Luminary and LIGHT | Chapter 10 of Shaar HaYichud VeHaEmunah

okay weekly Tanya what chapter are we on 10 10 10 of what part of Tanya the Gate of unity and Faith yeah yeah why why Faith because faith is when the intellect gives out and like we said in the preface that we're going to learn and learn and learn and learn and learn until we hit the ceiling of our intellect and then we have to allow the faith to kick in okay's Faith what what's faith faith is stuff that you not that you don't understand faith is the stuff that you can't understand not just what you don't comprehend but that which is incomprehensible and then what do you do with that you accept it on faith but not because you haven't put in the work to try to understand you have and you've come to the brink where you can't understand anymore of course that changes throughout one's lifetime needless to say we didn't even start you have a question I'm the unity piece I'm the unity piece yeah I'm this piece that there's a there's nothing but it's all Hashem right there's nothing but Hashem he's the only reality right so what's this talk about that we have we are what does that mean is that extra or in addition to what everything else is That's hasem So isn't everything like what okay all right so this has nothing to do with chapter 10 all right all right okay I threw in the word Unity for that yeah I thought we' get away with it okay um yeah that's okay your your question is once you understand that everything is Hashem then what does it even mean anymore for instance in the first volume of T where it makes a big deal about this idea that the The Godly soul is called and the AL very good now you become a real abure you know that if you add the word m that means you're because is actually from and it's used to refer to the Nish in writings that predate could be I think the first place that it's used is the shatal that's as I recall who was I think a nephew of the but the Von uses that language as well just the AL who adds the word Mish in chapter two of and as the explains the mamish part means that even in a body it retains that state even in a body even in its physical state so you're asking a good question which is you know once you learn that it's all hasem then what does what does it even mean to say that this neus is uh is godliness is El I mean everything is elos so I mean the simple answer is you're talking about the degree of processing that is required before that thing reaches the state that it's in so it's like you know Once Upon a Time potato chips in the bag that you're eating that stay fresh for 2 years I guess they were potatoes once upon a time but they've been processed and then there's Whole Foods I I mean the or I mean like actual foods that are the way that God makes them I guess that would be my crude analogy yes ultimately everything can be traced to Hashem even evil right even cipa doesn't exist independently not like God forbid in the christological model where you have this antagonistic ant antagonistic system that's like this Duality and um the the ultimately everything's traced to Hashem but when you say something um is well you know why do we say for instance let's not even talk about let's talk about why do we talk about higher worlds and lower worlds ales Galia aladia revealed worlds and concealed worlds so ultimately everything's AEM so what does any of that even mean okay so you're talking about the level of what I'm I'm referring to now metaphorically is processing I guess if you want to use technical words you probably use the word simum okay does that kind of answer the question I'm sorry I missed the last sentence because your friend walked in you started chatting yes ask your friend okay no she didn't hear either she was Sor okay no it's wonderful AV is is the requirement for understanding so it's wonderful okay who who who heard who who wasn't socializing what simum yeah that's all I said I different degre yeah of yeah yeah ultimately everything behind the like the AL says the many and intense contractions ultimately everything's Hashem but then you're talking about things where there's no timum it just that's what it is is that what we are no we're well what why is it such a big deal right like everything is that's what I'm saying is it direct or indirect is it is it like a quantity of how much God wants to invest within that vessel is it a quantity well a quantity or a degree I mean it might be more of a quality than a quantity but yeah I am we're talking about gradations here we're talking about a scale okay so ultimately everything has a degree of godliness um like I said even kppa because it's not an independent operator but when you're speaking about something that is elus um what you're saying is that that is revealed that is what it is that in its operational state it is unconcealed godliness or less concealed everything's always relative do that does that basically answer the question okay and by by hence the word mamish because the word mamish is really saying that even embodiment does not um detract detract from that lack of concealment or that Revelation yeah this is only with not right doesn't have a well there's a different taxonomy you're you're speaking about a specifically Jewish spiritual energy right okay but there's still a energy within every human being which is distinct from other life forms there's clearly more Godly Revelation in a human being Jewish or non-jewish than there is in a stone okay so let's not forget that okay or or in a vegetable or in an animal for that matter it's important to remember that okay um chapter 10 yeah should we do chapter 10 okay all right okay however nevertheless we just got finished saying what what was our main point from chapter 10 why what we can't understand you can't understand anything we don't understand what we're talking about right and then we pivot and we're like nevertheless like you can't understand anything okay so I'm gone no no no don't leave hold on a second you can't understand anything nevertheless since speaks in human terms in order to allow the hear the ear to hear what it's capable of hear hearing doesn't mean auditory hearing it means understanding therefore the the sages of the truth that means the cabalists were given they were given permission to speak metaphorically about this F please remember that the way the cabalists are speaking is metaphorical don't get too hung up on it okay and Al adds they call the SP lights lights because through this it allows us to understand just a little bit the concept of the unity of Hashem and his attributes referring to the f as o helps us a little bit to picture what it means that Hashem and his attributes are one remember we we were saying in chapters 8 and N that Hashem and his attributes are one he's not a composite God forbid so why do we use the term lights metaphorically it is like the Oneness the unity of the light of the sun inside the globe of the sun which is called the mo the son itself is the luminary so we are distinguishing between the and the mo the light and the luminary the light and the luminary the light and the luminary have different names but ultimately there is no distinct existence to the light it is nothing but an extension of the luminary like the to refers to the Sun as the great luminary whereas the light the emation the ray that shines forth from the Sun is called o so the sun is called Mo and the ray is called like it says and God referred to the light as day he didn't refer to the Sun as day he refer refer to the sun sunlight as day okay now when the light is still in the luminary it is totally one with it in the ultimate sense of Oneness it's not that it becomes like lost or hidden within the luminary oh where's my light I can't find it anymore no no no it's not there cuz there's no such thing as the phenomenon of Light Within the light source the phenomenon of light really only um comes into being as the light travels from the light source because there in the luminary you only have one thing you just have the luminary the luminary you don't have light you have the luminary by the way don't get tripped up what are you going to get tripped up with what am I worried about right now that you're remembering the metaphor of the sunlight within the Sun from earlier in okay the Ray it's basically the same musle it's the same metaphor but it's making a different point so I don't want you to get tripped up what's the difference what's the difference well let's do it let's do a group project here where did it speak about the metaphor of the Sunray within the sun filling filling the room or Which chapter was it do you remember three 3 4 4 three both of those are good guesses four on The Shield three ends with a question right doesn't three end with a question how is it possible that creative beings have sub experience they not nullified like in the sun oh the Sunbeam in the Sun that was the end of three y so it's three and then four answers how the world can continue to exist the what's the answer in four the sun in it Shield son in its Shield yeah which is which which is s okay so over there Sunray and sun was coming to explain what concealment of what hav and elim was the sun and the sun's Shield but what was the idea of the Sun Ray it was coming to explain the relative non-existence of that there's no distance with created beings from The Source okay but what is it coming to explain it's using the metaphor to Enlighten us regarding the nature of the reality of ourselves there is no real that it's our objective okay let me make it really really simple in chapter 3 what's the sun metaphorically representing Hashem what's the sun light all of existence all of existence okay and what we explain is that the nature of all of existence is like the Sunray emanating from the Sun that's why it's not separate from the Sun that's why we can truly continue saying that there's nothing but Hashem right remember I said that chapters 1 through 7 was this concept of umem how there's nothing but Hashem and then I said chapters 8 through 12 we're dealing with a different issue with it the the within Hashem himself that his Oneness as opposed to a composite and the biggest issue that we have with understanding AEM as true simple Oneness non-composite Oneness is what what issue do we have the SPH or or attributes or shame any any of these descriptions of Hashem are what are complicating things and we're forced to explain so right now we're using the Marshall of the and the but we're explaining something different than we had explained in chapter 3 you following so the the m is Hashem and the or is his attribute correct so we use the Sunray and the sun metaphor back in chapter 3 to change how we view the nature of created existence so that we don't think it's something separate from Hashem now in chapter 10 we're using the metaphor again because it's just a great metaphor it's a very useful metaphor we're using that metaphor now to understand something different we're understanding the nature of the existence of himself Hashem himself and specifically his attri his attributes excellent excellent like human beings as a side yeah I'm just there's this um in the therapy worlds internal family talks about people's parts so Hashem doesn't have Parts okay so that's that's wonderful so I don't know what the ifs is because I'm I choose to I deliberately choose to remain pure and ignorant and I don't expose myself to any stuff like this you know why PR precisely because I know there a lot of things that I say about human nature resonate with people's understandings of current models but I love that to be a genuine accident I don't want to be like shaped by it so I don't want people to say like because people already think it um I don't want them to think I have an agenda where I'm trying to make cidus fit into current models of anything so I I don't know really anything about it but what I do know is exactly what you mentioned that that they look at a person every person sort of have like different roles and different parts and you're trying to understand like oh here's where I'm in this role and here's why where I'm in that role right yes okay fine um so you're you're pointing out really really I believe this is a great um I think it's accurate what you're saying is where where whereas we could we whereas one could analyze a human being in such a way you could not analyze Hashem in such a way that even if Hashem seemed to have different roles that would really just be like somebody standing around experiencing different rays of the Sun and thinking they were multiple Suns which would be a mistake and it would be a mistake even furthermore to think that he could trace even one Ray of the Sun to the Sun and and find it still there cuz he wouldn't find it there the ray the ray once you get there once you get there yeah I don't understand something we just said that kabalas have permission to use metaphors when speaking about Hashem so we can understand why is this any different we use a metaphor that Hashem has Parts like people have Parts just to help us understand no no it's not different this is what it is he's just explaining that it's a metaphor it's not it's not what it is it's not what exactly it's not what it is that's all all of the metaphors that we use when we say hasm speaks hasem listens it's all a metaphor okay so why but why are we differentiating we're talking about Oneness it's all just to help us relate to it correct why because I guess you're saying I already knew it's all Oneness why why are you so worried what do you what do you think I'm not going to understand what do you think I'm going to misunderstand here and make a heretical mistake yeah what are you so nervous about I think okay that's a very Val question I think it's once you start talking about hashem's attributes it's it is a little bit easier to make the mistake like if I look at the world I understand ultimately the world is the world you know how can I how can I think that that's something distinct or ontologically independent obviously it's just the the the the movie playing on the screen shining from the projector so to speak but if I'm looking at Hashem so to speak and I'm like that's hashem's I'm not talking about anymore a world I'm talking about an attribute of Hashem there got to be some substance to that and so we're saying no no it's that's that's also a relative phenomenon that's also a relative phenomenon we we're going much higher now and it's I guess the higher you go it's easier to make mistakes and it's actually not just to make new mistakes but to make the old mistakes that you weren't making on a lower level but you're going up higher and it's almost like oh but but here you really can say that there's something other than absolute Oneness because you have hashem's what do you want me to do pretend hashem's doesn't exist so we're saying yeah it exists but in a very relative way it's a subjective experience okay so he says right when you get up there you're going to find nothing but the luminary the light doesn't have any distinct existence okay so to like this metaphor but even more so than this metaphor his his attributes and his his because technically is just through those attributes exist in the same way that the Sunray exists invests himself within his own attributes and is is united with them in the ultimate sense of Oneness the way these attributes are shining forth from Hashem is metaphorically the way that the sun rays are shining from the Sun however not literally exactly so because ultimately hashem's ways are completely removed from our thought meaning the the metaphor Works to a point but don't uh don't think that it truly describes the reality nevertheless not withstanding the limitations the inherent limitations of the metaphor in order to allow the ear to hear we do understand we do contemplate on this metaphor of the sunlight how the light is one with its source and it doesn't have a distinct name for itself and really there's nothing but the name of the source and this is true to such an extent that really none of the attributes of hem or even his and his really have their own distinct he calls them sh their own [Applause] names except from the perspective of the created beings higher and lower these names are only useful from the vantage point of created beings that includ [Applause] yeah that these beings hasem is bringing them into being and en livening them and leading them they are all all these things are existing because hashem's will and wisdom and understanding and knowledge are invested in his holy attributes like the brings with 10 things were the World created meaning through the means of 10 tools so to speak was the World created with and which is and meaning the T So through the 10 SP hasem created the world audits like it says Hashem created the world with wisdom with the attribute of wisdom as a tool he made the world he established the world with which again is and through his Das did the Wellspring split meaning to say the the the mid the attributes are tools through which he creates the Commandment and likeo says in the introduction to in the famous you took out you produced you manifested 10 translate that as you will which are the 10 with which to conduct Both Worlds concealed and and revealed and and within which you are concealed for instance I'll give you an example on the first day of the creation of the world the six days of creation the attribute of divine and expansiveness was revealed and within it is contained all of the other attributes including and as well the are also invested within it you understand what we're saying here that yeah there's a concept called inter inclusion or inter inter inclusivity that the manner of the Divine attributes are that they because they are holy and therefore they are extremely Buttle they are not um they do not assert their identity to the extent where they become mutually exclusive even with that which is opposite from them they are able to sustain their opposites in a nonantagonistic way in a harmonized way um so therefore when we say that was shining on the first day that is not to the exclusion of the other mid but it is all the other mid as they are expressed in okay but at any rate the main characteristic of the first day was and on that day he created the light through the saying let there be light now you all understand that light it makes sense to create light on the day ofad you understand how light is yes it's intuitive right it's warm it's shiny it's nice it's like right like you say like a warm person right it spreads forth that's also a big thing that light spreads light spreads okay so it's it's a manifestation of we got a lot of questions popping up right now go right in the middle of a sentence Oh My Gosh more and more questions are popping up what is it all right all right let's see yes didn't we say did I miss something the first was Rous said the first phase is kma in any process but the first day of creation isid you're saying why are we starting from from why don't we start from kma I just remember we said the first trait was kma yes it is in a base 10 but the creation is a base seven so okay please please please I'm begging everybody let's this is a very valid question I want to answer it in a one minute answer let's not get so interested in it that new browser tabs get opened okay basically the 2,000 years of Tyra existed before the creation of the world is the and the Bina um because there's no time it's not actual thousands of years so by the time creation starts we're working within midis the SE before the midis is the pre-creation time scale whatever that means okay but once creation starts we're starting from the base seven which is six mid and malos La repeat as a cycle okay so if you're wondering where the or the went they're pre-creation or call it the blueprint for creation which that's what Toyota is Toyota is the blueprint for creation then creation itself is a manifestation of the mid mid are right emotions are what drive me to interact with you right an emotion is a bridge is an interpersonal relationship so to speak right so toy could just be the plan within hashem's mind so to speak once he's creating now it's like an emotion it's like the way the emotion drives me to interact with an other so now Hashem is interacting with a quote unquote other which of course we all know is not an other as we explained in chapters 1 through 7 okay does that answer your question while we're starting from great all right all right close that all right yeah yes okay just to be clear about something so the attributes are unified with the source but it sounds like that we needed a physical manifestation of the world like until God decided to create physical attributes didn't have a need for expression okay okay so I just want to clarify obviously we relate most to the attributes as they manifest in the physical creation because that's what we relate to most I mean that's just a truism but to clarify no um other worlds there are yeah first of all there are other worlds so you might say the ultimate purpose of the attributes is to be expressed as a physical world then we can talk about your favorite topic but certainly you wouldn't say that midis only exist in the physical world what are you talking about they exist to notos and in fact there's even higher than I don't want to get confusing but then there's like aspher there are protos which exist even prior to simum but what would stimulate an expression of an attribute from go what would stimulate It ultimately is his desire for the de yeah what's driving it is ultimately the end game the interplay with but yes yes yes and with us meaning as we are invested in bodies with free will so that we can choose him and all that stuff but I just don't want you to think that that's where it begins that the concept of attributes doesn't begin until the physical world that's the end point for it all that's not when it emerges right so I would think that attribute that that Ray is very important forget even trying to go back to the source because the rays are so important that we're worried that you're going to think things that are theologically problematic about them that's how important they're so awesome that we need to clarify here that you shouldn't make any mistakes about them whole point that it's yeah what kind of mistakes well you might start thinking that they're so amazing that maybe they have some type of ontological reality unto themselves so okay on the first day light was created okay but he's in the middle of explaining it but I don't understand so that there's creation and then there's attributes which are a part of hash so like he said like he said we just read like a bunch of uh proof texts how the attributes are the tools for creation right he created the world with with with he's using the attributes as tools for creation okay now we're giving an example we're right in the middle of a sentence here on the first day he used he used backing and he created light by saying let there be light and then I stopped and I said does everyone get is it intuitive to you how light is a c type thing right I don't have to like elaborate on that okay do all I just want to make sure it's no no the well what was created on the second day separation so you get why that's gur right and on the third day when there was the the waters were separated from the dry land so you have both that's harmonization that's tius okay so at any I don't want to get into that the first day is which is fine good which is a spreading forth and a drawing down of light into the world from above and it spreads out from one end of the world to the other which is the very nature of to spread out however since it also contains within it as we explained this light that was created is not spiritual like the spiritual light so it has a certain limitation already it was downgraded and furthermore this light was invested in the physical world which is inherently limited like we say it's a walk of 500 years from the Earth to the firmament and from the earth uh and from the East to the West so the point is that you have the original which is truly unlimited being expressed in creation and it's no longer unlimited it's taking on limitations but those limitations are an expression of the gura that is also present within that hasset so to on the second day the attribute ofur was primarily the attribute that was revealed but the G is also not unadulterated gur it's containing within it all of the other including and on that day created the separation the firmament with within the waters which is basically a concept of Tsum this gur this restraint this division which was concealing or covering the higher Waters from the lower Waters and that caused that the lower Realms should become more materialized so that they would become would emerge as distinct from the spiritual the more Spiritual Beings however in this there is because after all the entire Enterprise of creation is inherently an expression ofid it's an act of doing something for an other quote unquote because the point why is this because the point of this separation was ultimately allow to allow the emergence of the human being to serve Hashem so even when gur is guring it is doing it with an underlying motive ofid just like we said when ising it is also in stably uh expressing some inherent quality ofur this is what said in the preface of the the the M are how you display that you are creating or guiding rather guiding the world withed and Mish with righteousness and judgment righteousness in this context is which is and in this context is love or but it's all serving a purpose of Hashem displaying how he's creating so whether it's or or or however it is not that you Hashem possess a knowable sense of din we do not say that SED describes you Hashem as having a knowable sense of din the we do not say that he possess possesses a knowable sense of mish which would be love and not any of these mid whatsoever what we're describing rather is the function the way in which it operates that is what we're describing but we're are not attempting to set say oh we've described Hashem and through a composite of all these various descriptions we have a description of God no not correct not correct so basically we're just reminding ourselves that we use this language it's a useful language um it's not even like a necessary evil like oh people want to talk about this stuff okay let them talk about no no it's good to talk about it I mean this is what a lot of what this describes just understand the context of it so that you don't end up forming an incorrect understanding of AEM that's what we're saying yeah we're saying that all the attributes are Oneness they're all Unity they're all within each other but clearly God makes a choice to Source certain things with certain attributes so if he's starting if C is the first day there's a reason why he's expressing c yeah we're not we're not saying that they're that they're really all indistinguishable from one another at the end of the day we're not saying that at all to the contrary we're saying day one isid and not g and day two is gur and not and yet and there's a reason for that order the Ria is not on day one it couldn't be on day one or is not on day two couldn't be on day to and yet what we're saying is even though there's an order and there's even though these these these distinctions are important because of the manner in which Godly attributes or anything holy anything that is Godly or or the more subservient to Godliness it is the more healus the more inter inclusivity you're going to find the nature of clipper of that which hides the Oneness is rigidity of ego so they cannot bear each other they cannot tolerate each other unless there's some type of self-serving payoff unless there's some type of barter um and I know this is very anthropomorphic because it sounds like we're talking about psychological motivations and we're really describing spiritual entities and energies but you know be that as it may yes it is it sounds anthropomorphic but we what we're describing is the nature of things the nature of that which is holy like in chapter six of of look at it says kades means B whatever is more bottle to hasm is kadha so the nature of godliness and that which is more or less bottle to Godliness is the capacity to include other even to the extent of the the very antithesis of the thing itself that doesn't mean that the thing doesn't have a description we're not pretending that ceases to beid then what's the point of saying that it coexists with gor if everything's the same then there's really you're not making any statement by saying they coexist what we're saying is that in the Holy attributes isass obviously that's why when kassid was expressed on day one it resulted in a creation in O which is in line with however we're saying is at the same time there's inherently gura operating there which is evidenced for instance like you mentioned by the fact that this light is physical and it's able to be contained within a finite world but the point he's making is not that there are no distinctions between the attributes to the contrary it's the opposite point that even though they are distinct and there are important reasons why they're why they are distinct and why it is necessary for reality as we know it to operate this way and nevertheless they don't exclude each other now if you talk about kipa then it's a whole different discussion the nature of kipa is that each one is trying to assert itself who remembers back I mentioned earlier chapter 6 of who remembers in chapter 6 when it talks about the 10 faculties of the animal Soul anybody remembers back I don't know who learned that with me it must have been at least couple years ago he said it's interesting because in chapter 3 talks about the which are from the S uh from the the 10 Soul powers of The Godly Soul which come from the 10 um Divine attributes then in chapter six he says Zumo solim which is King Solomon's words from Ecclesiastes but there's a mirror image of this same configuration that exists in klippa and what he he he uses the the Aramaic term for it the cabalistic term but he refers to 10 crowns of impurity so why are the the quotequote kppa spher the bizar spher referred to as kin as crowns well first of all because the crown is makif because they're clippa they can't really internalize the Divine energy because it's incompatible with their existen existence which is rebellious so they only get it through a makif through an encompassing Force so that's why it's called a crown that goes on the head not in but also it's a crown because it's a symbol of um of leadership of an of of a monarch of a single ruler um they operate in such a way where it's they they're autocratic the powers of clipper are autocratic they can only operate unilaterally with zero hiscall they can't Farin each other to use the Yiddish so to answer your question again we're not saying that these midis don't have important distinctions they do that that only furthers the point that they are inter inclusive of each other be because even though they do have important distinct and identities they are still not only able to operate with each other but they they're always found operating with each other so then you're going to say what does it even mean then well you know just which one is primary which one is more pronounced get what I'm saying yeah