ברכות הראיה ושאר ברכות פרטיות ב

This is understood through bread: even after the wheat has been purified through many clarifications until it is a finished loaf, relative to the final clarification through eating, it has not yet begun its purification . The ultimate separation from literal filth only happens inside the body. The earlier clarifications — however laborious — are nothing compared to the final one. Similarly: even someone who has purified himself significantly may face barriers more intense than at the beginning, because now the soiled garments themselves are being confronted directly. "Here is the table, here is the meat… but we have no mouth to eat" ( Kiddushin 46a).

In particular and in general, every person must undergo this: clarification after clarification, with the final clarification (= eating) being hardest. Dovid prayed: "to do Your will, my G-d, I desire — and Your Torah is within my innards." That the clarification through Torah and mitzvos should be like the clarification of eating inside the body — where all waste is expelled completely. Therefore receiving and fulfilling Torah is called "eating": "eat this scroll" (Yechezkel 3). The future promise: "to eat to satisfaction and for garment of the Ancient One" — eating without any grip of soiled garments, with pristine garments: "the Ancient of Days sat, His garment white as snow." Yaakov requested: "bread to eat and a garment to wear" — that eating should be in the aspect of clean garments. "The Torah was only given to eaters of the man " — the man was absorbed into the limbs without waste, food of angels, with no grip of soiled garments = Adam's food before the sin.

In the collective: the immense difficulty now for anyone wanting to serve Hashem, the bitterness of this exile in ikvesa d'Meshicha — all because now we must accomplish the ultimate clarification = the clarification of eating. "The earlier ones plowed and sowed and reaped and threshed and ground and sifted — and we have nothing to eat." In the collective, the current clarification is the eating-clarification = the hardest. Desires and evil thoughts flood the mind like literal filth.

One must strengthen oneself enormously — never falling in spirit. The Baal Davar [Evil One] spreads more than ever before, but correspondingly, Hashem has already sent tzadikim who left behind wondrous books, the likes of which never existed in earlier times. Through them we can hold our ground and draw ourselves to Hashem even amidst such floods. "Were it not that Your Torah is my delight, I would have perished in my affliction."