“Stand Up; Book of Matches”

p: 173 AyinBase with R' Paltiel Sunday15 Elul 5772  

Page 173 – lower third of the page (line starts, 'vezehu...') For text, see picture below.

The goal has been to give an understanding of how there can be a light and a spreading of light that has an element of the essence. We had the metaphor of a 'name' and looked at three levels. And then we went and looked at body, thought, and speech...

we went a step further to look at light before the tzimzum/contraction.

We relate to the One and the real unity. The Rambam says the basis of wisdom, before I even start thinking, is to know there is a Creator who perceives all.  

We have seen that the tzimzum/contraction, is not a total interruption of the light. The light that follows is continuous with the light that was before the concealment. The light before and after the tzimzum are different. Before there is no element of 'to draw forth' (hamshacha) which has to do with arriving in a place where it is not present. And before th tzimzum the light is all present. 

The light that is associated with world has the element of hamshacha – arriving by a process – being drawn down...

Yet still it is a light that is drawn down from a light that precedes the tzimzum/contraction, and is united with the light above.

What does it mean? If it comes via the tzimzum and a process, how are we saying it is from the light above? The concealment and illumination cycle is a process originated from above. And this makes a paramount difference. It is the ohr ein sof / infinite light that originates this light... He is there where you allow Him in...

think of your breathing. There is a worldly process and an expansion of the rib-cage. The bigger picture: we create a vacuum and the air enters. You breathe not due to your activity but because there is air. You just make space for it.

This is the difference between a Torah view and a world view. The world says that things struggle against each other. We see things as being created and provided for from above.

The Zohar says, in these times there will be a well spring of knowledge from above and from below. But the world wants to think that it is their own work that brings it about.

The principle of world is that there is no truth – everything is just based on a lacking. They say humans evolved by struggling for survival. We say you are a soul in a body. Soul has a G-dly element. The body lacks this aspect.