Mystic musings

B"H

Seeding Change
--------------

Just as a tiny seed awakens the infinite power of life hidden within the earth, so a mitzvah buried quietly in the ground can ignite an explosion of infinite light. Charged with that power, all the world is changed.





A Daily Dose of Wisdom from the Rebbe
-words and condensation by Tzvi Freeman
Elul 6, 5766 * August 30, 2006

B"H

Seeding Change
--------------

Just as a tiny seed awakens the infinite power of life hidden within the earth, so a mitzvah buried quietly in the ground can ignite an explosion of infinite light. Charged with that power, all the world is changed.





A Daily Dose of Wisdom from the Rebbe
-words and condensation by Tzvi Freeman
Elul 6, 5766 * August 30, 2006

B"H

Urgent Yearning
---------------

At the base of our Torah and our Jewish psyche lies an incessant urgency. Not just a sense that things are not the way they should be, but a relentless yearning that things should heal this very moment. Relentless, because it refuses to decay with time or to fade with disappointment. In the morning, we make our plea as though unable to tolerate another moment. And as evening comes, we demand again as though morning never passed.

We live on the verge of eternity. May we arrive now.





A Daily Dose of Wisdom from the Rebbe
-words and condensation by Tzvi Freeman
Elul 4, 5766 * August 28, 2006

Personal Tech - Sexy, New Touch-Screen Phone Debuts: "'Mobile phones are no longer used just for making calls -- they have become a single access point for critical day-to-day information,' he said. 'The Onyx phone is a breakthrough illustration of how advances in interface technology and collaborative design will drive the future of mobile interactions and services.' "

B"H

Infinite & Intimate
-------------------

Does G-d then laugh? Is He so vulnerable as to cry over failure and rejoice in success? Does He that brings heaven and earth into existence truly love with the passion of a frail human being? Can the Infinite Light feel regret, just as a creature trapped within the tunnel of time?

But G-d desired Man with all his struggles. The proof: We are here. And G-d looked down from His lofty realm beyond love and laughter and passion and remorse, down into this thought of a human being, and He said, "Shall he then be alone in his place and I in mine? Is this oneness?"

So He arranged a meeting place, in the boundless emotions that are the fabric of Man's soul and are reflected within the bowels of the Infinite Light. So that in love and laughter and compassion and awe and beauty, Man and G-d could find one another, and neither would be alone.





A Daily Dose of Wisdom from the Rebbe
-words and condensation by Tzvi Freeman
Menachem Av 27, 5766 * August 21, 2006

B"H

G-d Within
----------

Before the Baal Shem Tov, people thought of G-d as the One who directs all things from above and beyond.

The Baal Shem Tov taught that the vital force of each thing, from which comes its personality, its sense of pain and pleasure, its growth and life -- that itself is G-d. Not that this is all of G-d. It is less than a glimmer of G-d, because He is entirely beyond all such descriptions. But that life force is G-d as He is found within each creature He has made.





A Daily Dose of Wisdom from the Rebbe
-words and condensation by Tzvi Freeman
Menachem Av 28, 5766 * August 22, 2006

B"H

Inspired Animal
---------------

Who are your thoughts reaching? It is not the Divine soul within that needs to be inspired. It is the animal within.





A Daily Dose of Wisdom from the Rebbe
-words and condensation by Tzvi Freeman
Menachem Av 23, 5766 * August 17, 2006

The Truth About the Baal Shem Tov

By Tzvi Freeman


There are many myths and legends about the Baal Shem Tov. Even the most fantastic ones, they say, are true -- because even if the didn't actually happen, the Baal Shem Tov was capable of making them happen.

But there's at least one myth that's not true. And it's probably also the most popular. It's the Modern Jewish Legend of the Baal Shem Tov.

To appreciate the Modern Jewish Legend of the Baal Shem Tov, you must first appreciate the Modern Jewish Legend of Judaism. Judaism, you see, is very nice. It's all about humanitarianism, ethics and the family.

So then, the Baal Shem Tov fits in very nicely. He told nice stories, and made people feel good about themselves by telling them that it wasn't really important as long as you're sincere and happy and nice to other people. (What exactly is not important is not clear. Something we forgot about a long time ago--but the main thing is that it's not important.)

Years ago, as a music composition major at the University of BC, I stood in a concert hall lobby at intermission, reverberating with awe in the wake of a powerful rendition of Beethoven's Violin Concerto starring soloist Yehudi Menuhin. I overheard two sweet old ladies discussing the performance. They said it was "very nice". I felt sick.

The whole legend, as I said before, is very nice. After all, who could have anything against humanitarianism, ethics, family and being nice? Certainly not any good modern American. You might want to call this Politically Correct Judaism--fully equipped with a Politically Correct Baal Shem Tov.

Let's get this straight: There has been nothing more disastrous to Judaism than political correctness. The two approaches stand at mutually exclusive extremes. Political Correctness means not shaking the boat and keeping the peace. Judaism that makes peace with the world the way it stands now is not Judaism. And it has no chance of survival any longer than the waves of accepted social correctness will survive before crashing against the shore.

A case in point -- and perhaps the most painful one: There was a time when mysticism was considered irrational, bizarre, archaic and certainly not for the respectable, modern gentleman to be caught dead in. "Emancipated" and "Enlightened" Jews, therefore, denounced the Kabbalah. They called the Zohar the "Book of Lies". They created a myth that the Kabbalah was the creation of a lunatic fringe and was entirely grown from alien roots. They even went so far as to claim that Jews had never believed in mystical union with the Ein Sof, reincarnation, life after death, meditation, etc., etc..

The Baal Shem Tov and the Chassidic movement was a big thorn in the side of these politically correct Jews. Too mystical. Too far off the edge. And much too popular.

At first they tried to deny the Baal Shem Tov had ever existed. When that turned out about as believable as denying the existence of George Washington, they resorted to creating a new mythology that entirely distorted everything Chassidic masters had ever taught.

Thats how the Baal Shem Tov ended up being nice. A folksy, theological kind of Robin Hood.

Just how benign was this niceness? You need look no farther than our own generation. When we went to our parents and to our rabbis seeking out the spirituality for which our souls so much thirsted, we got the equivalent of a blank stare. Jews don't believe in that stuff, we were told. And if they did, sorry, there's nothing we can tell you about it. Just about ethics and humanitarianism. Nothing about souls.

So the most spiritual young Jews ended up on the other side of the planet searching for what their grandparents had rejected years before, and what their great-grandparents had basked in: nourishment for the soul--a.k.a. Mysticism.

Enough ranting and raving. Here are the raw facts:

Kabbalah is as central to Judaism as the sun is to the solar system, as a heart is to a body, as Human Liberty is to America.

Judaism begins with the most mystical of experiences at Mount Sinai, where we "saw the sounds and heard the sights", and ends with mystical union of all of Creation with its Creator. Everything in between is driven by the drive to absorb the first mystical revelation in order to achieve the final one.

Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were mystics (go ahead, tell me that someone who speaks with angels is not a mystic), who practiced meditation in isolation in the pastures and received divine revelations thereby. Moses was a mystic. The Prophets--mystics. The sages of the Talmud were mystics, as is clear from many of the tales told therein. Since the time of the Nachmanides, almost every classic Jewish scholar has openly espoused the teachings of the Kabbalah.

Every classic attempt to explain Judaism in depth has resorted to mystical terms. Every such attempt over the last 600 or so years has resorted to the language of Kabbalah.

Amongst Sephardic and Oriental Jewry the Zohar is at least as popular as the Psalms. Chassidism is entirely an outgrowth of the Kabbalah of the Ari (Rabbi Isaac Luria). The great Lithuanian mitnagdim ("opposers" of Chassidism) were masters of Kabbalah and justified their opposition to the Chassidim and their dedication to scholarship in terms of Kabbalah. Even the romantic/rational orthodoxy of Samson Raphael Hirsch relies heavily upon the mysticism of Rabbi Chaim Atar (the "Ohr HaChayim") and others.

The great masters of Halachah (Torah law), particularly Rav Yosef Karo who wrote the Shulchan Aruch and Rav Moshe Isserles who adapted it for Ashkenazim, also wrote books of Kabbalah. It was the Vilna Gaon who wrote, "A rabbi who attempts to make a halachic decision without an understanding of the Kabbalah will come to err."

As Adin Steinsaltz recently put it, Kabbalah is the official theology of Judaism. Furthermore, any attempts to explain Judaism in any other terms are bound to fall flat on their face. Halachah is the body, Kabbalah is the soul. Just as you cannot explain the body without taking into account the inner psyche that fills it, so you cannot begin to explain the meaning and purpose of Halachah without a knowledge of Kabbalah.

Now, back to the Baal Shem Tov: To say that the Baal Shem Tov was a simple peasant boy who began a popular folk movement is somewhat akin to saying that American Democracy was the product of some Daniel Boone types who were fed up with high-falooten British sophisticates.

The Baal Shem Tov was a student of the Kabbalah of Rabbi Isaac Luria, the "Holy Ari"--as were so many of his contemporary scholars. It amazes me how so many authors could have imagined even for a moment that the teacher of so many great scholars--such as Rabbis Yaakov Yoseph of Polnoye, Dov Ber of Mezritch, Levi Yitzchak of Berdichev and others--could have been any less a scholar himself.

He was involved from his early youth with a society of "hidden tzaddikim" who were scholars of Talmud and Kabbalah and traveled about incognito in an effort to resurrect the Jewish life of Eastern Europe that was still licking its wounds from the tragic pogroms of 1648-49.

Most of what the Baal Shem Tov taught can be traced back to ideas of the Ari, especially as presented in the classic Shnei Luchot HaBrit. These works were extremely popular in those days. What the Besht added was the sort of leap of intellect that typifies supreme genius--the genius that disregards accepted conventions and normative world concepts. What Albert Einstein was to physics and Beethoven was to music--and much, much more--was the Baal Shem Tov to the human soul.

There were other mystics before the Besht who dealt with the simple folk. But to them life was a dichotomy: Their study of the mystic works was of one world, their dealings with simple folk in another--a world affected by their mysticism, but very, very distant from it.

The Baal Shem Tov came and said, "These are not two worlds. They are intimately connected. The Kabbalah of the Ari has as much to do with the saintly ascetic as it has with the simple innkeeper or potato farmer who serves G-d with all his heart. As a matter of fact, in the simple, the ultimate simplicity of the Infinite Light shines best."

Here is the inside story as passed down from rebbe to rebbe until it was told to us by Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak of Lubavitch. This is what you call "getting it from a reliable source." After all, who are you going to believe, a pompous German-Jewish historian who conjures up history to fit to his promethean bed of 19th century world-concept--or a brilliant tzaddik who would never let a word of untruth pass his lips and tells you he is reciting verbatim as a previous tzaddik told him? Aside from which, the tzaddiks version is so much more believable.

Here is the tzaddik's version, as he told it in the Baal Shem Tov's words:

On my sixteenth birthday, the eighteenth of Elul 5474 [1714], I was in a small village. The innkeeper was a Jew of quintessential simplicity. He knew his prayers only with difficulty--he had no idea what the words meant. But he had a great awe of heaven and for everything that would occur to him he would comment, "Blessed be He, and may He be blessed for ever and ever." The innkeeper's wife and partner had a different saying: "Blessed be His Holy Name".

On that day, I went to meditate in solitude in the pasture, as had been taught by the sages before us, that on one's birthday one should meditate alone for a period of time. In my meditations I recited Psalms and concentrated on the yichudim of the divine names.

["Yichudim" are a form of kabbalistic meditation based on different permutations and combinations of the divine names and attributes of G-d --trans.].

As I was immersed in this, I had lost awareness of my surroundings. Suddenly, I beheld Elijah the Prophet--and a smile was drawn over his lips. I was very amazed that I should merit a revelation of Elijah the Prophet while alone. When I was with the tzaddik Rabbi Meir, and also with others of the hidden tzaddikim I had the fortune to see Elijah the Prophet. But to be privileged to this while alone--this was the very first time and I was very amazed. Understandably, I was unable to interpret the smile on Elijah's face.

And this is what he said to me:

"Behold, you are struggling with great effort to focus your mind upon the divine names that extend from the verses of psalms that David, King of Israel composed. But Aaron Shlomo the innkeeper and Zlota his wife are so ignorant of the yichudim of divine names that extend from "Blessed be He, and may He be blessed for ever and ever" that the innkeeper recites and "Blessed be His Holy Name" that she recites--yet these yichudim make a storm throughout all the worlds far beyond the yichudim of Divine Names that the great tzaddikim can create."

Then, Elijah the Prophet told me about the pleasure G-d takes, so to speak, from the praise and thanksgiving of the men, women and children who praise Him--especially when the praise and thanks comes from simple people, and most specifically when it is ongoing, continual praise--for then they are continuously bonded with G-d, blessed be He, with pure faith and sincerity of heart.

From that time on I took upon myself a path in the service of G-d to bring men, women and children to say words of praise to G-d. I would always ask them about their health, the health of their children, about their material welfare--and they would answer me with different words of praise for the Holy One, blessed be He--each one in his or her own way.

For several years I did this myself, and at one of the gatherings of the hidden tzaddikim they all accepted this path...

From finding the most mystical in the most simple of people, the Baal Shem Tov went on to find the most divine sparks in the most mundane, the essence of the One G-d everywhere and in every event.

When the truth of his wellsprings shall spread forth, without distortion, then the Age of Moshiach has arrived, may it be sooner than we all think.




By Tzvi Freeman More articles... |

Tzvi Freeman is the author of a number of highly original renditions of Kabbalah and Chassidic teaching, including the universally acclaimed "Bringing Heaven Down to Earth." To order Tzvi's books click here.



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Something from Nothing

By Yaakov Brawer


Ever since our father Abraham first recognized the Creator and established a personal relationship with Him, his descendants have been in conflict with the rest of the world. This discord has assumed a wide variety of formats throughout history. The Jews have been in conflict with idol worshippers, Hellenists, Christians, Moslems, communists, secularists, and so on. Indeed, it would appear that the only limit to the number of clashes is the number of identifiable non-Jewish, or more accurately, non-Torah world views.

Given the numerous and varied expressions of contention between the Torah perspective and other views of reality, it might be assumed that there are many grounds for controversy and that the nature of each dispute is determined by a unique set of conflicting suppositions. For example, one might assume that the roots of the conflict between the Torah and Christianity are fundamentally different from those underlying the incompatibility between Torah and the concept of biological evolution.

If such were indeed the case, it would seem to indicate that the Torah Jew is in an intellectually untenable position and that it is only stubbornness, perversity, and a debilitating isolationism that spur him on in his endless war on multiple fronts. How is it possible for the Torah Jew to maintain an immutable, unique view that is in conflict with so many systems of thought, produced by so many great minds throughout history?

The answer is that the situation is far more simple than it appears at first glance. There is really only one bone of contention and there are really only two conflicting viewpoints: Torah Judaism and everything else. The bone of contention is the principle of something from something. which is the unifying, fundamental premise on which each of the many components of the "everything else" category is based. The antithesis of something from something is the principle of something from nothing, which is the foundation of the Torah view of existence.

What does this really mean? Does a single, simple generalization accurately describe the essence of Jewish, as opposed to non-Jewish, thought; and does it really explain everything?

To begin with, something from something is indeed an all-encompassing presupposition that ultimately explains everything that goes on in the world. Simply stated, it is the assumption of cause and effect. Everything has an antecedent cause to which it can be directly related. The antecedent to a chicken is an egg. The antecedent to a house is lumber. The antecedent to the lumber is a forest, and so on. Everything and every event is the product of a progressive developmental sequence of causes. Everything comes from an identifiable something; hence the process of something from something. The chain of somethings may be very long and the last link may look very different from the first. There is, for example, no obvious similarity between an apple seed and an apple tree. Nevertheless, the tree is a distant link in a long chain of cause and effect from the seed. Moreover, it is the inevitable and predictable outcome. The apple seed cannot, for example, produce a goldfish, nor, for that matter, a peach tree. The features expressed by a distant something in the chain (a tree) are limited by the features that define an earlier something (the seed).

The concept that everything comes from something seems obvious, logical, and pragmatic. It provides a continuity in time and space without which we could not relate to our natural circumstances. Since everything is a consequence of an evolutionary continuum of related events, everything has a history of which it is the product. On this basis, one can interpret the past and predict, and hence respond to, events in the future. Thus, the process of something from something serves as the rationale for diagnosing and treating disease, playing the stock market, or negotiating a treaty with a foreign government.

If this description of the principle of something from something is accurate, it is hard to see much wrong with it. There seems little here for Torah Jews to get riled up over. On the contrary, when it comes to daily life, or professional activities, Torah Jews operate on the assumption of something from something just like everyone else. Moreover, both the theoretical and the applied aspects of Torah law are replete with examples of deductive and inductive reasoning, characteristic of the something from something mode of thinking. Torah law, in most cases, deals with natural circumstances and assumes a natural, interpretable order of events. It presumes nature to be real and to behave in a predictable, continuous way.

Thus far, there is no argument. The source of the trouble is at a far more fundamental level. It involves those events or beings for which, according to Torah, there are no precedents, such as Creation and the Creator. To put it another way, the controversy is not over nature, but rather over the nature of nature.

Even those who are able to ignore the Creator by claiming that He does not exist are stuck with the problem of how and why the universe (including themselves) carne to be. Although there are many approaches to the subject, they all share the common underlying assumption of something from something. So, since the universe currently consists of a vast number of entities with measurable physical properties organized in a unique way, its ultimate source must likewise, in some way, be bound by physical characteristics and dimensions. The current appearance of any particular aspect of Creation is the product of a history, or of an evolutionary chain of events that progressively molded a previous something into a contemporary something. For example, animals, including humans, are made out of chemicals. It follows, then, by something from something, that the origin(s) of all animal species must be simpler, less processed collections of chemicals, which in the course of time, and in response to natural events, developed in a stepwise, sequential fashion into what they are at the moment. It matters not at all whether the changes constituting the steps in the chain occurred individually or in clusters. The governing principle of something from something is the same. Indeed, there are as many variations of the something from something theme as there are scientific and philosophic disciplines.

The same fundamental principle is invoked to explain why the continents look the way they do, why there is a universal background of microwave radiation, why mitochondria contain DNA, and so forth. In short, as stated previously, something from something is used to explain everything. This does not imply that every explanation is simple or that here is necessarily a linear relationship between any set of causes and their effects. On the contrary, the relationship may be so complex as to defy elucidation. Turbulence or chaotic behavior, for example, is unpredictable due to the complexity of elements that feed into the system under observation. Moreover, as propounded in the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, it may be impossible to simultaneously determine all the physical properties that define a system. This does not weaken the something from something law; it simply indicates that we can't know all the somethings.

It is not easy to understand how a world view that leads nowhere and ultimately explains nothing became so rooted in the human psyche. The principle of something from something is, after all, the downward spiral path of infinite regress. No matter how far you extrapolate back on the chain of cause and effect, there is yet a prior cause which shares the same fundamental limitations as its progeny (i.e., it is defined by physical properties).

An objection could be raised. It could be argued that the principal of something from something is by no means a globally accepted axiom. On the contrary, it is rejected by many if not most people, whose concept of reality necessitates the existence of G-d. Many people see an expression of intelligence and purpose in nature. This in itself is as logically valid as the perspective of the scientific secularist who sees no purpose in the chain of cause and effect from which the universe presumably evolved. Actually, considering the stunning discoveries of the past decade in physics and cosmology, one could easily argue that the assumption of intelligence and purpose in Creation is the intuitively stronger view.

The problem is that despite the many diverse conceptualizations of G-d, underneath it all, He looks disconcertingly familiar. In fact, He looks, more or less, like us. It seems that although the recognition of purpose and intelligence in Creation supports the concept of a purposeful and intelligent Creator, this recognition alone is not enough to overcome the seemingly inescapable gravitational attraction of something from something.

Our grasp of creative intelligence and our sense of purpose is derived from observations of ourselves, since we are the only entities in Creation (to which we have access) who possess these qualities. Our notions of "creating" are likewise acquired by seeing how we do it. There is, after all, no other model to learn from. So, assuming ourselves the template, we extrapolate out to G-d. The kind of god you end up with, of course, depends on the length and direction of the chain of something from something. A short chain of extrapolation would produce something like the pantheon of Greek gods, which hardly differ from the human paradigm. A longer extrapolation will produce a more sophisticated, refined, and less limited concept of Divinity. Also, as is necessarily the case in a something from something progression, the kind of god you generate depends upon the characteristic features of the human template serving as the first link in the chain. The god of Ayatollah Khomeini is obviously very different from that of Albert Schweitzer.

Thus, whether a god has (had) a body or whether he (she, they) exists in a purely spiritual state is a matter of no consequence. He is a "he", a bigger and better version of man. He is wise, not like man, but very x10 to the one hundredth power wise. Not only is he good, he is orders of magnitude better than the best human. In short, he is defined by qualities or properties, and is, therefore, a something. The extent to which we cannot know him simply reflects the magnitude of the properties that define (limit) him.

If the Creator is a somebody/something, then the law of something from something necessarily would govern the creative process. The universe, for example, is also a something, the ultimate cause of which is G-d. According to this line of thought, the universe exists as well as He does.

There exist, therefore, many thingsthe totality of whatever is found in the universe (stars, neutrons, petunias ... )as well as G-d Himself. He is the biggest and best something, responsible for all the other somethings, all of which He can manipulate at will. Nonetheless, they share with Him the property of independent existence.

The similarity in thinking between the scientific secularists and the Christian fundamentalists is one of the most fascinating ironies of our times. Considering, for example, the magnitude and bitterness of the much publicized battle between evolutionists and creationists, one would naturally suppose that each side embraces a unique doctrine, antithetical and inimical to the other. In fact, both schools adhere to classical something from something orthodoxy. The creationists are no less evolutionary in their thinking than the evolutionists, and the evolutionists exhibit no less faith in their selection of initial assumptions than do the creationists. The differences between the two sides are essentially semantic. The creationists constantly invoke miracles to get over the rough spots in their doctrine, whereas the evolutionists conjure with events the probabilities of which are less than 10 to the negative thirtieth power.

The Torah view of existence predicated on the principle of something from nothing is somewhat more difficult to explain than something from something for the obvious reason that "nothing" defies description and can, therefore, only be appreciated by means of analogy. One very useful, albeit imperfect, analogy is creative human thought, an example of which is a daydream.

It is not uncommon, at a particularly boring faculty meeting, let's say, for one's mind to wander. One may, for example, begin to contemplate an upcoming international scientific meeting. In the mind's eye, one envisions the convention center and the mobs of participants. One sees oneself delivering a spectacular presentation. The applause is overwhelming. Hostile journal editors and Medical Research Council members are chastened. As the dream progresses one can, at will, insert sequences in which competitors are exposed as frauds or incompetents. In short, you can fashion reality any way you like.

Indulgence in such pleasant little reveries is common enough, and we don't give them much thought. The act of daydreaming or imagining does, however, contain some interesting parallels to the process of creating something from nothing.

The imaginer, for example, is a creator who has originated a world that did not exist prior to his thinking it up. He has produced a place, populated it with people and things, and provided a time scale for the action. The objection to this analogy is, of course, that the imaginer has, in fact, created nothing. It is only a thought. It has no existence independent of himself, and it exists only as long as the thinker/creator actively chooses to think about it. That, however, is precisely the point. It is a something that is made out of nothing.

Moreover, all the objects, people, and events which characterize this world are made out of the same thing, namely thought. The only antecedent to their existence is the desire of the thinker to think them. The beings who inhabit the thought world have no independent reality and no intrinsic stability since they must constantly be brought into existence and animated by the will of the thinker. If the thinker/creator is bored with imagining a particular character, he does not have to devise circumstances in which the offending individual dies (although he may certainly do so). He simply ceases to imagine him. Similarly, the thinker/creator is not bound by any necessities, laws, or causes. He can just as easily create a world in which things fall up as one in which things fall down. He can assume anything he likes. Shakespeare dreamt up King Lear. In order to get King Lear where Shakespeare wanted him, namely as a foolish old man, Shakespeare did not have to imagine his birth, weaning, adolescence, and middle years. Shakespeare's King Lear is not the product of a series of somethings, e.g., an indulgent, permissive mother, poor social skills as a teenager, and so on. Rather, he is the product of nothing: Shakespeare's unfettered creative intellect.

The metaphor of creative human thought correlates nicely with many, although by no means all, aspects of universal creation. The Torah Jew does not see intelligence and purpose in the design of the universe, but rather, intelligence and purpose are the stuff of which the universe is made. People may reasonably expect that unless something very unusual occurs, the sun will exist five minutes from now. The Torah Jew knows that unless something unusual happens, the sun will not be here five minutes or even five seconds from now. The singular event is that the sun's Creator must trouble Himself to invest it with existence and endow it with definitive properties by thinking it. The facts that the sun has a long history and that its present existence is mandated by natural law are irrelevant since time and natural law are likewise "thoughts" which require constant attention.

As in the case of the creative thinker, the Creator of the universe is alone, and the existence of the universe in no way compromises his "aloneness". Moreover, just as thoughts are united with and dependent upon the will of the thinker, so are the Creator and His "thoughts" one. The great statement of Jewish faith, the Sh'ma ("Hear, 0 Israel, the L-rd is our G-d, the L-rd is One", Deuteronomy 6:4), which is generally known to be the ultimate expression of G-d's unity, is understood by many to mean that there is only one G-d. Although this interpretation is not incorrect, it is trivial, and is, furthermore, entirely consistent with the something from something doctrine explained above. The thrust of the Sh'ma is not that there is only one G-d, but rather that He is all there is. G-d is the only reality. All else, from the totality of space to a dead leaf blowing around in a backyard, are His "thoughts" and are absolutely subordinate, in form and content, to His conscious Will.

Among the many implications of the creation of something from nothing, perhaps the most important is the tremendous significance that it confers upon our natural circumstances. Since even the most paltry events require constant animation by G-d's willed thought, they are obviously of great importance to G-d; otherwise He would not continually trouble Himself to actively think them. In addition, given the infinite, unrestrained, transcendent range of His creativity, the fact that He chose to create our finite world, with all its minutia, is nothing short of astounding. Nothing, therefore, is trivial. The existence of a speck of dust requires the same attention as a galaxy. It follows that the speck of dust is as essential to the fulfillment of G-d's supernal plan as is the galaxy. There is G-dly potential and an absolute, transcendent purpose in everything. Obviously, there is no such thing as happenstance.

Another ramification of the principle of something from nothing relates to the phenomenology of miracles. There has been much agonizing over the "problem" of miracles. All sorts of contrived arguments have been proposed to reconcile miracles with natural events. Such arguments claim that Mount Sinai was really a volcano, the splitting of the Red Sea was the product of a tidal wave, and so on. Even more distressing are the tortured apologetics of religious Jewish scientists who attempt to reconcile miracles with the natural order by invoking the Uncertainty Principle, quantum indeterminacy, and the like. These mental gymnastic are, of course, demanded by adherence to a something from something world view. From the something from nothing perspective, however, natural law is constantly brought into existence by Divine free will. Therefore, natural law is not intrinsically more logical or compelling than a supernatural event. The Creator can imagine water standing as a wall just as easily as He can endow it with what are considered its natural properties. In other words, natural events are no less supernatural than miraculous events. They are simply much more frequent.

The analogy of creative human thought is only a starting point for the discussion of universal creation. The analogy is seriously limited. It does not, for example, address the apparent dissociation between nothing and something. The world does not look like a collection of thoughts. People and things appear to be independent realities. Furthermore, according to the argument developed thus far, G-d's unrestrained creative intellect is termed the "nothing" by means of which all somethings exist. Why should such an exalted emanation from the Creator be called nothing? On the contrary, it is a very big something, since it is the very life of Creation.

We call G-d's volitional creative intellect "nothing" because we have no direct access to it and, therefore, it is outside the realm of our experience. We can't see it, feel it, detect it, measure it, or even imagine it. Something that one cannot relate to in any way is empirically "nothing". A person could spend a lifetime in this world without it ever dawning on him that all is G-dliness. The fact that G-dliness is inaccessible to us does not, of course, in any way compromise its objective reality. It is nothing only with respect to us.

As it happens, Divinely willed thought is nothing with respect to the Creator as well, but for a very different reason. Let us look, once again, at the daydream metaphor. Given a lifetime of experience and learning, as well as unlimited imagination, how much of the totality of the daydreamer is reflected in the daydream? Clearly the "amount" of the individual's creative intellect invested in the daydream is so miniscule as to be nothing. Once again, however, this analogy is inadequate because the Creator is not a human. The extent to which a person transcends a daydream is truly incomparable to the infinite extent to which the Creator transcends His Creation.

All of this leaves us with a very disturbing question. If the Creator's thought is so far beyond our grasp as to be nothing, and if it is so infinitely beneath His essence as to be nothing, does not this preclude any relationship between Him and us? Between His Being and our being is an endless and bottomless sea of nothing.

Indeed, from our side, He is completely beyond reach. Whatever relationship we have with Him can only be established from His side. We can only know of Him what He chooses to reveal to us, and remarkably, He has chosen to reveal quite a bit. This is the miracle of Torah. Torah bridges the immeasurable distance between the Creator and the Creation.

How and why His infinite, essential Will (which reflects Himself) is enclothed in Torah, is unknowable. How a five year-old child studying Chumash (Bible) with Rashi commentary is able to grasp the ungraspable essence of his Creator cannot be explained. How the binding of tefillin (phylacteries) on the head and arm unites the essence of the Jew with the essence of G-d cannot be understood. How seemingly trivial objects such as matzah (unleavened bread) or an etrog (citron) can serve, at specified times, as vessels with which to capture Divinity and reveal it in time and space is unfathomable. It is, after all, His Torah.

The Torah, then, is at the heart of the something from nothing position. All the something from something theorists approach causality from their own perspectives and on their own terms. Judaism, which is at odds with everyone and everything else, is based on the truth that G-d is not a something, and therefore if He is to be approached at all, it must be from His perspective and on His terms.




By Yaakov Brawer More articles... |

Dr. Yaakov Brawer is Professor of Anatomy and Cell Biology at McGill University Faculty of Medicine. He is the author of two books of Chassidic philosophy, Something From Nothing and Eyes That See



The content on this page is copyrighted by the author, publisher and/or Chabad.org, and is produced by Chabad.org. If you enjoyed this article, we encourage you to distribute it further, provided that you comply with the copyright policy.





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A Chaos of Infinite Light

By Yaakov Brawer


Torah observant Jews engage in formal prayer three times daily. The core of each of these services is a silent prayer which is recited standing, and hence is referred to as the Amidah (from the word omed which means to stand). The rest of the service is arranged around, and is subsidiary to, this central prayer. During weekdays, the Amidah consists of nineteen benedictions, no less than seven of which are directly and explicitly related to the messianic redemption.

Torah Jews, like everyone else, must also eat. Following a formal meal, grace - consisting of four blessings - is recited. The third of these blessings is a poignant entreaty for Moshiach. A Jew can not even snack on a piece of cake without calling to mind his yearning for Moshiach in the requisite blessing said after its consumption.

Thus, an ordinary Jew is required to mention and to think about Moshiach no less than 24 times every day. This preoccupation with Moshiach is not limited to mystics, Chassidim and the like, but is rather central to normative Judaism as it has always been practiced.

What have successful people leading fulfilling, secure, and comfortable lives in the world's richest country to do with Moshiach? Why should a surgeon, a television producer, or a high school basketball star yearn for redemption?

Obsession with Moshiach was understandable in Europe. Who or what else could deliver the Jewish people from the unrelenting oppression, poverty, humiliation and physical danger that pervaded the daily life of European Jewry for the past thousand years? But times (thank G-d) have changed. We are, for the most part, safe, well fed, and free to pursue whatever lifestyles and goals that we choose. Why, then, do we need Moshiach? What is it that he is supposed to save us from? As far as we are concerned, everything is just fine, thank you. Furthermore, anyone hankering for our ancestral homeland can satisfy his longing by simply buying a plane ticket. Whoever so wishes can eat a falafel on the Dizengof, climb Massada, or even put a little note in the Western Wall. How can this be called galut (exile)?

Paradoxically, this bewilderment regarding the need for Moshiach is itself the most emphatic indication of how desperately we need Moshiach. The most distressing aspect of this bitter galut is that we are blithely unaware that we are in a bitter galut. We do not recognize where we really are or what sort of a condition we are in.

Although galut is frequently associated with physical suffering, this is not its cardinal characteristic, as is obvious from the experience of most Jews in America. The definitive feature of galut is rather the absence of a central unifying purpose to existence.

Peoples' lives appear to be determined by random forces: economic, political, and physical. On a larger scale, attempts to define and solve world problems are doomed to failure, since there is no consistent pattern in history and no stable rational framework underlying world events. Today's solution evolves into tomorrow's crisis. The only reliable assumption in life is that things will change in unpredictable ways. People may grope desperately to impose some sort of meaning on life, but since there is no intrinsic or absolute purpose, these efforts simply reflect the subjective whims of the moment. They can produce nothing substantial. The flower child of the sixties transforms into the greedy entrepreneur of the eighties without so much as a thought to the absurdity of his own metamorphosis. Where is he going and what does he ultimately have in mind? He can't know. His view of himself and the world depends upon circumstances that are ephemeral, undirected, purposeless, and indifferent to his existence. He is living in Shakespeare's "...tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing".

Such a tale is not necessarily unpleasant. The same mindless happenstance that consigns one man to serfdom crowns another king. The main point is that there is no reason.

How and why would G-d create such a world? In order to understand the "why", we must first come to grips with the "how".

How: Receptive Aphasia and Dream Reality

As is the case with any of G-d's actions, we have no direct access to His methods. His thoughts are not our thoughts. Nevertheless, He created man in His image, meaning that the relationship of Divinity to creation is reflected in the myriad spiritual dimensions and powers ultimately relating the soul of man to a physical body.

In other words, man is a microcosm of the universe. The soul powers that animate the body, such as intelligence and emotion, parallel Divine attributes of intelligence, kindness, justice, etc., that vivify creation. Likewise, the vehicles through which the soul actualizes its powers (i.e. expresses itself) -- thought, speech and action -- reflect the Divine modes of expression that result in physical existence.

The Torah, therefore, speaks in the language of man, i.e., in anthropomorphic metaphor. Consequently, we can gain at least indirect information regarding Divine activity by drawing analogies to the appropriate corresponding aspect of human life.

Thus, the essentially ineffable process of Divine creation is described in metaphoric terms by the Torah as "speech". Human language provides an unusually rich, multi-tiered model through which many aspects of creation can be intuited.

All of existence is nothing other than a manifestation of G-dliness, an expression of G-d's creative ability. The light of G-d's Infinite Will is revealed through Divine intellectual and emotional attributes, producing illuminations that can be considered as G-d's "thoughts". Thoughts are the private domain of the thinker, inaccessible to anyone but himself. Indeed, they are manifestations of the thinker to himself. G-d, therefore, expresses His thoughts in "words of speech".

Words of human speech are vehicles through which supraverbal thoughts and feelings can be expressed and given substance. Ultimately, the "words of G-d's speech" are the specific properties and forms assumed by matter, inanimate and sentient, to produce the countless details of physical existence.

Speech, unlike thought, is not a constant and automatic process. Speech is generated by the will to reveal oneself. Since speech is specifically intended to reveal the speaker, creation, the product of G-d's "speech", should reveal G-dliness, i.e., we should be able to perceive the Divine purpose in everything. Creation should disclose to us G-d's "thoughts," which is to say G-d Himself. Such, however, is obviously not the case.

Although language accurately reflects the process of continuous creation under ideal conditions, galut (exile) is far from an ideal condition. The appropriate human parallel, therefore, is not simply language, but rather disordered language of the type that is described in clinical neurology as receptive (Wernike's) aphasia.

Receptive aphasia is a disconnection syndrome. A stroke or a tumor destroys the region of the brain that associates the symbols of language, the words, with meaning. The region of the brain that actually generates language remains intact, so that the patient can speak fluently. Moreover, areas of the brain involved in cognitive and emotional expression also function properly. The problem is that the brain components that normally inform speech and provide the intellectual or emotional content can no longer do so, because the "wiring" connecting speech with meaning is destroyed. Thus, although the faculties of the mind are operative, and the ability to produce language is unimpaired, the two functions are uncoupled, resulting in fluent speech that is empty of meaning.

Patients with a pure complete receptive aphasia speak in sentences with proper intonation and inflection. What they say, however, is random nonsense, unfocused and devoid of rationale. Occasional fragments of speech may be amusing, or even lyrical, but they fit into no pattern or conceptual context. Aphasic language does not conform to, and therefore does not reveal, the "mind" of the speaker. The structure of language in a pure Wernike's aphasic is determined by unknowable, seemingly random, subconscious influences. Interestingly, the patient himself is unaware that his speech is inappropriate, since he lacks the necessary neurological machinery to interpret all speech, including his own.

The metaphor that best describes the chaotic profusion of things, people, and events that constitute worldly life is aphasic-like speech. From our perspective, the language that comprises creation appears vacuous and undirected. As far as we can detect, it is neither guided by, nor does it conform to, any discernible intent of the Speaker. The Speaker, although fluently expressive, is absolutely inaccessible, concealed behind a dense thicket of tangled and uninterpretable utterances.

There are a number of disturbing questions that emerge from all this, not the least of which is how can so many people be so content and so blissfully at home in such a horrifying condition? In order to address this question, we must broaden our view of exile by examining yet another classical metaphor for galut -- that of a dream.

A dream is a dissociated and often grossly distorted mélange of images, totally alien to what one encounters in normal life. Since during sleep the imagination is unrestricted by any assumptions, rules or necessities, there is no rational framework of cause and effect, and the dream can assume dimensions which defy description. Remarkably, from the dreamer's point of view, the dream world appears entirely ordinary and very real.

The surrealistic distortion that is so apparent on awakening, is entirely acceptable and natural within the context of the dream. The dreamer may be terrified by something that, on awakening, merely evokes a bewildered smile. He may cry brokenheartedly over something that, from the viewpoint of wakeful consciousness, is not in the least sad. He regards inanities as momentous, whereas true flashes of creativity or genius may be ignored. His vision, feelings, priorities, and plans are all tailored to circumstances in the dream world in which he truly feels himself to be living.

Thus, an indispensable component of the dreamlike world of galut is the illusion of reality. People are entirely at home and comfortable with the lunacy that describes modern life. It is regarded as normal, healthy and American for thousands of people to fight, push, and scream their way into a stadium in order to experience the elevation of spirit, the rapture of watching a man hit a ball with a stick. News magazines discuss the artistic merits of a popular movie, the subject of which is cannibalism and sadism; this is normal entertainment for millions of people. During the day, a man labors mightily, dissipating his G-d given energy and talents in the pursuit of toys or a moment's illusion of power. Vicious and violent racists condemn the victims of their racism as racist in victim-subsidized college programs. The list goes on.

The Ones Who Don't Fit In

In resolving the question as to why people are content with galut, the dream metaphor raises an even more perplexing paradox. If we are all products of the dream of galut, how can we objectively assess our circumstances so as to be aware of the horrifying morass that we are in? How can we possibly expect a world that is blind to its own madness to yearn for redemption?

The answer is that the darkness of galut is not absolute. There are those for whom the dense obscurity of galut is only partial. They are like dreamers who know that they are dreaming and are thus able to stand somewhat aloof from the dream and perceive the truth. Obviously the agonizing impact of galut can be properly appreciated only by such people. It also follows that such individuals must be totally out of register with the rest of humanity. These unusual people are the Jews.

The Divine Jewish soul emanates from its source in Divine Will, penetrating the profuse concealments of galut and illuminating the life of the Jew in this world. The strength of this influence varies, from prophets and holy individuals (tzaddikim) whose very perceptions are those of the divine soul, to ordinary Jews in whom the illumination is somewhat beclouded by the coarseness of the physical body and the delusions of worldly life. The Jews have thus always been a people apart, isolated, alien, regarded with suspicion, fear and loathing by a benighted, uncomprehending world.

For 2000 years the Jews have yearned for a redemption unfathomable to the nations of the world, and to that end, have pursued goals that are incomprehensible to the rest of humanity. The periodic misguided efforts of many Jews to alleviate the anguish of galut by accommodation and assimilation have made no more sense then it would for a psychiatrist to accept the perspectives and world views of his patients and assume their behavior patterns simply because they outnumber him. Because Jews, in essence, transcend galut, we are ultimately capable of, and therefore responsible for, ushering in the redemption, not only for ourselves, but for the entire world.

Why: A Need for Challenge and a Desire for Infinitude

Although the aphasia paradigm and the dream metaphor explain how the Almighty can seemingly detach Himself from the creation that He constantly generates, it gives no insight into His motives. What is gained by running the world in such a way that its inhabitants are able to deny the existence of the Creator and reject or even ridicule concepts of Divine purpose, justice, and mercy?

The answer is that galut is not reality and it has no inherent significance. On the contrary, it has been designed and implemented specifically to be overcome, to be negated. The Almighty is hiding in order to be found, which means that the purpose of the concealment is really revelation.

The Creator is neither dreaming nor (G-d forbid) aphasic. Every detail of existence fulfills an overall purpose and contributes to a comprehensive Divine plan. G-d's "speech", although incomprehensible to us, is meticulously chosen. The imagery, although appearing to us as a wild dream, is regulated by the highest purpose. G-d, as it were, goes to considerable trouble to make the world appear as a rudderless ship.

It is because the Creator has so thoroughly concealed Himself that our actions are significant. If the world revealed Divinity, its inhabitants would, as a matter of course, be holy, and drawn to G-dliness. Since the pursuit of G-dliness would be natural and, therefore, effortless, it would also be, in and of itself, valueless. Our actions would simply reflect the natural tendency to be holy. As it is, however, an individual's pursuit of G-dliness, no matter how limited, is of inestimable value precisely because it is neither natural nor normal. It requires exertion, and a willingness to struggle with one's instincts, proclivities, and habits. The simplest action, such as putting a mezuzah on one's door, requires one to do battle with an entire world that rejects, mocks and opposes such behavior. Because of galut, the performance of every Mitzvah is of infinite significance.

The Almighty has not produced the perfect world that He ultimately desires. In His infinite kindness, He has assigned this mission to the Jew.

There is another aspect of galut that can be inferred from the dream analogy. The essential characteristic of a dream, which distinguishes it from conscious musings or from a daydream, is chaos. A person's imagination, while awake, is ordered and guided by the intellect and, therefore, is of necessity, limited. Order and structure demand rules, and rules impose limitations. A dream, because it lacks order, is free of limitation. Revelations of the mind that are so luminous and original that they transcend the restrictions of language or of rational thought may be revealed by the unfettered activity of the imagination during a dream. In the case of galut, its source is so lofty that its manifestations can only be perceived by the finite, rational mind as uninterpretable chaos. The light is so intense that there are no instruments capable of detecting it, and thus it appears as darkness.

The mission of the Jewish people throughout galut is to transform the finite world into a vessel for revealing this light, i.e., to transform the darkness into light. This is done by the application of Torah, the source of which is also transcendent, to all worldly things and daily affairs. The refinement and restructuring of the details of worldly existence into vessels for G-dliness prepare the world for redemption, which is a revelation of the essence of Divinity. At such a time, the chimeric state of galut will have served its purpose and will evaporate, as does a perplexing riddle when the solution is revealed.

This, then, is the redemption that we, all of us, everywhere, and at all times, yearn for. This is what is meant when Jews beseech three times daily during formal prayer. "For Your salvation we hope all day."




By Yaakov Brawer More articles... |

Dr. Yaakov Brawer is Professor of Anatomy and Cell Biology at McGill University Faculty of Medicine. He is the author of two books of Chassidic philosophy, Something From Nothing and Eyes That See



The content on this page is copyrighted by the author, publisher and/or Chabad.org, and is produced by Chabad.org. If you enjoyed this article, we encourage you to distribute it further, provided that you comply with the copyright policy.





--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chabad.org · A Division of the Chabad-Lubavitch Media Center
In everlasting memory of Chabad.org's founder, Rabbi Yosef Y. Kazen
© 2001-2006 Chabad-Lubavitch Media Center

The night was created for Torah study

- Eruvin 65a

Yet the Ninth of Av is also a day of hope. The Talmud relates that Moshiach ("anointed one"--the Messiah), was born at the very moment that the Temple was set aflame and the Galut began. [This is in keeping with the teachings of our sages that, "In every generation is born a descendent of Judah who is worthy to become Israel's Moshiach" (Bartinoro on Ruth); "When the time will come, G-d will reveal Himself to him and send him, and then the spirit of Moshiach, which is hidden and secreted on high, will be manifested in him" (Chattam Sofer).]

B"H

What is Evil?
-------------

Evil is that which has no power of its own. Evil is darkness, a negation of light. Its power is in us, in our fear of it, in that we consider it a "something" worth responding to.

Evil is fostered on every spoonful of worries, every glance of trepidation, every concession we make from our lives to acknowledge its threat -- until it rises brazenly to attack us with our own instruments.

Stoop to conquer Evil and you will only join it in its mud. Against Evil, you must march on the clouds, never looking down, climbing ever higher, until you reach a brilliant, blinding light -- a light that leaves no crevice for darkness to hide.

Against that light, Evil melts in surrender, having fulfilled its purpose of being. For, in the beginning, darkness was made to squeeze out the inner light of the human soul. A light that knows no bounds.





A Daily Dose of Wisdom from the Rebbe
-words and condensation by Tzvi Freeman
Menachem Av 8, 5766 * August 2, 2006