This means that the secrets of the Torah are revealed only to those who fear His Name, who keep His Glory with their heart and soul, and who never commit any blasphemy. This is the third part in the concealment of the wisdom.
This part in the concealment is the strictest, as this kind of disclosure has failed many. From the midst of those stem all the charmers, whisperers, and “practical” Kabbalists, who hunt souls with their cunningness, and the mystics, who use withered wisdom that came from under the hands of unworthy students, to draw bodily benefit for themselves or for others. The world has suffered much from it, and is suffering still.
You should know that the root of the concealment was only this part. From here the sages took excessive strictness in testing the students, as they said (Hagiga 13), “heads of chapters are given only to a chief justice, and to one whose heart is worried,” and “Maase Beresheet is not to be explored in pairs, neither is Merkava to be explored alone.” There are many others like that, and all this fear is for the above reason.
For this reason, few are the ones who have been rewarded with this wisdom, and even those who passed all their tests and examinations are sworn by the most serious oaths to not reveal anything in those three parts.
Do not misunderstand my words, in that I have divided the concealment of the wisdom into three parts. I do not mean that the wisdom of truth itself is divided into these three parts. Rather, I mean that these three parts stem from every single detail in this wisdom, since they are only three manners of scrutiny that are always applied in this wisdom.
However, here we should ask, “If it is true that the firmness of the concealment of the wisdom is so strict, where were all the thousands of compositions in this wisdom taken from”? The answer is that there is a difference between the first two parts and the last part. The prime burden lies only on the above third part, for the reason explained above.
But the first two parts are not under constant prohibition. This is because sometimes an issue in the “unnecessary” is reversed, stops being unnecessary for some reason, and becomes necessary. Also, the part, “impossible,” sometimes becomes possible. This is so for two reasons: either because of the evolution of the generation or by being given permission from Above, as it happened to the Rashbi and to the Ari, and to smaller extents to their formers. All the genuine books written in the wisdom emerge from these discernments.
This is what they mean by their idiom, “I am disclosing a portion and covering two portions.” They mean that it happened that they revealed a new thing that was not discovered by their predecessors. And this is why they imply that they are only revealing one portion, meaning he is revealing the first part of the three parts of concealment, and leaves two parts concealed.
This indicates that something happened, which is the reason for that disclosure: either the “unnecessary” received the form of “necessary,” or “permission from Above” was granted, as I have explained above. This is the meaning of the idiom, “I am disclosing a portion.”
The readers of these tractates, which I intend to print during the year, should know that they are all innovations, which are not introduced purely as such, in their precise content, in any book preceding mine. I received them mouth to mouth from my teacher, who was authorized for it, meaning he, too, received from his teachers mouth to mouth.
And although I had received them under all the conditions of covering and watchfulness, by the necessity introduced in my essay “Time to Act,” the “unnecessary” part has been inverted for me and became “necessary.” Hence, I have revealed this portion with complete permission, as I have explained above. Yet I will keep the other two portions as I am commanded.
