Introduction: The Wisdom That Preceded the World
This section of the chapter is among the most sublime in the Book of Mishlei. Wisdom speaks here on her own behalf, describing herself as having preceded all of creation: she is the foundation and form of all the worlds. All of the worlds were engraved, established, and unfolded according to the laws of Wisdom - according to the holy Torah, which is His wisdom, blessed be He. By its measure and blueprint, the worlds were constructed from beginning to end, and all worlds are inscribed and engraved in the Torah. Whoever studies Kabbalah sees how these things find expression in the Torah, and even so, the kabbalists do not know everything: there are many things that remain unknown, and everything is engraved within the holy Torah. Everything created in the world, what is in the present, what was in the past, and what will be in the future - all of it is engraved in the Torah.
"Hashem Acquired Me at the Beginning of His Way" - The World of Atzilus
יְהֹוָה קָנָנִי רֵאשִׁית דַּרְכּוֹ, קֶדֶם מִפְעָלָיו מֵאָז׃ - "Hashem acquired me at the beginning of His way, before His works of old."
When Hashem brought forth creation from nothingness and formlessness, generating the reality of creation, this is termed a "way" (derech). In the words of the Malbim: "The beginning" refers to the revelation of the primordial Will. The very first reality is Adam Kadmon (AK), the first partzuf, a supreme spiritual reality: that thin ray of light that the Holy One, blessed be He, emanated into the space from which He had withdrawn and contracted His light, the secret of the tzimtzum. Adam Kadmon was arrayed along that line of light, and from his eyes, ears, and mouth, all the worlds were emanated: first the world of Atzilus (Emanation), followed by the world of Beriah (Creation), the world of Yetzirah (Formation), and the world of Asiyah (Action), down to our physical world.
"The beginning of His way" means the beginning of Hashem's governance, which takes place in Atzilus. And what is the world of Atzilus itself? It is the composition of His attributes, blessed be He, the attributes through which He bestows: Chesed, Gevurah, Tiferes, Netzach, Hod, Yesod, Malchus - the sefiros of the world of Atzilus. Likewise, in every single world, there are these same ten sefiros that constitute it. Everything was founded according to the laws of Wisdom, and she was their beginning. This is what the Zohar says regarding the word Bereishis - "With Wisdom" (b'chochmesa, whereas Targum renders it "in the beginning"): from this supreme Wisdom, all the upper worlds were initiated and channeled, and after them, the lower physical world.
Why is the world of Atzilus called by this name? Some think it is related to nobility (atzil), but that is not the intention. Atzilus denotes the first light emanated (ne'etzal) from Him, blessed be He, the first realm emanated from Him. After Hashem, as it were, revealed His ways and attributes, He began to perform His works - meaning, to create the lower worlds from which realms would cascade down to our world. After the world of Atzilus was emanated, "His firstborn son" was born, in the phrasing of the Malbim: this is the world of the Throne, the world of Beriah. There the Holy One, blessed be He, sits as it were upon a high and lofty throne and governs the worlds from there, because Atzilus is purely the Holy One, blessed be He, alone, in the sense of "evil cannot dwell with You" - a realm emanated solely for Him, blessed be He. The world of Beriah, however, is already the realm of governance over the worlds beneath it. This, too, was done according to the laws of Wisdom, which is the overall governance. This is "before His works of old": even before Hashem acted and created all the worlds, Wisdom preceded them.
"I Was Anointed from Eternity" - The World of Angels
מֵעוֹלָם נִסַּכְתִּי, מֵרֹאשׁ מִקַּדְמֵי אָרֶץ׃ - "I was anointed from eternity, from the beginning, before the earth was."
Here, the Malbim explains, were born the radiant lights (tzachtzachos) which constitute the world of the angels, the world of Yetzirah. This is the world where forces already exist that can serve as emissaries for Hashem, blessed be He, to guide the world - mighty beings termed angels (mal'ach meaning a messenger). In the words of the Malbim: this is the first light created before heaven and earth, the light of the separate intellects. "Separate intellects" (sechalim nivdalim) is the terminology of the early philosophers, also used by the Rambam and the Ralbag: "intellect" - possessing conscious intellect; "separate" - lacking a body, distinct from the physical realm. When an angel descends here, it clothes itself in a bodily form, but inherently it possesses no physical body at all.
This world, too, was created according to the laws of Wisdom, and concerning this, Wisdom states: "I was anointed from eternity" (me'olam nissachti). The word nissachti is not from the term for pouring a libation (nisuch), but from nasich, a prince or ruler: from there I ruled to guide the world through the agency of the angels. "From the beginning, before the earth was" - from the world that preceded the world of Asiyah, namely the world of Yetzirah, prior to our earthly, physical world.
"When There Were No Depths I Was Brought Forth" - The Emergence of the Earth from the Womb of Chaos
בְּאֵין תְּהֹמוֹת חוֹלָלְתִּי, בְּאֵין מַעְיָנוֹת נִכְבַּדֵּי מָיִם׃ - When there were no depths I was brought forth, when there were no springs heavy with water.
Afterwards, the earth emerged from the womb of chaos (tohu). Here it must be emphasized: when speaking of the four worlds of ABY"A - Atzilus, Beriah, Yetzirah, and Asiyah - all of them are spiritual worlds, each possessing ten Sefiros. The world of Asiyah mentioned there is a spiritual world of Asiyah, from which our physical world of Asiyah cascades down and receives influence. All of this descent (hishtalshelus) exists to create screening curtains (masachim) that allow us to receive His light, blessed be He; otherwise, man would be consumed by the sheer intensity of the light. In the language of the Sefiros, we speak of "enclothings" (halbashos): Ze'eir Anpin enclothes Abba and Imma, Malchus enclothes it, and lower Partzufim enclothe them. These enclothings create a kind of condensation, and this condensation allows the inner light, the pure, pristine light of Adam Kadmon - that thin ray (kav) that Hashem brought down, which we have no ability to receive as it is - to be received by us through the screens without suffering harm and without being consumed.
When the physical world was created, the four elements were intermingled and had not yet separated into distinct components; they were mixed together in the primeval matter, chomer hyuli. Chomer hyuli is an expression used by the early thinkers, a term originating from the Greek philosophers, referring to the primordial raw substance from which everything in the universe was created - what we would call today the atom. This is how the Ramban explains "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth": on the first day, not everything was created yet, for there were stages; rather, what was created at the very start was this primordial raw matter, and that is the only thing regarding which there is true "creation" (beriah, ex nihilo). Afterward, everything falls under the category of "making" (asiyah), for from this substance Hashem fashioned and formed animals, humans, land, dust, and water - all of which are atomic compounds. Asiyah means making something out of existing matter.
Thus, initially, when the earth began to form, the four elements - fire, air, water, and earth - were intermingled and still in the state of primordial matter, and the depths had not yet been created. This is what is meant by "When there were no depths I was brought forth": even before the depths existed, Wisdom was already present, for 974 generations before the creation of the world, Wisdom already existed, through which the entire world was fashioned. Similarly, "when there were no springs heavy with water": even after the depths were created, initially water was intermingled with air, filling the entire atmosphere, and the entire globe was submerged in water. We learn this from Sefer Iyov. What did the Holy One, blessed be He, do? He created evaporation, through which air could separate from water. Just as we feel in high humidity, where we feel as if we are breathing water - imagine humidity at an incomparably higher level, where everything is essentially water. It was therefore necessary to separate the air from the water; once separated, upper waters were formed that rose above, and lower waters remained below. This is how rain falls: Hashem connects air with water, the water rises as vapor, condenses above due to the cold, and falls back down as rain. But before the air was separated from the water, rainfall could not exist at all.
"Before the mountains were settled" - The emergence of dry land
בְּטֶרֶם הָרִים הָטְבָּעוּ, לִפְנֵי גְבָעוֹת חוֹלָלְתִּי׃ - Before the mountains were sunk in place, before the hills I was brought forth.
עַד לֹא עָשָׂה אֶרֶץ וְחוּצוֹת, וְרֹאשׁ עַפְרוֹת תֵּבֵל׃ - Before He made the earth and the open fields, or the foremost dust of the world.
"Before the mountains were settled" - at that stage there were not yet mountains or hills, for the element of earth was entirely submerged under water. "Before He made the earth and the open fields" - the dry land had not yet emerged, and "the foremost dust of the world," a place fit for human habitation, was not yet visible; no such place existed, for water enveloped everything. Then Hashem said, "Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters." Hashem placed within vapor the nature to ascend to the cold region, as the Malbim expresses it - the place of cold - where the firmament divides between water and water. The water rose with the vapor mixed within it up to the firmament, and there the separation took place: the air separated from the water, which then descends as rain. What was achieved by this? All the water covering the earth rose and was set apart above, thereby clearing and uncovering the earth, creating "earth and open fields." Incidentally, it is also accepted in modern science that in the distant past the entire world was submerged in water.
"When He established the heavens, I was there"
בַּהֲכִינוֹ שָׁמַיִם שָׁם אָנִי, בְּחֻקוֹ חוּג עַל פְּנֵי תְהוֹם׃ - When He established the heavens, I was there; when He inscribed a circle on the face of the deep.
We also learn this in Sefer Iyov: "He binds up water in His thick clouds, yet the cloud does not burst beneath them"; "He inscribed a circle on the surface of the waters." Hashem, as it were, carved out a boundary and decree over the water, that it should form a circle - chug, related to a compass (mechugah), something round - and remain above. That is, Hashem caused the water to separate from the land, evaporate, and ascend, where it forms the upper waters. As is known, there are celestial bodies that are entirely blocks of ice, which is the aspect of the upper waters. Know that even scientifically, the earth drinks from the upper waters as well - although this is a matter of dispute in the Gemara - for there are icy meteorites, and as they enter the atmosphere where friction is intense, they break down into droplets and fall as rain.
Once Hashem uncovered the dry land, the waters gathered from the depths into the seas. This is the meaning of "When He established the heavens, I was there": Hashem's preparation of the firmament to be called "heavens" - "And God called the firmament Heaven" - was carried out according to the laws of Wisdom, drawn from the holy Torah that preceded the world. "When He inscribed a circle on the face of the deep" - when Hashem drew the circle of the firmament like a compass over the deep, decreeing that the waters ascend to the sphere of the firmament, to the upper realms, thereby clearing the water from the earth so that the dry land would appear.
"When He strengthened the skies above" - Supernatural Providence
בְּאַמְּצוֹ שְׁחָקִים מִמָּעַל, בַּעֲזוֹז עִינוֹת תְּהוֹם׃ - "When He strengthened the skies above, when the springs of the deep grew strong."
The term shechakim (the skies above) always expresses the wondrous realm above nature, beyond our visible heavens - a hidden and miraculous domain. The emergence of dry land ran contrary to the initial state of nature, for nature's original state was that water covered the entire globe. However, Hashem "strengthened the skies" - He fortified that miraculous providence - and through this, "the springs of the deep" grew strong and gained power. That is, the air and vapor that separated from the water surged and rose upward, driven by the power of the higher heavens which, as it were, reached downward and received all those waters upon themselves. This is essentially the process of evaporation: "When the springs of the deep grew strong" - through the strength granted to the springs issuing from the deep to ascend into the skies.
"When He assigned to the sea its boundary"
בְּשׂוּמוֹ לַיָּם חֻקּוֹ, וּמַיִם לֹא יַעַבְרוּ פִיו, בְּחוּקוֹ מוֹסְדֵי אָרֶץ׃ - "When He set for the sea its decree, that the waters should not transgress His command, when He carved out the foundations of the earth."
Through all this, Hashem set a boundary for the sea; the waters gathered into one place and dry land appeared. This is what is written: "You covered it with the deep as with a garment; the waters stood above the mountains. At Your rebuke they fled; at the sound of Your thunder they hurried away. They ascended mountains, descended into valleys, to the place You established for them. You set a boundary they may not pass, so that they will not return to cover the earth" (Tehillim 104:6-9). Similarly, "And He shut up the sea with doors" (Iyov 38:8) - Hashem placed doors before the sea and declared, "This far you may come, and no farther." This is also reflected in the Divine Name Shaddai, for He said to His world, "Dai" (Enough!) - halting its expansion. Whenever water exceeds its boundaries, Heaven forbid, a catastrophic tsunami occurs, may Hashem have mercy - which illustrates what would happen constantly had Hashem not placed doors before the sea. "That the waters should not transgress His command" - meaning the waters do not cross the sea's shoreline. "When He carved out the foundations of the earth" - He decreed and established the foundations of the earth suitable for human habitation; for as long as the entire world was submerged in water, human settlement was impossible. When Hashem establishes the earth's foundations, creating an environment where civilization can take root, it is all determined through Supreme Wisdom.
"Then I was with Him as a nursling" - The Delights of the Holy One, Blessed be He
וָאֶהְיֶה אֶצְלוֹ אָמוֹן, וָאֶהְיֶה שַׁעֲשׁוּעִים יוֹם יוֹם, מְשַׂחֶקֶת לְפָנָיו בְּכָל עֵת׃ - "Then I was with Him as a nursling, and I was His delight day by day, rejoicing before Him at all times."
Here Wisdom - which is the Torah that preceded the creation of the world - describes how it was constantly cherished in the hands and bosom of Hashem, blessed be He, like a beloved child of delight before Him, carried as a nursing father carries an infant. This was before it engaged in actions and deeds, meaning before the creation of the world, which was brought into existence through the power of the holy Torah. "And I was His delight day by day" - Hashem took delight in the holy Torah.
"Rejoicing before Him at all times" - this refers to the subsequent stage, when Hashem created time. As is well known from the Ramban, time was brought into being at the very moment physical matter was created; where there is no matter, there is no time. Einstein arrived at this same conclusion eight centuries later - that time is intertwined with matter - whereas the Ramban had already articulated it. Professor Katzir notes in his book, The Crucible of the Scientific Revolution, that Einstein's insight had already appeared in the classical Jewish sources, where the Ramban links time with the existence of physical matter. "Rejoicing before Him at all times" therefore speaks of the phase when "time" (eit) had already been created, whereupon Hashem fashioned the entirety of Creation through the holy Torah. Each day - representing a new time and dimension - brought forth new creations, shifting conditions and natural orders, and the universe came into actuality. This was a source of joy and rejoicing before Him, blessed be He, as He created His world through the power of the Torah. Prior to this, it was only "delight" - like a child cradled in the arms of its guardian, with Hashem delighting in the Torah; but once time and the cosmos were brought into being, the Torah became "rejoicing before Him," actively operating within the physical universe.
"And My Delights Were with the Sons of Man"
מְשַׂחֶקֶת בְּתֵבֵל אַרְצוֹ, וְשַׁעֲשֻׁעַי אֶת בְּנֵי אָדָם׃ - "Rejoicing in the habitable part of His earth, and my delights were with the sons of man."
"Playing in the habitable world of His earth" - after the world became fit for habitation and the creatures of the water and the dry land were created. From that point on, "and my delights were with the sons of men": as it were, the "playing" ceased, so to speak. For "playing" refers to Hashem creating the world through the Torah, and once the Torah's role in creating the world was complete, and the world stood fully formed in its stature and beauty, it returned to being "delights" as before. However, there is a profound difference: previously, the Torah was a delight exclusively before the Creator, blessed be He, whereas now the Torah was given to human beings, so that people would delight in it, engage in wisdom, and conduct themselves according to the statutes of the Torah. And this is a delight before Hashem: when people walk in His ways, delve into His Torah, and delight in it, this brings great satisfaction to Hashem. "And my delights" - what was previously My delight alone became "with the sons of men," where "with" (et) denotes companionship and connection: it connected with mankind, so that now we too delight in the holy Torah, in which, until the creation of the world, only the Holy One, blessed be He, Himself delighted.
"And Now, Sons, Listen to Me"
וְעַתָּה בָנִים שִׁמְעוּ לִי, וְאַשְׁרֵי דְּרָכַי יִשְׁמֹרוּ׃ - "And now, sons, listen to me, and fortunate are those who keep my ways."
Since the ways of wisdom are the ways of God, and they are the foundations upon which all the worlds were established - Atzilut, Beriah, Yetzirah, Asiyah, and this physical world and everything created within it - therefore, "listen to me," accept my words. "And fortunate are those who keep my ways" - happy is the one who guards my ways, and guarding them means keeping them in one's heart: remembering them and fulfilling them.
"Hear Mussar and Be Wise" - Why Mussar Is Necessary to Receive Wisdom
שִׁמְעוּ מוּסָר וַחֲכָמוּ, וְאַל תִּפְרָעוּ׃ - "Hear mussar and be wise, and do not disregard it."
It is difficult for a person to accept the laws of wisdom, because they do not carry rational, irrefutable intellectual proofs. The laws of wisdom determine what is permitted and what is forbidden, what is decent and what is indecent, what is moral and what is immoral - and in the realm of morality, everyone has their own truth. If you claim that a certain act is immoral, someone else will come along and claim the exact opposite, that on the contrary, it is moral. Consider the familiar examples seen so often: political parties, right and left, where each side is convinced that morality and justice are on its side. It is difficult to demonstrate the laws of wisdom through pure intellectual proof: if someone tries to prove to a person on the left why the ideology of the right is correct, he is unlikely to succeed; and if someone on the left tries to prove to someone on the right that his ideology is more moral, he will not succeed either. In all likelihood, the debate will end with neither side being convinced.
Therefore, it is also difficult to keep them in one's heart, because man's inclination resists the laws of wisdom. Consider an extreme example: it is written, "Do not commit adultery," and a person must maintain holiness. This is a classic example of how popular opinion stands diametrically opposed to Da'as Torah. A person comes and says: I understand that an act done by force and against someone's will is wrong, but if two people act consensually, why is it wrong? Proving this to him based purely on the laws of philosophical wisdom would be extraordinarily difficult. But if one tells him: accept moral discipline (mussar) from Hashem, blessed be He - then a person can accept it. It turns out that what causes a person to accept these truths is the very fact that they come from Him, blessed be He; whereas in an attempt to convince someone purely through human intellect, an alienated person will simply say: 'I don't understand this, and I don't see why not.'
This is what the Chazon Ish once said when people spoke to him about fostering dialogue between the religious and secular communities. He said: What kind of dialogue can we have with them? Even our semantics, our very vocabulary and expressions, are completely different. What they call 'love,' in our eyes carries the penalty of karet - so what is there to talk about? If you call something praiseworthy while the other views it as disgraceful and forbidden, or vice versa, there is no common dialogue at all; there is not even a place to begin.
This is the fundamental challenge with the laws of wisdom: what is good and what is evil are difficult to prove rationally. Therefore, in order to accept them, one needs mussar, and mussar tells you: bind and restrain the powers of your soul. The heart longs for whatever it desires and feels like doing, and it struggles to accept the laws of wisdom because they restrict it and curtail its freedom. Thus, what is required in order to observe the laws of wisdom is mussar: knowing that this comes from Hashem, blessed be He, and possessing the fear of Heaven. This restrains the faculties of the soul so that one does not give them free rein to pursue worldly cravings and pleasures. Only the mussar of Hashem can hold a person back. And this is "Hear mussar" - hear and know that this is discipline from Hashem; and mussar is also related to yissurin (suffering), for if a person deviates from Hashem's path, suffering follows. "And be wise" - this is what will enable you to accept the laws of wisdom.
"And do not disregard it" (ve'al tifra'u) - from the root meaning to breach or nullify: do not cast them aside. Keep them in your heart without nullifying any commandment or prohibition of the holy Torah, even if from the perspective of your intellectual comprehension you do not yet grasp or understand it. And this is only at the beginning of the journey. Once a person possesses this foundation of mussar, he also merits to understand how thoroughly sensible and wise everything the Torah says truly is. At first it is hard for him to accept, as his own reasoning tells him the opposite; but when he accepts it simply because Hashem commanded it, through the power of Hashem's mussar and the fear of Hashem, and begins to practice it in reality, he comes to see how much wisdom, truth, justice, and integrity exist in the holy Torah - things he previously found difficult to accept.
"Fortunate Is the Man Who Listens to Me" - Diligently Waiting at Wisdom's Doors
אַשְׁרֵי אָדָם שֹׁמֵעַ לִי, לִשְׁקֹד עַל דַּלְתֹתַי יוֹם יוֹם, לִשְׁמֹר מְזוּזֹת פְּתָחָי׃ - Fortunate is the person who listens to me, to watch diligently at my doors day by day, to wait at the posts of my entryways.
The Malbim portrays Wisdom as a noble lady secluded within her palace, all glorious within, invisible, as it were, to everyone, with her doors locked. One who wishes to seek her must knock on the door - "to watch diligently at my doors day by day." "To wait at the posts of my entryways" - to wait by the doorpost, by the threshold, and anticipate: perhaps now the lady will emerge; perhaps now I will merit to behold the pleasantness of wisdom. Day after day, one must seek wisdom, for only in this way can it be attained, because wisdom is sublime.
"For whoever finds me finds life"
כִּי מֹצְאִי מָצָא חַיִּים, וַיָּפֶק רָצוֹן מֵיְהֹוָה׃ - For whoever finds me finds life, and obtains favor from Hashem.
Whoever finds me, when the door is opened, will find life - eternal life, both bodily life and life of the soul. Furthermore: "and obtains favor from Hashem," meriting to find favor in His eyes, blessed be He. And if a person asks: "To watch diligently at my doors day by day" - is that not such an immense and demanding requirement? True, but come and see what you receive in return. If someone mentions a million dollars, is that expensive? It depends on what it is for: buying the entire United States for a million dollars is a fire-sale giveaway, while buying a car for a million dollars is extremely expensive. The same applies here: you were told to watch diligently at my doors day after day, which is indeed a major investment - but "for whoever finds me finds life." What do you receive? Not a lottery jackpot, but life: life in this world and life for all eternity. Once you understand this, the daily diligence becomes an utterly trivial sum compared to the commodity you have purchased at that price.
And the essential thing is "and obtains favor from Hashem." This is what the Mesillat Yesharim explains, that the entire aim and longing of the righteous is to merit Hashem's favor and desire upon them; this is the yearning of the tzaddik: that my actions be pleasing before Hashem, that the Holy One, blessed be He, should desire and want me. We mention this every day in prayer: "And in Your abundant mercy, may You desire us and find favor in us." This is not simple at all, for it often happens that a person committed wrong deeds and repented, and the Holy One, blessed be He, forgave him - yet Hashem takes no delight in him. How dreadful this is! It is comparable to someone who wronged you, caused you harm, and hurt you deeply, and later comes asking for forgiveness. What do you tell him? "I forgive you, goodbye and have a nice life; I forgive you, but let us not meet anymore, let us keep our distance." Why? After all, you forgave him! True, I will not sue him, and I forgo what he did to me, but resentment lingers. He still harbors hurt in his heart, and resolving that is very difficult, requiring much effort, and much of it is healed only with time. So it is when a person sins: it is very possible that the Holy One, blessed be He, forgives him, yet takes no pleasure in him. Therefore, the goal is to reach a level where Hashem truly delights in me, even after I have stumbled and repented - and this is an additional, immense attainment. Thus, you not only find life in this world and in the World to Come, but you also merit that Hashem's desire rests upon you, that Hashem truly wants you.
"And he who sins against me wrongs his own soul"
וְחֹטְאִי חֹמֵס נַפְשׁוֹ, כָּל מְשַׂנְאַי אָהֲבוּ מָוֶת׃ - But he who sins against me wrongs his own soul; all who hate me love death.
One who sins against the laws of wisdom robs his own soul: whoever acts against the Torah does violence to his spiritual self. For the soul's entire vitality does not come from ice cream and pizza, but from the spiritual nourishment one provides it - from prayer, engaging in Torah study, and fulfilling the mitzvot; this is the vitality of the soul. And should one say: "Behold, I see that the wicked person also lives!" - that is a mirage, an illusion. He is severed from the Source of Life, and he is described as having karet, cut off from the Source of Life. Even though he lives, breathes, and kicks, do not be misled by it: even a lizard's tail twitches after it has been severed. The wicked person also twitches, but he is not connected; he is cut off. This is comparable to a person whose arm was severed, Heaven forbid: you touch the hand and say, "Behold, this is a living hand, it is warm and I feel it" - but check it in another day or two to see whether it is alive or dead. Here in this world, it is not yet apparent, but in truth, he is already severed from the Root of Life. "He who sins against me wrongs his own soul" - he robs his soul of the share due to it, whose vitality derives from wisdom and the holy Torah.
"All who hate me love death" - this refers to one who hates wisdom, and not only hates it, but also causes others to hate it. And if wisdom is the embodiment of life, the opposite of wisdom is death; it follows that one who hates wisdom loves death. Everything a person does here contrary to the holy Torah is essentially a connection to evil, to death, to oblivion, to the realm of the Sitra Achra (the other side). And one must know: the Sitra Achra possesses no independent reality, just as there is no independent reality called darkness. The Nefesh HaChaim writes that the entire discussion regarding the forces of evil, the forces of impurity and the Sitra Achra, is nothing other than the concealment of His light, blessed be He. When His light shines, there is abundance, loving-kindness, and mercy: "For by the light of Your countenance You gave us Torah and life, love and kindness, righteousness and mercy, blessing and peace." How then does an evil power exist in the world? Hashem conceals His light, and consequently an aspect of darkness, of Sitra Achra, of damage comes into being. In and of itself, however, it has no self-sustaining life and no independent existence; it draws no nourishment from the supernal realms - it certainly derives no nourishment from Atzilut, for "no evil can abide with You" - but only from a lower reality. Therefore, whoever hates wisdom and the holy Torah loves death, oblivion, and evil, all of which are manifested in that which is the antithesis of wisdom.
In summary:
The chapter lays before us the preeminence of Wisdom from the very beginning of all things: it preceded the worlds and serves as their blueprint and foundation - from Atzilut to Beriah, Yetzirah, and Asiyah, and down to the physical world, which water covered until Hashem revealed the dry land upon it and set a boundary for the sea, all through the laws of wisdom. The Torah was a nursling and a delight beside Him, blessed be He; it became "rejoicing" during the creation of the world, and once creation was complete, it returned to being a delight - only now, "and my delight is with human beings," having been given to us to engage in. Hence the call: "Hear instruction and be wise" - for the laws of wisdom are difficult to prove intellectually, and the heart resists them; only moral instruction and the fear of Hashem can restrain the forces of the soul, allowing one to accept them, and ultimately to comprehend their wisdom. Whoever watches diligently at her doors day after day finds life and obtains favor from Hashem, while whoever sins against her wrongs his own soul, binding himself to death and oblivion.