“Infinite Expanse” p: 68

AyinBase with R' Paltiel Tuesday 29 Tevet  

Page 68 – about just above the mid point of the page (line starts, 'bechinat...')

See link (top right) for link to all pages of the text.

Shashuim – are 'toys' or playthings' – something one enjoys for no apparent reason, just that it suits him perfectly – an this is the level of affinity between Him and His Torah.

'Your mitzvahs are very broad' – indicating an infinity of essence. At the revealed level the higher something is the less expression is present. Till you get to the essence – there, there is 'merchav ha-atzmi' - 'the breadth of the essence' – it is not reduced to a point. It has limitless expansiveness and this does not detract from its essential power – this is the quality of Torah. 

Torah and Him are literally one at the concealed level. We think of Torah as a functional aspect, and we think of its application in the world. But here we are saying that just as He is beyond world so too the Torah.

So too the souls of Israel at their original state, in His pristine thought, so too they are bound with the essence/hidden element of Torah and Him.

This is the source from which they are carved.

The inanimate objects give silent testimony to Him. And the plant world, but their growth gives expression to His limitlessness. The animal kingdom is alluding to a word beyond itself – seeking nutrition and roaming in the open expansiveness. The human is called a medaber – 'speaker' and he is even more able to declare the G-dly truth. The others express it by their being, the humans give expression to Him knowingly – through his bitul. Sechel is very fine, but it is 'a thing', speech is different – one has to put himself completely aside and relate fully to the thought he is trying to express. . . ! And he has to relate to the thought, 'not as his thought' but how it is truthfully.

The fact that the thought can be expressed, shows on that fact that speech is rooted prior to the root of sechel. A human being's expression is not limited to his metziut. Israel is rooted in the letters that precede mind.