The Baal Shem Tov. His life and legacy. Lecture 5, Rabbi Yossi Paltiel 5772/2011

we're gonna go back and um the sources of the material that I'm sharing with you first of all there's a there's a there's a safer called Shame in ammonium foreign has that was written in our times who gives you a brief history of Kabbalah and it's really really wonderful and if anybody really wants it then you'll bother me enough I'll make you a copy of it it's it's a 10 15 20 pages and you go through the whole history of Kabbalah linearly in an orderly fashion and it's very nice that's my first the first part of what I'm going to share with you is from there and the second part of what I'm going to share from you with you is mostly from the greatest memoirs now of course you must understand that Kabbalah is tailored is a part of Taylor in other words came down from hasinai and it says we all know he brought down the Peters of Taylor including the Peterson is also the saint Kabbalah however in such a way that it was not made for the door it wasn't everybody it was for the people who had a Cycles to say it in other words in the truth of the Navy obviously in the VM were involved in sawied or what the rambam would call till the pardes strolling around in the garden the secrets of the Torah and those people who had a shyness to say learned so those people did not learn so like it's described in the mission I'm sure you know that there is my separatus this my semen cover my separation is a lower madrager my Summer covers they're very strict rules how you reveal these secrets now always was mysticism there was always say it was always what we would call in our culture Kabbalah but it was as a rule very secretive very quiet and this lasted of course the whole koof of bison was a truth of the VM and and I didn't to me it's very simple means that means to say any person who was dedicated who cared to be involved in a more spiritual life and of course it's at the expense of a more material life dedicated himself to and a significant part of that was the study of Kabbalah then of course without going into too much detail came along and they changed the center of Terror away from the Ruah and it's listening but the Center of Eden and by physician was Naveen and with the agriculture to change this the future of the Jewish nation of the yidna surviving the next few thousand years it's Taylor Swift became secondary wanted to sort of speak in the closet became secretive and if you really wanted to speak about sadak and bite us and give them the benefit of the doubt you know that's what they wanted they thought that they could continue the tradition that exists in this man by his mission which was a very very spiritual type of yiddishkait and it was no longer possible and as a consequence the whole dimension of spiritual Yiddish guide which like I said to you before to us really means Kabbalah became less important it didn't disappear it never disappeared inside not a lot but there were a few of course the the big change was in the time foreign was a very very big expert on site the part that brings two days one day it brings it up Akiva road so if you see it another day he brings itself but if you're looking to say for your cheater you have to suck him from Hamish had been written have a practical problem you know so perhapses the ideas and perhaps talking about Kiva wrote it down was a person who not only knew said but was megales saved during the time so to speak came out of the closet it was the first generation the first real generation and for whatever reasons during that generation Kabbalah became very widely studied they never mentioned in fabrangians little boys and little girls who said say this that are written in Zion in other words during the generation Kabbalah was very very widely studied and again when you say Kabbalah you really mean the spiritual side of the sky which is very connected although I'm I'm skipping a lot of steps and I'm not giving you the whole argument it's very connected these things are very connected this the idea of not just doing it but feeling Yiddish guide feeling the godliness of your described uh is what state is about and during the time of rash B this was very very widely spread before absolutely passed away he said to his talmud a that he should write down the safed and he also told them that this safer Isaiah is destined for safely Maya for the end of time in other words that now it's not that we learned is to be learned far into the future and of course the famous quote that we knew from which means to say that with this safer Isaiah and they're going to go out of golus passed away his description of his historical is very very dramatic it is and the Kabbalah that had been so open during his lifetime became more secret again in you know the the Shadows talk about even tanoia and say based on their names this was it's implicit it seems that even amongst the Tanaya not all the tanoi some were more involved inside others were less involved in society and so forth and when the mother says did not miss anything what's the small things in other words that he was in other words but it's it's implicit in some above even it says to say the other foreign and the Very disappeared how does air disappeared but why does air disappeared either it was deliberately put away or over time people stopped learning that as a decision but Kabbalah didn't Kabbalah always existed by you but the Kabbalah that you had was very very limited very very scant it was only the same for your teeth I mean suddenly I had to say if you could see that yeah very very little but you had finally said yet people who didn't need too much material to appreciate the city famous personalities of high god I've had gone was before at Asher had gone past the way the year Asha was born and it brings others he brings that I'm banned he brings them he brings derivative these are all people who lived at least according to most opinions before desire was ever discovered again and they were very very big and so forth so Kabbalah disappeared disorder from the arm there were people very few who were there at the half side and even amongst the daily Israel even amongst you know people like that I'm bomb not all of them had this supposed to have said those who did those who didn't did not now what happened this is a sort of apprentices but it's not that much of a parenthesis what was going on in the world at that time what was going on in the world at that time was that there was a provision there was an powerful tinua movement a philosophy philosophy is not dictator let's make this very clear kabbola is philosophy is not Taylor philosophy is Greek philosophies it's Greek but the Greek philosophers lived the Greek philosopher lived in the ended by sedition in the beginning of isheni right you're talking a very long time ago but over the years philosophy became more and more popular in the Middle Ages about a thousand years ago philosophy was incredibly popular any person who was a single man just they studied also medicine they started also mathematics they started also astronomy but philosophy of philosophy was very very important and philosophy is logic it's reason which is very very very difficult to to pin down how do you know if something is true or false you can make only almost any argument you can say almost any smarter you say like this I say forget and of course in order for philosophy to be true you have to have several criteria the first of course is the most obvious is how do philosophers prove their points are correct by debating arguments and philosophers were Masters at debate we go up but there's something much more able and that is that if you want to be a philosopher you have to really really want emis to be an m is a philosopher you have to really really want the truth which is why in philosophy the Integrity of the philosopher is so unbelievably important if you want to in order for a person to want the truth they have to be a truthful person and to be a truthful person you can't just stop and be smart you have to push at the age of in other words to be an ether the philosophy is very different in being expert at science between expert at science the person need a good head and a good education you could be uh in your personal life you could be who cares what because it's a science that's based entirely on proof and then empirical evidence and the physical things has so much to do with the Integrity of the heart and when a person lacks Integrity in his own life it doesn't only discredit him as a person it discredits him but philosophy was very popular and of course the popularity of philosophy affected you because for much of our history Yeadon learned even with the people of the book you've learned any knowledge there was no separate you know the idea of nothing is and that it's clipping all these things he says this is recent that Asma made these haramis smart Jews read everything and philosophy was very compelling was very interesting it made it asks very very good questions and it sometimes didn't give the right answers learning these philosophies and it affected their Muna in a very negative way in a very adverse the very very not positive way so the daily thought responded and you understand how responses go talking about Jews one response was the outlaw philosophy the other response was to create a philosophy which would explain and argue and corroborate which people outlawed philosophy those people who were not dealing with it you know even in ashkenaz in Europe the guy were very primitive they're going were very low this is the guy were very loyal the government are studying philosophy they didn't have to deal with philosophy as a consequence they could say but punished but the hidden who lived in those lands where philosophy was prevalent like in Spain like in Egypt like in Asia Minor and so forth they needed to react so you'd like it upside you go and like the rambam wrote philosophy and so forth and of course what came from those philosophies what came from those philosophies is that Hashem has hands and feet and all of these things when you read the table pastors who get impressions that may perhaps be unreasonable and they explained based off and they gave all kinds of explanations to be Mighty divided with to take things out of their little literal chat and to help people understand that Toyota's Surah the way tight is written and the ABC has made to sound like a person it's not Casper Sean the Taylor believes that the abusion is a person and so forth and so on and philosophy philosophy of Toyota became quite popular in some parts of the world and right into the middle of this fell foreign and it seems quite obvious no one's going to say it to you absolutely for sure but seems quite obvious that they call this I had made this achievement it's the same thing that we have although they were quoting in Hebrew in other words they're probably translating from the Aramaic but they have in comedy showing him something called Medicine of human tells the story of how the day was rediscovered and then this safer that I mentioned to you before in God's daughter the one who brings this gives a date to it if I'm not wrong and the date that he gives is hey Allah 5050. 5050 is 12.90. okay now people of course love the Muslim um people love to say this how it always is on one part of the world you didn't have taught us another part of the world something good occurs right 1290 is the Jews Works fell from England the first country to throw out is Jews and the last countries let them back in with the British and it's the same year again according to One Source that I saw that Isaiah was discovered twelve ninety five thousand and fifty which means 722 years ago now how was the day found ation brings there was a king in Asia Minor that means in Bothell who went treasure hunting I mean how did your treasure hunting in those days they had some kind of primitive systems of sonar they used to look used to to find water under the ground and they found the treasure and the treasure was Scrolls ancient Scrolls very very old McGillis and he called this could not interpret it so they said it looks like it belongs to the uhudan they called the Jewish came and they looked at it and they said this may be the ancient of Sega satella secrets of Terror we are not qualified to read it send it to Spain because in Spain you had Marco polym and perhaps these will be able to determine what this is and what it's from and how to do it deal with it and so forth and so on so it was sent to Spain to a year by the name of the de Leon foreign and he spent a good portion of his life 25 years copying this ancient magnitude copying and reading because of rewriting from a very very old mcgilla from a very very old class A very very old parchment the safe and Isaiah obviously on in addition to copying the safe and Isaiah was massabo the Savior Isaiah in other words they said as we have it goes according to pass us if you look at Isaiah see right away that the bulk of Isaiah is are you committed with volume especially the volume is very very Kitty and he was Masada where to put within your name what is without question clear is that desire that we have is only a portion of The Originals the original say we don't know how big it is in the printed zayas they have very often the word or words because a document that laid in the ground for a thousand years as well as it was preserved in in reality there's going to be deficiencies when he was Masada divided Isaiah into Parts based on the script based on the south first of all you have to say it proper Deleon itself which he organized according to pastures and by the way a measures man later I don't know how much later they found more Soviet and they copied and distributed those separately under a title called itself and therefore it came out separately it's called zayarkada and in addition to this other sections for example there's something called medicine there's a section in there that's called Lyman is the part of their that was said by mention of information what's interesting about is that most of it is actually a safe admissions of Kabbalah the minion are meters of Kabbalah by no means does he have 613 meters but it certainly has different mixedness is that I am ahead and in certain parishes the all you have of right Muhammad is other things as well Mrs foreign and three of our Heavenly passed away and wanted to get together one more time and this time I want to pass away so they were nice enough to oblige him they came together the seventh I'll meet him and of course this is now there's another section is there which is called Dakota by the way there's something also called chambraces a whole savior written on one person and the example that ever brought the whole sector 71 a 72 all explaining the Posse foreign was on fire hidden don't take the new things easy in other words the way Jews work anytime somebody comes along with a new idea the first thing you do is you scream and the person who produced it has to be condemned or questioned or examined and it takes a long time for a new idea this guy to be accepted and integrated and become a part of the mainstream so today comes along and people start learning it and people are saying this is the story that they knew about you didn't know how to say about that you knew for hundreds and hundreds of years that Toyota had a madrego of side inches you knew that something called said it was lost and you should know a lot of people used to say that the philosophy is this is Hashem foreign people believe that this must be the mysticism the secrets of the table because the devil was the highest in you and the rediscovery of the Zaya had opened people's eyes ah forget philosophy mysticism has rights that is a letter the son of that Ramadan says my father was an old man and an old man came to him with McGillis with Scrolls and my father SATs with this old man and they were Miss amik they delved deeply into these surges of this Scrolls and then this old man left and my father said if I was young and had the kayak I would travel all over the world I would collect every single copy of mine and I would burn it and it's understood or it says the fetish this was foreign it's a controversy but the truth which is almost universally accepted is that for sure and safe at least at the end of his life I don't know if you guys know this but it was a God who lived in our generation he said look at my goddess has an entire Savage a whole savior it's not a big savior but it's a savior that's called where he shows scores of rambams many many other moms many the only source for the rambam Isaiah in other words yeah but a lot of us Cascade in you can't find them shots you can't find them possuma is copied it from there is himself sent in a few modern mechanics as an introduction to us in the effort s that ever sent in is that when it says the source of that is Hashem the source of it is a number in the middle of his life if he only learned Kabul and save Yama yes this is from him so so first let me give you a philosophical question Jewish people used to have an anthropomorphic concept of God they imagine that as having hands and feet and a body based on pretty armor clothes for derived rights because David has hands he must have hands philosophy came along and was made everything very simple classification you can't even say he has body like functions ah it says complicates this it makes it all very complicated because in Zaya you do speak about the concept of a yard said and a lot of people were very confused by all of this because they had his Tatum kakita is not tight and almost seems like a Locus than you had in Kabbalah and of course it played all kinds of controversies I'll touch on a few points over the course of this conversation I can't touch on everything but I'll touch on a few of these points as we proceed here's what happened and immediately the Jews were divided into three sheeters shoot the number one is Hocus Pocus Superstition nonsense throw it in the garbage de Leon invented it because of his own interests and has no basis has no credibility it's false garbage a second sheikha said it is he wrote it in Arabic in Aramaic he Incorporated the names and so forth to add credibility to himself to make it more believable but in reality it's his own safe and he wrote it himself I got parenthetically you know the the so-called Scholars who don't believe in anything who read this material as if they're experts do not don't deny that the de Leon has his own spot Isaiah if the Buddha DeLeon wrote to say for Isaiah by himself he was a very very very good actor because his own Kabbalah and the Kabbalah that he writes are not the same Kabul in other words if a person is bluffing the person is trying to make something that he wrote should be to somebody else usually you should be able to compare it to his own writings but in this case it's nobody denies even the biggest uppercosm the biggest cynics do not deny that when you read them De Leon's own which are published and you read this AI it's a difference the language of the zayat is consistent with the mystical forms that exist in the times that I know him this is the second day and the third day of course was that not only Isaiah this is the scientist that he didn't talked about and knew about it had divorced and had been rediscovered by at the end of time and um and it's it's credible so people started learning this air people started copying his head and naturally it was a huge Muhammad sufficient I mean Jews don't take to new things easy and forget that's why we exist that's why we survived it took a very very long time for Isaiah to be universally accepted and moreover universally accepted as a safe attacker written not by the Buddha de Leon but a safer written by today it is not a fruit on the planet who does not believe that is just for the purposes of full disclosure the ivids the bank of ended it was only 300 years ago hold that desire was amended in other words that some ideas in the zahab were added later and he so to speak he he cuts and pays he says for example you know the quota that ever brings in the series and he says it was added later but he's the only Allah only from who takes that position because over the last hundreds of years it's been accepted by all Jews and you're talking about the village is and that Zaya is but the story doesn't finish there there's a lot more detail a lot more detail one of the controversies that arose when this air was learned copied and disseminated was Min hug now we use the word Minogue as Customs right the olden days didn't mean a custom men have meant ritual how you do mitzvahs there's a fuller status there's many many conflicts between the shaft and Isaiah we're for hundreds and hundreds of years hidden did something a certain way based on the Yamada based on the possum along comes to say foreign there's many many examples for this in every area of yudeshki obviously little details but nevertheless so what do you do when you have a conflict between halacha and Kabbalah what do you do when you have a conflict between Zayed And Shasta tells you the meaning is one way the Kabal tells the Dominic is another way well what happened was that because it became a division between sardim and Ashkenazi adopted the policy that says but there's a conflict between ritual what you do but paleo you do like Cabo probably the most famous name in this is hell that we have between the Shahs and the Kabbalah Allah became split in this way the person adopted they changed the city they changed them and hug him they changed come over come and gentleman Jesus Christ in all aspects of you this guy based on the newly discovered zayak and then the implications while amongst ashkenazim the policy was still learned that understands they had meditate on Zayed but do like it says and this by the way explains the huge mahlikas when the vashantis came along what was that the heart of that is for logical reasons just like Spider-Man proud Jews ashkenazim are proud keyboards a whole community of ashkenazim and the sort of speak flipping over to the swaddy side and saying that when you have a confidence that you shouldn't adopt men hug him of uh Kabul and this is really what lies at the heart at least to a great extent but this is how things develop things up slowly now eventually it was printed you have to read the person who is very interesting how he writes about the responsibility I think the first president of the day was which is over 400 years ago 450 years ago now he um he tells the grace of what it means to print to save in azer but he has to print it and so forth and so on the beautiful I think is his name the person who printed this area now all of this was resolved to a great extent through the onset of a few very very very famous cool as they say removed all doubts solved all of these issues I guess you could say once and for all and the Freedia could ever talks about such personalities he lists three men he says these three people were so holy and so great that they're confirming the MS of Kabbalah the amazing has forever settled the question and they are in chronological order that may have been Gabby that video it was from Portugal he was kicked out of Portugal and he wrote several sweating one of the songs that he wrote that I've actually printed after the pressure of this photo and one of the thought that he printed is a safer that's called The Vedas which is so quiet off avoidance is really a fundamental it's a it's not an easy safer but it's a beginner the most fundamental idea is the sheets of Kabbalah come across very very closely it's not about Swedish and Aliens you know it's so much it's about a till it's about godliness it's about Gilead Locus and it's about it's a good safe then comes the pardes the part this world is safe and also very encyclopedic very very organized where he's putting forth I suppose you could say it in the framework of histology um and he puts forth the the reader puts forth of because it's very interesting is every single thing he touches every topic he addresses the first thing he does is he quotes all desires and all the safer boys that are unnecessary he quotes all the sources first and then he expounds that he's there he quotes against say for a boy and he quote sometimes the beginning of a shot of Padres could be several pages of his quotes as they are and after he brings you all the sources then he tells you how he understands it very organized very much he could actually learn it's not easy but it's possible to learn then of course then came that he's out that is a story unto itself but that is to the next level that a mock of course lived in Trust and he was the head of this at that time was the greatest city in the world in terms of Taylor Joseph they were thinking about bringing back the Smith and reintroducing the ER and bringing back then ignosis they wanted to bring back what used to be you know in this man abias they should bring back the Smith they had enough of the godell you saw their time gathered in one place and so forth and so on it didn't work out because of the al-bach he lived in yerushalayim and he felt that it's not enough is not enough there has to be a divided on this but it was a very very special time it's fast then and Ariza walked into truss during the lifetime of that neither of these men lived into his late 30s that either lived his middle early 30s they both passed away very young damak was an incredibly prolific writer that a Mac wrote he wrote superhumanly fast that a Mark has a Peterson zahat which is it was only printed in the last 50 years it's not it's 30 30 volumes in the center and just commentary which is so expansive so voluminous it's like a Shas it's incredibly large and I understand it is because the pressure didn't exist it wasn't it was in the library of the foreign now what to start that is and his father passed away when he was very very young so he moved to mitzrayim because his mother had a brother there and he lived in Egypt think Alexandria but I could be wrong and he married his first cousin he married his uncle's daughter he married his mother's brother's daughter they lived him it's time for most of his life and during the truth they lived in metraim for seven years he was a Potter seven years he was isolated completely removed from the world during those seven years taught him Kabbalah During the period of the rise of living amid time he wrote a safe the reason wrote only one saving it's a Peterson is printed it's printed that either wrote that said for himself at a certain point it's time for you to move to Etc so that either showed up as fast that a Mac was still alive and he joined and people did not realize how great that is said he himself did not realize how great that is foreign very very concentrated it's much much more difficult and it took people a long time to build who that is I was and when the Pod just passed away the Ariza became the head of the keyboard of the macabola means fast was his favorite helmet that is actually said that only upon a lot to write but they wrote anyway and when the safer AIDS higher was prepared a crime was prepared I think by the blank of tema where the main published one of the tomidium he has the safety crime is mostly Kabal but you have from the other talmudiman the purists there's a big controversy in the Kabbalah World whether you're allowed to read those foreign it was too much for him and his labor took a monster Shabbos on the generic lamb kinetic where Miriam the 80s and you took a cup of water and he filled it up and he gave it to his talmud to drink and the private house rank it he says and afterwards he was able to learn Kabbalah from that day and he wrote down that is outside he couldn't write and the reason said the reason he cannot ride he can't his brain is working so fast it can't concentrate his thoughts you know there's a famous story see this brings as these are laid down once for two hours on the shop this afternoon passes Bullock and when he got up his brother-in-law asked him what he was saying he saw muttering with his lips he says for me to say what I saw in the last two hours would take me the two gearses one year says it'll take me 60 years to say and another Gear series it'll take me 80 years to say I mean you understand first made out of chuggers from that easel said he couldn't write his thoughts down he could only speak and even then it says that he would sweat he would perspire from the great symptom to be able to teach his Tommy them and wrote down like I told you before the other wrote as well now the interesting thing about this is mahaduras that is of writings were written many times I mean the experts will tell you that there may be as many as five Majors five drafts of kisly wrote once and then he wrote again and he wrote again and he wrote again the final draft of the kids are in other words the most what's considered in the world the most authentic draft of kiswah Rizal is called you see right away the different drafts some of them at least the other were written by that by the son of the and the story was that the Shema were buried they were buried and many many years later it was determined that Prussia developed needs it and they asked mahila and they exudely but the reality was that for hundreds of years and manuscript in the times of the al-qare not yet printed maybe one or two of this many printed so the Kabbalah which was by us from that is in which you have not just in the eighth times it was a huge controversy that exists till this day you have the purists you know and yerushalaya the yeshivists of Kabbalah um who are strict they get very angry at Lubavitch you know the Bible is considers there's letters from that Abbott Mr printed kadish which were written to Robert Green Glass they just printed a safe out of the greenhouse they just bought it yesterday foreign again this was a relative of his and there was an exchange of letters where he has kindness to see this Chabad he wrote medicine for him but complaining how can he doesn't bring and the arguments revolved in part around this question of which is right in those letters that the balship gave over on maceda which I would obey him which Indiana we follow which sheet is but there are cases some of them are quite famous when we follow the other is following somebody else there's a famous story that the bashant of once said foreign and they're a bit surprised that the bashemta would say as they were sitting by the tables who was the junior the youngest there tell me them fell asleep and he sees the Shamus running and he runs with the shamas and he comes into a big big Hall and he sees uh the vashantev saying the same Taylor that they had just heard him say bamdish a young man gets up and argues with him and they argued for a message man and then the young man you're right and then wakes up and the bashemtev turns to him and says in other words he showed him between the bashemtive on the other side the perceptive knew he said different than that is now so he showed him how that is what's called now I have to stop but I want to just leave you with a thought which I will develop Mr next time and that is this the arizao introduced another very very significant part of Kabbalah but one of extraordinary controversy and that is what we call Kabbalah mysis the idea of using Kabbalah for miracles writing camaeus Sheamus names of malach and all kinds of mystical things that are used to heal people you know the whole Kabbalah today is reading palms and reading and so forth and so on it's called cabalamysis and one of the things that separated that amak from that reason was this that a mark believed only in Kabbalah Eunice he didn't believe in myself to meditation that you do not use Kabbalah to perform Miracles until the reciprocating was a great practitioner of kabbalamysis and this evolved into hasides at least to a degree we'll talk about them through the valley Shem that's what the word about means means a practitioner of kabbalamitis and this we're going to leave this room for the next time