the soul is the essence; let it be open to God. For remember that God inhabits the whole universe; the merest nook and cranny are brimful of His presence. And since that is the case avoid melancholy and the mortifications of the flesh which bring it on. Do not fast more than the Torah requires. The Shekhina, even in exile, walks in joy not sorrow. Our bodies are not, as some seem to think, prisons for the soul, to be beaten and wasted until its walls are so thin the spirit may break out. That was not it at all, thought the Besht. God gave us bodies for the delight of life. Acceptance, not
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