118. Arise, Rabbi Aba, to expound and refresh new matters in the Torah, as you said in the compilation of the first part! Rabbi Aba began: "Sing to Hashem a new song, and His praise from the end of the earth..." (Yeshayah 42:10). How beloved are Yisrael before the Holy One, blessed be He, for their rejoicing and their praises are only in Him! For so we have learned that any rejoicing of Yisrael in which they do not involve the Holy One, blessed be He, is no rejoicing at all. And in the future Samael and all his band will denounce that rejoicing, and they will be left with sorrow and weeping, and the Holy One, blessed be He, will not partake of that sorrow.

119. But whoever involves the Holy One, blessed be He, and His Shechinah in his rejoicing, if the accuser should come to denounce that rejoicing, the Holy One, blessed be He and His Shechinah participate in that sorrow. For does not Scripture say: "In all their affliction He was afflicted" (Yeshayah 63:9)? And how is this? Because THE VERSE SAYS: "I will be with him in trouble" (Tehilim 91:15).

120. And how do we know that Yisrael have to involve the Holy One, blessed be He, and His Shechinah, in their rejoicing? It is as it is written: "Let Yisrael rejoice in Him (lit. 'they') who made him" (Tehilim 149:2), THE MEANING OF WHICH IS THAT Yisrael has no rejoicing but with them who made him. HE ASKS, Why "them who made him" when it should be "He?" HE ANSWERS THAT this refers to the Holy One, blessed be He, and His Shechinah, and a person's father and his mother. For, even if the latter be dead, the Holy One, blessed be He, uproots them from the Garden of Eden and brings them with Him to that rejoicing, so that they can participate in the rejoicing with the Holy One, blessed be He and His Shechinah. AND THE MEANING OF "THEM WHO MADE HIM" IS as in the verse: "let Him that made him bring near His sword to him" (Iyov 40:19).