Nefesh HaChaim - Gate 1, Chapter 5a: The Soul That Spans Heaven and Earth

And we are in Nefesh Chaim, Shara Aleph Perakeh. So we've been covering what we've covered so far. Let's just quickly recap to Hazara. What we've covered so far is what does it mean to be the image of God, the Saddam al-Hakim, specifically the word al-Hakim. What it means is that Hashem runs the world, patterns and responsive to what we do.

So we do something, we make a bracha, we do something good, and there's a flow of positive energy into all the different worlds and layers all the way coming down here. Do you want me to tell it again? So, yeah. Oh, yeah, this script is a little hard. It's an old-style print. Here we go. That was a loss on the part. So that's what we discovered.

And we spoke, therefore, about the fact that big, major events that happen, such as the Khurban Abayis, the base of the Mecca being destroyed, really is much more about the greater destruction is what we did. In removing Hashem from the world. Okay, and therefore a person should never think their actions don't matter. That was the conclusion so far. Now we're going to take this principle and go deeper and deeper into it.

Okay, this is like, I tell you, a lot of these, the way these books that take, especially the deeper areas of Torah, will start with something and in essence, they've really said everything. Now you've got to work out what was contained within that. Now you've got to let that thing flower out and bring out all its details.

And last time we went to a whole long discussion about how the real house of God, the real base of Mishkan, is the human being, is what we've got to become and what we are, collectively and individually.

Why did Hashem want it to be this way? And he adds an extra word here, not just that the, does this come up a little bit in the footnote last time? And it's not just that the world's respond to what we do. It's that we ourselves have within us an aspect of everything. Our biology contains genes from the plant world, animal world, all the way through. And our spiritual side contains all the higher worlds, aspects of all of them. It's all, like, everything is wired together into this human being.

Okay, now why? Why does she have to make it that way? So. Because as we all know, when we learn the Zohar and the Arizal, all the Kabbalistic works, us this cashless high llamas now we're going to get into this whole concept we've touched upon this idea of worlds plural right and worlds plural means that reality is projected onto many many layers or levels again even the analogy projected sounds very physical but, so we ourselves brought the analogy of the program that underlies the graphics

and the bits and the bytes and so on you've got layers of reality, and there is a shtar shalas what a shtar shalas means is a downward like a chain with downward flow So Hashem projects something from His will, it arrives into some realm, and there it becomes a light that shines into the next one, next one, next one, all the way down till we get to the very physical outer layer of all reality here. Now.

Any world you pick, any layer of reality you pick, everything happening inside it is being determined by that which happens in the world above it. There are only two worlds. One is almost like the conscious will or soul of the world below. And as things move around here, they'll move around on the lower one too. And then you've got this, this does the same thing to the one below that, and this is on the one below that.

So you always, in every layer, you have the occurrence of soul and body, right? So one world is like the soul relative to the world below it, which is like its body. And then that's like the soul relative to the world below that, and that's the soul relative to the world below that. Of course, this one contains within it all the light of all the worlds above it, but then it operates on this, this operates then on this, and so on all the

way down. Okay? Make sense? Anything that doesn't make you feel free to ask or whatever.

You know, we banter, they say, Baruch hei hoi namim. It's got to give life to the world, this is plural. This is part of what it alludes to. Okay. I thought you meant to say, Baruch hei hoi namim. And the Pope said, any of the listeners that can hear me, please don't say amen to the king. You've announced it, all the listeners here, don't challenge me. Say it. Well, you can hear it now. Delete that one from the camera. Okay, now, so what's going on?

So, literally, that's the idea that any higher world is like a soul to the world. It's like the soul-body relationship with the world below. However we understand soul. It doesn't really matter. And that goes upwards and upwards and upwards. Until you get to the point where you'd say, go to God's will is the soul of all these things.

So what's this world? there's like a world if you like shining light and drive and energy and will into it moving things in this world then you go to that world oh there's a world there's a layer behind that there's driving things oh you go that way there's a layer all the way back all the way through everything until ultimately driving everything, is HaKadosh Baruch Hu is God the Holy One, so Ayin Zoya B'Chol and then he brings a quote for proof of the Zoya B'Chol

Alma etc every single world above and below. From the highest, highest place, until the lowest, lowest place. All of them, each one is the clothing one for the next one.

So the lower one is like a clothing for the one above. By the way, you see that hinted amazingly in the Hebrew alphabet itself. You know, the Hebrew alphabet itself is the tools of all creation. And the letters, so the first letter is Aleph, which is the only sound that is not a consonant in the Hebrew alphabet. Every other sound involves the movement of the tongue, the palate, the teeth, the lips, the gut, the throat, something.

Ashkenazim have another, we have a letter ayin, right? But really ayin is a gutter, it's a lying, right? Aleph is only one, if you just make a noise, it can have infinite potential, it can go anywhere, right? It doesn't have any, it's not a clothing, but they say the next world becomes the clothing for the next three Hebrew letters, beged spelled beclothing. So you take that pure infinite energy of the number one and you can enclose it into anything else.

So this is the deep, and of course, that's where, in the world of clothing, you lose some of the light. Now comes the possibility of treachery and deception. That's why those same three Hebrew letters spell the word beiged, which means treachery. This is the idea. Now Idra is sections of the Zahar texts that are particularly difficult and whose interpretation give rise to what we call the Arizal's Kabbalah, basically. Okay, all the lights, they're all held together like this.

This light is within this light, this light is within this light, right? Or Naharim, Dabada, and etc. So in other words, he's giving you snippets of the quote here from the actual core Kabbalistic text. Naharid is Galia, Ikri, Labusha, Damalka. All right. And then the, whatever light shines is really a clothing of the king. Or Zebar, Zebar, Zebar, sorry, I'd say, Naharid, Labusha, sorry, that the light is the core of the core of everything ultimately is Hashem's will.

Ayin Shom, look at the Zohar there. Okay. What is the Eitz Chaim? The Eitz Chaim is the Arizal.

It's actually written by a student of Chaim Vital. It's called the Tree of Life. And that's his long explanation of all these principles that underlie a Kabbalistic understanding of things using his understanding of Kabbalah. And that's considered generally the most authoritative.

He goes all the quotes. The outer layer of every paratzoth in the world. Now, what is a paratzoth? Paratzoth literally means a facial expression. So here's a very deep idea, okay? You might have heard of the concept of sephiris in Kabbalah. You might not. Sephiris are often called emanations or midas. They're character programs, if you like, that Hashem uses to run the world. So chesed, the idea of endless giving.

The idea of holding back, the idea of Tiferis, of creating balance in the universe, the idea of Netzach, of attaching to the eternal plan of God, the idea of Choyd, the space that we do for the human to shine, Yesod, the integrity and relationship, Malchus, the ability to bring it all together to produce God's kingship in the world. All of these different things, Chochmah, wisdom, Binah, all these different things.

Are called sephiris and the idea is that in we although we speak of many many many worlds we generally cluster them into four okay you'll hear different words you'll hear a word called that silas bria yet sirasia at silas is the zone of emanation it's essentially god's name, okay god's name is where you take if you like it's god's pure will the four letter name of god God contains within it everything, everything that can ever happen. In fact, the word for that which can happen is yihyeh.

The word for that which is present is hovah. The word for that which is past is hayah. If you put them all into a single word, it would be God's name. So it contains the will of everything that ever will be, won't be. Everything is contained in God's name. God's name is like the will of all of creation. And you have them worlds below it and below it and below it. But in that world, you have these 10 different midas, attributes, character traits, if you like, that God's.

Now, when we have a character trait, character trait pulls us and manipulates us and forces us to do certain things or drags us in certain directions. Hashem doesn't have that. He's the creator of everything. So it's not that he has is pulled by his love or pulled by this or pulled by anger. Right. That's not what it means. And that's why whenever we use these words about Hashem, we don't mean them in the sense they apply to us.

But at the core of creation are a set of patterns, laws, and those patterns and laws, when we have them in us, we experience them as emotions and feelings. Now, so they're called the sephiros, and you'll often see these maps of, you know, things interconnecting with each other, these little bubbles, and they look a bit like the figure of the human being. A parotsof is a cluster of them, or sometimes it's one of them alone, especially the higher ones, sometimes a group of them together.

The point is they can interact like a functioning complex entity. Because certain middas don't really operate completely on their own. They operate when they're in interaction with others. So when he talks about the paratsof over here, he's talking about one of the four states of, if you like, in the inner worlds that these 10 things operate in. Okay. I'm not sure of that. Is that making, yeah. Your final is that shall I repeat some of the show, go through some of that.

Okay. So we've got Saphiris, the Midas, we've got the world and all of those, these Saphiris are in all of the worlds. Okay. And in fact, within each one is each of them. So you've got like multiple fractal system and then they're projected into all the worlds. Within each world, then Saphiris is there. Same spheres. Yeah, there's one or two spheres that exist everywhere. Everything is basically made out of interactions of spheres and one or two other things as well.

Everything's made out of them. So all the manifestations of God, all the patterns that he's using in the world, are just complex interactions of these things. Of the spheres? Yeah. How many spheres are there? Ten. Sorry, it's almost like if you're trying to visually imagine it in different worlds, where the spheres are consistent, it's not different.

Different sphere right right now how a sphere operates in one world or another it's a bit like okay it's a little bit like all the quarks and leptons out of which all the physics is made okay so i guess if you take some primary colors right every painting and every pigment is going to be made of them but you might put them together and they produce what looks like a new color yeah It's really a mix of the other colors. And then you might mix that and mix that and mix that and mix that.

So the closer you are to the core, the more distinct they'll be and pure they'll be. And then they interact with one another and interact with one another and interact with one another. And then you get this. And then they're projected down a world where none of them shine quite as brightly. The core being the output, most of all. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's almost like a kilter. We could see worlds as filters.

It's down and it's losing it. Yes, and the reason it's important to lose its shine is so there can eventually be something that feels its own existence. Because the light that shines is God's will. And when you think of something, it can't feel its own existence. You dominate it. And so creation goes through many, many, many layers until something can actually get the sense of its own self.

I'm slightly oversimplifying, but that's the basic concept. Can they interact simultaneously in different worlds? Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Now, at a very deep... Yes. The short answer is yes. Things are going on all the time as those things interact. Ultimately, though, since each world is being powered by the world above it, in the end, even their interactions in one world will be linked by the interactions in the inner world. Okay, and a paratsuf is how they interact as a network.

So a whole bunch of them will interact as a network. That's one way to put it. Okay, so any of these things, the outer layer of this paratsuf or this world, So if you've got an interacting network of them, their outer layer will then drive the next pattern of them. And when you've got a world, the outer layer of that world will be the conduit through which the light then shines down into the next world and operates it.

And therefore the outer layer of this world now becomes like the neshama, the soul of the world below, right? And the outer layer of this interactive, what's the word we use, misparrots of this interactive entity, a combination of spheres that cluster together and produce some kind of combination, that outer layer then will power the next one below that too.

So wherever you have any, anything you could see as a hole on some sense, the last point of it will be the point from which it shines its light into the next thing down through the system. V'chaloy l'os lamas niflal ev'naf lakim kud d'adad ki'adu' Here he says what we just said.

All the worlds are generalized into four so that they're clustered together into four worlds or four world clusters shayna ifanim now here he doesn't use this the he uses a different amazingly he doesn't use this more standard language of bria yet sira asia which are different words for creating and making which he talks ifanim chayos that's used different types of angels if you or spiritual beings that may permeate these different worlds.

So we've got their family, we've got the Chayas and he's doing this because if you look in the first chapter of the book of Yechazkel. When Ezekiel, when Yehoshua has this vision of the inner workings of creation, he has these, these, I found him, the I found beings, the highest, the life points. And then ultimately the kiss are covered. He actually sees the highest before they find him. But then the kiss are covered, the throne of glory, literally, that's what we translate it.

The emanation of God's holiness, right? That's called the innermost world.

So the emanation, the throne, which we typically call the world of pure creation, the world of the chayos of the inner types of beings which is often called the world of yitzira of formation in which forms of things exist and finally the world of assir the world of action which has these i've found in these things that relate very much to the interactions of our, world okay finish this is very very deep things that we're learning over here

and a lot of these words might just go through one ear and come out the other you'll hear them again hear them again any of them again and eventually we'll have to deal with each of them as their own concepts and then flesh them out a lot, lot more. But for now, it's just like create a basic pattern of structure. It's not critical to get all the details here at this stage. Some of this will come back to a later chapter, some not.

And the soul of each of these worlds is the world above it. Like he says, and here he quotes the first chapter of Yehoshua. As the highest move up so that I find him right the lower world the beings of the lower world move up with them, because the spirit of the higher from the upper world that world is in the they move they move the inner one stand the outer one stand etc. And they this world of the highest which is operating the

lower world is being operated by the world called the throne of god's glory shall kiss and i say it's nice of it carries those who bear it like the oran the ark of the in the hope that has the ten commands the oranosis and those who carry it are really being carried by it so it looks like you're carrying the upper world the throne of god but really it's lifting you and that means as it moves so you move okay there's many many layers

of depth behind this one of the principles is that is that the Oran, since it holds the revelation of God, the Ark in it, it therefore comes from such a deep place, even in the physical world, it doesn't really operate under the laws of physics. Are you familiar with this concept? That you say that, or I think you're exotic, but there's this concept that the closer you get to the Holy of Holies, to the Kodosh, the less and less the normal physical laws operate.

You feel like thousands of beings. So that's one of the, the Mishnah says, it talks about the miracles that happened in the base of Mecca, in the temple. Ma'aras is really the first temple because that actually had the Oren, had the Luchas, had all these things in it. The first miracle is that they could literally fit everybody in. How do you fit hundreds of thousands of people? But yet when they fit it together, it was like a squash. But when they bow down, there's room for everybody.

How does that work? In the physical world, that's impossible under the physical laws. Your spatial dimension, when you stand, you take a much less floor space than when you prostrate yourself. But in the, if you like, mental and spiritual worlds, the more you stand, the more you don't make room for others.

The more more you bow down the more there's room for everybody so it's almost like the basic nature is itself obeying the laws of the spiritual world it's not the physical world and as you get closer and closer you get to the point where we say the arc doesn't fit in now the natural meaning of that is the simple meaning is the poles stuck out but many want to say that's not possible for many reasons in alofa you couldn't

have dark bigger and it basically doesn't it it just doesn't take up space there's gamaras even that seem to say like it's considered like it has no space but But it's not allowed to have no space. It has to be. It's like at that point, we had no idea on some quantum universe.

Who knows what we're doing? But the normal, it's like you've got touched the spiritual world so deeply. It's like a portal out of this layer of reality into the inner layer, and it's just shining through. And therefore, the normal laws don't really apply over there. That's a principle that is often spoken about here. Okay. So it's the Auron. And that means even the physical world, the Ark, the Auron is already operating like a portal to that, which is beyond the physical world.

The throne carries them the life force the soul of the throne the third world

up the third innermost world which we call the throne of God because the throne is something that bears. Carries and projects the glory of that which is above it so we call the inner the third world if you like we're in the fourth world down here third.

Second world up I should say third I mean the second world world is called the throne of the soul of that world is the side that show ish alien shock close initial muscle yeah hard listen to this you would expect to say I sham at this point no no he says something else the secret secret always means the inner dimensional show ish the root Elia in the high roots you got you got a root you got a high root the other secret of the high root right of what close nishma

sisal ya had this entire entity called Israel as a singular thing not lots and lots of jewish people there's a common point there's a root called israel which is a vision of the human in total relation with god there is a thing that doesn't exist in any one of us alone but exists in us as a collective called israel that single soul that everyone who is currently jewish in the world shares right now access to goes all the way and sits and is the like the neshama the living force of the

world we call the throne which is the world we then call the the the zero the formation or the life highest things down to our world that inner inner thing is in the highest world in fact it is if you like the point of unity that projects to all that our world so if you see everything going on our world coming the world above it and everything there's from the world across the world cluster of that and everything about this coming from

this thing called israel isn't that incredible absolutely what was i mean is this the name they give the point or is that us? Well, he says take all the souls take the point of which of Yisrael that's all

one take the root of that take the upper root of that and take the secret dimension of that and there you are. So, and that's off the premise that our soul is a piece of Hashem. Well, piece of Hashem is a word that is used but we must be incredibly careful about word size. You have to know what these things mean. Right? Because we can end up physicalizing Hashem, and that's that we can't do. The more correct way to understand it is the physical world itself is not as physical as we think it is.

From our perspective, it's physical, spatial, everything is broken apart in that. But if you like, from Hashem's perspective, there is no space, there is no time, there is none of this. And therefore, okay, but we are moving on. But let's stay for making it easy, an expression of the will of Hashem. And once the nation took upon itself to commit itself to completely living our pi, rots, and Hashem, God's will, and living only in the relationship with Hashem, which is this week's Sedra.

The moment the Jewish people were born, we were born with all the 10 plagues that had ripped away the 10 sayings of creation. And Hashem says, and we cried out to Hashem. We said, under the natural laws, we can't survive. Under the supernatural laws, we can't survive. So we cried to you. We cried out to Hashem, God of our ancestors. That's it.

It's only you, Hashem. And as the Maharal says, what that meant is that Egypt crushed our ability to function in the natural world under the natural order, under the natural laws. And what emerged out of Egypt was not an entity like all other nations, plus we've got a Torah, but something that cannot function like other nations can function. Jewish people cannot function in the world like other nations do. And that's why we're not very good at it.

Constantly, the world's pushing us out. We only function to the extent to which we're in a proper relationship with Hashem. We only survive on that basis. Although he's going to have a nice strong army he can have this, he can have that but then the world can take you to the Hague.

There'll be hatred here and hatred there and you do and you don't all of Jewish history is like this, always like this but in the end, however much you can defend yourself physically and defend yourself in this court and that court and the most ridiculous the more ridiculous the accusation the more you'll just get masses and hordes repeating it and justifying it but in a certain sense that's because we're not living up to the relationship with Hashem in a certain way.

We're not blaming ourselves, but that's the reality because we don't really, we're meant to be in this world to be ambassadors for a vision. And that vision is driving history. And that vision is the way the world's meant to be at the end. And that vision sits right at the core of creation and moves things and drives things. You know, it's very funny. Anti-Semites often believe that Jews are like this conspiracy driving the world.

So, of course, it's a comedy show. But, you know, like Robert Saxon, You can't get Jews out in a synagogue shul board meeting degree. I know they can't. It's so dysfunctional. It would be the most dysfunctional organization around the world. But probably what they're sensing subconsciously is this deep thing called Israel that's driving history.

It's probably a subconscious sense and a hatred of it, a hatred of the light to which history is being driven, and a sense that no matter what you do, it somehow bends and arcs back to where it needs to get to. And it's this subconscious entity called Yisrael. And those who love that thought will also like the ambassadors for that in this world, which is Yisrael, which is Israel, the Jewish people. And those who hate that will hate us.

And what will happen, therefore, and that's how history is going to work. But the extent to which we're doing our job properly and literally reflecting that light in the world is the extent to which good things are happening, love is spreading, the world's moving in the right direction, and there'll be limited hatred of us. And the extent to which we're failing, the world wants to kick us out. So it's always a sign that the world behaves horrifically to us,

that we're not doing what we need to do, right? Again, we're not blaming ourselves for the evil of mass murdering crazy people. We're not blaming ourselves for the insanity by which people go to genocide, like the most non-genocidal wars that ever happened, rescuing millions of people, etc. You don't need to repeat that. The fact that people can twist themselves into knots, fine.

But that is, when I say non-genocide, I don't mean, I'm not belittling the tragedy of people dying and civilians dying. But I mean, you know, all the stuff we know, the civilian to combat ratio is lower than it's ever been in a war with civilian areas, et cetera, et cetera, moving a million people out, how you walk that and twist that. But that's the whole point. You'll turn light into dark and dark into light, that's how you do it. But that's because we're not doing our job.

It's almost like because we're failing, there's almost a severance between where we are here and where the inner world wants to be. And that makes you vulnerable to then everything dark in the world coming to get you and accusing you of being immoral. On the deep level, we are failing what we're meant to do. We know what they're accusing us of, but it doesn't matter. In a way, we're doing worse than what they're accusing us of in the sense that we're letting the world down.

Before Yisrael was made, before Yisrael was made, what was this?

There was always Yisrael. No, no, there was always Yisrael is another name for Adam. The world was meant to be Yisrael. Adam is the soul of humanity. Yisrael is the state of humanity living the way it's meant to live in the future. Yasharkel, the straight one of God, where God's light shines straight through into the world. That was what Adam was meant to become.

Had he not messed had the single soul of all of humanity not messed up in the Garden of Eden we'd have all been this thing called Yisroel then we're waiting is Noach going to become it is this one going to become that one going to become it and eventually it settles on a small part of humanity you plug into it for now in the short run in the long run in Olam Abob by the time you get to the world as it will be in the future everything will be part of this thing called Yisroel.

That's what it means when we say we're citizens of the future that's what it means in the Targum Yonassan Targum Yishalmi when the translation of Torah that says, the ancient translation that says that Hashem took us that night of Egypt into the future to sit in the base of Mekrash, to live in the holy temple in Jerusalem, eating with, we're basically mashiaj. We were created as people of the future.

We touched that inner plan and vision and we became living in this world really as people who live for its future. And that future is calling us. That's why the Seder on which you become free is called Bo, which means come. come, you'd expect that Hashem says to Moshe, leichal para, go to para, it doesn't mean come to para. Come is what you say when you're standing on the other side and calling someone. Hashem is calling us for the future. And that soul of history is called Yisrael.

That voice of the future, that thing that's pulling the world, driving the world to where it needs to get to, is called Yisrael.

And it manifests down on earth right now through you and me. And in the end, every human being can be a part of it. Okay. Now, so that, but that is all the way, therefore, if you like, the inner soul of history, the inner soul of reality, the soul of existence. Okay. Ooh, we've got so much longer. Let's see if we can get to, we'll get to the end of the chapter. We'll do the footnote next week. That's how we often do that. Okay. So let's, so this is. This is the thing that the vision the vision

that your school has when he sees a figure on the throne of god's glory and it looks like a human and you think is this idolatry you know what's going on no god it's god's will it's not god god's will looks like a human because god's will is the human being is the human achieving perfection and the human achieving perfection has a name and that name will be israel israel that's why so many nations want to be israel, it's coming from a very good place and they will all be hard to be so that's

that's going to be right so let's jump. Right in this posse can to heal him backwards and forward and in the future Back all the way to the beginning of creation. And like from before, backwards and from before is the picture of the Merkava, the vision of God's character. The body is concerned. It's the end of creation. So the human is on the one hand, the last physically with the end of creation. But as far as the Kedem, so we both offer the end and also Kedem, the beginning.

With the end of creation in the sense of physically, with the last thing we come at the end of the whole development of everything, biologically which is itself at the end of all the worlds but as far as the soul goes we're right stretched all the way to the vision of the beginning.

And the soul of life is really like the secret of the breath of life God breathes into the world which we need to understand what that is and we will explain that in later chapters later on in chapter 15 and that's why the human action, Drives all the worlds because we are plugged in. We stretch from here to here. We operating down here consciously, but we're also operating all the way up there. Since the will and vision of God is a vision for humanity.

Therefore, humanity is ultimately going to be the key story to the final chapter. And therefore, all of us right now are pulling and being pulled by this inner vision of you. Like a whole creation. He, hey, more affinity. Awesome. I remember says, as we move, we ignite more light down here. As we move this way, we shut off the light it's all one gigantic interplay.

As we move it moves as we stand still it stands still as Hashem in the passage the verse describes breathes into the spirit of life it's the highest point in the world it's the inner dimension, that made man into the living soul and as we saw earlier he said it means the soul of life Life, the life force of the worlds. The soul of the human goes all the way up to the deepest, deepest, deepest, all the way to the will of God himself. And that is the amazing things that we have covered this week.

Next week, we will cover the footnote. It's quite a long and important footnote and hopefully we'll be able to go on into the sixth chapter, which is also a really, really, really important chapter, which will take us a while. The sixth chapter takes, it is not, that will take us probably a few weeks. We're ready for it. Fantastic. Pleasure, pleasure.