“True Being” p: 171

AyinBase / Ayin Beis with R' Paltiel ThursdayNight 9 Cheshvan 5772 

Page 171 – just below middle of the page – (line starts, 'al yaday...' [at the end of the line -'im']) For text, see picture below.

Ratzon/will is not another name for atzmus/essence. But neither is it an 'addition' to essence. So what is it? Essence/atzmus is an impossible thing for us to understand. From many angles. Even when it has identified itself - 'like atzmus had a ratzon'. How can it be something without being something?

The Rambam says, 'the basis of knowledge and everything is to know that there is a First Being'. How do things appear to us? What is first for us, being or non being? For us non-being comes first. The Rambam is saying the first is being, not non-being.

We are not the True Being, so non-being comes first. Sechel allows us to begin to relate to the truth. Only sechel can speak of that type of vantage point – that the beginning of all is Being. A Being that is true in-and-of-itself.

He is not a being that is created. He is primary. And we can relate to this. Absence did not precede Him (lo kadmo ha-heder).

So, if being is first (not absence), thus the First Being has everything as part of the truth of His being.

The first is 'Yes' being. But if we say it is devoid of ratzon it is not a being. We cannot understand Him, we cannot grasp Essence.

If you can't handle paradox you can't begin to look at these topics. We are looking at what we don't understand and we handle self-contradictory statements. We are not looking at things we can grasp with our hands.

You have to open your mind and understand exclusively with your mind. And this is not imaginary. If there is not a First Being, where does everything come from?!

Earlier we looked at why the mashpia/master reduces the light of his mind, and identifies what he can teach the student. But then he teaches not from this limited perspective, but rather using all the illumination and reality. This is what he teaches. He wants to give this full reality to the student. This is like G-d's reduction of the light and then the re-introduction of reality. The human being is re-introduction of full reality. The human stands for His reality in the world and this was the purpose of creation.

There is a revelation of Him that is knowable. This is called 'memaale kol olmin' – He is filling he world. It is His light that has a relation to the world.

So where is the G-dly element to this?

It is yes and no in the same moment... memaale means filling an area and many items... and so we think of sequence and an incremental process... and thus not the whole thing... yet here we say 'all the worlds' – which is whole.

Now we are discussing what is understandable and knowable. Something that is revealed.

Memaale kol almin is a knowable element.