After concluding Chapter 4 dealing with “hugging the King”, we move in to understanding why Torah study is even greater than Mitzvah performance. Studying Torah means “grasping” the very mind of God. Hidden within the words of Torah and the Halachot (the laws) is the actual will of God.
Even if the situation would never happen, still, the learning itself allows us to cleave to the mind of God. Torah is the very bread of the soul. Just as our bodies require bread (i.e. food) in order to exist, so too the soul requires its own nourishment. This is the Torah that we study.
When our souls leave our bodies and we enter into the worlds above, we will see that the Mitzvot (commandments) that we performed will have become garments for us. But what of our essential souls? How will they exist? The Mitzvot will protect us from the awesome power and light of God in those upper worlds… but how will the soul exist? It is through the Torah it studied that its life force will exist.
We then begin with an introduction into Chapter 6 which will tell us about the structure of the animal soul and how it works.
