הרב צבי אבינר
Kabbala -1: why with Love?
The simple sense of Kabbala is “tradition” – receiving from father to son. But there is another meaning – the Art of Receiving and Giving, as we’ll show later.
Kabbalah deals with transmission of information, which it calls “enlightening”. Since it is an old school, it uses an archaic language, a sort of Aramaic, which sounds “esoteric” and mythical.” Yet it can be understood and accepted by modern Man.
We will use the book Yedid Nefesh as an introduction.
What happened before creation
The Torah presents us with the story of Creation as a final product – giving us the names of the Creator: ELKM, YHVH, the Six Days, the creation of man, the Sabbath and more. These names are the attributes Creator. At one point He appears as a Builder- Judge, and on another occasion, He appears as the Attribute of Mercy. We know nothing about the Creator Himself.
In other words, the Torah presents us with Creation as a finished product of a previous process unknown to us. How was the transition from the Creator Himself to His measurements? What’s in between? The Torah does not tell us about this, but begins with the final product – the world including Adam.
An allegory of what this is like – when we buy a car from the showroom, we are not interested in the procedures of building the car and bringing it to the room. All we – as consumers – are interested in is: Does the car satisfy our needs? Does it fit our expectations? Is the color, shape, speed and price right for us? Not interesting are the processes that brought the car to the hall
This is how we behave in our world – we are interested in the finished product. The Torah knows this and therefore presents the world as a finished product – that all we need to know is the very Creation and the Torah and the commandments. She leaves what happened before Creation to Kabbalah
Kabbalah explains what preceded the Creation story oof Genesis chapter One.
The three Steps of an Action
What’s the first question Kabbala asks? –
Let’s return to the car. If a person wishes to understand and know his new machine, he will ask –
Who was the first to want to build it? What was its purpose? Why build it?
And he will continue asking – who designed it? – referring to the step of Designing. Who was the architect? For what purpose was the car built? for sport? Trips? For work in the field? Helping a housewife to shop at the supermarket?
And at a later stage: which subsidiaries built it on the ground? – referring to the stage of Building.
Thus, we’ve asked three questions in a specific order:
Who conceived the Car?
Who planned the car?
Who built the car?
Those three steps presents the three stages of any human endeavor:
Creating – conceiving, Beriah,
Forming – planning, Yezirah
Making – building in the real world, Assiah
The same stages applies to the world.
Kabbalah asks – who was the first to have the desire to create Him? What was its purpose?
Then, how did he plan the world to fulfill his purpose?
Then, how did he build the world?
Kabbala also emphasizes an important stage before Conceiving – the original DESIRE to start everything, even to start conceiving. If so, we have three stages
Primordial Desiring
Primordial Thinking
Primordial Acting
In the language of Kabbalah, the Creator first had a Desire, which gives rise to Thinking, then gives rise to Acting.
Everything we do follows this path. This is no coincidence, because the Creator walked on this platform so that we would also walk on it
Did the Creator have to follow this path of the three steps?
Kabbala says it was not necessary. The Creator could have created different worlds in different ways, but when He built this world, He r “confined” Himself to create in this particular way, in order to serve the purpose of Creation. That we haven’t defined it yet
Therefore, Man who has been created in the image of God, does also act in the same way: a Desire that begets Thought that begets Action.
Let’s talk about each stage separately
Will – Desire
Kabbalah says that in the beginning, the Creator had the Desire to create the world.
The Creator is infinite and there is no thought or action that can limit Him. He has neither names nor nicknames, since every nickname and name would limit him.
Thus, this world was created—says Kabbalah—when the Desire to create it arose in the infinite God.
This principle stands in contrast to today’s philosophers who disagree and say that the world was born by chance without the will of anyone. They still hold to the 19th-century doctrine that the Evolution proceeded accidentally and operates according to the laws of natural selection and adaptation without a guiding hand
On the other hand, there are many scientists today who say that the more we know about the world, the more we realize that there is a guiding hand and the world was created willingly.
What was the thing that came to mind?
To do this, we need to check the final product – Adam
The Creator has infinite possibilities for creating infinite human forms.
This time he decided to create a man who would stand Judgement. This does not mean that the Creator had to do so, but that this was His will this time
And this desire gave rise to the next step
Thought
Thought is a spiritual step taken to implement the Desire
When Honda decides to build a successful car, the desire is not enough. The company must be built so that it can carry out its purpose. For this purpose, various wings will be established – electronics, plastics, rubber parts, various engine parts, and so on. All this in order to build the car in the most efficient way. Each wing operates on its own, and only the supreme management will connect everything into one.
The same applies to the building of our world.
It is possible to build different worlds, but the supreme desire was for the world to be built with the Creator appearing in it as a court of judgment – AN HEAVENLY COURT.
And in the court, there is a categorist, a defense attorney, witnesses and experts and police officers, and there is a judge who hears everyone and decides the verdict
To this end, The INFINITE CREATOR split his leadership into ten dimensions of the court, to which the Kabbalah describes as Ten Sefirot.
Every Sphere takes part in the Court. Every Sphere is as the CREATROR Himself.
The most important of these Spheres are the Attribute of judgment, of Grace, and Kingship.
The Creator supposedly reduced Himself and appeared in creation as a court of ten spheres. Let us not make the mistake of thinking that One Attribute is more powerful than the others
What is this like? To the leadership of Honda, which splits into the leadership of subsidiary factories that manufacture parts of the car for it. Each establishment has an executive subordinate to Honda, only when it comes to the car. But each management of a particular wing can also produce for other cars. When managements deal with a particular car, everyone is united for one goal
The spheres are’ lower’ level because the Infinity gave up His Unique Oneness to create our world. But is there a level between the Infinite Nameless, and the Spheres or the Attributes?
You see the answer in the Ten Commandments of Sinai.
In the First of the Ten, the Speaker , G-d, presents Himself as
1, I Am (Self)
- YHVH your ELKM (Attributes)
- Who Took you out of Egypt (Acting Kingship)
Thus , the Self is above the Attributes. Its function is to hear the debate between the Attributes, then issue a verdict that infiltrates down to Action, kingship.
Infinite – having a Desire
Thinking – splitting into spheres
Acting – creating the world in reality
The structure is reminiscent of the United States Congress. The Congress is an expression of the supreme ruler – the American Nation. In it, the parties debate the issue and come to a decision by a vote. It would then pass it to the Presidency to be executed in real life.
This similarity of the Congress to the Heavenly Court set up iis not incidental, since the CREATOR built our minds to follow His example.
Chabad
Among the ten Sefirot, the highest above the self are
Chochma, wisdom
Binah – Intelligence,
Daat – intimate Knowledge
The Chochma iis a spark of an idea to perceive a concept
The Binah takes the Chochma and split it into details
The Daat is the wisdom gained by practical exposure
For example, for the construction of the car-
Wisdom is the stage of the desire to create a car
Binah is the car designing stage
Daat is the construction of the car on the ground
While most spheres are related to emotions of the heart
Chabad is related to the brain, the mind
Example: Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil
Before the sin, Adam and his wife knew good and evil only as chochma and binah, theoretical levels
But when they ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they were condemned to die on earth and to be exposed to evil in a real way. They KNEW evil first hand.
Action
The action will reveal the purpose of the will.
Action is the expression of Kingship.
Like the Congress whose will is seen by the action of the president
What, then, is the purpose of creation?
One might say: it is Adam, as the final product.
But what is the purpose of Adam?
Why is Honda building a car?
If you say that the company is building the car to get us a perfect car, to show everyone what a good company it is, then you have missed the point. A company that builds to show itself or win awards will go bankrupt
It would be more accurate to say that the company builds a good car so that the buyer will buy and pay for it with his money. The company is interested in profit. If he pays only the expenses, it won’t be enough.
Kabbalah says that this is the case with the Creator. He created a world in which man would live and enjoy and give the Creator something back.
The circle of giver and receiver must be closed. And this is a second sense of the Kabbalah: learning how to close the circle of receiver and giver
So what can man give back to the Creator? Is there anything that the Creator is missing?
If gratitude, this is true for those who have no troubles in life. But those who suffer are not on us – can they be grateful?
Some say that a person must express fear of what God has said
“Now Israel, what did the Lord your God ask of your people, but fear the Lord your God to walk in all His ways” (Deuteronomy 10)
But fear of God is for the goodness of man. Not for the goodness of God.
What will a person do who closes the circle?
To this, Moses goes on to say
“…to love YHVH your ELKM with all your heart and all your soul”
Deuteronomy, chapter 10, verse 12
God created Man with boundless love
Hence we too must return boundless love to him – even if you take your own life.
The Universe has started with a Desire – with Heavenly Love,
So that Man would turn to the CREATOR with love.
For example, on the question to whom should we pray? God? Hoya? After all, these names are epithets for virtue, not for the Creator Himself. To his self. Does he have an I?
Who is the Creator Himself?
The Torah tells us who to pray to. In the first commandment, the Creator presents Himself as follows:
Creator
1 Bones: Vertical
2 dimensions: O your G-d –
3 מלכות: אשר הוצאתיך מארץ מצרים
In the first commandment, he presents the right way to know Him and pray to Him
For example
- Blessed are you
- The name of our God
- King of the World
We fulfill the mitzvah to address Him in this way.
Kabbalah says that since man was created in the image and likeness of God, man is a reflection of the stomach in the mirror in the opposite way:
Creator
1 Bones: Vertical
2 dimensions: O your G-d –
3 מלכות: אשר הוצאתיך מארץ מצרים
————Mirror—————-
Person
3 מלכות
2 dimensions: justice and mercy
1 Self: vertical