Hai חי (artwork: gil dekel)
The Jewish Bible, the Tanach, is a written document. Why God did not just ‘implement’ its wisdom into our hearts? why have it as a book to read?
One answer is that God wants us to have a part in the creative process. He doesn’t give us everything on a plate. He doesn’t hardwire us with everything, but He wants us to make an effort and take part in the creative process. There’s a famous discussion in the book of ‘Gmara’ where one lady asks one of the sages: ‘If God thinks that circumcision is the right thing, then why didn’t He create man already fully circumcised?’ And the sage answers with: ‘God wants to give us a part, a ‘Helek’ (Hebrew: חלק) in the creation. We should have something to do.’
The beauty of the creation is that God did not complete it… We have to complete the creation.
It says at the beginning of Genesis that God created the world with the ten sayings (Hebrew: ‘Asara Mamaron’ עשרה מאמרות.) The sayings bring into being everything and keep everything in existence. That’s the creative process, where God makes the world (Hebrew: ‘Bereishit Bara Elokim’). Now, the name Elokim has got the same numerical value of הטבע HaTeva, which is the Hebrew word for nature. However, it also means that God’s infinite life is concealed within the creation, within nature – ready for us to reveal.
The belief is that He created life but there is something that He also left hidden for us to reveal, and in that way reveal the presence of God in the world. So, we have a work to do… He wants us to reveal Him…
The question we can ask is: ‘If it’s all there already in nature, why do we have to labour to uncover it? Why do we have to labour through meditation and actions, to feel God and bring God?’…
The answer is: fulfilment. We should feel fulfilled. If we were to get a ‘ready-made’ spiritual life on a plate, so to speak, we would not be fulfilled. In Hebrew this is called ‘Ne’emah D’chesufah’, the bread of HaShem (God) – which means that everything is given to you on a plate. You then do not earn it, you don’t work for it; and this is not as satisfying. So, God gives us something to do and share; we are becoming in such way partners in the Bereishit, Genesis, of the creation. We are given opportunity to complete the work of the creation and reveal God within it.
How is God revealed?
The quick answer is that God can be revealed through the actions that people take.
There are many things we do in our life which are secondary to the real thing that we want. Many people ‘just’ go to work every day; having a job which they do not like. You ask a person: ‘Is this really who you are?’ and they reply: ‘No, this is not really my life, and not where I am. This is just work I have to do’.
People do things in life without the love of it. Now, the person’s thoughts and intentions are where he is. People’s will is where their essence is.
God has created the world in a manner of 613 channels, Mitzvot, like pillars holding up the infrastructure. These are the channels through which the light can come down, and they are divided into two categories: actions between people and God, and actions between people themselves.
Between man and God we can fulfil God’s will (which is purely what we do for the sake of God, HaShem), and then we have things which God wants us to do between us: loving our fellow man, treating everybody right, being honest and good and charitable, kind, compassionate; being sensitive to others, visiting the sick, and giving charity. In financial matters, we need to be honest in our business dealings, making other people benefit as well. And, we are also asked to follow the act of blessing.
22 July 2012.
© Gil Dekel. My thanks to my teachers.
Part 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.
If God created this world and is in this world, why some people say they cannot see/feel Him?
We find answers in the Kaballa and particularly in the Kitvei Arizal, the famous writings of the famous Kabalist who lived in Syria, who wrote the Etz Chaim, one of his famous mystical Kabbalistic books. In the beginning, before the creation, the whole of existence was just filled with infinite light – Godly light. God’s infinite light pervaded everything. There was nothing else. It was just God and Godly illumination and light.
In that situation, there was no room for anything else… Creating things into the light would just create infinite world which would all become propelled and absorbed into the divine. So there has to be what we call מידת הדין Midat HaDin andמידת הגבורה Midat HaGvura. There has to be this idea that God, as it were, makes a contraction; that He hides in the creative process.
The name YKVA – the name הוואי Havai, as we refer to it – we don’t ever say that name. Even when we mean it, we say ‘Baruch Ata Hashem’ and not ‘Baruch Ata YKVA’. Now, YKVA is how God is presented to be. But if that name alone will be used – Hashem Havai – the creations that will be created from saying that name would be so ethereal that they wouldn’t really have a separate existence from God. They would not be separated from God, but would just be absorbed in the light of God. So that’s why we need a narrowing ‘Tzimzum’. And that’s where you have the name Elokim, which allows for narrowing ‘Tzimzum’ that enable the illusion of separation. The separation enables the creation to exist, as we know it.
The name Elokim doesn’t actually hide God in a way that God is not there but it conceals God from the created beings. In other words, God simultaneously brings into being the created הנברא HaNivra. The created does not sense the source from which it is being created. And that is the Midat HaDin, and Midat HaGvura. The undetectable realm, the Tzimzum.
The light, as it comes into creation, into being להחיות, is simultaneously concealed from the Nivra, the created beings. It’s something that the human being can’t see. When we create something or when we involve ourselves in something, we can’t hide ourselves completely from it. In fact, on the contrary; usually, in some ways we interact and interfere with the system with which we get involved. When you get involved in something to measure it, you in some way change it. That is the human limitation. If you want to measure something or observe it, the very observation of the system in some way affects it. You’re not able to involve yourself in something in an intimate way without affecting it.
God on the other hand, is able to create something and be hidden while totally involved with it in an intimate and close way. He’s bringing it, and yet simultaneously the very being that’s being created does not feel God’s presence. And that’s the concept of Tzimzum.
God is everywhere. God’s essence is the absolute of Hashem – מהותו Mahuto. That Mahuto and עצמותו Atzmuto is everywhere. ‘There’s no place which is vacant of Him.’ There’s no place that God is not there. He could be hidden or He could be revealed. So, He is everywhere in the physical world but He is hidden to us; He is concealed. He is not really not-there; rather He is there always. It’s just that we perceive ‘Gzerot’ as the absence of God. It’s a mistake; it’s a fallacy; it’s an illusion. The ‘Gzerot’ is not the absence of God, since God is everywhere. The ‘Gzerot’ is an attribute of God Himself; the ability to make himself unseen. But we, in our perception, we don’t see Him.
Part 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.
22 July 2012.
© Gil Dekel. My thanks to my teachers.
- Reading with Natalie, book here...