And what is the reason we say ‘who sanctified us with His commandments and commanded us,’ and we do not say ‘You sanctified us and commanded us (asher kidashtanu ve-tzivitanu)’? This teaches that in the life of the worlds all the commandments are included, and in His mercy upon us He gave them to us in order to sanctify us by them, and perhaps we will merit. And what is the reason? For at the time when we merit, in this world, the world to come, which is great — and in His hand is the treasury of all the souls; and at the time when Israel are good, the souls merit to go out and to come to this world; and if they are not good, they will not go out. And this is what we say: ‘the son of David will not come until all the souls in the body are exhausted.’ And what is ‘all the souls in the body’? Say: all the souls in the body of the man; and when the new ones merit to go out, then the son of David comes — he merits to be born, for his soul will go out new among the others. A parable: to a king who had a legion, and he sent them a great deal of bread for food; and they were lazy and did not eat it, and also did not guard it, and it molded and the bread was spoiled. He came to inquire and to visit [to see] whether they have what to eat, and whether they ate what he had sent them; and he found them [with] moldy bread, and found them ashamed to ask for other bread — as if to say, ‘this we did not guard, and shall we ask for other?’ The king too was angry, and he took that moldy bread and commanded that it be dried and repaired as much as possible, and he swore to these men: ‘other bread I will not give them until they eat all this moldy bread.’ They sent it to them anew. What did they do? They said to divide it; they divided it, and each one of them took his portion. The diligent one put his portion in the air, and guarded it, and ate well; and the other took it and ate of it with appetite — he ate what he ate, and the rest he left and did not guard, for he despaired of it, and it spoiled the more and molded, and he could not eat it at all, and he remained hungry until he died. The iniquity of his body was visited upon him: ‘why did you kill yourself? Was it not enough that you spoiled the bread for yourselves at first, and I returned it to you repaired, and you spoiled it — and you spoiled your portion and were negligent to guard it, and moreover you killed yourself?’ And he answers: ‘my lord, what could I have done?’ And [the king] answers him: ‘you should have guarded it; and if you say you could not, you should have looked at your fellow and your neighbors who divided the bread with you, and seen their deeds and their guarding, and striven to guard as they did.’ And moreover they question him: ‘why did you kill yourself? Was it not enough that you spoiled the bread, but you added and killed the matter of your body and shortened your days,’ or caused [it]; ‘and perhaps a fitting son would have gone out from you, who would have saved you from your spoiling, and others from their spoiling; therefore from every side sufferings shall multiply upon you.’ He was terrified and answered: ‘and what could I have done, since I had no bread, and from what could I have lived?’ They say to him: ‘if you had toiled and labored in the Torah, you would not have answered such foolishness and insolence; for from the answer of your words it is evident that you did not toil and did not labor in the Torah. And is it not written in the Torah, ‘for not by bread alone does man live, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD does man live’ (Deuteronomy 8:3)? You should have expounded and inquired and asked: what is the thing by which man lives? And what is ‘every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD’? Say: he lives by the Torah, which is ‘every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.’ From here they said: an am ha’aretz cannot be pious (chasid); if he does no loving-kindness for himself, how is it possible for him to be called pious?