Prepared for Web-Site Beit Sefer Esther Beersheva

directed by Adam Kamkhaji

Sefer Mishnat Haim 

Petal 2    Sefer Ha-Hhok ha-Hhadash - the Law of                  the Final Redemption

30 PASSES    These are 30 Tablets of 30 Gnomen each

TABLET 13

contents - explanation of sanctification by definition, brief notes on the 13 Virtues of Esther

THIRTY PASSES

SEGULAH - VIRTUES OF THE HEART

Gnomen 1     When the love of the faith in God and the love of God’s blessing are firmly established in the person, one is ready to seek further in himself other profound virtues hidden in the heart. ‘Virtues hidden in the heart’ is indeed a subject which has no end but it is also a subject in which the beginning is likewise difficult to find. To overcome some of the obstacles in beginning and ending and in defining , (and in 30 Passes at that) I turn here to a previous formulation of the 13 virtues of Esther.

Gnomen 2       These are useful because each one of the 13 virtues contains the desired result of the virtue itself, that is, by the ‘name’ of the virtue or the exprerssion used here to describe it, one can understand the result to which the virtue leads. For example,   the first listed virtue is called (1) ‘the constantly renewed compassion for others’. This phrase is both the ‘name’ of this virtue and its general definition. The ‘names’ of the virtues are essential for contemplating in oneself where one’s heart stands and are thus instruments of self-discernment and guides to personal development.

Gnomen 3             In general, these 13 Virtues of Esther are well placed here on Tablet 13 which is the general Tablet of the hidden or inner virtues of the heart. One can see that whereas the other 9 Virtues, Faith, Blessing, Prayer etc. have a particular name referring to that ‘faculty of the heart’, the third Virtue has the generalized name of ‘the hidden virtues of the heart’. What is particular to the third Virtue is that the virtues are called ‘hidden’. This ‘hidden’ aspect, however, is not so easy to ‘particularize’ because all the Virtues of the Heart are ‘hidden’ in it until they are revealed in manifest ways. The Virtue of loving the true faith is hidden in the heart until one comes to know it and to feel it and to ‘work’ with it, and so with all the Virtues.

Gnomen 4          The main ideea of the term ‘hidden virtues of the heart’ is to emphasis and to stabilize the Sanctification of the Inner Virtues in their application to ‘working’ with others, teaching others, helping others etc. We may say the ‘applied virtues’. And because they are seen in manifest actions and applied derech eretz, one is less inclined to see them as ‘hidden virtues of the heart’. Come then and see that those manifest actions are rooted in the hidden virtues of the heart loved by God and so too their recompense is extremely high in the light of ‘hidden treasures’ perceived by the soul partly in this world and fully in the other world.

Gnomen 5         Seeing the manifest virtues as rooted in the hidden virtues of the heart brings that virtue to the level of ‘sanctification’. Here again the name and definition help realize the ‘sanctification’. There are many people whose virtuous actions demonstrate that they possess that virtue in the heart. They have, however, not defined it within themselves to know its name. We have spoken of the sign of Sig. Domenico Manigrasso, peace be with him, who, from the other world, from the mouth of a fish, explained to his son Giuseppe, “I have always had faith in my heart, but I didn’t know the questions”. This means that he had the virtue of faith hidden in his heart, but he didn’t know how to define it. Without the definition, however, although the virtue is there and positive actions derive from it, cannot be properly ‘sanctified’ until their names and general definitions are known and understood.

Gnomen 6        The faith of Sig. Domenico Manigrasso has been sanctified, in his resurrection, in the merit of the resurrection of the Teacher of Life, Haim. This was also due to his good fortune to have 2 sons who are working for the Final Redemption in the Mission of the Donkey who eats Bread. In his life-time, however, Sig. Manigrasso could not ‘sanctify’ the virtue of faith openly. He hated the Catholic Church and its Priests and he almost never set foot in a church. In the distorted linguistics of Catholic Italy, il Sig. Manigrasso considered himself an ‘atheist’. This local Italian distortion does not properly imply not believing in God but rather indicates that one does not believe in the Catholic Church. Not having any faith whatsoever in the Catholic Church and unable, for lack of education, to define ‘faith’ and ‘belief’ in terms separated from the Catholic religion, Sig. Manigrasso was left without any definition. If you asked him about faith, he could only tell you what he didn’t believe in.

Gnomen 7               Let us imagine, for the sake of understanding, that Sig. Manigrasso was able to explain “I have no faith in that which pertains to the Church but I have faith in the One Living God, the Creator of us all. In Him I have faith but not in the priests and in all they have to tell you”. So would he have been able to teach such to his children from the beginning. So might he have established his own ‘place of prayer’ and his own prayers etc. In short, he would have been able to ‘sanctify’ the virtue of faith in himself and in others.

Gnomen 8              What was lacking? Definition. As said, in the case of Sig. Domenico Manigrasso, his life was sanctified in his death and resurrection through the merit of the faith of his 2 sons in the Completed Signs of the Final Redemption. Previously, although he knew practically nothing about the Signs, he was in the sign of ‘absolving the Donkey from his sins’ in the fourth year, in the sign of the Trial of the First Donkey, when the Donkey most needed ‘absolution’. So too, after his resurrection, he has come down on several occasions from the Kingdom of Heaven to absolve the Donkey who eats Bread from the Donkey sins that he inevitably falls into along the Donkey Path of a Thousand Corrections. The most difficult of all absolutions in the Donkey Path, however, reached its Sign Peak in this passed terrible but wonderful 14th year of the Completed Signs of the Final Redemption. *

* see Documentation in Tribunal of Mordechai ha-Tzadik - for documentation on Sig. Domenico Manigrasso and the ‘absolution’ of the First Donkey see Diary of the Donkey with Three Eyes -

Gnomen 9                The example given may suffice to understand that ‘sanctification’ means, in general, ‘setting apart for a specific purpose in one’s service to God’. Obviously that specific purpose needs definition, at least a word or a phrase which has meaning to the person. It is that word or definition that ‘sets apart’ the idea or concept in a known form and ‘specifies’ its intention. The 13 Virtues of Esther are bound to the 13 Stars of the Rose (Shoshana) (see Book of the Stars - The Rose of the Rose of the Rose - for Tables 13 by 13) . The 13 Virtues are more properly ‘virtues’ positive qualities in a person. The 10 Virtues are more properly Measures, in Hebrew ‘midot’ , but it is also possible to call them ‘segulot’ or ‘hidden virtue