rejoiced in the midst of my fear, and my love rose above them all. Therefore the Holy One, blessed be He, made a covenant with me, that I would be expert in Scripture and in Mishnah, in laws and in homilies, as it is said: "For is not my house so with God? For He has made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and secure; for all my salvation and all my desire, will He not make it grow?" (2 Samuel 23). And "covenant" means nothing other than Torah, as it is said: "My covenant was with him, life and peace" (Malachi 2). "Ordered in all things" means in Scripture, in Mishnah, in laws, and in homilies; "and secure" means that words of Torah would be secured within me forever and to all eternity. "For all my salvation and all my desire, will He not make it grow?" From here they said: Any disciple of the wise who busies himself greatly with the study of Torah and is not greatly sustained, it is a good sign for him. And if you should say: If the Holy One, blessed be He, loves His Torah, why does He not make him rich? You must answer: Because if he grew rich he would transgress the words of Torah. Therefore, any disciple of the wise who busies himself greatly with the labor of Torah and does not bring in much produce, it is a good sign for him, for the Holy One, blessed be He, loves His Torah; for if he grew rich he would transgress the words of Torah. And so it is set forth explicitly in the Writings through Solomon, king of Israel: "Two things have I asked of You; deny them not to me before I die: Remove far from me falsehood and lies; give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with my allotted bread, lest I be full and deny You, and say, Who is the LORD? Or lest I be poor, and steal, and profane the name of my God" (Proverbs 30). Blessed is the Omnipresent who chose the Torah and the Gemara (and the sages) and their disciples and their disciples' disciples and their children and their children's children to the end of all generations, and who fulfills concerning them: In the measure that a man measures, so is it measured out to him. Just as they sit in synagogues and houses of study and in every empty place and read for the sake of Heaven, with the fear of Him in their hearts, and hold fast to the words of Torah by mouth so that they will not be forgotten from their mouths and from the mouths of their children and their children's children forever, so did the Holy One, blessed be He, choose them and their children and their children's children forever, as it is said: "And as for Me, this is My covenant with them, says the LORD: My spirit that is upon you, and My words which I have put in your mouth, shall not depart out of your mouth, nor out of the mouth of your seed, nor out of the mouth of your seed's seed, says the LORD, from now and forever" (Isaiah 59). But the children of the transgressors of Israel are not so: in their youth they are tender, and in their old age they are hard. What does the Holy One, blessed be He, do? While they are still tender, He takes them up and burns them in His great house of study and in His great academy, as it is said (2 Samuel 23): "But the worthless are all of them as thorns thrust away, for they cannot be taken with the hand; but the man that touches them must be armed with iron and the staff of a spear, and they shall be utterly burned with fire in their place." And "the worthless" (belial) means nothing other than the wicked, as it is said (1 Samuel 10): "But the worthless men said," and so forth, and it says (1 Samuel 30): "Then answered all the wicked men and the worthless." From here the sages said: Everything that is to be at the end has already been done in part today. In the future there will be an academy for the Holy One, blessed be He, in His house of study, and the righteous of the world will sit before Him in the light of His countenance. Part of this academy has already been made for the righteous in this world for David, king of Israel, who would shine his face in the law toward the righteous who sat before him. And so in the future the righteous will have their lives without sorrow and without the evil inclination in the days of the son of David and in the world to come. Part of this life without sorrow and without the evil inclination has already been made for the righteous in this world, namely Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and Jabez, and Jethro, and all who are like them. In the future the Holy One, blessed be He, will revive the dead, whether in the days of the son of David or in the world to come. Part of this resurrection of the dead has already been done through the righteous in this world, through Elijah and Elisha and Ezekiel son of Buzi the priest. In the future there will be honor and might for the righteous in the world to come. Part of this honor and might has already been made for the righteous in this world, namely Jehoshaphat, king of Judah. In the future there will be eating and drinking and rejoicing for the righteous. It has already been made for the righteous in this world for Solomon, king of Israel. In the future there will be blood and flesh and the breaking of Gog and Magog and of the idolaters upon the mountains of Israel. Part of it, blood and flesh and breaking, has already been done upon those who oppress us, as our eyes see continually every day. And if you wish to learn, and you desire the words of Torah, go out and learn from the beginning of the matter above which we stated: that the Holy One, blessed be He, is destined to sit in His house of study, and the righteous of the world sit before Him and discuss Scripture, Mishnah, laws, and homilies, declaring the impure impure and the pure pure, the impure in its place and the pure in its place. And afterward they bring the wicked and judge them in their presence. Some are judged thirty days, some are judged sixty days, some are judged three months, and some are judged six months. The sum of the matter: our Rabbis taught in the Mishnah, the judgment of the wicked in Gehenna is twelve months. And afterward the righteous will stand before the Holy One, blessed be He, and will say before Him: Master of the universe, when we were in that world, these people would rise early and stay late at the synagogue and recite the Shema and perform the other commandments. The Holy One, blessed be He, will say to them: If they did so, heal them. Immediately the righteous go and stand over the dust of the wicked and seek mercy upon them, and the Holy One, blessed be He, raises them up from the dust of their feet, as it is said (Malachi 2): "And you shall tread down the wicked, for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet." Part of this academy has already been made for the righteous in this world for David, king of Israel. How so? As it is said: "These are the names of the mighty men whom David had: he that sat in the seat, wise (Tachkemoni), chief of the captains; the same was Adino the Eznite: he lifted up his spear against eight hundred slain at one time" (2 Samuel 23). All the people sat in the academy before him, but David did not sit upon a cushion nor upon a bench; rather he sat upon the ground and taught Torah in public for the sake of Heaven. The Divine Presence came and stood above him, answering and saying to him: Speak, my son, these words are fitting for you, and they are yours, and you rule over them as I do, as it is said "Tachkemoni" [read as: you have made Me wise]. The Holy One, blessed be He, said to David: You sit in an academy in which there is no leaning back; you shall be like Me. From here the sages said: Any sitting in which there is no leaning back, standing is better than it. What is the meaning of "chief of the captains" (literally, head of the third)? That you shall be head in My threefold Torah. Another interpretation: "head of the third" (chief of the captains) means that your portion shall be with the three righteous ones, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as it is said: "And the threefold cord is not quickly broken" (Ecclesiastes 4). Another interpretation: "head of the third" means that you shall be head over the three Patriarchs. Another interpretation: "head of the third" means that you shall be head over all Israel, who go up to Jerusalem on pilgrimage three times a year. Why? The words of Torah of David the king, peace be upon him, are like a man to whom hide is given, and he tans it and scrapes it and stretches it and brings it to a fine work, as it is said: "the same was Adino the Eznite." Another interpretation: "the same was Adino the Eznite" (Adino / he refined himself; Etzni / the staff) means that when you sit in the house of study you shall be soft as a worm, and when you go out to war you shall be hard as wood. And what is your reward before Me? "Against eight hundred slain at one time" lacking two hundred from a thousand. David said before the Holy One, blessed be He: Master of the universe, why am I lacking two hundred? He said to him: David My son, did I not write thus in My Torah: "And five of you shall chase a hundred" (Leviticus 26), even though there are no words of Torah among you, but only proper conduct and Scripture alone? But if you do the words of Torah, one man of you shall chase a thousand, as it is said (Deuteronomy 32): "How should one chase a thousand?" But you did My will, yet you did not do all My will, as it is said (1 Kings 15): "Save only in the matter of Uriah the Hittite." Therefore you are lacking two hundred. From here they said: If you see a disciple of the wise who has committed a transgression by day, do not suspect him by night, for perhaps he has repented. So you have learned that whoever speaks ill of the deed of a disciple of the wise is as though he spoke ill of the Divine Presence, as it is said: "Hatred stirs up strifes, but love covers all transgressions" (Proverbs 10). And "love" means nothing other than Torah, as it is said: "The Torah of Your mouth is better to me than thousands of gold and silver" (Psalms 119), and it says (Psalms 119): "O how I love Your Torah! It is my meditation all the day." The light of a disciple of the wise and of the righteous one in the days of the son of David and in the world to come, how is it? To some He gives the light of countenance like the going forth of the sun in its strength, for about one hour; and to some He gives it for about two hours; and to some for about three hours; and to some four; and to some six; and to some for the whole day entire. And to some He gives the light of countenance like the light of the moon at the new month; and to some like the fifth of the month; and to some like the tenth of the month; and to some like the fifteenth of the month; and to some like the great stars; and to some like the small stars; and to some He gives the light of countenance like the air of the firmament when it is purified; and some He blackens their faces like the bottom of a pot. This is the rule: anyone who shows favor to the Torah merits and receives the face of the Divine Presence, but he who is befouled and soiled with transgressions does not recline before the King. In what case is this said? When he has not repented. But if he repented and died, he is like an eternal righteous one in all his affairs. Thus the sages taught: Three kings have no portion in the world to come, and these are they: Jeroboam, Ahaz, Manasseh (some say Ahab). This tells you that anyone who worships idolatry, whether in his youth or in his old age, and dies without repentance, even if he was fit to be a high priest, has no portion in the world to come, as it is said (Amos 8): "They that swear by the guilt of Samaria, and say, As your god lives, O Dan, and, As the way of Beersheba lives; even they shall fall, and never rise up again." For all the commandments that a man does in this world have no power to give light except like the light of a candle alone, but the Torah gives light from one end of the world to the other, as it is said: "For the commandment is a candle, and the Torah is light" (Proverbs 6). And anyone who attaches himself to the sages and to their disciples, Scripture accounts it to him as though he had done the will of his Father in heaven; and anyone who knows how to reprove and reproves the many makes contentment of spirit before his Maker, as it is said (Proverbs 24): "But to them that rebuke shall be delight, and a good blessing shall come upon them." It does not say "upon him" shall come a good blessing, but "upon them," upon those who reprove and upon him who accepts reproof. And it says: "If the clouds be full of rain, they empty themselves upon the earth; and if a tree fall toward the south, or toward the north, in the place where the tree falls, there it shall be" (Ecclesiastes 11). Anyone who acknowledges his sufferings and rejoices in them is given life in this world and in the world that has no end, as it is said (Proverbs 6): "And the way of life is the reproofs of instruction."