Constant Pleasure! p: 49

AyinBase with R' Paltiel p: 49 5/5/2011 Thursday 1 Iyar 5771

Page 49 – lower third of the page (line starts: mem'mem – mikol makom...)

We are looking at how souls are essential and can hence contain essential lights. The light as it is unto itself, not how it is on a functional level.

This talks to how animals and humans differ. Animals behave reactively. They see all from how it affects it. Humans recognize reality itself and then he chooses with which elements of reality he want to associate.

A human is distinct even at enushi/human level, never mind the levels of torah and mitzvot!

neshamas/souls receive the essential light of elokus/G-dliness. The torah gives for example civil laws, 'if you borrow you must repay' – gemara says, 'paying your debts is a mitzvah'. A mitzvah? Didn't you owe him? Yes, but we're talking about things completely independent of the subjects! The soul can relate to these essential lights – truth at a G-dly level.

Inside the text: similarly to how the soul relates to Torah, the revelations of the Garden of Eden, where the tzaddikim sit in a circle, with their crowns on their heads and delight in the shine of the shchinah/G-dly presence. This is fully satisfying. What kind of pleasure is it? Don't we say 'constant pleasure is not pleasure!'

This is not pleasure that merely is satisfying to them, which has its limits, it is a recognition of the essence of G-dliness and there, there are no limits!

Usually to grasp things you need to find its edge and definition. But G-dliness has no edges. They have pleasure due to the truth. The fact that it is truth is the enticement! Saying, 'one must be intellectually honest' is the most dishonest statement! It has to do with one's ego. 'the truth because it is the truth' is a soul quality. This is above definition and edges.

The truth about something has a functional element. But truth because it is truth is at a different level that is beyond function. This is not something that we can approach with our coarse worldly thought process, because our word is inherently false – everything in our world is just a creation and has to have a reason for why it is there.

Nefesh is a matter of truth.

How do we relate to this?

It is beyond our grasp. For us the world is our reality and now we are talking about something beyond world! But if you realize the reality is not world – it is the King of the world, and that this is a presence identified exclusively by the King, then you can start to get some sense...

In the time to come reality will be defined by the presence of the King – not the presence of the world.

We had said before, a human has many faculties, and in his home there are many things. Then there is an element in his home that relates to none of the faculties, but to the fact that it is his home. Like if someone enters the home uninvited, he is called an intruder. This is an element of malchus. A man is a king in his home. It has to do with the truth of this person.

This is what the world represents, the truth of a G-dly presence.

The Soul and The World p: 49

AyinBase with R' Paltiel p: 49 5/4/2011 Wednesday 30 Nissan 5771

Page 49 – about half way into the page (line starts: kuli...)

The soul has faculties. They are not created at the time of their function. This is not evolutionary. The circumstances do not create them. The faculties are elements of the soul. This is the element of truth of malchus in the soul. This means wherever the soul will be placed it will be able to relate – it can relate to G-dliness and to world. It can translate for world.

So as we see faculties as developed, yet they are rooted in the essence of the soul. Chochmah is the initial faculty.

Bina derives from chochmah. In what way? If someone is sighless can't you describe what a table is? Are we saying hearing (bina) is a derivative of sight (chochmah)? Why do we say sight is the beginning and all derives from there? Yes, you can describe the table to a blind man, but you can give him only the form not its essence. This is what we mean that sight is the 'life' of hearing.

Bina can act without chochma. A whole system can be built, but is is real only on paper, not in the human mind. For that chochmah is needed, to bring the truth element.

This is how all the faculties are rooted in the chochmah of the soul – this is tikkun. In tohu each faculty is 'independent'.

Below the middle of the page at 'kuli': so we see the souls are from the element of pnimiut ein sof and unchanged by circumstance. This is why the souls were created in the form of independence – essence, not just a reflection/function.

The soul can contain essential, inner lights and not be nullified by them. We have a faculty called emunah/faith and it is an essential element – not functional. When emunah is in full revelation then all the faculties completely change and you see a completely different world – not a dark world. You see the truth of every object.

This is like the maggid being able to tell if a piece of funiture was made by a carpenter, who was blind in one eye.

The soul receives essential like – it receives the light of torah and mitzvot.

p 49 right click to enlarge

The soul even now relates to the way things are in essence.

Relate to the Real World p: 49

AyinBase with R' Paltiel p: 49 5/3/2011 Tuesday 29 Nissan 5771

Page 49 – about a third from the top of page (line starts: mikoach ha sechel...) 

Souls are called, children of His/Makom. This is because the root of their coming into being is from the helem ha atzmi – the essential content of chochmah in the Essence.

They are from the concealed essence.

Birth represents in the human being – essence itself – its own truth. This is true on the soul level and on earth. There is no context – it is derivative of the essence itself. It is from the primal chochmah – chochmah in an initial state before it became a faculty.

Even though the world contains many things, and all are created individually, yet each thing is a revelation of the content of His ratzon. Ratzon/will is makif/surrounding. An action doesn't have a basis for existence – it needs a context. For example a table is made and stands alone, but it is given substance/right to be by the human owner. If he doesn't want it – it will vanish. This is a mashal/metaphor for creation.

Nothing can exist without there being a G-dly presence in this thing. And how is the G-dly presence represented in the world? Ratzon. This gives the world reality. ratzon/will unlike speech does not become separate from the person. So too above – it does not become separate.

His will gives existence and place for the world.

The world is great, but I pales in comparison to His will.

The world is made by His external will. His internal will if for the souls of Israel.

p 49 AyinBase, Rebbe Rashab (right click to open in new window and enlarge)

What is the world about? Not its physicality, but its purpose. Torah and souls of Israel are that purpose.

How do they bring reality to the world? Their existence and avodah is the same and they represent the G-dly sense for the world.

What would the world be like if not for the human being? Some of the liberals say, 'oh, it would be a wonderful world, the creatures, would roam free...'

We say a world without a human being is senseless. Without purpose. Pointless. What does the human being bring? That there is a point to the world.

My Reality Itself – In Modesty p: 49

AyinBase with R' Paltiel p: 49 5/2/2011 Monday 28 Nissan 5771 

Page 49 – about a third from the top of page (line starts: mikoach ha sechel...)

why did we start talking about sechel, when discussing physical union?

We see sechel in 'giving birth to something that is similar to himself'... giving birth in a human is a totally different phenomenon from the reproduction of animals. In animals it is reflective of the overall principle of 'kayamim be min – perpetuation of the species'. This is not an individual intent/event/resource.

As small as a man it, he carries a sense of eternality....

The sechel carries this sense and is a reflection of the presence of the neshamah/soul.

This is why there is 'birthing that which is reflective of him'...

This is the contrast between spiritual and physical hashpaa/influence/mentorship.

The intellectual/spiritual is based on universal qualities. When it comes to the physical birth it is totally personal, and it is deeper than sechel – it is the essential truth – my reality itself.

It requires absolute isolation. No interference. In the world there is no modesty. For our way there is no exposure. It draws from the soul itself. Not the species. This particular individual.

The soul of a Jew and the birth into actuality is not the perpetuation of the species – it is an individual event. An individual has a limited sojourn in the world. So what is so compelling about giving birth? It is because it is reflective of the eternal soul.

It is the individual eternity.

That the essence of the human being is eternal, although in his physical state that eternal nature is not obvious. But in some way it is revealed in the body too... 'where one forgets about the outside world and reveals his inner reality... this is not something that can exist on a functional level, but when he is in touch with his own essence.'

what is the eternity of the soul/neshamah. How can something be eternal and created? Eternal is only Him. If there is an element of eternality in the soul, it is because there is an element of Him in the soul – this is referred to chochma atzmis. Essential chochmah. That the soul senses and thirst for Essence is its essential truth. Oneg/pleasure is synonymous here with chochmah.

The real reason we experience such reality in sight, is because in sight we experience that we are part of this reality – chochmah connects to the truth. 

Infinity in our world p: 49

AyinBase with R' Paltiel p: 49 5/1/2011 Sunday 27 Nissan 5771

Page 49 – 8th line from the top of page (line starts: hu...)

Chochmah sees the entire truth, but sees it from a vantage point, but it is not experiencing it. The light that comes into the seder hishtalshalus is just a reflection, not the essence. In atzilus the kav/line ends.

In biya – the lower worlds – it has light of a different state. Yet it is not fully a different domain, but in terms of what is recognizable, there is hardly any similarity. Atzilus is like chochmah, and biya is like binah. Binah and chochmah have constant interaction, but they are very different and between atzilus and biya, there does not exists constant contact.

The lower worlds are a completely different presence.

In every world there is a limit to the light and the revelation.

Even in the sphirot there is a big difference between how things are in chochmah vs in the other sphirot.

Etzem hakav – means the essence of the line of light – what it represents. In our experience if you talk about an object it loses all significance if you lose sense of where it is coming from. A table is just a pile of wood if you forget its purpose.

Etzem hakav is that which originates and brings it out. The ha-arah is a reflection is the functional element of the essence.

Light before the tzimzum is infinity – simple G-dly truth. This reflects itself in our world in the phenomenon of kayamim be min – that everything in our world can reproduce itself – but this is only an element of infinity.

Within this context of total limit there is a reflection of where it comes from – infinity. Since it is only a reflection.

What is the concept of union that results in procreation and giving of the essence?

On the spiritual/intellectual level there is something that comes as a result of the interaction between teacher and student. The transfer of sechel from teacher to student reveals an element in the sechel that would have otherwise remained hidden. What is it? When the teacher undertakes to tell it to the student, he has to identify the universal element, not just the personal. This is the element of truth that he can show to the student. The more the student questions, the more profound is the revelation of truth and universality.

The principle of union is that there is something that is superior to both of them. The truth that is bigger than both of them is what creates the union, and is revealed by the union.