Combat and the mentor p: 41

AyinBase with R' Paltiel p:41 2/20/2011 Sunday 16 AdarAleph 5771

Page 41 – 6th line from the top of the page (line starts “tzimzum...”).

There is a limit in the light, and without this the light would be like the essence.

The tzimzum is illustrated by the topic of ratzon/will. This enables the faculties to come in a focused fashion. The soul focuses it's intent through the ratzon. Just as in the mashal of the four walls of a house demarcating space, 'that can be used for living' similarly in the faculties, no matter how much the space is demarcated, it is still the original / primal space, 'it is the real thing' but now one can relate to it.

This is true of sechel, that although it goes through a tzimzum, still the 'ohr/light of the sechel' is directly from the nefesh. 'It is a nefesh view'.

Not all thought is sechel. Thought is the garment for sechel, but not all thought draws from sechel.

The letters ratzon spell also tzinor, which is a conduit. Just as a conduit/channel brings water from the reservoir in a focused manner, so too ratzon.

Ohr of sechel would be unlimited, even though it is ohr, but the tzimzum gives it a limit and thus the mentorship of sechel, that comes by means of ohr chozer (reflected light) from the essence, is in fact without limit, because there the tzimzum doesn't apply so much.

Ohr chozer is a reaction from the essence itself. It is not formatted or initiated as a presentation.

Page 41 AiynBase, Rebbe Rashab, top of the page

There's a story with Yoshke who was traveling with Yeshuah ben Prachyah – his teacher – and they were at an inn and they were served dinner by a hospitable host. Yeshuah said, 'what a nice lady!', and Yoshke said, 'her eyes are a little crooked.' Yeshuah said, 'are you mad, I don't want to deal with you'. Yoshke came back to ask forgiveness, once, twice and three times. The third time, Yoshua was not able to answer and Yoshke went off and created havoc. If you really have a keli, if you are willing/searching, you come back as many times as necessary.

Another story: Avraham Drizin lived in Kvar Chabad. There was some kind of disagreement and he had to leave and come to Crown Heights. He came without the Rebbe's consent. He sat for years by the Rebbe's fabrengen. The rebbe wouldn't respond to him. Still Avraham was traveling and saw the results of the Rebbe's work, and at this time of being a pariah he still took joy and pride in seeing this. After many years, one day the Rebbe said, “why doesn't Reb Avraham say, l'chaim?” - and with this he was back inside. This is what it is to be a vessel. To be a willing student.

Karoo, South Africa

One may think that the life from the soul, that comes through a tzimzum, is infinite. It is dressed in the body and it is via a tzimzum. The body comes alive, but it is still a lifeless body in essence.

The body has to actively be replenished and fed etc. the activity is so constant and complete, that some even say the body lives of itself without a soul. This is like light illuminating the world, but we see not light, but rather light combined with darkness. Light and shadow. The soul doesn't eliminate the body – it enlivens it. The body has to work to be a live. The soul doesn't have to work to be alive.

This is the normal provision of life for the body. But holada/birth is sourced in the essence of the nefesh, not the way the nefesh enlivens through a tzimzum. Thus the root of this hashpaa/mentorship is only the essential faculty that is part of the nefesh and not part of the guf/body.



Why is there light coming from an essence? Essence recognizes nothing except the truth of itself, so it will illuminate anything outside of this. Like the sun it says, 'what is inside or outside is all the same to me, I shine there too...' Still there is a distinction between the ha-ara and the essence. So too with nefesh.

Light in the sun, is not in contrast to darkness – it is light itself. If there was something from the essence of the sun, not light, what would it be? Another sun!

Inside p 41 AyinBase, Rebbe Rashab, right click to enlarge

This is what the Baal shem tov says – 'if you grasp part of it, you have all of it.'

a blind man can father a sighted son. The birth is from the essence and the essence has no blemish. Birth is from the essential identity.

Getting up in the morning p: 41

What used to be a rural, Jewish store in Calvinia, South Africa

AyinBase with R' Paltiel p:40 2/18/2011 Friday 14 AdarAleph 5771

Page 41 – 2nd line from the top of the page (line starts “kuli...”).

The soul enlivens a lifeless body. Like giving light to a dark world. This is because it is giving only a reflection of the life of the soul. Not the essence of life. The body comes to life, but in a limited way.

The soul also provides for the specific faculties and senses. And these too are limited.

The soul provides in a way that the body has to be prepared and exercised to recognize receive what the soul is giving. This reflection of light from the soul comes by means of tzimzum.

The will/ratzon is an intermediate stage between the life of the soul and the human faculties. Will/razon is already defined, “he wants to accomplish, such and such”. The mashal for ratzon was the 4 walls of the house as opposed to open space. The walls demarcate space, but the space has not changed. The walls say the space is usable, and so it is not the etzem. It is not just because the nefesh is in the body, that there are faculties. The soul wants to alert the body that it has senses and it does so through the ratzon.

Here we had a discussion that Naftali initiated about the origin of the tzimzum/contration and the chalal/vacuum. Through this is revealed 'other side of ein sof' – that it is not limited to being infinite. By the removal of ohrot/lights is revealed the element of finitude. Ohr in our world is like an add on, but in the real scheme of things, ohr reveals the source and having a source is more true than being an existence. So darkness is the absense of ohr. Not the other way around that things are fundamentally dark. Thus by removing the light one becomes aware of the gashmi and the metziut.



In our world darkness is fundamental – first we have darkness and then light, but in reality it is opposite to this.

Back to the topic of ratzon/will: the walls of the house do not change the space, but now it is focused space and it can be seen that things can be done. Ratzon creates the tzimzim. He wants to 'wise-up' – the ratzon provides the focus to accomplish this.

“You ask me a question, and I stop to think...” p: 40

AyinBase with R' Paltiel p:40 2/17/2011 ThursdayNight 13 AdarAleph 5771

Page 40 – 4 lines from the end of the page (line starts “vehu...”).

Essence is not found in the world. Uses and function in the world is seen as contrived. Not an essential quality. Essence means that the entire unit is one truth. An etzem/essence t has a infinite quality.

If the sun, as it is to itself, reached us, we would be eliminated. Our world consists of darkness, and the element of touch (in contrast to sight). And the sun knows, not darkness. We live in the world and worldly knowledge consists of a process and of coming into contact with things. Existence begins at the moment of touch, and that is our reality, even if we logically assume existence before our contact with the object.

Sight is totally different from touch. Sight tells us something is really there, independent of my knowledge and experience of it. Sight tells us that it existed before I saw it. In darkness you know things, 'hence forth'. In light you know where things are coming from – there's a Creator and they come from Him.

In a human being, in a simple man, common folk, they all think in terms of posterity. This is a relating to infinity, since he knows the human being is for real. A reality that is eternal.

In light you become aware of reality and it's eternity.

Essence by definition has an ohr/light. Why? Since light is the manifestation of the universality of this essence. “Its not just limited to me – its the truth. I'm telling you its true.”

A human being knows without it being recorded in a data base. Chochmah has the bitul to access purity of the nefesh. Truth itself is a reality. In the world touch not truth is convincing.

Essence is such a permeating truth, that it does not relate to anything that is not this way. If this light that represents this truth comes and represents fully then the darkness of the world and the world would disappear.

If light was too intense. We wouldn't see anything.

We are pointing out that the light that reaches us is just a reflection of the essence.

If the light didn't go through a tzimzum/contraction we would just have the essence itself.

The reason for tzimzum? An essential truth, an additional level of truth is brought about through ohr chozer, and ohr chozer is facilitated by tzimzum. He wanted to give Him, Himself and this is best achieved through this process, which is deeper than the gilui of ohr.

The fact that it comes through a tzimzum means that the light comes to be limited. The light of the sun dissipates as the distance from the source increases. This is an oddity. If sun is really a mashal for infinity, then it's rays should never dissipate.



At the top of the next page – 41 - the whole principle of tzimzum/contraction is only applicable regarding the light, but not the essence.

In the essence itself there is no possibility of tzimzum/contraction. In our example there is not chance of the sun becoming less than light 'through and through'.

Thus we see that sechel has a limit. The sechel the mentor gives is a ha-arah/reflection of the essence and is thus limited.

Rebi said, my wisdom is sharper than my fellows since I saw our teacher reb meir from the back. And his fellows didn't see him. So what is the effect of seeing the teacher? Sight means you relate not just to the words, but to the source, the essence. By seeing physically or in one's mind the teacher, the teaching gets additional traction/potency.

Infinity, world and reality p: 40

Chabad Biking Store, Cown Heights

AyinBase with R' Paltiel p:40 2/17/2011 Wednesday 13 AdarAleph 5771

Page 40 – 4 lines from the end of the page (line starts “vehu...”).

Bli gvul / infinity is an essential quality, not that something takes up a lot of space. A huge ocean, is reduced by a drop when you remove a drop, so it is not really infinite. The concept of atzmi exists only because we have a created world with the Creator infusing the world with Himself. He is infinite. We don't have a means of grasping it in our sechel – sechel works with definitions, time and place. Like a table can only be grasped from it's edges, so too sechel can only grasp things for which it can find an edge.

Reality has an element of infinity since it is a reflection of G-dliness.

The sun serves as an illustration. It is finite and physical, yet it has an infinite quality in that it is a luminary – it gives light and is not diminished – it is a continuous miracle. The sunlight we enjoy comes from the sun, but represents too, light that is independent of the sun. The light of the sun is pure light – not the result of something burning. Of course the sun has a physical structure, but that is a vessel/channel by which He gives light.

We have day and night. These are real definitions. There is significance to day and night. The world is a physical entity. And thus everything has some kind of physical manifestation. But it is a physical entity that is made to represent the intent of the Creator – an element of Truth. All is a representation of something greater than the physical.

There are 2 ways to use your eye sight – 1. seeing things and 2. touching things!

Sight sees without coming into contact with the object – it gives us a stronger impression of the reality of the world than touch. Since we see, things as they are unto themselves, then we are experiencing a reality, a reason and a purpose. Sight is a spiritual experience.

Darkness means one moves about by touch, “it is all about how it touches you”, there is no self defining reality.



Then comes light – you see an item and you're not touching it - “its just there”. This is light/ohr with the Creator element. Things are here because they are real, not because “I came in contact with it”.

“We will make an eternal name for ourselves base on mortar” said the builders at the Tower of Babel, and they were not “evil” in the real sense of the world, just limited to darkness.

Workers of light (maase hatzadikim) say, “No I'm being presented with a G-dly phenomena for a G-dly purpose. I see light coming without any limit. The light is not limited to a physical capacity.” Here is where we come to the concept of essence/etzem – light is given due to His intent, not due to a composite process of combustion and fuel etc.

reality means that value is a direct creation, not an inadvertent by product. A direct creation means, things stand since they have a real purpose.

Light has a limit p: 40

AyinBase with R' Paltiel p:40 2/16/2011 Wednesday 12 AdarAleph 5771

Page 40 – 4 lines from the end of the page (line starts “vehu...”).

Just as in the mashal of light of the sun and candle, the expanse of the light has a limit, and this is due to the light (a ha-arah/reflection) and not due to the source, so too sechel has a limit though the essence is unlimited.

Even so it must be said that the reason for the limit is also due to the tzimzum. The light comes through a tzimzum. There is an intent in the light – it is not just to represent the source, but to “provide light outside”. And when there is the goal of wanting to “provide light outside” without limiting the darkness, there is a tzimzum.

Light that is really a revelation of essence, not via tzimzum, is like the essence with the element of ein sof.



It is a novelty to see that light has a limit. We see that light exists since there is an essence behind it, and an essence is infinite.

Yesterday the main thing we said, is not that a reflection is limited, but, “why would I think otherwise”. What is revealing in the fact that light is limited? This is because the light represents the light, but in a ha-arah/reflection form. Why is this? Why not full representation of the esssence? Because it goes through a tzimzum.