Contraction, Lesson 1

Table of Contents

• The question of tzimtzum and the ontological problem
• Pantheism, panentheism, and the suspicion of word games
• The distinction between terms and concepts, and criticism of philosophical writing
• Ambiguity, lack of definition, nonsense, and the point of the discussion
• Types of philosophical disputes and the chocolate example
• An illustration of the difficulties of acosmism and non-literal tzimtzum
• Moving into the framework of Kabbalah: worlds, tzimtzum, and the line
• The method of the Leshem and the structure of the worlds
• Parable or reality: the dispute over the nature of the worlds
• Actual divinity, the Infinite Light, and essence
• Kabbalah, idolatry, and prayer through the sefirot
• Who studies Kabbalah, its value, and its sources

Summary

General overview

The text presents the question of tzimtzum as a name for one ontological problem: how a world that is not the Holy One, blessed be He, can exist if we assume infinity in the sense that there is no possibility of any “empty space devoid of Him,” and it emphasizes that behind the discussion stand methodological questions about conceptual clarity, definition, and word games. It suggests that pantheism and panentheism sometimes serve as different answers to the problem, but may remain empty of content if they do not clarify what they add beyond a change of name. It distinguishes between meaningless concepts, concepts that are vague but meaningful, and discussions for which there is no intelligent way to decide. It then moves the discussion into the framework of Kabbalah through a description of tzimtzum in Etz Chaim and the system of worlds, explains the position of the Leshem regarding the reality of the worlds and the meaning of “actual divinity” in Atzilut, and touches on the dispute over what the Infinite Light is in relation to essence. It concludes with a cautious personal approach to Kabbalah as a tradition that contains spiritual intuition and depends on historical development, and is at times also nourished from outside sources, without requiring that every detail be Torah given to Moses at Sinai.

The question of tzimtzum and the ontological problem

The basic problem is formulated in Kabbalah as whether tzimtzum is literal or not literal, and in the language of philosophers as the question whether things can exist that are not the Holy One, blessed be He. He assumes, as a conventional assumption, that the Holy One, blessed be He, is infinite in the sense of “filling” everything, and sharpens the point that the difficulty arises because if He is present everywhere and in every sense, then there is no room for anything other than Him; and if there is a reality that is not Him, then He would seem to be limited. He adds that complete identification of reality with divinity creates the opposite problem of corporeality and bodily form, so the question is how to get out of the dilemma between infinity and the existence of a distinct world.

Pantheism, panentheism, and the suspicion of word games

Pantheism is defined as the view that everything is divinity and that divinity is the totality of reality, and it is presented as a possible solution to the question of how there can be nothing outside divinity. He argues that pantheism sometimes sounds to him like atheism with nothing more than a change of name, because the claim boils down to saying that reality exists and then calling it “God” without adding any content. He sharpens the point that the debate over pantheism does not depend on the question of materialism versus dualism, because one can be a pantheist in either position; the question is what one calls “God” in relation to the whole. Panentheism is presented as “everything is in God” rather than “everything is God,” and he identifies two versions of it: one version in which reality is a subset of God and therefore there is something beyond reality, and a subtler version in which there are no additional objects, but rather a change in the way totality is understood as a whole that is beyond the sum of its parts, similar to an organism or a collective. He points out that these terms have become especially common in philosophical explanations of Hasidism, and that pantheism has become “muktzeh” ever since Spinoza, to the point that alternative terms had to be invented.

The distinction between terms and concepts, and criticism of philosophical writing

He argues that some discussions are confused because they use two different terms for the same concept, and he illustrates this with an anecdote about the distinction between “borrower” and “lender” as a linguistic distinction rather than a conceptual one. He describes a feeling that scholarly articles about shades of various “isms” manufacture imaginary disputes by changing names rather than content, and he warns against “second-order” philosophy that juggles a system of concepts without descending to their definitions and meanings. He lists isms such as atheism, theism, deism, pantheism, panentheism, and acosmism, and suggests that many of them are effectively equivalent in many cases if they are not examined analytically.

Ambiguity, lack of definition, nonsense, and the point of the discussion

He distinguishes between a vague concept that is hard to define and a meaningless concept, and qualifies the criticism of undefined concepts by noting that every definition always rests on other terms, so there must be a basic set that cannot be defined. He presents the position of the positivists, who demand meaning only for what can be tested empirically and place metaphysics under the heading of “nonsense,” and he brings in the early Wittgenstein with the slogan, “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent,” while distinguishing between silence because there is no meaning and silence because there is no point in defining. He gives the concept of existence as an example of a basic concept that is undefined yet understood and meaningful, and therefore the claim that lack of definition means lack of meaning leads to total silence. He adds another level of criticism, namely that even meaningful concepts can still generate pointless discussions because there is no rational way to decide between them, and he calls this a dialogue of the deaf.

Types of philosophical disputes and the chocolate example

He divides philosophical arguments into four types: real arguments that are not settled empirically but still involve arguments; meaningless arguments that are just word games in which both sides are saying the same thing; arguments that are not worth conducting because there is no intelligent way to clarify them; and apparent arguments that arise because the same concept is being used in two different senses or because people are talking about different aspects. He illustrates this with the dispute over whether “it’s worth eating chocolate,” where one side emphasizes taste and the other health, and he argues that there is no disagreement about the reasons themselves but at most about weighting and preference. He compares this to “These and these are the words of the living God” as a situation in which both sides present correct considerations, but the bottom line is determined by a decision about relative weights, and he notes that in halakhic disputes the ruling can be made by vote or by authority.

An illustration of the difficulties of acosmism and non-literal tzimtzum

Acosmism is defined as the view that the universe is an illusion and that only the divine Absolute exists, and he attacks it with the question, “Whose illusion is it?” if no created being exists at all. He compares this to non-literal tzimtzum as the position that divinity did not contract, that there is no place devoid of Him, and that there is nothing besides Him, to the point of describing created beings as an illusion, and again he raises the conceptual difficulty of an illusion without a subject. He argues that a great deal has been written about this without doing the most basic analytical work of defining illusion and distinguishing between the claims, and so contradictory formulations are produced, such as “we are Him and He is us” alongside “we do not exist.”

Moving into the framework of Kabbalah: worlds, tzimtzum, and the line

He prefers to speak in the language of Kabbalah because its concepts are more convenient for the problem, and he presents the philosophers’ picture as an infinite empty distance between the Creator and created beings, as opposed to Kabbalah in which that infinite gap is “filled” with worlds. He describes the Infinite Light as something that fills everything without properties, and the tzimtzum in Etz Chaim as the withdrawal of the Infinite Light to the sides and the creation of an empty space described as a circle, where “circle” signifies equal distance from every aspect rather than spatial geometry. He adds “the line” that enters the void and descends almost to the bottom without touching, and he calls this state “the world of line and tzimtzum,” from which further stages develop.

The method of the Leshem and the structure of the worlds

The Leshem is described as holding that the worlds are descents one below another and not merely envelopes around the line, and that the “true” Infinite Light does not contract; rather, a reality is created in which there is a contracted infinity. He lays out the order: the Infinite Light, line and tzimtzum, Adam Kadmon, and after that Atzilut, then Beriah, Yetzirah, and Asiyah. He explains that Adam Kadmon is the first world in which “the form of man” appears through the arrangement of the sefirot in three lines. He describes Atzilut as another envelope around Adam Kadmon and the worlds of Beriah, Yetzirah, and Asiyah as lower worlds, and notes that kabbalists write that from Atzilut and upward this is “actual divinity,” while Beriah, Yetzirah, and Asiyah are separate worlds. He identifies the Throne of Glory as the barrier between the separate worlds and the worlds of divinity, and interprets the saying “where philosophy ends, Kabbalah begins” as a geographical identification of the transition point at the Throne of Glory.

Parable or reality: the dispute over the nature of the worlds

He presents a sharp dispute between those who understand the language of the worlds as describing an actual reality and those who take it as mere parable, for example as a parable for states of consciousness or for psychological analysis by means of the sefirot. The Leshem is described as a sharp opponent of the parabolic approach, because it dissolves the difference between the revealed and the hidden into a merely linguistic difference, whereas he insists that Kabbalah must be dealing with something genuinely different and not the same reality in another language. He emphasizes that even someone who says “not a parable” does not mean circles and lines in physical space in the literal sense, but rather a descriptive language that does not reduce the worlds to mere metaphor.

Actual divinity, the Infinite Light, and essence

He explains “actual divinity” in Atzilut according to the Leshem as a relation in which the Infinite Light is “within it,” like a soul in a body, similar to the way soul and body are perceived together as one entity called a human being. He distinguishes this from Beriah, Yetzirah, and Asiyah, where the Infinite Light influences “from outside” and does not create the intimacy that unifies them into one entity, and therefore they are considered separate worlds. Regarding the Infinite Light, he presents a dispute among kabbalists as to whether the Infinite Light is the Holy One, blessed be He, Himself, or whether it is a will to reveal and a potential for revelation. He attributes to the Leshem the position that the Infinite Light is a potential that includes “hidden sefirot,” and above it stands “His hidden essence,” about which one does not speak. He shows that this can be seen as transferring the philosophical gap into the relation between the Infinite Light and essence, so that Kabbalah and philosophy may be saying the same thing in a different structure.

Kabbalah, idolatry, and prayer through the sefirot

He describes the shock of philosophers at the statement that from Atzilut and upward this is actual divinity, because it appears like anthropomorphism, configurations, and parts, and even leads to the accusation that Kabbalah is idolatry. He brings an explanation from the Leshem, in halakhic-conceptual terms, according to which the prohibition on turning to intermediaries applies only to objects from separate worlds, such as stars in Beriah, Yetzirah, and Asiyah, whereas sefirot and divine names in Atzilut are not intermediaries but rather a mode of turning to Him Himself, because the Infinite Light is in them like a soul in a body. He notes that prayer is described among kabbalists as directed according to worlds and sefirot, and clarifies that within this framework the distinction between “through an intermediary” and “through His names” is the key to the justification that this is not idolatry.

Who studies Kabbalah, its value, and its sources

He argues that the great kabbalists were major Torah scholars, and that in the past there was a requirement that one first “fill his belly with Shas and halakhic decisors,” but he notes that today even genuine kabbalists sometimes waive that condition. He expresses a cautious personal view that the Zohar probably contains ancient sections alongside later sections from the end of the Middle Ages, and therefore he is not sure that everything has to be Torah given to Moses at Sinai. He suggests that Kabbalah can stem from spiritual intuition and a genuine perception of spiritual structures even if it is not “information” that descended from above, and therefore it does not require that every detail be fixed as an absolute datum. He mentions historical contacts of Jews with Christian Kabbalah and with external traditions, including a story about Rabbi Shabbetai Donnolo the physician, who understood Sefer Yetzirah after an encounter with a Muslim sage or some other sage, and concludes that nourishment from outside does not necessarily invalidate the content.

I want to deal a bit with the question of tzimtzum and its implications. After all, that’s a code word for all kinds of problems, or maybe schools of thought, but they show up in all kinds of contexts. And beyond the problems themselves, it seems to me that behind them there are also all sorts of methodological questions: how do you handle this kind of problem, if these are even problems at all. So we’ll try to touch on that a bit.

The basic problem, I think, runs through all these discussions. On the kabbalistic side, let’s say, they call it tzimtzum—whether tzimtzum is literal or non-literal. In the language of the philosophers, they ask the same question, just phrased differently: is it possible that there are things that are not the Holy One, blessed be He? Right? Basically that’s equivalent to the same question. Meaning: if the Holy One, blessed be He, is infinite, and there is no place devoid of Him, then the question is how it could be that there are things that are not Him, outside of Him.

And who says He is infinite? Good question. That’s the accepted assumption. It would be worth thinking about that more systematically sometime, but let’s assume it for now—that’s the standard assumption. Infinite isn’t the problem; it’s a kind of infinity that supposedly fills everything. There can be many infinite things that don’t fill everything—just infinite things. Infinite in one dimension. No, but the point is that He has no end in any aspect. Meaning, this is infinity in every sense. Fine, maybe we’ll come back to that point too.

These questions raise all sorts of concepts, approaches, and terms that very often give me the feeling that they’re nothing more than word games. I’ll give one example right away: pantheism. Spinoza’s view, and there are all sorts of shades and varieties of pantheism. Pantheism means that everything is divinity; divinity is basically the whole totality of reality. That’s connected to our topic, of course, because it basically says that in fact there is nothing outside divinity, because this whole totality is divinity. So it’s a certain kind of answer to this question.

The question is: what does that actually mean? And when I ask what it means, I ask whether it isn’t really just plain atheism. What are you actually saying? You’re saying that this whole totality exists. Fine, I also know it exists. So now you call it God—call it Moishele, what difference does it make what you call it? In the end, what you’re saying is that this thing exists, and that’s it. And there is nothing besides it. Yes, and there is nothing besides it—meaning, you say that divinity is this totality.

Reality? All of reality, yes.

The created reality or…?

No, that’s another question. I’m talking right now before getting into the details of pantheism. I’m trying to use this to illustrate the problematic nature that accompanies this whole kind of discussion. Does pantheism really mean anything? My feeling is no. It says nothing. It’s simply atheism in the sense that what exists is what we know around us—that is, reality itself as we know it.

What did it mean for them—for Spinoza and all those people—what was the conclusion of that? I don’t know. That’s a big question. And they have very learned arguments for how one arrives at the pantheistic conclusion. Some of them are arguments I hinted at in the beginning—that it cannot be that there is anything outside God, and so on. So this is a certain kind of outlet for some people, a certain solution to this problem.

The question is whether it really solves it. Is there a difference between atheism and pantheism? I don’t see it. What’s the difference? That you now use the word God for the totality of the universe? Fine, call it that—what difference does it make?

Sometimes people present these as different conceptions of divinity. Meaning, there are theological debates about what God is, different conceptions of divinity. So some think pantheism is right, and others think there is what’s called a personal God—some kind of defined being outside the reality we know. I don’t feel these are really different theological conceptions.

Plain atheism is definitely not that, because that includes some sort of entity that is—I don’t know—not physical, or not something that created and directs the parts of reality that are physical and are…

What does pantheism include?

Pantheism. What are you talking about? Why? This whole thing—let’s call it this “all”—is composed of spiritual parts and…

No—what spiritual parts? What you know, nothing beyond that. Whatever any theist thinks exists, pantheism also says exists; it’s just that pantheism also calls this entire totality God.

Why? A standard materialist theist thinks that what we know is…

No, fine. No—you’re mixing two independent questions here. One question is whether you’re a dualist or a materialist. Do you think only matter exists, or that other things exist too? Entirely independent of that question, you can be a materialist pantheist or a dualist pantheist. That’s unrelated. And now the question is: what is your conception of divinity—who is God? So I say: God is the totality of reality. Now what is the totality of reality? That depends on whether you’re a materialist or a dualist. You can argue about that. But that totality—whatever, according to your belief, exists here in the world, whatever it may be—that totality is God.

Wait, can a pantheist include a creator in the picture? Someone who directed reality and defines obligation, I don’t know?

In God there is the creator plus creation.

Yes. That’s just words. Fine. So there is God—that’s a conception of divinity. I think there’s a problem, there’s a lack of clarity here, but it’s definitely not atheism.

Again—of course it is. Again, you haven’t said anything. Because what you said is that there is a creator who created creation, and there is a creation created by Him, and now you’re just giving a name to the pair together and calling it God. How is that different from a conception of a personal God? Now I’ll go to the other side: there is a God who created the world—you call Him creator, I call Him God. Fine, we compromised on the name. What difference does it make? Again, it’s wordplay.

So in the end…

Wait—those who held this view, those called pantheists, did they mean A or B?

What do you mean A or B?

Did they mean something that includes…

No, no, no. They spoke about reality as we understand it now, without even getting into the question of whether this reality also includes spiritual, non-material elements. That’s another question. Whatever there is in reality—whatever it may be—all those things you call reality, that whole totality, that all-inclusive whole, is what is called God.

But the very fact that it’s called God means it’s primordial, as if uncreated, no? Why else call it God?

I don’t know. Same question. Suppose you say it’s primordial. Fine. What difference does it make?

Now if someone maintains it in light of the fact that we know the world came into being…

So? Then it doesn’t fit anymore. The world did come into being.

No, it’s not so simple. What does it mean that the world came into being? There was a singular point, which I don’t know where it came from. “The world came into being” is still a very problematic statement, even today. Reality as we know it today is something that began fifteen billion years ago, something like that. From a point. It began from a point—but where did that point come from? What was before it? I don’t know if “before” even applies; the time axis itself was also created. What was before it? Well?

Yes. It isn’t primordial. Today’s reality isn’t primordial.

Why not?

Because it started from a point.

It started from a point, but that point is also something.

The point is something, but it isn’t the reality.

Exactly—when they used to say that the world is primordial, they assumed that…

Fine, obviously. So today there’s a different notion of primordiality. What difference does it make?

I think if someone maintains it, says that panthe…

Are there pantheists today?

I think there are, yes.

Yes. Again, I can’t point to names of philosophers, but I’m sure you’d find them among philosophers too. Yes.

Now this God is a dynamic God. Reality changes—fine. So this whole totality is a dynamic totality. Again, I’m saying, it really does sound funny; I’m trying to convey this view to you.

What? Don’t you find a lot of pantheism in Hasidism?

Of course you do. Yes. Certainly. We’ll talk about that.

What?

That there are parts of Hasidism that are pantheistic in this sense—that this is how they perceive things, that this is us, and that this is what all these things are called.

Of course. We’ll see it.

And now there are people—pantheism has been taboo ever since Spinoza. Not because the idea is problematic as such, but because there is a symbiosis between the idea and the person. After all, most of those who excommunicated Spinoza understood nothing of his philosophy. They weren’t philosophers; they were Torah scholars, halakhic people, I don’t know—they didn’t really understand what he was saying. But somehow it became fixed that Spinoza is taboo.

Yes, he’s a heretic, exactly.

So once he was put beyond the pale, the concept of pantheism basically became illegitimate in the Jewish world of thought. So what do you do? After all, all of Hasidism is basically pantheistic. What do you do? You invent additional concepts, which also, I think, say almost nothing.

What, no? To say Hasidism is pantheistic? What does that mean?

We’ll talk about it—that’s non-literal tzimtzum. Basically everything is divinity. Everything is divinity.

But Hasidism also includes reference to a personal God.

Wait, I’ll talk more about these references in a moment. There’s a difference between the theory and the way you live it, your experience. That’s an essential part of the Hasidic conception.

If everything is divinity…

Fine, I have lots of problems with that conception. I’ll help—at the moment I’m only illustrating, just giving an initial example. I still haven’t entered into the discussion itself.

So they invent a concept called panentheism. Panentheism means everything is in God, not everything is God. Now, what exactly does that mean? Maybe it does have meaning. Here I’m already less categorical than I was before, but I’m not sure. That is, I’m not entirely sure it really has meaning.

There are panentheistic views that definitely have meaning. Maybe the simpler versions define God as basically something bigger than all reality. Reality is part of Him, but there is something more. Something else. And this entire whole is what is called God. Meaning, this claim is actually not a claim about God but a claim about us: that we are not something separate from Him, but part of Him. All right? Yes? That’s basically the claim.

But there is a panentheism—sorry—that is more subtle. So subtle that, in my opinion, it says nothing. Meaning, it basically says that the whole is something beyond its components, but not that there is something else. It does not claim that there are additional components besides reality, because then what would define them as components that are not reality? Again we arrive at meaninglessness. So what are you saying? The whole itself, the whole beyond the components, is divinity. Meaning, the collection of components is not yet a whole. A whole—think of an organism. In an organism there is something in the collection of things that create the organism such that even if you knew each of them separately, you still wouldn’t understand what an organism is.

Like what you said at the beginning—like a liquid.

Yes, like a liquid. Or you can also talk about a human collective. It doesn’t matter—various things of this kind.

Now there are claims more subtle than the previous version I mentioned, claims that panentheism is basically ordinary pantheism, but the conception of totality in this doctrine is different. Meaning, the claim is that totality is not just the collection of components that make it up; there is something in the whole beyond the collection of particulars that compose it. But not that there are more particulars.

Emergence?

Emergence, for example, yes. It’s that kind of idea. I think that… well, let’s leave aside what we say about emergence, but the claim is…

The previous wording I gave for panentheism basically says that reality is a subset of God. Meaning, in God there are more things than just reality. Fine. If that means something to someone, then fine—it has meaning. Meaning, it’s not meaningless. It says something; it’s not simple atheism. Okay? Here I do see the difference between this and pantheism.

But in this version of panentheism—and in my opinion this is panentheism, sorry, and I think this is the original, though later it went through all kinds of processing and versions—it basically says that there is nothing except the things we know. Only this totality as a whole is God. And the whole is something—meaning, it is something beyond the particulars that compose it, yes? Just as a people is not only the collection of individuals included in it, but has some sort of thing there that Hegel would perhaps call the spirit of the nation, the nation itself. Fascist conceptions loved that, of course. In other words, it doesn’t matter—that’s an embodiment of the view that says the collective itself has some added value beyond the statement that this collection of particulars constitutes a collective.

So in the atheistic view there is basically a collection of particulars, lots of things, with laws of nature, lots of complex reality as we know it. In the panentheistic view no additional object is added, but this totality is seen differently. And this totality itself is something beyond the collection of particulars that compose it. Seeing the world as an organism, as opposed to seeing it as simply the collection of things in it. Okay?

Fine, I’m not sure I’ve said anything here. I mean, I’m not…

What?

But I’m not sure this view is the one under discussion in Hasidism, because I’ve never read anything that sounds like this.

Fine, because you haven’t read the philosophy of Hasidism. You’ve read Hasidic discourses. Let’s talk…

I’m not a great expert, but from what…

Neither am I a great expert. I’ll speak…

Who deals with the philosophy of Hasidism? Who?

A lot of people. Wait, let’s continue. Wait, let’s continue.

Which books does the Rabbi mean?

I’ll get to that. I’ll get to it.

That’s why I say that the collection of discussions on these issues—first of all, I’m already putting on the table as an introduction that one has to watch carefully whether, when we say something, we’re actually saying something or whether it’s just verbal sophistication and we’re calling one thing by another name and suddenly we have a different opinion. There’s a dispute between schools, right? These are pantheists and those are atheists. There’s a disagreement here. But they’re saying the same thing; they’re just giving different names.

So very often, at least my feeling—and I read learned articles about this by philosophers who analyze the views of these people and those people and shades of pantheism and non-shades of pantheism—my feeling is that it says nothing. It’s just word games. It’s roughly like postmodernism. In general.

Now I want to sharpen a few sub-phenomena that are not exactly this phenomenon. The phenomenon I’ve been talking about until now is simply confusion. Meaning, it’s the use of two concepts that have the same content. Two terms, not two concepts. Two terms where the concept they signify is the same concept. Meaning, they say the same thing. Okay?

It reminds me that in the Torah core group there’s some Google group where people sometimes write things. So someone there posted some letter where he wanted to explain to people the difference between the concepts of borrower and lender. Or “to lend” and “to borrow,” right? When people often say, “I want to lend something from you”—you know that mistake? So he started explaining there what it means “to borrow,” what it means “to lend.” Then I told him, incidentally, I said: now you’re distinguishing here between terms, not between concepts. Meaning, everybody knows there is a lender and there is a borrower; nobody is confused about that. The question is which word to use for each of them. The issue you’re dealing with is the word, not the concept signified by the word. Meaning, a distinction between terms, not between concepts. Okay?

And here I’m saying the same thing. That is, very often in… what I’ve been saying until now is that different terms are used to describe the same concept. Right? Pantheism and atheism, in my opinion, are different terms that describe the same concept. Even though in every theological encyclopedia you open—I don’t know what that even is, but say someone surveys all the theological positions—you’ll find a respectable entry: atheism, pantheism, panentheism, acosmism, all kinds of these “-isms” that, in my opinion, many of them are equivalent to one another.

Is panentheism something unique to Judaism in connection with Hasidism?

Not necessarily, but among Jewish philosophers it’s very popular as an explanation of Hasidism, for example. Hasidism itself did not think in the language of “isms,” of course, but when people analyze it, this is the explanation they usually tend toward.

What is the opposite term to atheism among the “isms”? Deism or theism?

Theism. Yes, atheism is of course the opposite of theism.

And that isn’t religion?

What?

And that isn’t like religion?

So I’m saying: there is also the concept of deism, which is belief in God in some philosophical sense, not a religious one. He doesn’t command, maybe doesn’t supervise—there are different levels, of course. And there is theism, which is of course also translated into… In the past there wasn’t such a distinction…

Yes, but in the past there still wasn’t this distinction between deism and theism; that’s a modern distinction. Today there are many people who are not committed to any religion but believe in God in some philosophical sense; that term is called deism. Okay? Which is really the proper opposite of atheism. But because in the past there was not yet a distinction between theism and deism, so… okay.

Now there are a few similar phenomena, but they’re not the same thing. A few fallacies—or not fallacies, just things to be aware of. For example, there are vague concepts. The concepts I described now are vague concepts; it will be hard to define them precisely. But not every vague concept means that it has no content. And here I’m qualifying what I said earlier.

Meaning, sometimes it will be hard for us to define a concept using other terms—to pin it down in some exact definition. But that doesn’t mean it says nothing. Those are two different things. And not only because of the following simple argument: when you define a concept, you have to use other concepts, right? Terms, actually—sorry, I said it; you have to be more careful. But you have to use other terms to define it. Okay? Not that same term itself which you are defining.

Now how will you define those terms? By means of still other terms. And obviously that term can’t now enter in the background in order to define those that define it, right? You need others. And at some point this will stop. So there is some initial set of terms that you will not be able to define. Necessarily. That’s a logical proof. Okay?

So if I think that terms that cannot be defined are meaningless—as many positivists thought—then you are doomed simply to be silent. And that’s what Wittgenstein recommended. At the end of the early Wittgenstein’s book, he says: whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent. And by this he meant all of metaphysics. He was a positivist, at least in his early period, so all of metaphysics and the concepts of God and angels and providence and all kinds of things like that—the positivists’ claim was that these are meaningless concepts, just words, they say nothing. Because for them, what says something is only what can be measured in a laboratory, what can be subjected to an empirical test, what has some prediction about reality—what it should do and what it should not do. Only such things have meaning.

So when you deal with those things in metaphysics, things that cannot be defined in a general way, then you should be silent. That’s what Wittgenstein says. But “be silent” is also an interesting question. Be silent because there is no point in speaking, or be silent because there is nothing to speak about? Those are interpretive debates. Because the extreme positivists say: be silent because even if you do speak, you are saying nothing—there is nothing to speak about. These concepts are empty concepts. Okay?

By contrast, I think that’s not correct. So in my opinion Wittgenstein meant something else. He meant: there’s no point in speaking if your speech fails to define the things—be silent. But that doesn’t mean that the term has no meaning if it cannot be defined. It only means that about it one should be silent and not speak. What does that mean? If it has meaning, then yes, speech does convey something. Speech using it—but not an attempt to define it. I can use it; but when I come to define it, about it one must be silent. That’s the point.

So fine, I’m saying these are really two… it’s a thin line. And it depends, of course, on one’s worldview. Positivists will put many concepts into the nonsense category—the category where these are really meaningless words, terms, again. Into some category of meaningless terms behind which there is no concept. Terms behind which there is no concept are meaningless terms.

Others with a more flexible, less rigid worldview will put fewer concepts into that group, the group of nonsense. But there are still such terms that, in my opinion, really are nonsense.

There are terms that are vague, hard to define, but not meaningless—just hard to define. For example, how can you define existence? That something exists. The existence of something. I don’t know a definition of such a thing. Mathematicians say: anything over which one can quantify. They use quantifiers in logic. Fine, that’s obviously simplistic. You can’t define it. It’s a basic concept, but I think everybody understands it and it has meaning. It’s not a meaningless concept.

Because there is a discussion about what happens if I ask whether anything really exists in the world—a philosophical question. Does anything exist in the world, or is idealism correct? Idealism means that in fact nothing exists outside me; everything is ideas. Everything exists only in my consciousness, not in the world itself. If the concept of existence is meaningless, then this discussion is also meaningless. And there were those who wanted to claim: define the concept of existence before I begin discussing this with you. One cannot define the concept of existence, so then this inquiry says nothing. But that’s not true, I think. It isn’t true that it says nothing. Whether there is any point in engaging in this inquiry is another question, but it’s not true that it says nothing. It does say something.

So that seems to me an important distinction. One always has to pay close attention: are we speaking about a meaningless concept, or about a concept we don’t know how to define, or cannot define, or can define only with difficulty? That’s another question.

A third thing—and it touches very much on the kinds of concepts I just defined—is the question whether there is any point in conducting the discussion. The concept has meaning; it’s not empty. But it still may be that there’s no point in having the discussion. For example: is there a reality out there, or is it all my imagination? Many people would say, with a good deal of justice: what’s the point of discussing that? You have no way to decide this discussion. You can say this, you can say that. It changes nothing; you go on living exactly the same way. So why discuss it? It’s just a word mill.

The discussion is pointless not because these are not two different positions, not because I’m not trying to examine two alternatives that differ from each other. They do differ. But there is no point to the discussion because there is no intelligent way to conduct it. All right?

So therefore, as I hinted, there are meaningless concepts; there are concepts that have meaning but cannot be defined, or are very difficult to define, and maybe their definition really is vague; and there are nearby concepts where we feel they are not the same thing, but we won’t succeed in defining what exactly the difference is between them.

And then, regarding these concepts, there is room to discuss, or to ask whether there is any point in debating them at all—whether this is just an exchange of words. No one will convince the other, not because he thinks differently, but because you can’t raise persuasive arguments here; there is no way to handle this kind of discussion rationally and intelligently. All right?

And that’s a third level of criticism of philosophical discussions of this sort, right? One person says it’s nonsense. The second says you haven’t defined the concepts, so you can’t talk. And the third says—meaning, it has meaning, but you haven’t defined the concepts. And the third says: if you haven’t defined the concepts, I understand that there is a difference, but there’s no point to the discussion; this discussion is a dialogue of the deaf. There aren’t really arguments here. You can’t really conduct such a discussion.

And I would say more generally—perhaps a general remark about philosophy—there are times when one has the feeling that philosophy as a whole is a word mill. I spoke about this in one of the previous years when I talked about philosophy, and in the introduction I dealt with it a bit. I don’t remember how many years ago.

Five or six.

Aharoni’s?

What? Aharoni’s? Yes, but that’s not what I mean. Aharoni doesn’t claim it’s a word mill; he claims it’s a mistake. That’s not the same claim. Aharoni claims all philosophy rests on one mistake. That’s not the same criticism as saying philosophy says nothing, because what says nothing is not mistaken; what says nothing simply says nothing. So that’s something different.

Now there is a very widespread feeling, much more than Aharoni’s feeling, that philosophy is just playing with words, it doesn’t progress anywhere. That philosophy today is not in a different place than it was three thousand years ago—unlike physics or mathematics or scientific fields where we really do accumulate knowledge and make progress. That’s how many people feel. I’m not sure that’s true, by the way, but there is such a feeling.

My own feeling, on the other hand—and again, you have to take specific examples and look at them—is that philosophy is definitely a field in which one can progress and reach conclusions if one is willing to go with—if one trusts common sense, not built logical proofs, because then you quite quickly begin playing with words.

As a result, my claim is that philosophical disputes divide into a few basic types. Philosophical disagreements divide into a few basic categories. There are a few basic types.

There are real disputes—usually probably not fully decidable, but sometimes you can raise arguments this way and that, because if it were an empirical decision, it would be science and not philosophy.

There are disputes that are simply meaningless and are just word games—by that I mean that both sides are saying the same thing.

There are disputes that there is no point in conducting; they are dialogues of the deaf, as I said before. They do not say the same thing, but there is no way to attack or defend or raise arguments to clarify it.

And there are many disputes—in my opinion, most disputes in philosophy—where people use the same concept in two different senses, or speak about two different aspects, and they feel they have a huge disagreement, but really there is simply no disagreement. They are speaking about two different aspects of the issue.

Yes, the example I have already given a hundred thousand times about chocolate—it’s a borrowed example, but yes: one person says it’s worth eating chocolate because it’s tasty, the other says it’s not worth eating chocolate because it’s unhealthy or because it’s fattening. Okay, so they have a disagreement over whether it is or isn’t worth eating chocolate. Fine. But when you look a little at the reasons, you discover that there isn’t really a disagreement, because both are right. Maybe there would be a disagreement if one said, “I prefer health to taste,” and the other said, “I prefer taste to health”—then there would be a disagreement, but then I don’t know how to decide it. Fine?

But the dispute over whether chocolate is tasty or unhealthy is not a dispute. It is both tasty and unhealthy.

And therefore in very many philosophical disputes, in my opinion, these are really imaginary disputes. That is, you are talking about different aspects of the issue, and both are right.

I once talked, I think, about “these and those are the words of the living God” regarding Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel, and the claim was that when we say “these and those are the words of the living God,” it does not mean both are right in the bottom line. It means both raise correct reasons. That Beit Shammai, say regarding an egg laid on a Jewish holiday—Beit Shammai say, eat it; Beit Hillel say, don’t eat it, right, the first Mishnah in tractate Beitzah—so Beit Shammai have good reasons why it may be eaten, and Beit Hillel also have good reasons why it may not be eaten. In that sense “these and those are the words of the living God.” Neither side was idiotic; neither side is speaking nonsense. The reasons of both sides are certainly sound.

But that does not mean that at the bottom line there is no disagreement. Why? Because now one has to weigh the reasons in favor against the reasons against, and see which outweighs which. And here there is a real dispute between Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel. Because one says the reasons against eating the egg outweigh the reasons in favor, and the other says the opposite. Here only one is right. This is already a dispute of the first type. This is already a dispute of the first type—of common sense, and everyone…

Right. There’s not much point in conducting it, it’s hard to conduct it. It’s hard to raise arguments that will convince or support a given opinion; basically, this is how I think, and I can only repeat what I think a hundred thousand times. So that may indeed belong to the type of disputes that there is no point in conducting. But it is a real dispute in which one is right and the other wrong.

By contrast, the disagreement at the level of reasons is an imaginary disagreement. Because I also agree that chocolate is tasty, and you also agree that chocolate is unhealthy. It’s just that when I want to oppose eating chocolate I always wave around the fact that it’s unhealthy. I don’t mention the fact that it’s tasty—sorry, that it’s unhealthy—and I mention the fact that it’s tasty. And the one who wants to push the agenda of eating chocolate always says, “Look how tasty chocolate is.” He doesn’t mention that it’s unhealthy. So somehow it comes out as if they have a disagreement, but when you examine the reasons, there is no disagreement. They are simply speaking about different aspects of the issue.

At the bottom line there may be a disagreement, if they had to decide. Then the question is which outweighs which, how the different reasons are weighed.

And therefore I think that in very many disputes in philosophy, that’s the point: the disagreement at the level of reasons is an imaginary disagreement. And the question of the bottom line—sometimes there is a bottom line about which there is a real disagreement, and sometimes not.

In the dispute of Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel concerning what is determined in the bottom line—whether something is correct or not correct?

Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai—each one simply keeps repeating his arguments all the time. That’s it. And then someone goes home. That’s all.

And in what sense, at the bottom line, is there someone who…

A vote, and they decide who. Simply a vote. With Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel there was a heavenly voice; never mind. But say it’s some tannaitic or amoraic dispute, it doesn’t matter—simply a vote and go home.

Look, I can try—once there are authoritative sources, then perhaps I can prove on the basis of authoritative sources, maybe. Once we’ve finished that and everyone has managed with all the sources, what remains is to vote. That’s all.

Okay, now here—therefore I say—these introductions are needed because in the discussions we’re going to have, one constantly has to watch carefully whether they are saying something, whether these arguments really are arguments that can move a position or change a position, or whether this is meaningless and just wordplay.

A positivist criterion, or a criterion like Popper’s, some sharp criterion that demands crispness of discussion—I don’t think that’s the right thing to apply in this area. But we need to beware of the opposite pole as well, that is, saying: okay, you can say anything, play with words, and everything is fine. I’m saying a large part of the philosophical literature is wordplay. It says nothing.

And by the way, scholars of philosophy, professors of philosophy, write learned articles on the conception of this one and the conception of that one and shades among the students of this person and that person—and there is no… it simply says nothing. When you analyze the concepts and ask yourself what the concepts are saying—which these articles do not do—they assume some set of concepts and then begin to juggle them. When you analyze what the concepts themselves are saying, you discover that there is nothing there. They simply say nothing.

So the desire to define is very healthy. It is worthwhile to try to define things. On the other hand, it is not always possible. And I don’t think that disqualifies the discussion if things are not fully defined. But it is worth paying attention that this tells us something. I have no criteria—I don’t know how to give criteria—but it is worth making sure that things really say something.

And one final point, perhaps, to conclude this introduction. There is an article by Rabbi Zeini from the Technion where he tells, in the book Hegayon—the article appears there—about a course in set theory that he taught at the Technion. He describes how the students there sit and diligently take notes on everything he says, and then he gives the beginning of the course. He says: a set—this is naive set theory, right?—a set is a collection of elements. Definition. Fine. The empty set is a set with no elements. Wait—if a set is a collection of elements, then how is the empty set also a set? He says no one had ever asked him that question. The most obvious question—no one had ever asked him.

And basically what he is trying to claim there, and I think he’s right, is that mathematics, which is supposedly the most positivist field, the most defined, most precise, sharpest there is—there’s nothing sharper than that, mathematics—I spoke about this last year when we discussed philosophy. I said I learned that mathematics is the branch of philosophy, the analytic branch of philosophy. So even in mathematics, mathematics too begins from a set of concepts that cannot be defined.

That is obvious, from the same argument I gave before. To define concepts you need other concepts; you must always distinguish some set of concepts that you will not be able to define. Contrary to the illusion many mathematics students have, who think that for them everything is fully defined and all is well, and that their field is free of problems of vagueness or lack of definition. That’s not true. There are problems of definition in mathematics, because the basic concepts you use, by definition, you do not define them. That must be the case.

Even his definition isn’t really problematic.

What?

In terms of his definition, it’s not really problematic.

No, take the concept of a point, for example. Well, I’m talking about the example with sets. Yes, his definition is problematic. It suffers from some lack. At least the question is worth asking. The question is whether zero elements is also a collection of elements—we’re just used to it.

Or he defined two concepts. One of them is the concept of set.

No, the empty set is a set. That’s a claim in set theory; it has to be that way. Otherwise there are two terms—no, it comes out inconsistent. You have to assume that the empty set is also a set, otherwise you can hardly build anything there.

I brought this only as an example to say that even in mathematics there is this problem. One cannot get rid of it. And therefore these accusations about using undefined concepts—which I tend somehow to identify with intuitively—we need to be careful with them. You can’t define all concepts.

On the other hand, again, there is the feeling that people use such concepts and nobody understands what they mean; you’re just juggling words.

Okay. So indeed those concepts I mentioned earlier—acosmism, pantheism, panentheism, atheism, theism, things of that sort—some of them at least, it seems to me, belong to the categories I’ve described until now.

What is acosmism? Can you talk about that?

Acosmism is basically the view that the universe as it appears to you is really an illusion. The only thing that exists is only the Absolute, the divine—only that really exists; everything else is a kind of illusion. You can of course ask: whose illusion? If no one exists, then whose illusion is this? God’s illusion? Of God? Again, these are empty statements. And you can see very learned articles about what acosmism is and how it understands such-and-such, but whose illusion, for heaven’s sake, if the world is an illusion? And if I am deceiving myself into thinking there is a universe—well, that’s Descartes, right? “I think, therefore I am.” If I am deceiving myself, then there is someone deceiving himself. Otherwise, whose illusion is this? There is something conceptually problematic here, and an enormous literature has been written about it.

By the way, the same applies to the problem of what non-literal tzimtzum is—let’s move immediately to the language of Kabbalah, right? That’s non-literal tzimtzum. Non-literal tzimtzum basically means saying this. Non-literal tzimtzum basically means that divinity did not contract, everything is divinity, it remains everywhere, there is no place devoid of Him, there is nothing but this. So what are we? We are illusions. That’s what you’ll see in several places. There really is nothing else. There is none besides Him—meaning, only He exists, we are an illusion. Whose illusion? The Holy One’s, maybe? I don’t know. Or we are God? This is…

So you understand the word games here that I just can’t… people use them. Maybe if one could somehow define it and remain consistent—I don’t know, I don’t see a way to do it. But people certainly do not do this, and you can see long philosophical articles explaining: yes, we are He and He is us and we do not exist and He does exist and we are not an illusion and we are an illusion, and they distinguish between different conceptions without doing the basic analytic work of defining the concepts, understanding what “illusion” means, whose illusion, how that differs—it’s terribly problematic.

This is second-order philosophy, as I call it by analogy to second-order halakhic ruling. Second-order philosophy is philosophy that uses a system of concepts, whatever it may be, and juggles with it. There are definitions, this goes like this, this goes with this concept and that goes with that concept, but it does not try to define the concepts themselves and get down to their meaning and the differences between them before starting to use them. Okay.

Now the basic question from which all this emerges is really the question of the relation between the Holy One, blessed be He, and the world. Not relation in the sense of whether He providentially governs. Not relation in the sense of whether He supervises, punishes, or rewards. Rather relation in the ontological sense, in the sense of the relation between modes of existence. Not what He does with the world, but the relation between His existence and the existence of the world, of the objects in the world. What is the relation between these two things?

So as I said at the beginning, the basic problem is simply that the assumption is that God is infinite, and therefore there can be no place devoid of Him. Meaning, there cannot be a place where He is not. On the other hand, if He is there, then no one else is there, because there cannot be something else besides Him. If it’s divinity, then it’s divinity, not something else.

Just to sharpen it: if two things are in the same place—say I’m in the same place as Him, both He and I are in the same place—then of course we are two things. That’s a mistake, because I’m looking at place in the spatial sense. But when I say the same place, I mean in every parameter the same place. The same place, in the same sense, with the same energy, in all aspects of reality—it’s the same thing. And if it’s the same thing, then there isn’t—it’s not something else. There can’t be two things that are in the same place in that sense. Sometimes there may be two things in the same spatial place, but there cannot be two things that occupy exactly the same thing in all possible senses and still be two things. So that is the basic problem.

How, spatially, can there really be two things in the same place?

Well, say light and an object that the light penetrates may perhaps exist in the same place. Fine, one can think of examples. Once you get into microscopy and quantum mechanics, then you no longer really have either the light or the object—it’s a different problem. But we’re speaking in the macroscopic language.

So that is the basic problem. How can the world exist? And on the other hand, if the world exists, then the Holy One, blessed be He, is not infinite. Then there are things outside Him—outside Him on some plane. And again, I say “spatial” but it doesn’t matter. There are things that are not Him. It doesn’t matter right now whether spatially or non-spatially. Once they are not Him, that means He is limited, that He is not them, that He is not there. There is some reality that is not Him, that He is not present in.

So this is perceived as a philosophical problem. In several places people discuss this problem—how can it be that the Holy One, blessed be He, is really everything and yet there is a reality outside Him?

And the same if we do identify reality with the Holy One, blessed be He—again, all pantheism and these matters—then it creates the opposite problem. Because then it means that the Holy One, blessed be He, has a body and bodily form. Because if I am really God, or some part of Him, it doesn’t matter, then He has a body and bodily form. And that too is philosophically problematic.

So the question is how to come out of this dilemma alive.

Now that is in the language of philosophy. The same problem exists in the kabbalistic world. It is easier to talk about there, because there the concepts are more suitable. And therefore I prefer to speak in terms of literal or non-literal tzimtzum, even though those are seemingly less familiar concepts. I think they are better defined there.

So for that I’ll give a short introduction: what is tzimtzum, and what is the relation between the pictures of the revealed and the hidden? In philosophy, philosophers usually perceive that there is the Holy One, blessed be He, there are the created beings—we, or the world—and there is some infinite distance between us and Him, a vacuum. He is somewhere in… not “up there” geographically, but higher than us in some spiritual sense, and there is some infinite distance between us and Him.

In the kabbalistic conception, this infinite gap exists, but it is filled. It is not empty. There are things in between us and Him. There are things. You can call them worlds. Fine? They are called worlds; that’s just names. And that is basically the basic difference between the revealed perspective and the hidden one.

And yes, that common saying that where philosophy ends, Kabbalah begins—some people say that just to emphasize the status or depth or something of Kabbalah. For me, that’s a geographic definition. That is, not just for me—this appears in various places—it’s a geographic definition.

Meaning, in the division of worlds in Kabbalah it is basically divided into seven worlds. There is Ein Sof light. Ein Sof light is something that fills all reality—don’t ask what reality is, it doesn’t matter right now because it doesn’t yet exist at this point. Ein Sof light—no boundary, infinite, no attributes, no anything. It is simply something. Like air. We don’t relate to air as something that exists. It took a certain level of abstraction to arrive at the conclusion that air too is something. Why is it so hard to grasp? Because it is everywhere. It’s simply what we are inside of, so we don’t see it as something. Ein Sof light is something like that.

So it is some abstract something that is everywhere, in every dimension, every parameter, every meaning; everything has Ein Sof light in it, and therefore in a sense it is not a thing—this is what is called “nothingness.” “And wisdom emerges from nothingness.” So “nothingness” is the Ein Sof light.

But what is it—is it God or not?

No, I’ll get to whether it is God or not. That’s a dispute among kabbalists. I think I follow the Leshem, so no. We’ll talk about it in a moment.

After that, at the beginning of Etz Chaim, the Ari describes Ein Sof light withdrawing to the sides and creating a circular empty space. Okay? That is what is called tzimtzum. He contracts, as it were, Ein Sof light contracts itself, leaving an empty space. Within that empty space, all the reality we know is created.

He contracts—contracted himself.

Yes, contracted itself, leaving an empty space. There is also the claim that this happens all the time, but never mind, let’s not get tangled in that. The reality we know exists within this empty space. Okay?

Why specifically in the shape of a circle?

Yes, but again, it’s not a geometric shape. “Circle” signifies something: that Ein Sof light is at an equal distance from every aspect of reality. There are no aspects farther from it or closer to it, and that is the property of a circle: all points are at an equal distance—more like a sphere, really. They call it a circle but they mean a sphere, of course, even a multi-dimensional sphere, not just three dimensions. It’s a sphere in all dimensions.

Then into this circle enters a line—a line of Ein Sof light—which descends almost all the way down but does not touch, because if it touched, it would once again nullify everything anew. That’s what the Ari writes. It reaches to just above the bottom of this empty space. Okay?

What does “the bottom” mean? Isn’t every point at an equal distance?

Obviously the description is figurative. I think the meaning of this description is that it’s a circle. This circle is basically called—what’s the difference between a circumference and a circle? I don’t remember which is which. The circle is the filled area? And the circumference is the line? So I mean circumference. Fine? Basically it’s a circumference, meaning all the points are at equal distance from the Ein Sof light. So this is a figurative description, not a geometric one.

That line enters inward, and then what is called, after Ein Sof light, the world that follows it is called the world of line and tzimtzum. Okay? A line and tzimtzum together create a new world. Meaning, there is Ein Sof light. By the way, the Leshem claims that these worlds stand one below another. In the plain meaning of the Ari, that is not so. Ein Sof light contracted, the void was created, a line entered it, and around the line, in layers, the denser worlds are formed, more material worlds.

The Leshem claims that each such stage is another descent downward. Meaning: there is a world in which there is uncontracted Ein Sof light. Beneath it there is formed a world in which there is contracted Ein Sof light with an empty space and a line inside it. Beneath that there is formed a world in which there is contracted Ein Sof light with an empty space and a line inside it, and around the line now there is formed some layer called Adam Kadmon. That is the third world. After Ein Sof, line and tzimtzum, Adam Kadmon. Okay?

Three spheres?

One beneath another, yes. As though the true Ein Sof never actually contracted at all—that is basically the Leshem’s claim. The true infinite does not contract; rather, another reality was formed in which we actually live, a reality in which there is a contracted infinite. And then, again, that too remains as it is and undergoes no change. Beneath it there is formed a reality in which there is a contracted infinite with another layer around the line, and this is called Adam Kadmon.

Why is it called Adam Kadmon? Because this is the first world in which the form of man appears. The worlds are in the form of a human being. And the first world in which the human form appears is the world of Adam Kadmon. Therefore it is called Adam Kadmon, the most primordial world in which the human form appeared.

What is the human form? There are ten—incidentally, all the more so now during the counting of the Omer—there are ten sefirot, right? Usually we are used to seeing them one above the other, right? Chokhmah, Binah, Da’at, Chesed, Gevurah, Tiferet, Netzach, Hod, Yesod, and Malkhut. And the counting of the Omer is the lower seven.

Now there is another way to arrange the sefirot, in three lines. Meaning: Chokhmah on the right, Binah on the left, Da’at in the middle. Chesed on the right, Gevurah on the left, Tiferet in the middle. Netzach, Hod, Yesod, and Malkhut below. This is a form where the sefirot appear in three lines. Three lines are the form of a human being. There is the body, and there are the arms and legs, the side lines. So the first place where the sefirot appear in three lines is the world of Adam Kadmon.

What are you saying?

What?

What are you saying?

I haven’t said anything. That’s just how it is. Well, at the moment I’m still just giving the picture as it stands. The question whether this is allegory or not—I’ll comment on that later. Wait, before that—where does this come from?

I’ll comment on that later too.

Does it come from Rashbi?

I’ll comment on that later too.

Now, the picture I’m bringing now is the Ari’s picture.

I heard there is something called the line of fire.

What? Something called the line of fire? I don’t know it. There are also different conceptual systems. Kabbalists sometimes use different conceptual systems, so I don’t know.

I saw somewhere that there is, I think, a line of fire, and from there Alterman coined the expression “line of fire” for the front.

Oh really? Taking it as “line of fire.” I don’t know it.

In any case, after the world of Adam Kadmon there is Atzilut. Atzilut is another layer around Adam Kadmon, all around this line. A layer and another layer and another—that is, each such layer is farther from the infinite, right? More external, and therefore more corporeal, more concretized. That is the axis on which the worlds are built, the axis of spirituality—less spiritual, as it were, the farther down it goes.

Then there is the world of Atzilut. After that we have the worlds of Beriah, Yetzirah, and Asiyah—BYA. Beriah, Yetzirah, and Asiyah are again the three lower worlds.

Now the question is whether this is really something that exists, or whether someone who wanted to explain something decided: let’s simplify and explain it to you using spheres. I said I’d comment on that later. One can argue about it. Not that I have some secret information I’m about to reveal. I’ll tell you what people say.

In any case, Beriah, Yetzirah, and Asiyah are perceived—up through Atzilut. From Atzilut and above, this is perceived as actual divinity. That’s what kabbalists write. What does that mean? And all the philosophers are horrified by this. Because it basically means that the Holy One, blessed be He, has form and parts and attributes, and they say “actual divinity.” And Beriah, Yetzirah, and Asiyah are the separate worlds. Our world, in the philosophers’ identification, is what is called “up to the sphere of the moon.” That’s what philosophers call it. That is Beriah, Yetzirah, and Asiyah.

Now, what is called the Throne of Glory—“and under His feet was the likeness of sapphire brickwork”—the Torah speaks of the Throne of Glory. That is the upper part of the world of Beriah. And divinity sits upon the Throne of Glory. Meaning, Atzilut sits, as it were, on the upper part of the world of Beriah, which is divinity, because from Atzilut and above is divinity. It sits on the Throne of Glory. So the Throne of Glory separates the separate, created worlds from the worlds above them, which are the worlds of divinity.

Now I return to the saying: where philosophy ends, Kabbalah begins. It’s simply the Throne of Glory. Philosophy reaches up to the Throne of Glory. Beriah, Yetzirah, and Asiyah belong to the world we know, up to the sphere of the moon—what Maimonides calls in Hilkhot Yesodei HaTorah “up to the sphere of the moon”—and philosophy deals with what is above. Meaning, from Atzilut and up. And that is Kabbalah.

What?

Kabbalah began here. What does “sphere of the moon” mean?

That glass sphere that moves the…

Yes, they viewed it as if there were spheres. But it’s not a sphere.

So they claimed there are spheres. Right now it doesn’t matter exactly where the identification lies. It may be that the sphere of the moon is at the end of Asiyah, and above the sphere of the moon is Yetzirah, and after that Beriah. There is some identification of this with the spheres in the philosophers’ language. After all, from our perspective none of it exists—there are no spheres and nothing. Planets?

Maybe the planets. I don’t know exactly what they meant when they spoke of spheres.

And did the philosophers’ conception of spheres speak about something physical in space?

Okay. So did the kabbalists’ conception also understand this as spatial? Meaning, if I flew in a spaceship, I’d arrive at the world of Yetzirah, as it were?

I don’t think there’s much dispute about Beriah, Yetzirah, and Asiyah. That’s why I said: basically, studying Kabbalah means studying Atzilut and above. Beriah, Yetzirah, and Asiyah are not called studying Kabbalah. Beriah, Yetzirah, and Asiyah are supposed to be things that are spatial, as it were? Yes, that belong in some way to our world.

Again, “spatial”—what is a sphere? Maimonides says it is some kind of substance, I don’t know exactly, refined…

Fine, I don’t know exactly what that means.

He didn’t say “spiritual.” He said it was like a glass sphere.

Yes, refined. A refined substance like a glass sphere that moves the…

I don’t think he meant only transparency. He also claimed they have a soul. They also have souls.

Maybe intellect, yes. And this is the fifth element, besides the four elements. It’s also a different type of substance, not just transparent. It’s a more refined substance.

There are nine spheres.

Also for the stars?

Part of this reality—everything belongs to the spheres. No, it’s the seven planets and the twelve, actually.

What do you mean?

The twelve constellations are the eighth sphere. Okay. The ninth sphere has nothing in it. And the seven spheres are the seven planets—Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Mercury, the sun, the moon, and all that.

Okay. Those are planets. Each one has a sphere that moves it, because otherwise if you don’t put it there, it can’t move. Yes, there has to be a transparent sphere.

Yes, yes. No, but this transparent sphere—what I’m claiming is that it isn’t only transparent. It is made of, according to Maimonides—again, these are all things that…—but it is made of a substance that is not substance like ours. Not only that it is transparent. It is another element; it is not the four elements we know.

Aristotle.

No, no, he also says there are there—I don’t remember anymore, because I haven’t dealt with it in a long time; Aristotle’s fantasies don’t interest me. But never mind.

This identification between the philosophers and the kabbalists is basically that the philosophers deal with the worlds of Beriah, Yetzirah, and Asiyah. The kabbalists deal with Atzilut.

Now, when I spoke about the infinite gap between creation and the Creator, that is the gap filled by all these worlds from Atzilut and above. Right? Basically creation ends at the Throne of Glory—that is creation. And according to the philosophers there is some infinite gap there. And according to the kabbalists this infinite gap is filled. Filled by these worlds of Atzilut, Adam Kadmon, line and tzimtzum, and so on. Okay?

So basically, Kabbalah means dealing with Atzilut and above. That’s the claim.

By the way, the Leshem has a very harsh claim against the Hasidim, or the kabbalists, who take everything as allegory. Because if you take everything as allegory, then that means there are no such worlds. Then it all really deals with our world; these are allegories for understanding different dimensions in our world. But if so, then what is the difference between the revealed and the hidden? Only a difference in language. You are dealing with the same things. And the Leshem claims that to deal with Kabbalah is to deal with something else—not with the same thing in a different language, but with something else. You are dealing with the world of Atzilut. It is not an allegory for what happens here. It parallels what happens here. Down here too there are things that parallel, in some sense, what happens there. But it is not an allegory. What happens there exists. There is also such a thing as the world of Atzilut. And that is his claim.

That addresses the question whether it is allegory or not—that is a bitter dispute among kabbalists. Most kabbalists think it is not allegory. And again, not allegory—though in a moment we may get to the possibility that all reality itself is allegory, and that’s something else.

No, but not allegory not in the sense that it isn’t an allegory for our reality, but not in the sense that it literally means circles and lines.

Yes, obviously. It certainly doesn’t mean spatial geometry like we know here, or the form of a human being like we know here. This is certainly a language that describes the matter. Every language is allegorical in some sense. So yes, a language to describe the matter.

What does the one who says it is allegory mean?

The one who says it is allegory means that there are no such things at all. There is no world of Atzilut. The world of Atzilut is an allegory, an allegory for some deeper states of consciousness of a person, say. Or for dimensions, I don’t know, of the world.

What does Maimonides say, dimensions of the world?

It means that when you want to do a psychological analysis of a person, you can do it in the language of sefirot too.

Psychological, for example, yes. Got it? So you can do it in the language of sefirot. Maybe it will come out more efficient, more precise, or I don’t know exactly what. But they claim it is merely another language for describing the same reality we also discuss in other disciplines. There is nothing additional here. Not additional entities, or worlds, or realities.

Now again, of course, someone can immediately come and ask: wait, what is the meaning of saying whether it exists or does not exist? What is “exists”? Fine, I already spoke about that earlier.

Now, this interval between us and the Holy One, blessed be He, that is filled, is what the kabbalists call “actual divinity.” And that is what horrifies all the philosophers, who say that Kabbalah is idol worship. Why? Because basically you turn the Holy One, blessed be He, into something composed of parts, and He has countenances, and He has human form, and it really smells like idol worship.

Okay. Now this brings me to the next point, and that is the question of what it means to say “actual divinity.” To say that it is actual divinity—so the Leshem, I studied the Leshem, so I go in his path—the Leshem claims that the world of Atzilut comes from the word “with Him,” “near Him.” That Ein Sof light is within it as a soul in a body. Unlike the worlds of Beriah, Yetzirah, and Asiyah, where Ein Sof light is not connected to them with such depth of intimacy.

Let’s take the example of a human being. “From my flesh I perceive God,” as they say. I look at the human being, and from that I can try to understand what happens up there. What is the relation between our soul and the body? When we look at a person, this whole totality of soul plus body is what is called a human being. We do not say: the body is not the person, the soul is the person—even though one could really argue that the soul is the person and the body is some sort of periphery. But that is not how we look at it, right? For us it is one organism; the soul and the body together are what is called a human being.

The Leshem’s claim is that the world of Atzilut is the body within which Ein Sof light is found like a soul, like a soul in a body. There is a Gemara in Berakhot that draws a comparison between the Holy One, blessed be He, and the soul. “Just as the soul fills the whole body, so the Holy One, blessed be He, fills the whole world.” It is basically based on that Gemara.

Then the claim is that the degree of intimacy of your connection with Ein Sof light is what determines whether you are separate or “actual divinity.” “Actual divinity” means like when I say that you are really a human being. It does not mean the body is the soul. It does not deny the existence of the soul or that the soul is something different from the body. It only means that soul plus body create a totality that, from my point of view, counts as a single entity: a human being.

So in that sense the world of Atzilut is actual divinity, and therefore this is not really anthropomorphizing in the sense understood by the people of the revealed realm. Ein Sof light is in it like a soul in what is its body. By contrast, in Beriah, Yetzirah, and Asiyah, Ein Sof light is outside them, influences them in some way, but is outside them, not inside them—or at least not in such an intimate way. It does not create one entity with them.

Now another point…

So the Ein Sof light itself—is it definitely part of God?

Wait, that is exactly what I’m getting to now. So what is Ein Sof light? Here too there is a dispute. There are philosophers who claim—kabbalists who claim, again, only reflective kabbalists. Kabbalists without reflection talk about Ein Sof light and don’t bother asking themselves what Ein Sof light is. But there are kabbalists, usually more modern ones, who have a certain reflectiveness and try to explain to people in the language of the revealed realm what Ein Sof light is.

There are those who claim that it is the Holy One, blessed be He, Himself—Ein Sof light. No body, no bodily form, no shape. Ein Sof light is the Holy One, blessed be He, Himself.

But other kabbalists—and so too the Leshem understands it, and I think most kabbalists understand it this way—say that Ein Sof light is not divinity itself. Let’s say: if all the worlds below Ein Sof are revelations, then Ein Sof is the will to reveal, and a potential for revelation. It itself is not yet something. It is like a plan in relation to the thing built according to the plan. There is something of the thing itself in the plan, but you can’t call the plan a kind of concrete being. I’m not talking about the paper on which the plan is drawn, but the plan itself. The idea. Okay?

The idea is not an object; it is some sort of potential for an object. But on the other hand, the idea is also not the creator, right? The creator has the idea in his head. Okay, so there is the creator, there is the idea—which is basically the potential of the body that will emerge into actuality—and there is the thing produced according to that idea or that plan.

In that analogy, Ein Sof is the idea. Then Ein Sof is the will to reveal. Therefore the Leshem claims that within it there are hidden sefirot—not yet actual sefirot. Ein Sof is not divided into parts, it has no properties, yes? It is property-less, what is called primordial matter. But it has the potential of properties—it must, otherwise where do they come from? Since every world comes from the world above it, how could properties emerge below if they do not exist potentially in the world above? That is the kabbalistic conception, a conception of emanation: things constantly move from potential to actual.

So his claim is basically that Ein Sof is the will to reveal, and that means that above Ein Sof there is the Holy One, blessed be He, Himself. As He is defined—His hidden essence. It is not defined; they do not speak about it; it’s not part of the game. His hidden essence.

In short, very far from us.

Very far from us? What do you mean?

I don’t know—many stages.

Yes, okay. No, I’ll say more than that—not only far. When you now look, for example, at the relation between the Ein Sof light and the essence—now I’ll show you an example of wordplay. Kabbalists don’t speak about the essence. “Essence” is the reflection of kabbalists; it’s the modern kabbalists who bother explaining what Ein Sof light is, whether yes or no. So they speak of His hidden essence.

Now when you look at the relation between the essence and the light, you can say that there lies the same infinite distance that the philosophers see between the created and the Creator. We have simply expanded the created world and added to it more shells, more layers, more worlds, more abstract worlds—but in the end there is still some unbridgeable gap between the things as we grasp them and His hidden essence, some other thing not located in this field.

And basically Kabbalah and philosophy are saying the same thing, and these are not two different pictures. It’s just that the gap is really between Ein Sof light and the essence, not between the world of Beriah and the world of Atzilut. Okay.

Now, okay, now, tell me: here, when they say Atzilut is spoken of as actual divinity, because the Ein Sof light is in it like a soul in a body—isn’t that actual divinity?

What?

That Atzilut is spoken of as actual divinity because the Ein Sof light is in it as a soul in a body.

Correct, that’s what I said. The concept “God” is also not… We use these words to describe the object. God is a sefirah, God is a partzuf, God is a world. And the Tetragrammaton is also a world. What Maimonides calls the essential name—the kabbalists have no essential name. What is an essential name? The essence has no names. Once you have given something a name, that means it is some kind of entity you can speak about. And it isn’t idol worship like that?

What? These things are explanations meant to explain why it is not idol worship. That is the point. When you read it literally, you say: this is actual divinity and that is such-and-such, and God speaks with the Tetragrammaton and does things. Like with Abraham and Sarah, where we said there: “I appeared as El Shaddai, not as the Tetragrammaton.” It’s obvious these are higher levels by which revelation can occur.

So some people say “the blessed Infinite,” don’t they? There are places where it says “the blessed Infinite.” What is “the blessed Infinite”? Infinite. It’s not His name.

No, it depends in what context. There are contexts where they mean the essence and use that term “the blessed Infinite” because He is infinite. And there are contexts, among kabbalists, where they mean Ein Sof light. The terms are very precise. In Tanya there is “Ein Sof light, blessed be He.” “Ein Sof light”—in places where they speak professionally, they really mean Ein Sof light. And in other contexts, where it’s used more loosely, it’s just a name to refer to Him.

Why can’t you—you said that to speak about the Holy One, blessed be He, as an entity… why can’t you speak of Him as an entity? After all, He is. He exists.

He exists. Again, that claim too—I’m not sure I agree with it—but the claim is that existence too is some kind of predicate. I add existence and not… in the most abstract sense of “being,” not in the physical, geographical, massive sense.

Exactly. Even that you cannot say about Him. That’s basically the claim there. I don’t think it’s right, but that’s the claim.

Okay. Another point one should know here is that often when people accuse the kabbalists of doing things that are really prohibited as idol worship, it is because they—this is what you spoke about before with “the blessed Infinite”—when they turn to the Holy One, blessed be He, through sefirot or through partzufim or worlds or something like that.

In prayer, for example, each part of the prayer is divided according to a world, according to a sefirah—to which “Holy One, blessed be He,” as it were, you are turning. Which is really just Maimonides in the beginning of Hilkhot Avodah Zarah: to pray to the Holy One, blessed be He, through intermediaries is also idol worship. Even if you pray to Him, if you do it through an intermediary, it is idol worship.

About this, the Leshem explains that here this is not true, because this applies only to intermediaries belonging to the world of the revealed realm, in Beriah, Yetzirah, and Asiyah, like stars for example. But those things in which Ein Sof light is like a soul in a body, and which are actual divinity—those are not called intermediaries. That is how one turns to Him. Through His names one turns to Him. Therefore the whole halakhic prohibition of idol worship applies only when we turn to the Holy One, blessed be He, through objects that belong to the separate worlds, because they really are not Him. So it is forbidden to use them as intermediaries. But if you turn to Him through His names or through the sefirot, since that is the expression of His names, then it is not idol worship. It is turning to Him.

It’s like in Sha’ar HaBitachon of Rabbeinu Bachya, where he explains how they knew how to direct their intention.

Oh, okay, I don’t know it. But with Kaddish, where you need to say “blessed” aloud, then it rises to that world.

Tell me, do kabbalists have to first become great Torah scholars? Or can you start Kabbalah even if you have no idea?

The great kabbalists, I think, were all Torah scholars. Yes. And what are called kabbalists today are samekh-chet-peh—it has nothing to do with it. I’m talking about people who were truly kabbalists. The great kabbalists were great Torah scholars, I think. I don’t have the details—say, what exactly the Ramak was. I don’t know exactly, but I think he was indeed a Torah scholar. Nachmanides certainly was, the Raavad certainly was.

Why do they need that?

Maybe they do, maybe they don’t. But in practice there used to be even a formal condition that one had to “fill one’s belly with Talmud and halakhic decisors.” Today there are quite a few kabbalists who claim one can forgo that. Not only the ones making money from it, but even genuine kabbalists, who claim one can now give up this preliminary stage of the revealed Torah.

What added value does it give us? Is this called Torah study if he never went through becoming great in Torah, if he never filled his belly with Talmud and halakhic decisors?

Exactly. Why does greatness in Torah contribute to Kabbalah? In principle, the opposite needs explanation. If he knows all of Kabbalah and masters it backwards and forwards, why does he need to be great in Torah for that? Or “great in Torah” means in the revealed Torah.

What does Kabbalah give in general?

Yes, that’s another question.

Here perhaps one more sentence, and with this I’ll finish. The question of how to relate to Kabbalah, which you asked earlier, and what it gives—look, personally, if you ask my personal opinion—here anyone can say what he likes. There are disputes about this: who wrote the Zohar, where Kabbalah came from, and so on.

There are probably parts of the Zohar that are ancient. But it’s also clear that there are parts that are not ancient—“not ancient” meaning from the end of the Middle Ages.

And still, the claim that this must be something authentic that descended to Moses at Sinai—I’m not sure that’s true. It may be that there is some good spiritual intuition here—people who have some good spiritual insight and know how to describe things in striking language. They grasp some spiritual structure of things and developed a language—perhaps partly developed by various people, just as there are mystical teachings in other places.

By the way, there are very great similarities among different mystical teachings in the world. And still, they may be grasping something real here. Meaning, even if this did not come down as some package of information from above, there may still be some added value here in the sense that they are grasping something true.

On the other hand, if that is really how one sees it, then one has to understand that it does not necessarily mean that every tiny detail there is a law given to Moses at Sinai and fixed.

So is studying Kabbalah Torah study or not?

Big question. I don’t know what to tell you. We once discussed what it means to study Torah. I think there is a definition of Torah from the standpoint of the person, but I don’t remember the exact context. But when we dealt with Nevukhei HaDor, I remember you told about periods when there were different sects of Jews who studied together—I don’t remember with whom.

In Vienna there was Christian Kabbalah. So what is the relation between that and Kabbalah in Judaism?

Italian rabbis studied with them. I think even Ramchal had a Christian study partner.

Yes, there were kabbalists who studied Kabbalah with Christians. So what is the relation between Kabbalah and Judaism then?

No, it’s connected. They studied among them, taught them—it’s not…

Taught them? Do they believe in the same worlds?

For example, in Sefer Yetzirah—and not only in Sefer Yetzirah, but also in Rabbi Shabtai Donnolo the physician’s commentary to Sefer Yetzirah—in the introduction he writes that he always opened these books and never understood them, until he went to—I don’t remember exactly where; he was a kind of traveler—and in some desert region of Persia or somewhere, he met some Muslim sage or I don’t know exactly whom, who explained the whole matter to him, and then he understood.

And this commentary on Sefer Yetzirah is printed in all the editions in gold letters. You can read Rabbi Shabtai Donnolo the physician’s commentary on Sefer Yetzirah. They also draw from outside. I don’t think that necessarily invalidates it.