“So Strange” p: 159

AyinBase with R' Paltiel Wednesday 10 Iyar 5772  

Page 159 – close to the middle of the page (line starts, 'vehisorerut...') For text, see link top right of the blog. Or for text right click here.

The rebbe explains the 'odity' that not only is the light of the soul becoming revealed but also there is the element of hislabshut – becoming enclothed in the body. The soul's hasagah/understanding and also its love and fear is according to the senses of the body! Why would the soul consent to become involved in a body that is entirely strange to it?!

Tzaddikim/righteous men did not give cognisanze to the body at all. They acted and lived totally on spiritual principles, yet they too, were affected. Their hasagah/understanding was affected. The soul alone would, 'see things differently'.

The perception of the souls in Gan Eden/ the Garden of Eden is completely different from what is available to it while involved in with the body.

So even at the finest and highest levels it is perception at the level of metziut – definition. Metziut is known by means of contrast. We have a body and on its own it is lifeless. But there is life in it. So we contrast the 2 states and know there is an element of life – this is knowing by contrast. The understand of the soul/neshama gets reduced to this level – knowing by contrast.

Also the level of love and fear is not comparable to how it is above.

There is the story, about the Alte Rebbe; his grandchild married that of The Barditchiver. They were in a room at the wedding and the crowd was pressing. They wanted to go to the other room, Reb Levi or Barditchiv turned to the Alte Rebbe and said, 'let's go straight through the wall'. The Alte Rebbe's stance was to respect physical only not to disrupt the natural process and for this reason did not want to go through the wall.

Our Rebbe was like this. If you wrote to him it was already received at its destination. This is well known.

It is by means of a koach elyon/higher faculty that directs the soul to leave its abode and to be in a state of revealed light, while enlivening the body. And the soul provides not the essence of life to the body, but rather a 'natural' level of life. This is unreal for the soul, and it is only a higher faculty that compels the soul to come down.