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Page 29 – about 8 lines from the top. Line starts, “ubehechrech lomar...”
there is oneg in every faculty, and that oneg is representing the presence of the nefesh – the nefesh with all its richness and glory relates to the experience of every faculty.
How is it possible that this oneg is condensed to relate to all these specifics? It is by means of an intermediary – and chochmah is that intermediary. Chochmah can relate to all the faculties and is the starting point of all the functioning faculties and it can thus receive the essential lights of the nefesh.
This is wonderful. It gives a rich sense of “how is it that we can see the physical world and at the same time recognize G-dliness – opposites that are impossible to correlate”.
Chochmah is “this miracle koach / faculty” that can relate to essential lights and at the same time can relate to all the other faculties. The mashal / metaphor for chochmah is raiya / sight.
Sight has the 2 elements we've seen in chochmah. When we enter a room, we see the entire view in a single glance, and at the same time we see all the details that are contained. The “single glance” and “seeing all the details” are really two different levels of observation.
We see the whole panorama in one glance and later we unpack it. The single observation is not made up of details – it is at a much higher level.
Sight like chochmah has an element, of “not I see, but this is reality”.
Sight observs the object, without having to come in contact with the item. You may think touch gives you a fuller perspective, but sight is what gives one a much deeper sense of the reality of the world than anything else. Sight connects us not just to what we see, but to the reality/essence of it.
The shul should have windows so you can see the sky when we pray / daven. What do we see when we see the sky? There's nothing to see, but it is a real experience. Without seeing the sky you're like a human being without chochmah. You would have all the faculties, but not the sense of reality. In sight we experience the reality and the infinity of the world, not its content and then when things come into view they are very real, since they are part of this higher, undefined reality.
That which exists without reality and definition is closer to reality. Emunah is undefined quality. This is the upper reaches of chochmah / sight.
Now how can be drawn from here the lower level of sight?
Sight, like chochmah has an apparent contradiction. Infinity cannot be described in time and space, yet in sight when we look at the sky we see the infinity.
Chochmah brings down the infinity of the nefesh to the level that it can relate to metziut.
Space is an infinite facilitator, we don't say everything is “fighting for it's right to be, that's the way the world sees it; actually space welcomes and facilitates everything. Chochmah is the same – it receives the essential lights. “
Chochmah truly brings the chayut of the nefesh into the human being. And translates it into simple action! Every koach is ultimately part of the chochmah.
How does oneg fit in with the concept of orot atzmi-im (essential lights)? Think of the sun. in the essence of the sun there is no darkness. So the sun doesn't experience the beauty of light, that is experienced only when there is the possibility of darkness. Now from this essential light comes a ray of light shining out, that brings a true experience of light. This is the makif element – this is what we call “day”. It is reflecting the essence in a makif way and doesn't relate to specific objects. This is makif – and this is oneg. Because chochmah can relate to orot atzi-im it can be a keili (vessel) for oneg.
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... וחיי עולם
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