This expression is the conclusion to this work in progress, Words: Ehad BaLev (Of Singular Heart). In it I would like to offer three different ideas that become a singular idea.
Purposefulness
I have a question that I think we could all think about, a question that will make us re-evaluate our world. I request one given: 'That people appreciate a reward if it is earned more so than they appreciate the same reward if it is a gift.' Take this as a rule of nature. Based on this truth, Imagine that you have any 'magical' power to bend or break the laws of nature (except the above rule). Now, make the world a better place. I don’t believe it is possible. I've thought about this a lot, and I think you should as well. If my given is assumed, anything that one changes will only negatively affect the overall outcome, if it effects the outcome at all.
Let us take an example: World hunger. I can now snap my fingers and end world hunger. Will I have changed the world for the better? Less people will die, but no one will ever appreciate food (as much) again—it is a gift. Food will be thought of as Oxygen is, no one appreciates oxygen until they've been choking, or suffocating. Instead perhaps, let me try to create a system by which all could attain food, so it would be earned pleasure and we would then appreciate it. Is not this system already in place? Is it not people who cause others to go without food?
You can try this with any kind of suffering or negativity and you will find that giving people B will only eliminate B from what everyone considers 'something worth having', or 'something necessary'. Furthermore, any system you suggest which makes the attainment of B a possibility to all, yet not a given, would only reproduce a system which already exists.
When one focuses on this question and possible solutions for some time, one finds two things:
- That the only way to change things for the better is to do so within the jurisdiction of nature, with the sweat of one’s own brow.
- That in HaShem’s creation everything has a purpose. If you remove one thing, other things will cease to be meaningful. Furthermore there are already things that have no (immediately perceivable) meaning, so surely anything WITH meaning, is meant to have meaning.
the neshama and it's task
Now that we see that everything has a purpose we will attempt to begin to address one of the most direct purposes in the world. The task of the Neshama. Firstly we will try to understand the Neshama a little better. When I speak of the Neshama, I speak not of whatever clearly acknowledged concept is tied to this word already, rather a concept we are about to define. The Neshama is the spark of divinity that dwells at the center of every human being. The Neshama is not of the spiritual world.
The spiritual world is something that was created by HaShem, just as the physical world was. The spiritual world is the Torah that was separated from the physical world when they were both a united part of HaShem (even though HaShem has no actual parts) before the beginning of time. The Neshama is the union of the two, Torah and World. The Neshama is a union of the two worlds, a nullification of one another, until all that remains is the essence of HaShem. The Neshama is a glimpse of that which was never created, has always been, and will always be. The Neshama is a very tiny hole in the fabric of the world we live in, a tiny pin-prick that lets in the light of the deepest truth, HaShem.
Now this Neshama, this point of boundless divinity within each person, is very very small yet it allows people to perform actions. The actions of which I speak are not actions in the physical world, like throwing a ball. Nor are they actions in the spiritual world, like thinking a thought. They are actions which may bring the spiritual and physical worlds (Torah and Olam) closer together, or further apart. These actions encompass tying the physical world to the spiritual world, and vice versa. An example of this would be an act of kindness. When one gives charity to a needy person, one acknowledges the importance of one other than himself (a spiritual act) and one performs the act of giving something he would normally take (a physical act).
These actions have three outcomes:
- One may act in the name of HaShem. This is the highest level of action. This is a mitzvah. The goal of such an action is primarily the joining of the physical and spiritual worlds in order to bring blessing into this world. (which I hope to explain in the next paragraph.)
- One may act in the name of self. This is the act of the average individual, performed to obtain that which one desires.
- One may act in the name of Others. This is the lowest and most detestable form of action. This is idol worship. By others I do not mean in the name of some other person, as a messenger, because we know that the Rabbis say that "a messenger for a person, is as the person himself." (Shlucho shel adam k'moto) Why is this act so bad? When a person acts in his own name, he at least believes in haShem in a veiled way, he believes in the spark of divinity within him, he believes in himself. When a person acts in HaShem's name he imparts a truth as great as, if not greater than, that of all the combined Torah. This person has brought blessing into this world in a way that cannot be equaled, as we will discuss in a moment. The person who acts in the name of a 'god' other than HaShem is sharing only falsehood with the world and with his peers. The world itself regrets its existence when someone acts in the name of Others.
When a Neshama is used to perform an act of the first category, it allows the Neshama to grow larger, the hole becomes clearer and through it more of HaShem is perceivable. The radiance that shines forth from this hole is what we call Beracha, blessing. The radiance shines forth and greatly multiplies the physical and spiritual worlds, allowing for more acts like the first in order to even more greatly dilate the Neshama. There is a side effect of this Beracha, as more radiance shines forth, and more torah and world are created, the benefit this immediately brings to this world, is an act of unification on its own. And so the Neshama dilates a little more, allowing a little more light through it's iris. This light causes further torah and world, causing a little more light. Each time a little less light comes forth, and a little less world is created. What this looks like is a drop of water falling into a calm reservoir. The initial waves are high and as they spread out they begin to get lower, eventually disappearing. Every mitzvah (act of category 1) causes such a wave.
The third category of act produces a wave in the opposite way. Every act of unification in the name of Others leads to a contraction of the Neshama, further closing it's iris, and letting out less brilliance than before. The lack of light causes the destruction of Torah and World. This resultant destruction causes further contraction of the Neshama in a similar wave as described above. Hashem has done a great kindness to us in that the world works this way, what it means is that eventually an evildoer's Neshama will become totally closed and he will have no ability to perform additional acts of evil (or Has v'Shalom that this should happen to anyone, no ability to perform acts of good—even then HaShem has it in his power to show mercy if he so chooses), yet a Tzaddik's, who's every action further dilates his Neshama, every act brings greater and greater amounts of Beracha into the world with no upper limit.
The middling act, acting in one's own name, creates no real waves of which to speak, but the Neshama is enlarged very slightly, because it may be that some will see HaShem's hand even in what you think are your own efforts. This act has the repercussion only of a lack of achievement. An act that could have greatly increased the Beracha in the world, instead increased the Beracha only the slightest amount, and made the physical and spiritual worlds less balanced. (because an act for self must be focused on attaining something physical or spiritual ultimately but I wont get into this here.)
When a mitzvah (act 1) and an avayrah (act 3) interact they may cancel one another out. This is not often the ultimate case as a mitzvah leads to a mitzvah and an avayrah to an avayrah (from the sayings of our fathers, Pirkei Avoth), and since there is a lower limit to avayroth but no such upper limit to mitzwoth, eventually the mitzwoth overpower the avayroth. It may take lifetimes, or generations, to witness and understand such a nature, however.
imaginable but unimageable
In the end of days (and it is called this somewhat in the spirit of my first point, not because there will be no more days, because there will be no more shortage of them.) The waves of the mitzwoth will eventually become like a standing wave. This means that the iris of the collective Neshama of mankind will continuously expand and continuously create more world (time & space) and Torah (truth & appreciation), causing further dilation of the universal Neshama ad infinitum. I will not get into the idea of a universal or collective Neshama further here, with HaShem's help perhaps I will understand and share it at some point in the future.
The idea or perhaps image I would like to focus on now is the continuous expansion and continuous creation which prod one another forever. This can be visualized in a simplistic way as similar to a black hole. There is some density of mitzwoth that, performed in a small enough amount of time (two shabbatoth?), would cause an endless implosion (like that of a new black hole who’s mass has just shrunk beyond its schwarzchild radius).
The image of a black hole falls short when you realize there is no space external to HaShem, and no space into which he may implode but himself. The image one begins to see is unexpressable. One can express a limited understanding in certain words or images, but it cannot compare to what one may experience in one's own mind when one comes across it.
I first saw/felt this shape a year ago (almost) sitting in class pondering the discussion of the class (called Systems and Structures, about systems and chaos theory) as well as all of my knowledge related to recently read passages from Sefer Yetsirah, the Book of Formation.
I came across this shape again a week ago when I tried to express my divrei torah on the tasks of the 70 nations visually. I drew many diagrams but every time I returned to the idea of the tafkid (the job or role) the Jews are meant to play I failed to illustrate it. Finally I realized it was the same shape I tried to express or draw about 10 months earlier. It was only upon running into the shape here that I knew it was part of this final expression.
Surprisingly about three months ago I ran into a discussion of this exact shape as it passed through the books of various mathematicians and philosophers throughout history. It is an essay by Jorge Luis Borges, in his book Labyrinths which my Grandmother made me read, called 'The Fearful Sphere of Pascal.'
There are many aspects of this shape that can be seen separately, but I believe it is the highest level of rational or intellectual perception of the workings of this world.
tying it all together
We have seen the relationships between God and Man, in the first two expressions I discussed these ideas in some depth. We have seen some of the relationships between Man and the World/Torah in the third, fourth, and fifth expressions. We have also seen in the last two writings, ways in which Man relates to Man. This final expression is meant to change everything around a little. Instead of examining the world in pieces, I have tried to show the world in it's entirety. At the very least I've tried to show you how to see the world on a far larger and more interrelated scale than my previous writing.
We began with an examination of the balance of structure that HaShem has based this world upon, by trying, theoretically, to change it for the better. This lead us to the understanding of how just and purposeful the world actually is. The question of purpose, which revolves heavily around Man's role, lead us into the discussion of Neshama, the means by which we may perform our allotted task. An illustrated understanding of our relationship to Neshama introduced the cyclic, self-referential nature of this world. This property viewed through much thought and imagination inevitably leads to the shape we discussed last.
When we open our minds and eyes, in an attempt to encompass everything, we ultimately hit a wall (The twice mentioned self-referential shape). There are two reasons why this is the case. The first reason can be illustrated when one holds a mirror up to another mirror. An illustration of a simplistic kind of infinity can be seen in this fashion. This is in effect, what happens when we really try to 'take in' the world. Since we have all of knowledge within us already, an awareness of all that is, when we look outward for such an awareness, the presence of the same knowledge both within you and outside you play off one another in endless reflections. This is the inexpressible self-referential shape. The second reason is more basic. When we open our eyes to look, when we use our minds to understand, we are trying to perceive truth with our inherent falsehood. Eyes are false in that we should be aware of all things everywhere, but eyes convince us we have a vantage point. Our mind does the same thing, it convinces us we are separate from all others, even though we are all the same, indivisible. When we want to approach past the shape that blocks our comprehension, we must perceive with our Neshama. Our Neshama is not separate from HaShem at all, it shares no falsehood with this creation, when we close our eyes and minds and succumb to being, we are the shape, and we can rejoice in HaShem's company virtually unhindered.
parting words..
Having arrived here, I realize that this work is partially without purpose. I cannot explain to you a world that I don’t live in. Don't be fooled into thinking your world is exactly my world, or vice versa. I cannot convey the shape which may be a universal expression of all these worlds. And lastly, I cannot even tell you any of this unless you first understand that you already know it. In truth this work is more about questioning than about answering. The answer is always HaShem is One. That is the highest and most complete answer, the only answer with no following question. (Every other answer can be followed by a 'Why?', but the question 'Why is HaShem One?' has only one answer: "HaShem is One.")
It is only my compulsive nature to always have an answer that has made answers as well as questions so prevalent here. I won't offer a question without an answer, even if the answer is wrong. That is the last thing to note in this work. I have been, am, and will be wrong from time to time. I have enlisted HaShem's aid in writing these expressions, and I have intended to write only truth, sometimes veiled slightly, but I am human and prone to error.
Acharon Acharon Haviv: It is my hope that this work opens your eyes to HaShem's everpresent hand, to the beauty of his creations, and to the amazing potential he has placed within each of you. It is my hope that you see and question, that you look and understand, and that you close your eyes and know this to be true.
Notes:
Neshama as defined by me above is probably more closely related to the Kabbalistic concept of the Yechida, than to the normative concept of Neshama.(note: this appears to be incorrect, the Yechidah is not that which I thought it was, or perhaps it may be, I am not sure, however I do know that one may come to misunderstanding if one tries to relate Neshama as used here to the Neshama of other Jewish traditions and usages (who have a far more clearly defined knowledge of precisely what Neshama entails.)
I saw the shape a third time which I haven't mentioned, while trying to understand our place in time. As well as the weaving of particles&souls through this time.
The concept of an evil person being completely cut off from HaShem, having his Neshama completely closed, can be seen in two places that I can think of: 1. the concept of Karet (cutting off) as a divine punishment, and 2. The Ramhal mentions the point of no return in his Derech HaShem.
I said "rejoice in HaShem's company virtually unhindered" because a completely unhindered view would fall under 'man shall not see me and live', furthermore since Moshe couldn’t see HaShem completely, and no one may see as clearly as he, there are at least two levels which are completely unattainable. If you take R’Haim Wittal’s comments into account regarding the limited levels of spiritual experience throughout the ages, there are now 5 major levels (complete unity, the level of moshe, atziluth (the neviim), beriyah (the tana'im I think), and yetsirah (the amoraim)) that we cannot achieve in this day. Fortunately, perhaps even for this generation, prophecy is supposed to re-emerge very shortly.
The word eye in Hebrew is Ayin, there is a letter Ayin as well. The letter was originally drawn as a circle, and it's numerical value is 70. All of this symbolism states that the Eye is a means of hiding HaShem from us. (A circle is a simple curve, a curve only has meaning when it is observed, as opposed to a line which has a constant clearly defined meaning at all levels of observation. 70 is the number of the nations, symbolizing the breaking up of mankind, and the creation of the world. 70 is also the gematria of the word Sibuv which is the best word I could find to describe curve. ..in case you are curious line, kav, has a gematriah of 106 which corresponds to the letter nun (nun vav nun = 50 + 6 + 50 = 106).
Just so you see the correspondence: UnityTheory (UT) relates to the section on Neshama. MetaLanguage(ML) relates to the first section on trying to alter the human experience. VisualMath(VM) corresponds to the discussion of the shape, which is a visual/tactile/kinesthetic representation of the world as a whole. The unification of the three tries to take place in 'tying it all together' but it really can only take place within you.
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