B"H

Inner Dimension
Weekly Torah Message
Based on the Teachings of Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburgh

for the weekly Torah portion of "Vayakhel"
volume 65, number 19

the next class on

The Mysteries of Femininity

will be given by Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburgh at Rachel's Tomb on

Thursday, the 29th of Adar I,

Erev Rosh Chodesh Adar II (10th of March)

at 10:30am

These lectures are delivered once a month at the beginning of the new Jewish moon and specifically address women's issues and femininity from a Kabbalistic and Chassidic perspective

Introduction to the Study of Kabbalah (part 4)

The Road to Prophecy

Let us now see how the 5 stages of the development of Kabbalah relate to the 5 aspects of the soul:

• vital - nefesh (natural faculties)
• spirit - ruach (emotional faculties)
• breath - neshamah (mental faculties)
• life - chayah (super-rational faculties)
• singularity – yechidah (one with G-d)

As mentioned, the 5 stages of Kabbalah constitute an unfolding of the Jewish consciousness. We find in the prophets that real prophecy will return to the Jewish people just before the final redemption. Essentially this is not only a sign of the coming redemption, it is also a prerequisite. As we mentioned in the beginning, Kabbalah is actually the unification of wisdom with prophecy and is what prepares the Jewish people for the return of prophecy.

The first text, Sefer Yetzirah, talks about the different phenomena of nature (the seasons, the days of the week, the planets, the human body, etc.) and corresponds them with the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, thus it corresponds with the revelation of the natural, vital (nefesh) aspect of the soul.

The second text, the Zohar, when stripped of the deep contemplative explanations offered on this text by the later stages and read at face value, has the special power to arouse the spirit (ruach) of the soul. As stated by one of the Rebbe’s of Chabad, as a text, there is nothing like the Zohar to arouse a person’s emotions. Of course, the spirit aspect of the soul includes the emotional faculties.

The Kabbalists of the third stage, epitomized by the Ramak and his work, sought to use their mental faculties to comprehend the inner mysteries of the Zohar. This stage was continually underscored by Judaism’s greatest philosophical text, Maimonides’ Guide to the Perplexed (Moreh Hanevochim). The ideal was to unify the Zohar’s esoteric wisdom with the Jewish philosophical tradition; to unite Kabbalah with Chakirah (Jewish philosophy). The neshamah aspect of the soul¹ contains its mental faculties, which unfolded and reached an apex during this stage.

The new revelation of the Arizal taxes the mind’s faculties to the limit, but more importantly it challenges the soul to go beyond the mind’s rational approach. Its essence is super-rational, though the Arizal did present this essence in intellectual terms. Unlike reading the Zohar which leads to an emotional experience, reading the Eitz Chayim requires a deep intellectual endeavor, which still leaves a sense of being something beyond the intellect. Thus the Arizal’s Kabbalah serves to unfold the level of soul’s aspect of chayah. The chayah is described as having the quality of “touching/not-touching” (noge’a v’eino noge’a); it hovers ever so closely to our mind, yet always eludes it.

The final revelation is known in Chassidic tradition as the “soul of the Kabbalah of the Arizal,” or the “soul of the soul of the Torah” (nishmeta lenishmeta de’orayta). The classic text of Chassidut is the Tanya, written by Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi. One of the most important teachings in the Tanya is that the Jewish soul is an actual part of G-d (cheilek elokah mima’al mamash).² Though this thought appears in earlier Kabbalistic texts (in various formulations), 3 it was never stated so unequivocally and had not yet formed the basis for an entire conceptual scheme as it does in the Tanya. What this statement says is that we have an eternal continual connection with G-d, and that every action that we do reflects the essence of the Divine. Chassidut thus reveals the level of Divinity before the initial contraction of G-d’s infinite light that allowed the creation of finite reality; Chassidut thus reveals the infinite capacity of the Jewish soul. In order to understand how novel a revelation this is, the Arizal did not expound regarding the stages that came before the initial contraction. It was left to Chassidut to reveal and unfold these stages, in virtue of the fact that the essence of our Divine soul was indeed there. Chassidut is revealing a pristine, unconscious memory of the soul before creation.

When a new disciple would come to the Ba’al Shem Tov, the first question he was asked was “what do you remember?” The Ba’al Shem Tov was jingling the deepest levels of the new disciple’s soul preparing him for the study of Chassidut. In the Arizal’s Kabbalah there was also “memory triggering” but it involved “recollecting” one’s previous incarnations, which of course do not reveal the soul’s existence as it was before the creation of the world, when it was still an actual part of G-d, the yechidah, the singularity aspect of the soul.

Seeing the Future

A well-known Chassidic story illustrates this point well:

After the Maggid of Mezheritch passed away (the Maggid was the Ba’al Shem Tov’s successor), the disciples each looked for a Rebbe to follow. The eldest of the disciples was Rebbe Menacham Nachum of Chernobyl. Rebbe Shneur Zalman, the founder of Chabad, did not follow his close friend Rebbe Nachum, but instead looked to Rebbe Menachem Mendel of Vitebsk for guidance. Rebbe Shneur Zalman and Rebbe Nachum would visit one another once a year on Sukot.

On one of those visits, when they were sitting and discussing the deep mysteries of the Torah in the sukah, Rebbe Nachum asked Rebbe Shneur Zalman: “Why did you take Rebbe Menachem Mendel as your Rebbe and not me?”

Rebbe Shneur Zalman replied: “I once saw him when he was giving audience and I realized that everything that the person seeking his council had done in his life was known to him.”

Rebbe Nachum shrugged as if to say that he too saw past actions.

Rebbe Shneur Zalman continued: “I then realized that not only could he see all his actions in this present lifetime, he also was aware of all of the person’s previous incarnations since the six days of creations.”

Rebbe Nachum shrugged again.

Finally, Rebbe Shneur Zalman said: “In the end I realized that not only could he see his past actions and past incarnations, he could also see everything that this soul was destined for in the future until the coming of the Mashiach and after.”

At that moment Rabbi Nachum raised his brows in wonder, thereby acknowledging Rabbi Shneur Zalman's choice of a Rebbe, but the conversation abruptly ended, as the Chassidim, who had been intently listening to the holy words of the two tzadikim from on top of the sukah, suddenly moved and were heard….

Everything that a person has done in his lifetime up to the present moment, in deed, word, and thought, corresponds to the first three levels of the soul: nefesh, ruach and neshamah. These were apparent to the Kabbalists before the Arizal.

Past incarnations, which the Arizal focused on, correspond to the chayah aspect of the soul.

But, in order to see a soul’s destiny in the future, it is necessary to see the soul as it is an actual part of G-d, for whom past, present, and future all exist at once. The ability of Rebbe Menachem Mendel to see a person’s yechidah was what convinced Rebbe Shneur Zalman to seek his guidance.

Notes

1. When studying the Torah, it is not rare to find that a particular aspect of a composite entity is named for the entity as a whole. In this case, neshamah, the third aspect of the soul, is normally translated into English as “soul.” Neshamah can also be translated as “breath” (neshimah) based on the verse “G-d breathed into him the breath (nishmat) of life” (Genesis 2:), which can also be translated as “G-d breathed into him the soul (nishmat) of life.”

2. Beginning of chapter 2.

3. Most notably by the author of the Kabbalistic work Shefa Tal, Shabtai Sheftel Horowitz who lived before the Ba’al Shem Tov.

The Gematria of the Week

Transforming Crisis into Opportunity

One of the most well known pieces of Jewish liturgy is Adon Olam, a 10 verse poem recited before the morning prayers (Shacharit) every day, and in some congregations following Friday night services. AdonOlam literally means “Master of the universe.” Rabbi Yishayah Horwitz better known as the Shlah, the author of the medieval work Shnei Luchot Habrit, writes that the two words Adon Olam equal Ein Sof (Adon = Ein, and Olam = Sof), literally “the Infinite.”

I n addition, he writes that whoever contemplates this while reciting the Adon Olam in the morning is guaranteed not to have any misfortune befall him on that day; he'll have a great day!

For completion’s sake let us mention that the two words “Adon Olam” also equal the Hebrew word for “light” (or), hinting at the Kabbalistic notion that light is related to the infinite, usually called “light of the infinite”:

[Incidentally, from the perspective of Kabbalah and Chassidut, this is what lies at the heart of Einstein’s identification of light as being the fastest thing in the universe, by which, practically speaking, he named the speed of light as the “infinite” speed within the confines of our created realm.]

The ten verses of Adon Olam correspond to the sefirot, in order. The verse corresponding to the sefirah of victory is “He is my G-d and my living savior, and the rock of my birth-pains in a time of crisis.” Let us take a look at the words “a time of crisis.” In Hebrew “a time of crisis” equals 765.

765 is the “minor part” (that in mathematics would be called the least significant digits) of the current Jewish year, 5765. In Jewish culture it is customary to use only this part in referring to the year on a daily basis.

One of the most well-known teachings of the Ba’al Shem Tov is that by meditating on a Hebrew word while praying (for instance, when reciting the Adon Olam), one can rearrange the word’s letters and hence change its meaning. The example he gives is using exactly these words “a time of crisis.” By rearranging its three letters “crisis,” in Hebrew, becomes “tzohar” the word for “threshold” or “radiance” (“tzohar” is one of the 13 synonyms for “light” in Hebrew, bringing to mind the image of “a light at the end of a tunnel”). Indeed, using the verse “Oh, for that day is great, there is none like it; and, it is a time of crisis for Jacob, and from it he will be redeemed” (Jeremiah 30:7), the Ba’al Shem Tov teaches that the crisis itself becomes the source of the redemption; the crisis which seems to signal “the end,” becomes a threshold for a new beginning of the good. According to Chassidic teachings, contemplating words in this manner has a real effect on reality, allowing us to clear our minds and to reformulate our understanding of where we are and what it is that we are doing. Suddenly, from this new perspective, opportunities present themselves and the Almighty helps us fashion them in a positive way. So, though this year may be a year of crisis, it is also a threshold for a new level of good and prosperity, a new level of Divine radiance.

* * *

In Kabbalah, the process of transforming the negative into the positive is known as “hamtakat hadinim beshorsham,” or “the sweetening of the judgments at their root.” Without going into the Kabbalistic meaning of this process, let us note that the root of the “judgments” can also refer to a word’s grammatical root in Hebrew. The root of the word for “crisis,” in Hebrew is: . But if we take this same word for “crisis” and treat it as if it were a root itself (that is, we are figuratively bringing it to the “root”) then as it turns out, there is only a single word that stems from this root: the word for “balm,” in Hebrew: .

Balm is associated with healing and is considered a homeopathic remedy par excellence in the Bible. Jeremiah says: “Is there no balm in Gilad; is there no physician there? Why then is the health of my people not recovered?” (Jeremiah 8:22; see also Ibid. 51:8). Thus, elevating crisis to its root yields a remedy. In practical terms this means that elevating one’s consciousness to focus on G-d Himself in a time of crisis transforms the crisis into a threshold for healing and growth in the radiance of G-d.

Finally, the “cumulative value” of a letter (called mispar kidmi, in Kabbalah) is the sum of the values of all the letters from alef to that letter, inclusive. For example the cumulative value of the second letter, bet, is 3 (the value of alef, 1, and the value of bet, 2), the cumulative value of yud is 55, and so on. The cumulative value of the two words in Hebrew for “a time of crisis” is 3125. But 3125 is 5 to the fifth power. There is no number that more completely represents the number 5. In essence, raising 5 to the 5th power is like having a base 5 that has another higher 5 (as is hinted by the notation 5⁵) in mind. This “elevation” of the 5 to a higher image of its own self, hints at the transformation of into as the final letter hei (which equals 5) of “crisis” is “elevated” by 5 to become the final yud (which equals 10, 5 plus 5) of “balm.”

Note
For more on homeopathy in the Torah, see Rabbi Ginsburgh’s Body, Mind, and Soul, pp. 178ff. For more on elevating consciousness to focus on G-d Himself see Ibid., pp. 192ff.

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