Etzem is not being held up – it is the true presence

Aeter with R' Paltiel 10/13/09 Tuesday 25 Tishrei 5770 P:PayBeis


4th line from the bottom of pay beis.


We are attempting to understand, in the 4 last lines of the page pay beis, what is a melech belo am (without a people). The whole idea of king is that he extends beyond himself – thus it makes sense to say there is no king without a people – ie he extends even to the people who have no appreciation of him.


Malchus of einsof – there is no outside there, so in what way is it malchus? In what way is it influence extending outside? There is the inyan of chalal – vacant space that the king would fill if it existed.


The difference between ohr and etzem is that wherever ohr/light is found it came there. Even though in the sun we don't say it was ever dark, yet conceptually the ray of light arrived there. Etzem is not a matter of arrival, there is no chalal concept with regards to etzem. In the sun it is primarily a state of light, as opposed to our world which is primarily in a state of darkness.


Does the sun illuminate the million of miles that it occupies? Ohr ha shemesh, the space it illuminates is something that it reaches – it goes outside to the places it reaches. The shemesh itself “owns” the space it occupies, this is not a secondary aspect of its presence – so it does not spread out to these millions of miles. This is the principle of etzem – it is part of it, it is not a complementary aspect, there is no multiplicity.


To bring it closer to home, we say a table is “a board with 4 legs”, but that is not a table – that is how you make a table. In etzem there are no parts. It is everywhere, but there is no everywhere. Hence the king is there without an everywhere. Thus you have the melech, belo am (without a people).


The principle of everywhere; take the table as the model, it is made up of the board, the 4 legs and the space it occupies. If a leg is missing it is a problem, since it has to stand on the ground, thus the ground is also “part” of the table.


Anything that exists consists of a whole group of components to make it real. In our cosmos the earth hangs on nothingness, and tanach explains higher realms support the lower realms – an infinite structure. For anything to be there has to be the whole stucture – nothing stands on its own. Everything depends on everything else. In ohr/world you need everything. In etzem there isn't everything – it is everything. Etzem is not being held up – it is the true presence. The chitzoni of that true present is that it is everything.




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