T262 PNC - Through Renewing Torah Rivers Are Made — But First You Must Cry

Through renewing Torah — discovering fresh Torah insights — rivers are made. When you begin to innovate in Torah, a spring begins to gush: "And a spring shall come forth from the House of Hashem" (Joel 4:18) — the spring is the intellect, as in "With wisdom is a house built" (Proverbs 24:3). At first the spring is narrow and small; it widens and spreads until it becomes rivers, and everyone comes to drink from those rivers. But here is the danger. If you want to innovate Torah of substance, you must cry beforehand. Why? Because once the rivers are formed and everyone is drinking, the klipot and the sitra achra will also come to drink from them. So you must cry first — and through the crying you make rivers of tears, in the secret of "From weeping, rivers are bound" (Job 28:11). The klipot drink their fill from those tear-rivers, and once their portion is satisfied, the rivers of your subsequent Torah innovations can be channeled only to the places that need them — strangers can't drink from them. This is why the Tannaim called the composition of laws and innovations a "masechta" (tractate, lit. "woven"), in the secret of "My drink I mingled with weeping" (Psalms 102:10) — the drink (Torah innovation) must be mingled with tears (preparation). And this is why the verse says "By the rivers of Babylon there we sat, also we wept" (Psalms 137:1) — the Babylonian Talmud (the great river of innovation made near the yeshivot) was made together with weeping, because you must cry beforehand.