2 Jews, 3 Opinions: Hasidim vs. Mitnagdim

(45) Then came there unto him a company of Assideans who were mighty men of Israel, even all such as were voluntarily devoted unto the law.

(46) Also all they that fled for persecution joined themselves unto them, and were a stay unto them. So they joined their forces, and smote sinful men in their anger, and wicked men in their wrath: but the rest fled to the heathen for succour.

And we find in the Torah that any one who is able to understand (what is proper to do) even though he was not commanded, is punished if he did not take the matter to heart. For it is written, “And Moses was wroth with the officers of the host, the captains of thousand, and the captains of hundreds, who came from the service of the war. And Moses said unto them: ‘Have ye saved all the women alive?’” (Num. 31:14). Why did they not answer him, “Why then did you not command us? You did not tell us to put the women to death.” But Moses knew that there were wise men and experts able to argue a conclusion a minori ad majus ... It is for this reason that I said I will write a book for those that fear God lest they think that they are being punished without cause. Heaven forfend, attributing evil to God “For Thou art not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness” (Ps. 5:5)

In every movement is found the Creator, whose name is blessed, for it is impossible to make any movement or speak at all without the power of the Creator, whose name is blessed. This is the meaning of the verse: "His presence fills all the earth." (Isaiah 6:3)

When a man lets his livestock loose to graze (Ex. 22:4). Our Rabbis said: There are four primary categories of damage, [and a human is one of them.] (Bavli Bava Kama 4a). The ox and the pit, the crop-destroying beast and fire (Mishnah Bava Kamma 1:1). The ox from the language of "Gaze on them" (Nu. 23:9), the language of looking and seeing, and this is the gaze that damages people. The pit, the language of an empty field that is not plowed or sown and this is someone who doesn't learn but rather goes idle. The crop-destroying beast, the language of a tooth that eats everything. The fire: this is the anger that fuels the fire.

[When a fire is started] and spreads to thorns. One doesn't pay because of the thorns, rather its a great thing for even though the fire is not possible to light without the thorns, nonetheless one is liable. And it says "stacked grain" etc. because its not each other. One works to harvest and bind the sheaves of the stacked grain and even the standing grain when it is sown and reaped, and even a field that is not sown at all as it says "green plants" and in a few places in Parshat Beresheit.

It is written in the Gemara (Berachot, 54a), “ ‘it is a time to act for God, for they have made Your Torah void’ (Tehilim, 119). Rebbe Natan says, ‘It is a time to do for God, for they have made void your Torah.’ This means, since they have made your Torah void, act only [in the will] of God.” At a time when it is perfectly clear that it is a time to act solely for God, like Eliyahu on Mount Carmel, then it is necessary to put aside the principles of the holy Torah and act only in the understanding that God instills in you.
Rebbe Natan is saying that at a time when this God-given understanding is not completely clear to you, you must act according to the principles of the Torah and mitzvot without stepping out of the bounds of the Halacha. Yet Rebbe Natan is also saying that if your heart is drawn after God’s will, and have removed from yourself any kind of impurity (anything that could bring you down), afterwards God may provide you with an opportunity to act in a way that may seem as if, God forbid, you have removed yourself from the bounds of the principles of the Torah. Concerning this Rebbe Natan said that for the one whose heart is drawn after God and has cleaned himself from any negiot (personal motive, partiality), certainly God will not let him fall into a transgression, God forbid. He will surely then know that it is “a time to act for God.”