Why Transcendence Matters: The Inner Work Behind Outer Action

For Tyra, Israel, the Jewish people and God meets fearless critical inquiry. Through powerful conversations and thought providers. Solo teachings. Ignite twenty first century meaning. Drive personality. Transformation. And to one another. Hold action to heal our world. Here's your host. Rabbi doctor. Brackman.

Welcome back to Truths, Jewish Wisdom for today. Thank you so much for joining. Before I begin, if you like this episode, please subscribe, like it, leave a review wherever you listen to this podcast. That really helps other people find it and I would also greatly appreciate it. Thank you so much. Now onto today's episode. Today is going to be a solo episode.

And it's a follow on of a previous episode I did, which was an interview with Rabbi Manis Friedman. Now, Rabbi Manis Friedman, we had a conversation, it was for an hour, and he said at the end of it to be continued. And there were things which w were incomplete, let's say, with the episode, and therefore I wanted to continue that conversation with him. I did reach out to him and to his people.

And I didn't hear back. So I'm assuming that it's therefore probably not going to be continued with Rabbi Friedman in person, but I do feel that it's an important conversation to continue having. And therefore I would like to do another episode.

on this, even if it's just me explaining or tying up loose ends as I see it. But I first want to mention that I think that in the conversation with Rabbi Manus Friedman, a lot of his ideas are pointing to some of the deepest ideas found in Hasidic thought. But my concern with the way he frames it is that if you teach these ideas as a shortcut.

You end up flattening the whole ladder and you lose the context. And in losing the context, you lose a lot of the other pieces as well. And I want to give an example of a story that happened when I was a teenager that might shed some light on.

So this probably happened in the summer of nineteen ninety six or nineteen ninety seven, one of those years. This was close to thirty years ago. So I was seventeen or eighteen years old and I was in summer camp in Gunnystral, New York, which was upstate New York, and Every single year they have a gathering there where Great Tamidika Khamim, Rashi Yeshivas, and Torah scholars get together for the weekend and they spend the weekend together and they do a lot of Torah studies and classes, etc. etc.

And I was very interested in listening to as many of these classes as I could, but I was a counselor bunk that I needed to take care of. So I went to one of my friends there, who today is a big rabbi in a certain country. I won't mention who he is. But I went over to one of my friends who was a learning teacher and therefore didn't have the same kind of responsibilities that I had. And I asked him whether he would be so kind and watch my bunk.

for a few hours while I went on the Shabbat to listen to the Torah classes. So I needed some cover. So this fellow looked at me and said to me, What do you mean? Why why why do you want to go and then the Torah classes? You've got work to do here as a counselor of these kids and to have an impact.

And to have an influence on these kids, and that's the most important thing. And then he said to me, Have you heard of the Qasidim Harishanim, the early Qassidim? Which that he meant the Khsid Ashkenaz. And I said to him, yes, of course I'd heard of them, and he said, Well, you sound like the Misnagdin Marishani, like the very early Misnagin. Like students of the Garner Vilna and others who opposed Hasidism at the time. He said, You sound like them. You don't sound like a Hasid.

And you suddenly don't sound of a current chasid, a chasid of the Rebbe. Um and I was a Lababacha Baker at the time meeting in Lababacha camp, of course. So he said, you don't sound like a a chasid of the Rebbe. So I said to him, I don't know what you mean, because the truth is that I am a student, I'm a Bakr in Yeshiva, and my main goal is to learn as much Turah as I can.

Unfortunately the issue was closed for the summer and I needed a job. I needed a place to stay. So I found a job as a counselor, but I didn't really want to be a counselor. That's not what I really wanted to do. I want to sell. As a matter of fact, when I was in camp, at every moment I had I would run off. And g go to the base measure of say online, because that's what interested me back then. And frankly, it's still what interests me till this current day.

And now I have an opportunity, I said, to go and listen to the teachings and the classes of some world-renowned Torah scholars. Of course I'm gonna want to do that. And I said to him, Not only that, I'm sure that's what the Rebbe would want from me.

And he looked at me and said to me, No, you're wrong, you're wrong. And I said to him, What do you mean I'm wrong? He said, ask any of the Mashpian, in other words, ask any of the Hasidic teachers who were here, Waldrenant Hasidic teachers who were here, ask them if I'm right. I'm telling you they're gonna tell you that I'm right. So I was thinking about this the whole weekend on Sunday morning. I found my opportunity. I saw Rabbi Yarl Khan.

who was the Rebbe's Khazer, he was the person who used to memorize the or the headcher, he was the main person who used to memorize all the Rebbe's talks and then ha repeat them and then write them down and edit them, etcetera. And I saw him sitting there. He used to smoke at the time, so he was sitting there on his own, smoking a cigarette. And I walked over to him and I said to him, Do you mind if I ask you a question? He said, Sure. So I sat down and I relayed to him.

M the conversation I had had with my friend. And I said to him, who's right? Me or him? And I thought I would get a quick answer. And he looked at me and he said, You're right. So validation. Straight away, yes, I was right. And then he followed on by saying, however He said, and he said neither was will Nish gain up shrips von Raven, or thick the Hunt Baglaben.

Which means in English, he who doesn't want to go on the Rebbe's Schlippus, being an emissary of the Rebbe, that's where the dog's buried. And I at the time di was not interested in going on Schlitz. That wasn't my thing. I did want to learn a lot, but I wasn't interested in being an emissary going and opening a Chabad house or any of those things, which anyone knows me later on I actually end up doing that and maybe i'll talk about that a little bit but

I I no longer do that, just just to be clear. But then he went on for an hour and a half. He sat there for an hour and a half explaining how the whole point of everything, all of the entire Chabad Khsiddhas leads up to this one thing which is going on the Schlichas of the Rebbe and going out there, opening the Chabad house, putting up to fill them with people, etc. etc.

And anyone who knows Rabir al Khan and I became a student of his subsequently to that and then I went to a lot of his shrimp and I even sat in his house Friday nights, etcetera. anyone who knows him, he has this ability to explain something from all angles. He doesn't just give an answer. He goes and explains from every single different angle, and at the end of it he ties all up together in this beautiful way where you fully understand where he's coming from what he has said.

So I had an hour and a half personal share from Rabbi Yol Khan about this. And it really changed my life. And it set me on the path to want to go on Schliffos, which is something that I eventually did. But What I think that shows is this sharp dichotomy. So Rabir Khani started off by telling me, you're right. My friend was wrong, and I was right. However, that's not the whole picture. There's more to the picture.

And at the end of it, there's a goal. In other words, there is a telos. There is a mounting top here. And the mounting top is, in his view at the time, was going on the Rebashlippus. But he didn't say that. I was wrong for wanting to go as a Bacher to listen He wanted. He said, you're right. You should want to. That should be your goal as a mahut right now. To go and listen to Shuram. You're right. Tirasi Amunasi. My profession at that time was to learn Theram.

That's what my whole thing was, and that's what I should want to do whenever I had an opportunity to do it. However, he said there's something else there, which is the tell us, which is the ultimate.

And so there is an entire picture here which I feel is missing from the discourse that I had with Rabbi Manus Friedman and the way Rabbi Manus Friedman portrays these ideas. And so this isn't a criticism of him, but I think that the way he presents things in general, it's incomplete.

Now he has this desire to say things in a way which is somewhat shocking. When you say that the holy Shiva world is doesn't have a God, which is something he said to me, then that is a shocking way of saying something. He could say it in a way in which maybe people would accept it a little bit better.

So he has this way about him which he says things in a way which are shocking and therefore it it loses some of the So what I hope to do in this episode I thought that was who were gonna be with me. is to go through some of that nuance and hopefully we can uh come out of this with the more complete picture. Because as I said in the beginning, he is alluding to some very, very profound and deep ideas which are found in Hasidic thought, not just in the Hasidic thought of

the late Lababachi Rabba Rabbi Menachman Al-Shneasan, but also of the Siddhic thought which is found all the way to the first and second generation of Chabad. And specifically these ideas are found and fleshed out in the teachings of Raban Srashala. who was a Talmud Muvak, the main Talmud of not the son, who was the Middle Rebbe, but the main Talmud for many many years, for thirty years, of the Alta Rebbe of Rabashni Zammuli.

So I want to and these ideas, some of them which Malays Reeman talks about, are found in the teachings of Ravar and Stashala specifically. So I want to go through it and hopefully we can piece by piece. Go through some of the ideas which were discussed. This might be a little bit of a longer episode, but I hope that it will be payoff in the end. So I just want to make sure that's a good thing.

make it clear here first that I am critiquing framings. I'm not attacking her by Friedman as a person. God forbid. Now, a little bit about that, because in my conversation with him, some of the pushback or feedback I got from some people, especially those people who consider themselves to be students of Rabbi Manus Friedman, was that I was interrupting him a lot. And in fact I was.

And that was I wanted to get through quite a bit. I know the way he speaks in a certain way. A lot of his ideas are out there already. So I wanted to cut to the chase in any ways. So that we could get to some conclusion of what he's actually saying and what he's not saying. And therefore, that was by design. It wasn't meant to be any disrespect to him. And so we'll just put that out there. There are three pillars, three pillars that emerged from my conversation with Rabbi Man.

First of all, the focus on what's revealed knowable. He had this line where he said, I believe that we know everything there is to know about God. Torah, Amitsvas, the will of God, the universe, that's all that God has let us know about God, and we know everything there is to know about. Anything else is not knowable, therefore.

We shouldn't talk about that. We shouldn't go there. And it's not even existence. So what's the point of talking about it? It's not knowable, and you have a goal that you need to know God, and therefore you need to know what's knowable. If it's not knowable, then what's the point of even talking about it? It's not in existence. So it's no point talking about it. That was his point of view. The second point which he made was a skepticism toward mystical nothingness.

And he basically said that any kind of feeling of spirituality is self-indulgent. the kind of meditation which gets you to a sense of transcendence is very similar in his view to Buddhism. And and he said that feeling which you have is spiritual, not godly. It's not God, it's only spiritual. So Ruchnius, not Elekus. And then the other thing which he mentioned, which I think was a theme at the end, was where he criticized the Shiva for having making Mitsuh their god, but not the mallaj of God.

It turned the whole ritual into the idol. And it's totally a godless I pursuit of just doing ritual without it connecting to God because God is transcendent, which and you don't know him and you can't know him. So therefore you don't know God is his argument, I think. And therefore you're doing the mythos for what reason?

But just for no reason. And therefore, that was his point of view. And therefore, it's you turning the mitzras into idols and you don't and and the whole yeshiva world and the whole film world doesn't have a god. So I want to take these ideas piece by piece.

What it seems to me is that The idea which is being presented is that since we can't know the transcendent God, we can't know anything about him, therefore we should just focus on that which is revealed, as I mentioned. Which is the Mitzus, and the Walt around it.

And the Torah. And that is the manifestation of God in this world. And that's what we should focus on. The problem with this is that you end up with the point of view that this friend of mine in camp had. And so let me explain to you why that's a problem. Because this concept is actually a very deep idea which is found in Hasidic thought.

And that is that ultimately, as I mentioned in that episode, that there's a cosmism that is founded in Hasidic thought. What is a cosmism? A cosmism is this idea that there is no cosmos. The entire cosmos is just the divine, it's just the divine essence. All that actually exists is only the divine essence. That is what's called Das Aliun, the view from above, God's view. In God's view, none of this is here. None of it exists. It's only from our view that we think it's

But from God's view it doesn't exist. How can they both be at the same time? Well that's the paradox. But there is this tas ali and that none of it exists. A cosmism of Hasidic thought is that from the vantage point of the divine essence. There is only the divine essence and nothing else. There can't be anything separate from the divine essence. So what are we? We're totally subsumed in the one, to the degree that we don't exist at all.

Now, just getting to that on its own, that concept and I and and getting your head around that concept and feeling that sense of transcendence, which is something which I was talking about quite a bit in the episode and trying to get Manus Friedman to relate to. Is a very deep concept. And I think what he misses is that is the idea. That is the point he's actually trying to get at too. Let me try and get this from a different angle.

And that is that there is Das Tachtin, as I mentioned, and there's Das Alien. So what is Das Tachtin? He articulated in our conversation a good Das Tachtun perspective. Our ability to access the divine or spirituality. Well, what is that? That is this idea that the entire universe depends on God's energy. on the light of the divine. Without the light of the divine, there is no universe. So in other words

If we don't have God's energy, what happens to the universe? It ceases to exist. And therefore, the whole universe is totally dependent upon God. And without God, there is no universe. So we therefore we can get to some kind of apprehension, understanding that God is everything of the for the universe.

That's what's known as Das Tachtdin. And it's an idea which is used to even convince our animal soul, what's called the Nefjah Muhammad's, that it should also recognize that the physicality is not so important. Now, living that and being able to truly feel that and apprehend it, that the world is totally dependent on the divine and therefore there has no independent existence without the divine is itself.

a very lofty place to live. It in is in itself is living within a sense of transcendence because that helps you transcend the physical. But it's not the ultimate because there's the alien. What does Das Alian say? Das Elian says that even that, which is the divine light, which keeps the world in existence, is In itself, totally subsumed in the divine essence. And therefore, of course, the entire universe is subsumed in the divine essence.

There is no universe at all. Not that it's totally dependent. It's not a contingent thing that the universe is contingent on the that would be the Das Takhtan perspective, the lower perspective, which is a contingent perspective, that the world is contingent on the The Das Alien perspective, the perspective from God is that there is no universe. It's a total ecosmism. Is called panantheism, that the world is totally and utterly subsumed in the essence of God to the extent that it's not there.

There is no universe. From God's essence is all one. From God's perspective and the essence of the divine, it's all one. Now how does this lead to this idea that man is freedomless? Well, it leads to it because at the end of the day, if it's all God's essence, then in some sense the physical is a reflection of God's essence. That's how you get Now that doesn't mean the world is God, because the world isn't God, because in the end of the day, there is no world from the Das anymore.

But we are walking around living in a world. That's true. So what is it? It's a reflection of the divine essence. It's a very, very deep idea. Now you layer in that concept, the mitzvah. That the that the whole point of this, which has been revealed to us through the Torah, is in order for the for us to study Torah and do mitzvahs. So then that becomes a more revealed sense of the divine essence.

In other words, it's something which we can grab onto more of being a part of the divine essence. So, in a strange sense, my argument to him about the cosmism and asking whether he's denying their cosmism or The answer really should be not you're not dividing the cosmism of Hasidis. It's because of the cosmism of Hasidis that you have this concept. Because you say to yourself one second.

Fact is that I'm here. I'm talking into this camera. I am having this conversation in the physical world, in the meter scale. But on the other hand, from the divine essence, from the respect of the divine essence, you have an a cosmic perspective. There is no cosmos. So what am I doing here? Somehow I'm in the divine essence in some kind of way. But that is a very, very profound realization. And it's a profound realization which only happens.

after you've gone through the ladder of the Das Tachtun first.

So this is where I feel he's kind of m he's confusing and mixing the boundaries and the concepts. Because in the conversation he talks about the Das Tachto. He t he says, Well, everything's God. And spoke about the contingency on But the contingency on God does not lead to the Das Elian perspective, which tells you that everything's in the divine essence and everything is Mushrush and Atlus, everything is source in Atlas.

It's very interesting because this idea is actually part of a disagreement between Rabana Sarashala, who was as I mentioned, who's a Talmud Muvik of the Al-Tarebba and the Mithilareb. So just this is as an aside, just to get So the Talmud Muvak of the Alta Rabbah of Rab Shir Samadhiadi, Reb Aaron Haley Harwitz, known as Ramstrah, he basically had this idea that that people should Get excited about the divine should have what's called his spilos.

should have this excitement or this ecstasy about the divine, even if it's somewhat contrived. Whereas the Mitarebba, Domber was very concerned about contrived ecstasy. He didn't like contrived. What was the argument of Rab Aaron? Rab Aaron made the following argument. He said, one second, the shrinish of everything, the source of everything is in Atmos, is in the divine essence. So even the contrived aspect of the ecstasy is still in the divine essence.

Because its sources in the divine essence, therefore, even if it seems somewhat contrived, it doesn't matter. Because the person is feeling this. arousal of excitement for the divine, for God, that is real in the realest sense because he all of physicality. Is really God. And that from the truest sense it's real. That's part of his argument. Now, the mittlereber, Dove Bear, doesn't bite it.

So it's interesting how we go full circle, right? So the Lababich version of Chabad as it was expressed by the Mitharabah, he doesn't have his cosmism is not on the same level, is not in the same way. It's a little bit I would say it's not the fully Puritanistic cosmic that is found in And that's probably a little bit more of the reason why he is a little bit more apprehensive of any of this contrived.

ecstasy, whereas Ur Arn is very okay with the contrived ecstasy and one of the reasons he gives is the one I just mentioned because it's all in the divine essence anyway. All source in the divine essence. But that in itself comes from a very, very deep and profound realization. And it starts off.

with the Das Tachdan. In other words, you have to go from level to level. As is explained that, you know, you first start off with the Avais, the patriarchs, who they were a mere cover, they were a chariot to the divine.

That is a type of realization of the divine that they've come to. And then you transcend that. You go higher to the high level. And so you get to Moses. Moses, who had the most profound apprehension of the divine, and he who had this bital, total not the bital, he was The cosmism of Moisharabeno, of Moses, who saw God as Baklariyameira, he was able to see God in the clearest sense, although he never

able to apprehend the actual essence of the divine, but he was able to apprehend this idea that there is nothing, this universe that seems to boss around us is totally subsumed in the one. And from that idea is where the idea that mitzvahs are important. It comes from that.

So the reason why I sing that it's incomplete is because you need that transcendence in order to have an apprehension. Of this idea. Now, I want to mention some other thing, which is really important because there is this very, very important concept which is found. In Hasidic teachings, and it comes from the Kabbalah, which it says, and it's also found in the Tanya from Rabbi Shneer Zambuyadi, the first Chabad Hasidic leader, the founder of the of the Chabad Hasidic thought.

And it says that mitzvous without the tivirosimo le parislaila, which means mitzvahs without love and fear, without experiencing the love and fear for the divine, they don't fly above. What does this mean they don't fly above? So if you look at the some of the teachings of the Magad of Masrich, he has this very, very mind-blowing teaching in which he says that.

The people who do mitzvah are not Shimbulumada, which means the people who just do mitzwas, even if they're sitting all day in the talis and still in the shore, but they're doing mitzvahs just out of road. They're just doing the commandments out of road, they're in a sense worse. than Rashaim, worse than wicked people. Why? Because he says that the wicked people, they might one day repent and then they'll actually do the mitzh properly with the Shal Islavus, with the Debakus.

with the sense of cleaving to the divine, with the sense of love and fear and all. And they'll do it properly. Whereas the person who's doing mitzvah sanash middle mother, the person who's just doing mitz because out of roads, he thinks he's doing it the right way. Therefore he's never he has no hope. Therefore he's worse than a rack. There's this idea which is found in early Hasidic masters that just do mitzvahs for the sake of mitzvahs.

without the avira, without going up this ladder, without this sense of transcendence, is deeply, deeply problematic. Going back to my friend who told me that the most important thing I could do is be in doing the bunk and not going to listen to the shear from one of the great terrorists. He'd missed the point. He didn't understand that maybe ultimately when you get to the highest level, you can apprehend how the physical is the greatest manifestation of the divine that could ever possibly be.

That could be that you will get there one day through working through the levels of the ladders. First Das Pakten and then Das Ellion and really apprehending that until you have a really clear apprehension of that. So you're really able to do it. And then when you do mitzwas, you'll do mitzvous on the highest level possible with the greatest Islam. Otherwise, if you say the mitzvahs are just everything we know about God, and you leave the transcendence.

You say, oh, that we shouldn't live a train. That feels self indulgent. That feels like Buddhism. We don't do that. All we do is actual mitzvahs. And we know God through the mitzvist. The mitzvahs become mitzvah Samashambullah Mada. They become by rote. You're doing them, yes, because they you feel they're connected in the divine, but it's a reductionism of God into the mitts. Into these physical acts.

without the full apprehension which has to happen through inner work, where you get to this sense of absolute transcendence and then the realization that the most profound Levels actually must be through the physical. Because in reality, the physical shouldn't be there. We shouldn't be here. The fact that it's here tells us something.

Now, what's really interesting is Rabba Aran has this thing where he says that yes, you get to this realization, but then if you try and search for it in the divine, you will never find it. Ha ha. So that this paradox, when this is the other concept, which I think that with all due respect to Rabbi Mannis Friedman, he doesn't like the concept of the So what is the paradox here? The paradox is on the one hand, the cosmism of tells us that none of this is here. We're not here.

It's all God. It's all succeeded in the one. And when you when you're Dutish, when you seek it, you try and understand right, you realize it's not here. We're not here. On the other hand, we're here. How can that be? How can we in essence being not here and here at the same time? That's the paradox. That's the pella. That's the paradox, what he calls the pella, the paradox. So we have this paradox which exists, and through that paradox, that's where you can get this apprehension that.

Something about the physical and therefore by extension doing the actual physical mitzvahs has something very, very profound within it. It is a very profound idea, but it can't be taken in a vacuum. It's taken in the vacuum. Then what it sounds like is that you're reducing God to the material.

No, we're not reducing God to the mitzvah. Make it very clear. That this idea is not reducing God to the mitzvah, which is sounds like what he's doing in a sense. Oh God, the only thing we can know about God is he wants to do this mitzvah. No. God is so unbelievably incomprehensible and it's such a a level of nothingness.

And it subsumes everything and there can be no need in God. You know, he says need, doesn't really mean need need, but there can be no need in God. There can only be separation in God. There can be no it'll kut. There can be that. God doesn't have power.

It's total multi-unity. Therefore, from that level, from that divine perspective of God, we don't exist. The universe doesn't exist. It's totally cosmic. But the fact is that we're here. That's the profound reality. We're here, we're in the divine. But if you take away the cosmism, then you're just left with us being here. And that's a problem. Then that's where you end up going back to my friend. He didn't understand, as Rabbi Al Khan said, that I was right.

And I didn't also I also didn't see the whole picture. I didn't see this part, which we're mentioning now. Now, whether that means that one should go and schlipp us or not, that's something I don't necessarily see eye to eye on anymore. But this concept I was missing as well. That the Zedas Alium perspective here. We're all subsumed in the one. And by rules within the one, yet we're still here. Somehow we must be Mushish and Atmos. We must be somehow.

You know, we're in the one. We subscribe to it. What does that mean? The religious Jewish person will tell you it means that you need to do mitzv. have a profound impact. But it comes from this profound realization of the cosmism of the Dust. of which is found in Hasidis, Hasidat Chabad, especially as it's found in the first two generations. Okay, so I wanted just wanted to uh talk about it.

And then I wanted to mention something else, which he mentioned at the end, which is I think very, very important. Because when I was talking about this idea of sense of real transcendence and feeling being subsumed in the one, he said that that's not godliness. That is spirituality. And then he said that sounds very self-indulgent. Now, I think this is also another issue here, which we need to unpack a little bit.

Because within Chabad Chasidric thought, which is I'm talking about it on his term, because he's a exponent, he expounds Chabad Hasidic thought. There is this idea I happen to like the what he said, that whenever it says N Hasidut, it says a Jew, it means a human, and when it says a tzadik, it means a Jew. So therefore you can say the soul of people, human souls, are one with the divine. ترجمة نانسي قنقر

So our souls are a part of the divine Mamish, part of Atmos. Found other places there. The soul comes from Atmos. And because it comes from Athens, it comes from the It is a part of God. It constantly wants to go up. Constantly wants to go up. The problem is that we as humans, we're in the physical world and we have what is known in Hasidic parlance as an Ef Shabah, a animal soul.

Most of the time we're in touch when we live, we're in touch with the animal soul. And as we're in touch with the animal soul, We don't want to go up. So what we can do is we can start to meditate. When we meditate and we realize that actually the world is contingent. The animal soul also realizes the water's contingent, and therefore gets on board with it.

Then when he gets on board with things, then the Nephashella kiss, the godly soul is able to take over and wants to floor above. Khalsa Nafsi. It has this desire, this thirsting to go above and to go back to its source. To the divine, to God itself. When you're feeling that, that ecstasy that one feels, it's not self indulgence. That ecstasy is the sense sweetness of God.

You're in touch with God because you're now in touch with your divine soul. Your animal soul has gotten out of the way. It's convinced. It's gone out of the way, at least for that. That's the idea of a bainini. The Baini is Davening. When the Bainni is Davening at that moment, the Nefesha Bahamas is convinced, it's on board. So now you can feel the experience of the loftiness of the transcendence of the divine. That is godly. That is god.

spiritual. That's God. Why? Because now you're in touch with your God's fault, which is a part of God Himself. This is a fundamental concept within Chabad Khsidism within Tanya. And it's a big mistake to say that somebody who's feeling divine ecstasy Someone who's feeling a sense of divinity of transcendence.

And and has a sense of the imminence of the divine. I think these two come together. And I tried to, I think I wasn't clear about it in the episode. That basically, when you feel the transcendence. When you feel you're totally subsumed, that's when you feel closest to God. Your soul is able to swore above. The physical becomes much less important because that which makes the physical important, which is an F Jahamis, the animal soul, is on board.

It also realizes it's less important, so it feels less important because you're in touch with your godly soul, and that is God. That's not self-indulgence, that's the opposite of self-indulgence. Self-indulgence is when you're indulging in what your Nefesha Muhammad wants, what your animal soul wants. That's self-indulgence.

Well, when you're indulging what your godly soul wants, that's godliness. That's not self-indulgence. So I just want to clear that up. That's really, really, really, really important. Now there's another concept here which I want to talk about.

Which is, he said, also that sounds like Buddhism. Now, I said that I don't know a lot about Buddhism, but it turns out I know a little bit about My quip to him or my response to him at the time was that there's something which all the mystics from all the different traditions have in common. And that is, they recognize that there's more to the universe than just the physical. Now you might say, well, the physical is a manifestation of the divine essence as we describe.

Yeah, but that's not the physical as of us indulging in the physical. That's just recognizing that the physical has to be totally subsumed, but it we're still here. Therefore we're also subsumed as the physical, as I mentioned. So the Buddhists also get this. So there's some overlap in that Venn diagram, yes. So to say that there is aspects of this level of transcendence of Hisponinus. Of meditative contemplation or just the contemplative work of which is found in Chabad Khid.

There is some overlap in the Vendagram with Buddhism? Absolutely, certainly, without a doubt. But that doesn't matter. The fact that there's overlap doesn't mean anything. In other words, when you say, oh, that's Buddhism, that doesn't mean it's bad. You know, they say that if you're going along the right path, you'll meet others along the way. There's something which people in the East also figured out.

Other people also figured this out. Other mystics. So you meet other people along the way. So when someone says, oh, well, that's Buddhism, that doesn't mean it's wrong. It doesn't mean it's bad. But is it most has something wrong? But the the the idea here is that if you're able to, as I mentioned, you're able to transcend the Nefama.

And get to inevitable kiss, get you transcend the the animal soul and get to your godly soul. That's a very, very powerful feeling. It's a feeling of being subsumed. Because the divine soul is Bamba.

So is that what Buddhists are doing? I don't know. But if it sounds like what Buddhists are what Buddhists are doing, then probably Buddhists are doing something right too. But it's that Avoida, that internal work, which is really, really important. And that's next point I want to get onto, which is the Avoida. So

When I was a very young, one of the things which really attracted me to the study of Hasidism was this idea of Davening. People who were able to, you know, get into a certain mindset of of divine ecstasy, of transcending the physical. That was something which I always was attracted to and it was something which I wanted to get into, wanted to experience. So what is it? From the Sidik perspective, what is going on here? What is Abuida all about?

So there's this idea which Manus Fuman talks a lot about. In Slava Kodashborough, God had this desire and he says it's a need.

Not really a need. He caveats it out. So the need is not really a need. It's a need without a lack. The need without a lack is not really a need. That's why it's called a desire. God desired there should be a dwelling place in the lower realms. What is this about dwelling place in the lower realms? What is I've already kind of gone over it a little bit, but let me spell it out.

The lower realms is within the human being. What is the lower realms of the human being? The animal soul. The animal soul which wants animalistic things and which doesn't have the ability to perceive the divine. That animalistic soul is is trying to cause the human being to go down.

That an animal is, as it is explained, constantly looks down, whereas a human can look up as well. The animal soul constantly wants to look down. It wants to drag the person to more physicality, more physicality, more physicality. Doesn't allow for transcendence. Now, the concept here is that the soul came down into the body in order to.

fight with in order to wrestle with the Nefesh Bahamas, to get the Nefesh Bahamas, force them on board, so the animal should also want to cleave to the divine, want to have to to the Vegas. And what happens when you do that? You cause there to be a dwelling place for the divine on the lower realms. What is the lower realms in the animal soul? That's the idea, that's the whole concept.

That is Abuida. That is the whole work. The work is with the Nefir Muhammad. That's what Abinni is doing. A being is constantly working with his animal soul to constantly get the animal soul on side. Now sometimes the animal soul is on site for a short period of time, then it goes back to becoming the animal soul. They need to get back, wrestle with it again, get it back on site. And every time you dive in.

Davaning, by the way, within this idea is contemplation, it's hisponinus, it's contemplated meditation. The whole Davaning, if you read about what prayer is all about in Chabad Hasidic thought, It's all about contemplation. Every single step of it is contemplation.

From Pasuga de Zimbra to to Shemat to Shmanesrik, it's all part and parcel of this contemplation of getting first the animalistic soul on side. And then once you get animalistic soul on side, then you can so high get to Das Alian when you come to Shman Esri.

All about getting the animalistic soul aside and then creating that dwelling place for the divine in your animalistic soul. So therefore, the animalistic soul also wants God, God feels comfortable in the lower realm. That's the whole of Rida. That's the basic

Once you do that and you get to the idea of Das Ta alien, like I mentioned, you can then have this epiphany that, wow, we're in the divine. We're in the divine essence and we're still here. We shouldn't be here, but we're still here. But it's all about this work, this inner work.

There might be extra things on top of it that ultimately you get to the ultimate, as Rabial Khan mentioned. But what you can end up doing is by just focusing on the ultimate is you can ignore all this other stuff. Could you end up not doing it? You don't Davin, you sharp and shortly talk the whole thing.

You don't contemplate that, but you don't do ever any spot in us. What you do is put on to film with other people. I'm not trying to criticize, I'm just saying that that's what could end up happening. And then what happens? I want to get to the final. And then what happens? What happens is the exact thing which Manus Friedman is criticized.

That you turn the mitzvah, the putting on film with the other people, the building the multi million dollar chabad house, et cetera, et cetera, you turn that into its own God. And you forget about the actual God. You forget about the transcendent God. You forget about the Das Elion. Das Elion's not there anymore. They're cosmism of the divine. You don't think about it. It's all about doing the mitzvah. That's what ends up happening. You turn the mitzvah into the guard.

And you forget about the real God. That's exactly what Manus Freeman is criticizing the Shiva world of, and that's exactly what he's doing. They say that's what they're doing. Someone who says that someone else is puzzle, a person who disqualifies others, they usually are disqualifying others in the thing that they themselves are disqualified in. Poisson but moment poison. So what I'm saying here is that what can end up happening

Is that when you forget the transcendence and you end up focusing on the actual mitzvah itself, and that's what known God is, you actually turn that physical into God Himself. And that's not the point. That's what ends up happening. You don't have God. All you have is the physical mitzvah. You have putting on film with another press You have to do

Bringing people on and on. I'm not won't y I don't need to get into the details, but the point is That realization that when I put fill and on with somebody else is something incredibly powerful, that realization only happens after you've gone through the whole ladder.

And had that most profound mystical realization of the cosmism of the divine. Yet I'm still here. I'm gonna finish off by I wanna finish off by um just So in summary, while I want to give credit to where credit's due to my master feed.

That he is articulating one of the most profound ideas, or he attempts, I would say, to articulate one of the most profound ideas of the Naziz. And he does so using language which is shocking. And that I think detracts in some way from the message. He also doesn't tell the whole story because he avoids the transcendence. I understand why he avoids the transcendent. Because it makes God feel far away. The problem is when you don't tell the whole story, it limits God. It makes God small.

So the whole story must be told, but the story is nuanced, the story is difficult. It's not exciting. Well, some people it's exciting, but it's not as exciting because what it means is true in a work and the true ability to study and and pray and to contemplate it, to do a sponge. And through all of that, you might get eventually to the highest level of divine realization, the level of Moses, that true total and utter self.

Nullification, self-abnegation, where you sense that you are totally subsidiary with the divine, and then you have that realization. And if you don't tell that whole story and you avoid the per certain part of it, you end up in this reductionist version of Judaism where you actually make God much smaller.

And you limit God just to the mitzvers, which I would say is what Manus Friedman is doing. And The irony of it is that that which he criticizes the Shiva for doing is in fact what he's doing himself, but in a different way. Now that's why I wanted to eventually to do this second um episode is to kind of bring it all together and to try and show I'm not trying to, God forbid, criticize Rabbi Manners Friedman.

I'm just trying to give the whole picture here because I felt that we only got part of the way there in my conversation with him. What we did do, which I think was very important, which was we got beyond some of the things which you know, which were The gimmicks, yes, God doesn't really need he doesn't really believe that, and yes, he also believed that God there is a transcendent aspect of God, he just didn't want to talk about it, etcetera.

But here I hope that I've expressed and explained this in a way which is helpful to you the list. One last thing, which is practical aspect. Okay, what's the difference? Because I go back to that story with me in camp, the practical aspect of all of that you could end up focusing on just being the person who wants to take care of their body. Just being the person who's giving the inspiration, whereas yourself not having gone through any of that ladder of transcendence.

And in that case, it ends up just being a reductionist version of Judaism without the transcendence. That's what could happen if you don't have the full picture. But was when you have the full picture, then you can actually have during the mitzvist with real the single with all with real advigura, love and fear, which are part of the saila, which actually fly above. And that is the point of the entire thing.

And then you end up with this situation where you can end up actually becoming a more refined person and your nephew Muhammad's your animal soul actually becomes more refined and in that case when your animal soul becomes more refined, what happens then? It itself wants to go up to God, you create a true dwelling place for the divine in the lowest realms within the human being. That's where it starts and it moves out from there. That's where it needs to start. It must start there.

And from there it grows outwards. Anyway, this has been Navy Bracken with Truths, Jewish Wisdom for today. Thank you so much for joining. And until next time.