Mysticism – Lesson 4

Table of Contents

• The definition of mysticism and the accessibility of knowledge
• Mysticism as a parallel explanatory plane to the revealed dimension
• Local correlation and global correlation between explanatory systems
• A miracle as a break in the correlation between scientific explanation and theological explanation
• Pardes and a Scriptural decree as a break in the correlation between the revealed and the hidden
• Trust between planes: the Ari and Maimonides
• Untranslatability: two different systems and not two languages
• An anecdote in physics versus two “correct” explanations
• The law of gravitation versus the force of gravity and the claim of “explanation”
• A parallel model: two generating mechanisms operating in parallel
• Leshem and Hasidism: opposition to turning Kabbalah into a psychological allegory
• Raymond Smullyan, astrology, and the distinction between correlation and causation
• The model of the revealed and the hidden as correlation without a direct causal connection
• “The demon cluster”: Shiya, entropy, and the principle of causality
• A critique of denying generating entities and the claim of irrationality
• Mysticism as a useful language versus mysticism as a claim about existing entities
• Breaking the correlation in the opposite direction: a halakhic conflict between the revealed and the hidden
• The Rema, Magen Avraham, and Knesset HaGedolah’s rules on the authority of Kabbalah in Jewish law
• Additional examples of contradictions and their significance for global correlation
• Halakhic decisors versus kabbalists, and the continuation of the discussion

Summary

General Overview

Mysticism is defined as a view that is not accessible to the general public and cannot be independently tested, but rather relies on trust in an authoritative source with a special mode of perception. Mysticism is presented as a plane of explanation parallel to the revealed, plain, and rational plane, and although there is usually a correlation between them, that correlation can break down at certain points. This shows that we are not dealing merely with translation between two languages, but with two different explanatory systems. This breakdown in correlation is illustrated through miracles versus scientific explanation, through a Scriptural decree versus revealed explanation, and through halakhic disputes in which the ruling is sometimes decided in favor of the revealed plane despite the existence of a hidden one. The strong mystical claim is presented as a claim about real entities and real mechanisms operating in the world, and not merely as a useful language for describing psychological or other phenomena.

The Definition of Mysticism and the Accessibility of Knowledge

Mysticism is a claim about reality that cannot be personally tested by every individual and is not accessible to the broader public. Mysticism rests on the special perception of special people, and accepting it depends on trust in the kabbalist, the mystic, or the source of authority.

Mysticism as a Parallel Explanatory Plane to the Revealed Dimension

Mysticism offers explanations for phenomena, events, principles, and verses of the Torah alongside revealed, plain, and rational explanations. The two explanatory planes stand side by side: the revealed is seen as accessible, while the hidden is seen as inaccessible and requiring acceptance on the basis of authority.

Local Correlation and Global Correlation Between Explanatory Systems

Local correlation is defined as nothing more than a change of language, where every claim in one system can be fully translated into the other without exceptions. Global correlation is defined as a situation in which two different systems may produce broad but not perfect agreement, so that at certain points the correlation breaks down while both systems still remain valid. The example of Cartesian and polar coordinate systems shows that equivalence breaks down at the origin, but that does not invalidate either system.

A Miracle as a Break in the Correlation Between Scientific Explanation and Theological Explanation

Scientific explanation and theological explanation are understood as parallel: science explains through forces and phenomena, and theology explains through divine purpose. A miracle is defined as a point at which there is no scientific explanation for what happened, but there is a theological explanation, as in the splitting of the Sea of Reeds. Such a break is possible only if the correlation is global rather than local.

Pardes and a Scriptural Decree as a Break in the Correlation Between the Revealed and the Hidden

Pardes presents the plain sense and the secret as two correct interpretations operating in parallel, but at certain points the correlation breaks down. A Scriptural decree is defined as a law that has no revealed explanation, while on the hidden level one assumes that it does have an explanation, because otherwise there would be no reason for the Holy One, blessed be He, to have established it. From this it is argued that the correlation between the revealed and the hidden is global.

Trust Between Planes: the Ari and Maimonides

The Ari relies on Maimonides in halakhic rulings out of trust that Maimonides is precise on the revealed plane. The assumption is that when the revealed calculation is correct, the result will also come out correctly in the hidden calculation because there is a correlation between them, even though breakdowns such as Scriptural decrees show that the correlation is only global.

Untranslatability: Two Different Systems and Not Two Languages

The breakdown of correlation proves that moving between the revealed and the hidden is not translation between two languages, because full translation should not fail at any point. Global correlation allows two completely different systems to produce almost the same “dictionary” of results, except for exceptional cases in which one of the systems fails or a mismatch is created.

An Anecdote in Physics Versus Two “Correct” Explanations

In physical theories, such as teleological descriptions versus causal ones, it is argued that sometimes one description is merely an anecdotal formulation mathematically derived from another. In such a case there is full local agreement, and so there are not really two correct explanations but only an alternative language. By contrast, with respect to the ten utterances and the Ten Commandments, it is argued that the scientific explanation and the theological explanation are two different explanations that are both correct, and the proof is that the correlation between them breaks down at certain points.

The Law of Gravitation Versus the Force of Gravity and the Claim of “Explanation”

The law of gravitation is defined as a behavioral description of masses, whereas the force of gravity is defined as an entity in reality that generates that behavior. Science is presented as claiming not only description but also explanation, and therefore physicists look for gravitons as carriers of the force of gravity. Even if there are miracles in which physics “breaks,” it is argued that the force of gravity still exists in ordinary situations; it is just that sometimes the Holy One, blessed be He, “freezes physics.”

A Parallel Model: Two Generating Mechanisms Operating in Parallel

The position presented is that both planes offer mechanisms that generate phenomena in reality and do not merely describe them, and therefore both count as explanations. The claim is that the revealed generates and the hidden generates in parallel, and the logical complexity stems from the fact that one of the explanations does not operate in every situation, while it still counts as a valid explanation within its own domain of operation.

Leshem and Hasidism: Opposition to Turning Kabbalah into a Psychological Allegory

Leshem is presented as saying that a form of Hasidism that views Kabbalah as an allegory for the structure of the psyche is not really dealing with Kabbalah. Kabbalah is presented as a claim about actually existing spiritual worlds, such as the world of Atzilut, Adam Kadmon, Beri’ah, Yetzirah, partzufim, and sefirot, and not as an alternative language for human psychology.

Raymond Smullyan, Astrology, and the Distinction Between Correlation and Causation

In his book The Tao Is Silent, Raymond Smullyan suggests that refuting astrology on the basis of the limit imposed by the speed of light mistakenly assumes a direct causal mechanism. The alternative proposed is that there may be a correlation between what happens in the heavens and what happens on earth without direct causation, like two clocks that are synchronized because of a third factor. The distinction between correlation and causation is presented as the basis for the claim that correlation does not require direct causation, and that the Holy One, blessed be He, may be the third factor doing the synchronizing.

The Model of the Revealed and the Hidden as Correlation Without a Direct Causal Connection

The proposed model is that the hidden does not generate the revealed and the revealed does not generate the hidden; rather, both independently generate the phenomena. Local agreement would require that every revealed law derive from a hidden law, whereas global agreement allows broad correspondence between the phenomena without a direct connection between the systems of laws.

“The Demon Cluster”: Shiya, Entropy, and the Principle of Causality

On the forum “Stop Here and Think,” a structured argument is presented in favor of the existence of demons in order to challenge rationalist intuitions. The Talmudic passage in tractate Bava Kamma about a demon named Shiya, who is responsible for the deterioration of houses, is presented as fitting with the scientific description of the second law of thermodynamics. It is argued that a mathematical law is a description rather than an explanation, and therefore a generating entity is required, with Shiya presented as parallel to a generating entity such as the force of gravity.

A Critique of Denying Generating Entities and the Claim of Irrationality

It is argued that philosophers who deny the existence of a force of gravity and turn it into a fiction are in effect claiming that events happen without a cause. The principle of causality is presented as a foundation of rationality, and therefore denying a generating entity is said to be an irrational position, whereas positing an abstract generating entity may be called mystical but is grounded in the demand for causality.

Mysticism as a Useful Language Versus Mysticism as a Claim About Existing Entities

It is argued that speaking in mystical language does not make someone a mystic if he uses it merely as a descriptive or functional tool. Mysticism arises when one claims that the non-measurable concepts are real existing entities that operate in the world, and not merely useful tools for organizing phenomena. The phrase “with God’s help” is presented as a linguistic usage that does not necessarily imply belief, while Freud is presented as a target of modern criticism because his theories are claimed to be neither verifiable nor falsifiable.

Breaking the Correlation in the Opposite Direction: a Halakhic Conflict Between the Revealed and the Hidden

In contrast to a Scriptural decree, where the revealed dimension is lacking and the hidden is seen as explanatory, situations are presented in which the revealed leads to one halakhic conclusion and the hidden leads to another. In such cases, it is argued, halakhic decisors generally say to follow the revealed plane, and the well-known source is the Magen Avraham in the laws of tefillin.

The Rema, Magen Avraham, and Knesset HaGedolah’s Rules on the Authority of Kabbalah in Jewish Law

The Rema, in section 25, paragraph 14, brings “there is one who wrote” in the name of the Agur and the Zohar that one should put on the arm-tefillin while sitting and the head-tefillin while standing, and he testifies that in these countries that is not the custom; rather, both are put on while standing. Magen Avraham writes in the name of Knesset HaGedolah that whenever the masters of Kabbalah and the Zohar disagree with the Talmud, one follows the Talmud and the halakhic decisors; and if the masters of Kabbalah are stricter, one should be strict. But regarding something not mentioned in the Talmud or in the halakhic decisors, even if it is mentioned in Kabbalah, “we cannot compel people to practice this way.” From this it is argued that the hidden plane does not have decisive halakhic standing in a case of contradiction, and sometimes there is not even the ability to impose it when it adds a practice not found in the revealed plane.

Additional Examples of Contradictions and Their Significance for Global Correlation

Examples are brought such as the number of blessings on tefillin, putting on tefillin on Chol HaMoed, and bed directions, some of them attributed to the Zohar or to Rashbi through books such as the Agur and Beit Yosef. The very existence of such contradictions is presented as proof that the correlation between the revealed and the hidden is global rather than local, because full translation between two languages would not produce opposite conclusions.

Halakhic Decisors Versus Kabbalists, and the Continuation of the Discussion

It is argued that halakhic decisors, as people of the revealed plane, tend to rule in favor of the revealed when there is a halakhic contradiction, whereas kabbalists follow the hidden. It is also argued that the speaker intends to go on and explain how the two positions can be reconciled in light of the definition of mysticism, but the segment stops before that reconciliation is developed.

We spent some time on defining the concept of mysticism. In the end, in short, the claim was that mysticism is something not accessible to the general public, not accessible to just anyone, but rather claims based on some kind of special perception possessed by special people. Meaning, it’s not something I can test, it’s not something I can test myself. I can accept it if I have trust in the person who is the source of that perception. That, broadly speaking, I think, was the conclusion. After that I moved on to talk a bit about the relation between mysticism and other kinds of explanations or approaches, and I spoke about parallel planes of reference. I said that usually the view is that mysticism offers some kind of explanation or approach to phenomena, to events, to principles, to verses of the Torah, in parallel to revealed explanations, plain-sense explanations, rational ones, whatever you want to call them. And these are basically two systems, or two parallel planes of explanation, each standing on its own. One is accessible and one is inaccessible, as I said before—you have to accept it if you accept what the kabbalist or the mystic or whoever it may be tells you. In order to sharpen the relation between two parallel explanatory systems, I began talking a little about correspondence between parallel systems or planes of explanation, and in the end last time we got to the point that there are local correspondences and global correspondences. I illustrated this through Hofstadter’s MIU game, or through Cartesian and polar coordinate systems, and in the end I tried to arrive at a formulation that was less sharp. Meaning, the claim was that there is correspondence—certain correspondences—that can break down in specific places, and I still relate to these two planes as acceptable, relevant, correct planes. The example was the system, the system of polar and Cartesian axes, which are seemingly perceived as two fully equivalent systems. You can describe every point in the plane in Cartesian or in polar coordinates. But I showed that at a certain point—in this case, the origin—that correspondence breaks down. Meaning, the polar system does not actually offer a unique description of that point, and still that doesn’t make me give it up. Meaning, I view both systems as equivalent systems even though there is a certain point where it doesn’t work out. And in light of that I argued that in other parallel explanatory systems or approaches one can see similar phenomena. For example, the correspondence between a scientific explanation and a theological explanation. Usually it is accepted that everything that happens in the world can be given a scientific explanation. But in principle, everything that happens in the world should also have a theological explanation: the Holy One, blessed be He, causes it to happen because He has some purpose or other. And on the scientific plane it happens because there were such-and-such forces or such-and-such phenomena, and there are scientific explanations for why this thing happens. There are places where the correspondence between the theological explanation and the scientific explanation—even assuming it exists—that correspondence breaks down. Those places are called miracles. A place where a miracle happens means that I have no scientific explanation for what happened here, but I do have a theological explanation for what happened here. The splitting of the Red Sea, for example: there is an explanation why it happened, because the Holy One, blessed be He, wanted to save the Jewish people from the Egyptians. But I don’t have a scientific explanation that would explain why the sea split, why that happened. So that means that in this specific case the correspondence between scientific explanation and theological explanation breaks down. How can there be correspondence and yet it breaks down? Only if I see this correspondence as a global correspondence and not as a local one. A global correspondence can break down in specific places. A local correspondence is, by definition, just a change of language. It means that whatever I say here I can also say in that language, and therefore it shouldn’t break down anywhere. A correspondence that breaks down means, in effect, that this is a global correspondence and not a local one. Local. Another example that is closer to us in this context—well, not really closer, both examples are close—is interpretation of the Torah. Usually it is accepted that there is PaRDeS: plain sense, hint, homiletic exposition, and secret. The interpretation of the secret and the interpretation of the plain sense are both correct, both exist in parallel. Meaning, every verse or every section can be interpreted in the plain-sense way and in the esoteric way, the secret way. But here too this correspondence breaks down. The points where this correspondence breaks down are called a scriptural decree. A scriptural decree is something for which we have no revealed explanation for the law, but apparently in the esoteric realm there is some explanation, because otherwise why would the Holy One, blessed be He, have established the law this way? Apparently He has some explanation. So here too the correspondence breaks down. What does that mean? That the revealed explanations and the hidden explanations have a global correspondence between them. Usually you can use either of the two explanatory planes on its own and that will be fine. I mentioned that the Ari would rely on Maimonides in halakhic ruling, even though Maimonides is a Jew very far from the world of the hidden, but he trusted that Maimonides was very good on the plane of the revealed. And if he makes the calculation correctly on the plane of the revealed, then the result also comes out correct in the calculation of the hidden, because there is correspondence after all. But I said that places like scriptural decree show that this correspondence is global. And that means that there are points—topological defects, the origin, yes—of the correspondence between polar and Cartesian, points where this correspondence breaks down. And those points are called scriptural decrees, where there is no explanation in the revealed realm, but in the world of the hidden there is apparently some explanation for the matter. So both the example of scientific explanation versus theological explanation and the example of plain-sense interpretation versus the interpretation of the secret, I think both are connected to the subject of mysticism. Because on the theological plane, for example, this is basically the mystical explanation as against the scientific explanation, which is supposedly the plain explanation, the revealed explanation. And likewise in Torah interpretation there is the revealed explanation, the plain-sense explanation, and there is the explanation of the hidden, which is the mystical one. So in both these contexts I think they really illustrate the relation between mysticism and non-mystical thinking, rational thinking, between hidden and revealed. And the claim is that the best way to describe this relation is as a global correspondence. Therefore there are certain places where this correspondence breaks down. Okay, that was basically the claim up to where we got. Now I’ll say more than that—I had saved this too—that the very fact that this correspondence breaks down means that the relation between the revealed and the hidden is not merely a relation of translation between two languages. If it were only translation between two languages, then it shouldn’t break down anywhere, and then the explanation of the hidden would add nothing over and above the explanation of the revealed. It would only say the same thing in a different language, the language of the hidden. Once there are mismatches, that means that the move from the revealed to the hidden and back is not just translation from one language to another, but that there are two different systems here, and each such system exists and stands on its own, each has some significance. It’s not just describing the same thing in another language, but describing something else. Except that in most situations it turns out that there is some correspondence between what this system says and what that system says. That’s the wonder of global correspondence, which I tried to show you through the MIU language: that such a thing can happen, that two completely different general systems—not translation into different languages of the same general system, but two totally different general systems—yield the same lexicon, the same set of legitimate and illegitimate words. And to a degree, of course, such a correspondence can exist with the exception of certain cases where it doesn’t work, where the correspondence doesn’t work. One of the languages fails or falls short, or at least the two languages do not fit each other at those specific points. In the language of MIU I would say that if, say, I have a thousand words in the language, then system A gives me 999 of them and system B gives me all thousand words. So in one word there is some break in the correspondence between system A and system B, and there is no impediment to such a thing. Such a thing can definitely happen. Now one might ask—let’s go back to the relation between the plain-sense explanation and the explanation of the secret, of the hidden—if indeed there is always an explanation in the hidden but not always an explanation in the revealed, meaning there are situations where the revealed fails to explain—scriptural decree—then why assume at all that the revealed is also an explanation? That would mean that the revealed is some sort of anecdote. Remember, I spoke in the scientific context about explanations, about teleological theories, purposive theories, and causal theories, like potential versus force in mechanics, or in optics, Fermat’s principle versus ordinary geometrical optics. In all those examples, usually if you ask physicists, they’ll tell you that there is one description that is the correct one and the other description is an anecdote. Meaning, it comes out in a surprising mathematical way that all the phenomena of mechanics can also be explained with teleological tools. That isn’t really true—not that it is actually driven by teleological rules—but it turns out there is a teleological formulation that yields the same results, that can explain the same set of facts. Usually—and by the way there there is no exception, it doesn’t break down; the correspondence is complete. There is a mathematical proof, a local correspondence, not a global one. So there we really do treat at least one of the two sides as an anecdote. Only one of them is correct. Or alternatively these are just two different languages describing the thing that is correct. So there is no point asking whether this language is correct or that language is correct. Languages are not the sort of thing that is true or false. What is described in the language can be asked about—whether it is true or false. And once you are describing the same thing, what do I care if you use two different languages? Therefore there are not really two descriptions or two explanations here that are both true. Rather, there is only a description of the same explanation in two different languages, even though on the face of it they seem unrelated—this one teleological and that one causal. But it turns out there is a connection, and one can even prove it and show it. And in such a situation, the attitude really is that this is only two languages. Even though it is surprising, because on the face of it this doesn’t seem like mere translation from this language into that one. It looks like something completely different, not just Hebrew and English describing the same thing. But it turns out no: if you do the mathematical work, you see that there is a translation from this language into that language. Therefore it is accepted, and probably with some justice, that if so then these are not two explanations. There is something that is correct, whether there is force in the world or potential in the world. Apparently there is force in the world, and potential is a mathematical anecdote. It turns out mathematics lets us describe what happens also in the language of potential and not only in the language of force. Fine, an anecdote—useful, often more useful, because it is easier for us to think that way. Fine. But that still doesn’t mean it is an alternative description of reality. It isn’t another explanation in reality; it is only the use of another language to talk about the same things and describe the same explanation. In the world of interpretation, the attitude is not like that. Not in the interpretation of the Torah and not in the interpretation of events in the world. I said—I think I mentioned—that this is the Ten Commandments and that is the ten utterances. People have said this often already. I think the first to say it was the Rema of Fano. The ten utterances by which the world was created are the ten foundations that are basically the basis of the facts in the world, of physics or of science. And the Ten Commandments are the basis of the normative world, of Jewish law. Okay? So the claim is that the correspondence between scientific explanation and theological explanation regarding facts—the ten utterances—is not one correct explanation and one anecdote, but really two different explanations that are both correct. And one of the indications that this is not merely translation is that the correspondence between these two explanations breaks down at certain points. What does that mean? It means I have not merely switched languages; I am really saying something different. The fact is, it does not always say the same thing. Therefore this is not merely a change of language. And the same goes for scriptural decree—the scriptural decree that breaks the correspondence between the hidden explanation and the revealed explanation of verses of the Torah or laws of the Torah. That too is proof that we are not speaking merely about changing languages, but in fact there are really two different explanations here. I can describe the situation on the theological or hidden plane, or on the scientific or revealed plane, and these are two different descriptions each of which is correct, and they are not the same description in two languages, but two explanations. Different things. Well, here the opposite problem arises. This is the other side of the coin. Because in the end, whenever this correspondence breaks down in both contexts—the internet disconnected a bit for me. The line got stuck a little. Can you hear me? Yes, now we can hear. Okay. What comes up here, in effect, is the question of the other side of the coin. Meaning, if I really claim these are two different explanations and not translation, and the indication for that is that there are points or contexts where the correspondence breaks down—now what do we do when the correspondence breaks down? For example, in a scriptural decree. Clearly in a scriptural decree my assumption is that the hidden explanation is the correct one, because there is no revealed explanation. So the hidden explanation is apparently what underlies this law, or this verse, or whatever it is we are discussing. The same in the context of miracles. I ask myself: what is the correct explanation in the context of miracles? I’ll say: the theological explanation, because physics clearly broke down here; it fails to explain what is happening. Now if so, the question arises: in what sense is physics a correct explanation at all? Maybe on the contrary—physics is the anecdote, because there are situations where it doesn’t work, whereas theology, according to this belief, always works. Physics is the anecdote. It turns out that in most cases one can also find a physical explanation. An interesting anecdote. But the fact that it is not in all cases raises the question whether even in the cases where I do find a physical explanation, is it right to regard physics as an explanation, or is it just an anecdote in those cases, that theology can be described in physical language in most contexts? Then it’s only an anecdote. If that were true, then apparently it should work all the time. We said that an explanation has to provide me with a sufficient condition, right? A sufficient condition means that if there is such-and-such gravitational force, then the waters do not split, right? Those are the laws of physics. If the waters split, what does that mean? That in fact gravitation or physics is not a sufficient condition, right? Not a sufficient condition—maybe not even a necessary one. Things can happen against it. So maybe that means physics is not correct at all? It’s only an anecdote. Usually it seems as if there is gravitational force, but the truth is that things always happen for theological reasons; it just somehow turns out for some reason that in most cases this can also be described if we try to formulate here the law of gravity. So there isn’t really such a law and there isn’t really such a force, but you can use it because in most cases it works. One could think that that is really the conclusion that emerges here. But my claim is that no. The law of gravity is a correct law. Correct in what sense? Correct in the sense that I claim that gravitational force—remember I distinguished between the law of gravity and the force of gravity? What’s the difference? The law of gravity is simply a description of events: if there are two masses, they attract one another and move in such-and-such a way. It’s a description. When I speak about gravitational force, I am speaking about some kind of entity in the world, a certain force that exists in the world and causes bodies to be attracted to one another. That is no longer a description; it is already an explanation. Okay? Now when I say that the scientific description is correct, it means that science not only describes, but also explains. Meaning, I claim that not only is there a law of gravity, but there is also a force of gravity. Meaning, what causes bodies to attract one another is some phenomenon that exists in reality itself called gravitational force. There is such a thing. It is not just a manner of speaking; it is not an anecdote. It is a description of reality. That is the accepted conception regarding physics. Not only that, but physicists and the world in general invest billions of dollars in trying to investigate gravitational force and not only the law of gravity. They are looking for gravitons. They build crazy particle accelerators in order to try to see whether there are gravitons. Gravitons are particles that carry the force of gravity itself. If we treat the law of gravity as a law but there is no force of gravity, then there are no gravitons. Gravitons are particles that carry the gravitational force, just as photons carry the electromagnetic field. Therefore even though they haven’t yet found gravitons, because it’s a particle too weak for us and we still can’t observe it with our current tools, if you ask physicists, almost all of them believe it exists. And what does that mean? That for them the law of gravity expresses truth about reality. There is such a thing as gravitational force that causes attraction between bodies, and it breaks down into gravitons or is carried by gravitons. Therefore the claim is that the scientific explanation—even from the perspective that sometimes it breaks down when there are miracles—still, in the other cases where it works, that is not an anecdote. It works because it really is true, because there is a force of gravity that causes attraction. What causes attraction is the force of gravity, not only the theological tendencies of the Holy One, blessed be He. And that really starts to look like dancing at two weddings. Because on the one hand I want to say that this is not translation into two languages, because there is a practical difference; there are places where one language works and the other does not. These are two explanations. But on the other hand, one of the explanations doesn’t always work. So that explanation doesn’t give me a sufficient condition. So why do I call it an explanation? The answer is: it is an explanation for those situations where it works. There are situations where the Holy One, blessed be He, freezes physics. That does not mean that in the other situations there is no such thing as gravitational force at all. There is. It is not merely a mode of description. There is gravitational force. Except that sometimes, when the Holy One, blessed be He, sees fit, He freezes it. He doesn’t let it act, or no longer activates it. It doesn’t matter for the moment. Therefore the claim is a bit complex on the logical level. What it means is that both of these are explanations. They supply mechanisms that truly generate the phenomena. It is not just my way of describing the phenomena, but I really claim that this is what happens in the world: that theology operates the world and that science operates the world. Both. For the sake of discussion—actually in the theological domain I am more skeptical than in the scientific one. But right now I’m trying to present the thesis, before the question of what I think and whether it’s true or not. We already said that I do not identify mysticism with false theories. They are not synonyms. Even if I think they are not correct, that is not the definition of mysticism. Right now, when I speak about the definition, this is what I assume. I don’t want to bring in here the question of whether it is true or not. Here each person can answer for himself what he thinks. So basically this is the example I want to present as a pattern or a model for the relation between mysticism and rational explanations, plain-sense explanations, whatever else you want to call them. The claim is that there are two explanatory systems here, each of which offers a correct explanation. And this is not translation into a different language. I mentioned, I think, the Leshem, who says that Hasidism, which sees Kabbalah as a parable for the structure of the human soul, is not actually dealing with Kabbalah. Because Kabbalah is supposed to deal with spiritual worlds, not with our world and not with man. There is such a thing as the world of Atzilut, the world of Adam Kadmon, Beriah, Yetzirah, all the spiritual worlds and the configurations and the sefirot—these are things that exist in reality. It is not another language for describing human psychology and the human spiritual structure. Rather, there really is such a thing. Do you see the parallel with gravitational force versus the law of gravity? That is the claim. The mystical claim is that there are mystical mechanisms that generate reality. And the scientific claim is that there are revealed, scientific mechanisms that generate reality. And the claim of someone who accepts both is that both explanations are correct. These mechanisms do it, and those mechanisms do it too. In parallel. It’s not a trivial business, accepting the possibility of such a state of affairs. So that is basically the claim. Now, to sharpen this, maybe I’ll show an interesting example. There is a logician—I think Jewish, Jewish in soul at least—an American named Raymond Smullyan. He already passed away, but he had become very old; I think he died at close to a hundred, not long ago. And he used to do logical stand-up comedy and wrote very interesting articles and books, some of which were translated into Hebrew. An interesting man. And in one of his books he defined himself as a Taoist. So he tries to explain the concept of the Tao to a Western person. He has a book about this—I’ve already forgotten its name—The Tao Is Silent, that’s the name of Raymond Smullyan’s book. And among other things he brings there—I no longer remember in what context—but he brings an example that tries to sharpen something. He gives the following example. There are claims against astrology. Astrology says that the heavenly bodies in some sense affect what happens down here. If you look at the heavenly bodies, you can know what will happen down here. Okay, that is basically the general thesis of astrology. Now there are claims against astrology saying that this cannot be, because the influence from the heavenly bodies to earth would have to operate at a speed no greater than the speed of light. Therefore, it is impossible to infer from a current state of something happening in the heavens an event that will happen now in the world, because for the influence to come down from the heavens to here, time has to pass—at least the amount of time it takes light to travel that distance. And if it is an influence not via light but by some other means, then of course it is even slower. But at the very least it needs the time it takes light to go from there to here. Now, I never understood this argument itself; it’s a strange argument. Because when I look at the stars now, I see their state as it was years ago—or however long ago, depending on how far away they are. I don’t see the stars now and claim that their present state is radiating onto what will happen in the world now. What I see now is the state of the stars as it was years ago, and that affects what will happen in the world now. So there is actually no argument from physics against astrology. But leave that aside for the moment. He raises this claim and offers the following explanation. He says that this claim does not necessarily refute astrology. Why? Because he says that this claim assumes there exists a mechanism of influence or causation between the heavenly bodies and what happens here on earth. But one can claim that astrology… Did someone ask or say something? Put yourselves on mute, everybody. Put everyone on mute. One can claim or accept the astrological thesis even without that. Meaning, one can say that there is some sort of correspondence between what happens in the heavens and what happens on earth, but it is a correspondence not based on causal influence. Rather, there is some sort of correspondence between what happens there and what happens here, without what happens there generating what happens here. There is just some correlation between what happens there and what happens here. If there is such a correlation, then if I look at what happens there, I can learn from it about what happens here, what will happen here—not because what happens there is the cause, but because there is a correspondence. Statisticians, of course, are very used to this distinction and mock people who do not carefully distinguish between correlation and causation. The fact that there is a correlation between two things does not mean that one is the cause of the other. There may be a correlation between them either by chance or because there is something third that creates this correlation. Take an example—the example is Leibniz’s. Take the example of two clocks. The two clocks move in completely synchronized fashion. When this one shows 3:05, that one also shows 3:05. When this one shows 10:40, that one also shows 10:40. Amazing correspondence. How does that happen? There are three possibilities, or maybe even four. Either clock A affects clock B and determines what will happen in clock B, or clock B affects what happens in clock A, or there is a third factor that affects both clocks and synchronizes them, but neither affects the other, or it happened by chance. There is no mechanism causing the fit; it is accidental. Even such a fit could arise accidentally. There are four possibilities. In the case of clocks, for example, the answer is probably the third, right? There was a clockmaker who made sure that the clock would be synchronized with standard time, and the other clockmaker also synchronized the clock he made with standard time, and thus these clocks are synchronized—not because clock A dictates to clock B what to do or vice versa. The correspondence between the two clocks is one created by a third mechanism that ensures both clocks are synchronized, not because clock A influences clock B. So likewise, the correspondence between what happens in the stars and what happens here on earth may also be because there is some third factor that creates a system of laws for the stars and for the earth that yields events that correspond to one another, that correlate with one another—even though there is no causal relation between what happens in the heavens and what happens on earth. What is gained by all this hair-splitting? That the argument from physics falls away. The heavens do not need to be able to influence the earth in order for there to be correspondence. There may be correspondence between them that is not the result of causation. Rather, the Holy One, blessed be He, for example, created the powers and behavior of the stars in a way perfectly parallel to what happens here on earth, and then He is the clockmaker, because He is the one who synchronized these two systems. So there is no need to assume that this influences that. Consequently, there is no need to wait for the time it takes light to travel in order for the influence to take effect. No—it can be simultaneous. In principle there is no problem with that. Yes, this confusion between correlation and causation naturally gives rise to many amusing things. It is well known that people say one shouldn’t go on a diet, because everyone who goes on a diet is fat. Therefore one shouldn’t go on a diet. What does that assume? That dieting is the cause that generates fatness. Whereas in reality, of course, it is the opposite. The fact that I am fat causes me to go on a diet, or may cause me to, or even should cause me to, go on a diet. Okay, the causality is reversed. Once the causality is reversed, then you cannot draw conclusions of the kind: don’t go on a diet, because everyone who goes on a diet is fat. By the way, a great many studies—or so-called studies—in medicine, or studies in alternative medicine, are built on these things. Basically they show there is a correlation between two factors, but as long as you do not know what is cause and what is effect, or whether there is any cause and effect here at all, you cannot draw conclusions from it. Say you see that in the group of coffee drinkers there are more cancer patients than in the group of people who don’t drink coffee. Does that mean one should avoid drinking coffee? No. The question is whether coffee drinking causes cancer or cancer causes coffee drinking. Maybe cancer patients have a greater tendency to drink coffee. If that is the explanation, then it won’t help me to avoid drinking coffee; it won’t prevent me from getting cancer. Right? Again, it doesn’t matter at the moment what the truth is here. My point is that in order to draw conclusions it isn’t enough to point to a correlation or a correspondence. You also have to understand the causal direction and the causal relation. Without that, these conclusions do not have much meaning. Therefore the fact that there is a correspondence between two things does not mean there is a causal relation between them. It is entirely possible that there are two parallel systems, both of which can generate the same phenomena or matching phenomena, but with no connection between them. And that is basically the model I am trying to propose here regarding the revealed and the hidden. I claim that it is not that the hidden generates the revealed or the revealed generates the hidden. No. The hidden generates the phenomena, and the revealed generates the phenomena, and both are correct, and both are independent, and there is no direct connection between them. The correspondence is global and not local. A local correspondence means that every law in the revealed is actually driven by a law in the hidden. The law in the hidden drives it or generates it. Then there is perfect correspondence. Global correspondence means there is no connection between the system of laws of the revealed and the system of laws of the hidden. But it turns out that all the phenomena generated by this system are also generated by that system, even though there is no connection between the systems themselves. That is what I called global correspondence. Okay, so Raymond Smullyan’s example, I think, illustrates this nicely as well. Maybe I’ll bring another example. There was once a forum on the internet called “Stop Here, Think.” For several years I was involved there in discussions. It was a forum established by people from Haredi society, or some who had left Haredi society, and discussions there revolved mainly around Judaism, though not only that—various kinds of intellectual discussions. At some point I got annoyed, because as is the way of internet forums, the discussions are disorganized. Everyone throws something in, and you can’t build anything. You return to things, you move on, and nothing gets built there. It really annoyed me, and I was still young and optimistic, and I thought it was possible to structure the discussions in a way that would move them from premises to conclusion. You can argue, but know exactly where you stand and always move forward, rather than always circling back, as discussions tend to do, and grinding flour that has already been ground. So I tried to build a thread that was structured with a very orderly method for how to conduct the discussion. I took charge of that thread, and everyone who participated had to obey the rules, and I tried to construct a kind of structured discussion around the existence of demons. Yes. And I tried to make an orderly argument in favor of the existence of demons, without everyone immediately jumping from the gut and saying I was talking nonsense. I asked for arguments and for the discussion to be built in an orderly way. Among other things, in that amusing thread—it later became one of the cornerstones of that forum there—it was called the Demon Thread, or Exorcism Ground; it already has a name, it’s an icon. In any case, among other things I tried to argue there that all the anti-demon instincts we have as rational people often pounce on statements that are merely a translation into another language of rational statements. And one of the examples I gave there was the Talmud in Bava Kamma, in the topic of “this one benefits and that one does not lose,” which I mentioned earlier. The Talmud there speaks of some demon called She’iyah—shin, aleph, yod, heh. “She’iyah will smash your gates,” as the verse says. So the Talmud says there is such a demon called She’iyah, and it is responsible for the deterioration of houses. Empty houses somehow always deteriorate, right? They become covered with dust and crumble. Who causes that deterioration? The demon called She’iyah. Therefore, if someone lives in that house—if there is habitation there—then She’iyah departs. It is a fact that a house that people live in is maintained: there is no dust, it doesn’t crumble. Why? Because when human beings move around there, the demons leave. Okay? Demons are found in the wilderness, in desolate places. A place inhabited by people—the demons go away. Therefore houses don’t crumble; houses that are lived in look well-kept, they do not crumble, and everything is fine. Well, it’s amusing. In any case I wanted to argue there that talking about the deterioration of a house as the handiwork of a demon may simply be a translation into mystical language or demon-language of something that could be stated scientifically. When I say that a house crumbles, it is because of the second law of thermodynamics—entropy, basically. Okay? Entropy increases, the house crumbles. So that is the scientific description of the matter. Now who is responsible for implementing the second law of thermodynamics? I don’t know. Who is responsible for implementing the force of gravity? The angel of gravity? I don’t know exactly who. Whoever is responsible for activating the mechanism of gravity in the world. So who is responsible for the mechanism of increasing entropy in the world? Apparently that is the demon She’iyah. In other words, he is the guy responsible for the crumbling of houses, okay? Or Maxwell’s demon. Maxwell’s demon is the antithesis of She’iyah; he is responsible for decreasing entropy. So She’iyah is responsible for increasing entropy. In any case, my claim was that basically—and I’ll say more than that—it’s not just, what do you want, this is not a different statement; it is a translation of the scientific statement into the language of demons. What difference does it make whether you speak in the language of forces or the language of demons? There is something that causes houses to crumble. I argued more than that. I argued that it may really be that what crumbles the houses is She’iyah. That demon crumbles the houses. When I want to describe scientifically how it happens, I say there is the second law of thermodynamics that describes how it happens. If you remember what I said earlier about the law of gravity versus the force of gravity: the law of gravity describes the behavior of bodies with mass. The force of gravity is the entity responsible for the behavior described by the law of gravity. So I want to claim the same thing about entropy and the second law. She’iyah is parallel to the force of gravity. What is the force of gravity? The force of gravity is some sort of entity, right, which causes bodies with mass to be attracted to one another. It is something that exists in the world. What is this something? Can anyone give any sort of description of it? One could call it a demon. What difference does it make? Some abstract entity that nobody can see or touch, and it generates phenomena in the world. Why is that any different from saying there is a demon that generates phenomena in the world? Do you want to say there is no demon? If there is no demon, then this thing happens with nothing generating it? One has to understand that the second law of thermodynamics cannot be the cause of a house crumbling. It merely describes the crumbling. But when I ask who is the cause that generates the crumbling, the answer is not the second law of thermodynamics. It has to be something in the world that generates the crumbling; otherwise the crumbling happens without a cause. The fact that I describe it with some mathematical law or another merely describes the crumbling. But when I ask what caused it, who generates it, the answer has to be some kind of entity, some sort of creature. That creature is a demon. What’s the problem? On the contrary, I said, the Talmudic approach is the rational approach. If something happens, then there is a cause that generates it; there is a principle of causality. You, as rational people—that’s what I told them there in that thread—you as rational people actually want to claim that this thing happens without a cause. There is no demon generating the deterioration, so why does the house crumble? The fact that you have a mathematical description of the crumbling is not an explanation of the crumbling; it is a description of it. In gravitation I also have an explanation. The force of gravity is what underlies the law of gravity. Now I ask: what is the parallel to the second law of thermodynamics? What is the entity, the force, that generates the crumbling of houses? Its name is She’iyah, nice to meet you. That is that demon from the Talmud. Okay? So my claim there—I tried, I’m not sure I believed what I wrote there—but I tried to challenge people to raise arguments against this thesis, which basically presents mysticism as something very rational. And someone who does not accept mysticism is, as Ben-Gurion said, in Israel whoever does not believe in miracles is not a realist. Sometimes, someone who does not believe in mysticism is not a rational person, because he is basically saying that things happen without a cause. Someone who thinks the law of gravity is correct but there is no force of gravity—the force of gravity is a fiction. There are philosophers who want to argue that, that gravitational force is a fiction. There really is no such thing in the world called the force of gravity, only our convenient way of describing or referring to the law of gravity. What these people are really claiming is that when a body falls to earth, there is nothing that caused it. It happened without a cause. I only have descriptions—descriptions that it falls at such-and-such a speed and in such-and-such proportion to the masses and the distance between them, and so on and so forth. Only descriptions. When I ask why it fell, what caused it to fall, what is the cause that generates the falling—if you say the force does not really exist, it is only a convenient fiction for us to use—then you are basically saying that this event happened without a cause, and so you are not a rational person. Because the principle of causality is one of the foundations of rational thinking. If you say things happen without a cause, you are not rational. But if you see that there is no tangible cause one can feel or touch, then apparently there is something abstract—call it mystical or whatever—that generates this thing. Okay? Therefore my claim was that even in the context of the crumbling of houses, it may very well be that when we speak about this demon called She’iyah, the fact that it is called a demon does not mean it has horns and a tail and wears some sort of black coat and hides and roams around in the dark. Rather, it is some abstract entity that is responsible for physical events that happen in the world. In that sense it is no different from the force of gravity. What is the difference? Because one really has to understand that the second law of thermodynamics is essentially different from the law of gravity. The second law of thermodynamics does not describe or present to us entities that generate it. The law of gravity assumes the existence of a force of gravity. The force of gravity causes this attraction, and the attraction is described by the law of gravity. So behind the law of gravity there also sits some explanation in terms of entities, or in terms of things that exist in the world and can generate these phenomena. The second law of thermodynamics is, by its nature, a descriptive law. It does not enter into the question of what generates the phenomena. Those who know a bit of physics know that thermodynamics is a field of a different character than mechanics. It describes things; it does not—and in mechanics it is a philosophical dispute whether it is description or explanation, whether the force of gravity exists or is only a fiction describing gravitation. But in thermodynamics it is clear that it is only description. So it is almost required to say that there is something there, some entity of some kind, that generates what is described by this law. Call it a demon, call it something else—what difference does it make what you call it? But there is some abstract entity that generates these phenomena. This is an example of the transition I am trying to illustrate here as well, between translation from language to language and the claim that there really is such a thing. Because one could have said: no, demon is just a figure of speech. It’s like—let’s start with gravity—one could have said that the force of gravity is a fiction. After all, no one has seen it. But it is convenient for us to think about gravitational phenomena as if there were a force generating them, because we are used to causal fixations, we are used to causal thinking. So we invent all kinds of abstract entities like the force of gravity that are responsible for the phenomena that occur, but really there is no such thing. That is mysticism. To think there is a force of gravity, some abstract entity that does things here in the world—that is mysticism. Therefore I stick to the law of gravity without assuming the existence of a force of gravity. Now regarding the second law of thermodynamics, same thing. There too one can say: I stick to the second law of thermodynamics and leave me alone about demons; there are no demons. But on the other hand the mystic will come and say: not at all. You, as a rationalist, are actually not rational in this context, because you are basically claiming that things happen without a cause. Rather, one has to assume that there are things—spiritual entities or spiritual phenomena—that generate the physical phenomena you observe, that you encounter. And these explanations are mystical explanations because nobody sees this demon, just as nobody sees the force of gravity, and therefore it is not accessible to everyone. It fits the definition of mysticism I described earlier. But understand that if I am a genuine mystic, then I really claim that there is such a thing. It really generates the phenomena there. It is not just translation into another language, a translation of science into another language. I claim that there is something there that really is the mechanism generating the phenomena. That is what I meant earlier when I said that the mystic’s claim is that mysticism is a correct explanation. The mystical mechanisms are things that really act and really exist in the world, not merely our way of describing things, a metaphor for what happens in the human psyche, as is commonly thought in Hasidism. No. There are spiritual worlds, and they generate things in the world. That is the real mystical claim. Otherwise it is not mysticism. Merely saying that I use mystical language to describe the structure of the human soul—that is not mysticism. Like Freud’s psychoanalysis, for example. Freud’s psychoanalysis is not mysticism. Why? Or at least it does not have to be mysticism, because it may be only the use of a mystical language or some other language—it does not matter at the moment—not empirically accessible, and in that sense mystical, in order to describe the psychological phenomena that we do in fact experience. But as long as you are not claiming that these psychoanalytic things really exist, and you are only claiming that this is a convenient language for referring to psychological phenomena, then you are not a mystic. If you claim that such things really exist even though nobody has seen them and nobody can see them, then you are really in the realm of mysticism. That is basically the claim. Therefore indeed the critiques—by now not quite so modern, but let’s call them modern—of Freud are exactly that he was a mystic. Because he spoke about phenomena that are not measurable; nobody—it’s not accessible to anyone; nobody can really confirm or deny their existence. You invent for yourself a whole metaphysical language, or meta-psychological language, and offer all kinds of explanations for phenomena in the world on the basis of demons. In effect, these are demons, just like all those phenomena. The world of ideas is definitely mysticism too, as existence, as the claim that ideas exist. You can say that horseness is some sort of structure shared by all horses—not that the Idea of horseness exists in the Platonic world, in the world of ideas—but that is really to say that categories do not really exist, but are only cognitive functions that are convenient for me to work with. Precisely therefore that is not mysticism. The mystical claim is a claim about the world: that in the world there is such a thing as an idea—not that it is an abstraction shared by all horses, but that the Idea of horseness exists in some sense somewhere. Okay? Here exactly we pass from the realm of abstract thinking into mysticism. Because in abstract thinking you can say all this is metaphor, or a language in which it is convenient for me to deal with facts. As long as I do not claim that this language speaks about things, about entities, about things existing in the world, I am not a mystic. When I claim these things exist in the world and act, and it is not only language—that is where I am a mystic. Therefore it is important to me, and I keep returning to this from different directions to sharpen the point, that speaking in mystical language is not called being a mystic. Speaking in mystical language may be very useful for understanding human psychology or understanding the world or whatever, so why not use it? It is no different from any scientific language or any other language I use because it helps me understand the world. Even if I use the language of configurations and sefirot and spiritual worlds and so on, if you are not claiming that all these fellows exist, but only that this is a language through which it is convenient for me to organize the phenomena in the world and in human psychology, then you are not a mystic. You are simply proposing a language, and it needs to be tested. If it really helps deal with the phenomena, I will use it too. I do not care that it is not measured by the question whether it is true or not. It is measured by whether it is useful or not, efficient or not, okay? Therefore this is not mysticism. It is science through and through. I now have to test this language. If it is effective, I will use it, without now claiming that such things really exist. No—but it is convenient for me to use it. Like when a secular person says, “with God’s help I’ll do it,” or a person who doesn’t believe—not only a secular person—you ask him, “Will you come tomorrow?” “With God’s help.” He does not really mean that the Holy One, blessed be He, will help him and therefore he will come tomorrow. He doesn’t believe in Him at all. But it is convenient for him to use that language because it expresses what he intends to express. He means to say: I’ll try. Fine? That is what he means to say. So when you use that language not as a claim about the world, but as a language that is useful for expressing or describing what you want, that is not mysticism. Mysticism arises where you treat these non-measurable and non-empirical concepts as existing entities, even though nobody can encounter them or test you and know whether it is true or not. That is where it is mysticism. Because to claim that one can describe human psychology with ten sefirot—there is no problem with that. Anyone can test that. Let’s see whether your description works correctly; then all of us can see it. In that sense it is not mystical at all. I don’t care that you are using mystical language; you are not doing mystical work with it. That is the point. Therefore the important point is that mysticism is making claims about the world—I defined it earlier—making claims about the world that are not accessible to everyone, not measurable. But on the other hand they are claims about the world. It is not just a language in which I translate the statements of the revealed into a language that is supposedly mystical or hidden, which is just translation. No. When I deal with mysticism, it is very important to me to stress: this is not a translation of the revealed statements. These are statements that are true in their own right, not merely another language for describing the revealed statements. Okay? I keep coming back to the same point because I feel this is the sting of the whole move. It is important to me that this point be understood. Okay. Now, I said that one of my indications for the claim that there is global correspondence between mysticism and the revealed is precisely the fact that sometimes this correspondence breaks down. This correspondence breaks down in those places called scriptural decrees. But there are breakdowns of this correspondence that are taken in the opposite direction. What is a scriptural decree? A scriptural decree is basically a law for which I have no explanation in the revealed realm, but the law is written in the Torah, so I assume it is true. And if it is true, then there is probably some reason for it too, because otherwise why would the Holy One, blessed be He, establish it? So that reason is probably a mystical one. In my revealed world I do not find an explanation. So that is the type of breakdown I described before—that is a scriptural decree. But there are breakdowns that look very similar, yet the conclusions drawn from them are the opposite. And I mean situations where the consideration of the revealed leads to one halakhic conclusion and the consideration of the hidden leads to a different halakhic conclusion. A conflict between the revealed and the hidden in our narrow little world, as Arik איינשטיין says. This breakdown is similar to the one I described before in scriptural decree, but here the conclusion is opposite. At least the halakhic decisors usually say that in such cases we follow the revealed; specifically the hidden is set aside. In scriptural decree the revealed is set aside, right? I adopt the hidden, because this law is accepted, I conduct myself according to this law, it is correct even though I have no explanation in the revealed. I rely on the fact that there is an explanation in the hidden, and that is what determines things. But in ordinary cases, where this is not a scriptural decree—not written in the Torah, I do not have a law written explicitly in the Torah, but rather the principles of the hidden lead to one halakhic conclusion and the principles of the revealed lead to another, opposite one—what do we do now? This is not a scriptural decree because there is no verse saying that this is the law. Now one has to decide whether this is the law or that is the law. In such a case, several authorities say: once there is a contradiction between the hidden and the revealed, one follows the revealed. The most famous source for these statements is the Magen Avraham in the laws of tefillin. Rabbi? Yes? How is this different from an ordinary dispute? Even within the revealed itself there are disputes, and within the hidden itself there are disputes. So what? Here people claim that when there is a contradiction between the revealed and the hidden… It’s not that all of the revealed is one block, or all of the hidden is one block. Got it. Did you hear or not hear? I don’t understand why it should bother us that there is a dispute between the revealed and the hidden. There are many disputes within the revealed itself, within the hidden itself. So another dispute between the revealed and the hidden—so what happened? It doesn’t bother me at all. Why should that bother us? Nothing bothers me. I’m just pointing out the fact that there are such things, situations where there is a difference between the revealed and the hidden. What does that actually mean? So look, I’m sharing with you the Shulchan Arukh. It’s brought down below: “There are those who wrote”—this is the Rema in section 25, paragraph 14—“There are those who wrote that one should put on the arm-tefillin while seated, and the head-tefillin while standing.” You put on the arm-tefillin while sitting, and when putting on the head-tefillin you stand. “This is Agur in the name of the Zohar. And in these lands the practice is not so, but rather both while standing.” Fine? On this the Magen Avraham writes—this is note 20, yes, this letter here. The Magen Avraham says: “The practice is not so, and it seems to me that the placing should be while seated, but the blessing and the tying should be while standing, as Rabbi Beit Yosef wrote at the beginning of section 8, that all blessings over commandments are recited standing. Knesset HaGedolah wrote in the rules of the halakhic decisors: In every matter where the masters of Kabbalah and the Zohar disagree with the Talmud, follow the Talmud and the halakhic decisors. However, if the masters of Kabbalah are stringent, one should be stringent as well. And in any matter not mentioned in the Talmud and the halakhic decisors, even though it is mentioned in Kabbalah, we cannot compel people to act that way.” There are three statements here. One statement: in a place where there is a contradiction between the revealed and the hidden—here, in the hidden, the claim is that the arm-tefillin should be put on while sitting. So there is a contradiction here. He says: wherever the masters of Kabbalah and the Zohar disagree with the Talmud, the Jewish law follows the Talmud and the halakhic decisors. So the revealed determines. The Radbaz and Beit Yosef and others also bring this. “However, if the masters of Kabbalah are stringent,” meaning if by acting according to the hidden you are not violating the revealed but only being more stringent, while from the standpoint of the revealed it is also fine—not necessary, but fine—then one should also be stringent. Yet he still says that although one should be stringent, if it was not mentioned in the Talmud and the halakhic decisors, even though it was mentioned in Kabbalah, one cannot compel it. Meaning, the claim is that the hidden does not really have much halakhic standing. That is basically the claim. The world of the hidden does not have much halakhic standing. If it does not contradict the revealed, then maybe you can do it, maybe it is even proper to do it, but one cannot compel it, even when it does not contradict the revealed. One cannot compel it. When it contradicts the revealed, we follow the revealed. Okay? So the point—about the connection with dreams, I’ll get to that in a moment, that’s an interesting comment. I don’t actually know whether we’ll get to it today, but it connects exactly with the matter of dreams and will cast this whole issue in a completely different light. I’ll get to it. In any case, this is basically the claim. Now for me, what matters is not the halakhic question of what to do when there is a contradiction between the revealed and the hidden, but the very fact that such contradictions exist. For example, yes, I found here some source that gathers a number of such contradictions. It’s on “Olamot”—you know that site? It’s a site for in-depth halakhic study. There is an article there on the revealed and the hidden. Here, you see? It brings several examples. For example, the Tur in the laws of tefillin brings a dispute between the Rif and Rashi and the Rosh: whether one recites one blessing over putting on tefillin or two blessings. And Beit Yosef wrote that in the words of Sefer HaAgur there is a passage from the Zohar saying one should recite only one blessing. And the author of Agur wondered at those who disagree with Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai. Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai is a tanna. And whoever disagrees with the Zohar is really disagreeing with tannaim. And the point, of course, is that a tanna is someone who appears in the Mishnah. A tanna is not people; rather, tanna means books. And therefore the Zohar is not tannaim, despite being attributed to Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai. Anyway, the point is that—here you see—this is the Zohar brought by Agur, although it concerns a different law from the one the Magen Avraham was discussing. He discussed whether one places the arm-tefillin while seated. Here the question is how many blessings one recites over tefillin. I think there is a connection, because he brings the principle that blessings over commandments are recited standing. Now if according to the Zohar it is one blessing, one can recite the blessing standing and only place the arm-tefillin while seated. And the blessing is recited standing. Nowadays we recite two blessings, which is already against the Zohar. Meaning, both blessings have to be recited standing—both on the arm-tefillin and on the head-tefillin. So there is no choice; both are recited standing. Here the Zohar follows its own approach. In any case, this is what he says. So that is another dispute between the revealed and the hidden, and once again Agur in the name of the Zohar. And the question is whether to recite one blessing or two. And in fact one should follow the revealed, which says two blessings, and not one. Wearing tefillin on intermediate days of festivals is another example. The Tur and Beit Yosef bring a dispute among the medieval authorities (Rishonim) on the matter, and Beit Yosef concludes: “And now all the Jews of Spain practice not to put them on during the intermediate days of festivals. And I heard that previously they would put them on during the intermediate days of festivals according to the words of the Rosh, and afterward they found that Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai wrote in one passage that it is forbidden to put them on during the intermediate days of festivals, and therefore they refrained from putting them on during the intermediate days of festivals. And so wrote my uncle and teacher Rabbi Yitzhak Karo.” Fine? So the claim is that here too there is some dispute between the revealed and the hidden. But here they follow the lenient position and not the stringent one. What? Here they follow the lenient one, because not putting on tefillin is lenient. So they rely on the hidden and not on the revealed, apparently. Right. That is what he says. However, if you look closely at the end of his words, he writes: “And since in our Talmud this law was not explained explicitly, who will guarantee for us that we should dare, through positive action, to transgress the words of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, who speaks so strongly about the prohibition of putting them on.” Today most of us have the practice not to put them on, okay? We follow the hidden. Why? Because the Talmud does not say explicitly to put them on. On the other hand, in light of the rule we saw before, one cannot compel this. Someone who puts on tefillin during the intermediate days of festivals—nobody could compel him not to, certainly not when this is more stringent and not more lenient. Okay? So that is the second source he brought. Again, this is what we saw—the Agur in the name of the Zohar, that one blesses over the arm-tefillin while seated and the head-tefillin while standing. There is also, yes, these are the rules of Knesset HaGedolah that we brought earlier. The person who comes late to synagogue—there are more examples. By the way there is a famous example where the Vilna Gaon reconciles the hidden with the revealed regarding the direction of beds—whether to place them east-west or north-south—which is a discussion a bit in the Mishnah Berurah. That too is apparently a dispute between the revealed and the hidden. Right? Also regarding sending away the mother bird, and whether there is any point in performing that commandment even when I don’t need the eggs, just for its own sake. Here it really seems to be an outright contradiction to the revealed. In the revealed, in the plain sense, it seems from the plain meaning of the Talmudic discussions not to do it—not merely that one need not do it, but not to do it. There is a responsum of Chavot Ya’ir on this; that too is an interesting story. In any case, for our purposes, what I want to say is that the very existence of such contradictions means that the correspondence between the revealed and the hidden is global. Otherwise such contradictions could not arise. Now the question is: once such a contradiction exists, who is right? We already saw that on the interpretive plane we usually go with the hidden. Obviously that is so. Also in the matter of miracles we go with theology, because physics doesn’t work. But in this case, for example, the halakhic decisors claim that one should go with the revealed. Where there is a halakhic contradiction between the revealed and the hidden, one specifically goes with the revealed. Does that mean the hidden is not correct? No. It means that for purposes of Jewish law we have to go with the revealed. But the very fact that there is a contradiction does mean that the revealed and the hidden are not merely the same thing translated into two languages. Because otherwise they could not lead to opposite conclusions. Two languages are not two different statements. That is what I want to show here. The very fact that such contradictions exist shows that this is not merely translation into two different languages. By the way—and this will also be important for us later—in practice, yes, although the Magen Avraham and Beit Yosef and the halakhic decisors claim that where there is a contradiction between the revealed and the hidden one should go with the revealed, the kabbalists, of course, go with the hidden. So the fact that the halakhic decisors say to go with the revealed—yes, because they are men of the revealed. Why shouldn’t they go with the revealed? But the people of the hidden say to go with the hidden. Therefore it is not so simple that in such a case one must go with the revealed. It depends whom you ask. Right? Later on I will try, by the way, to reconcile these two things. I’ll try to show there is no contradiction. In light of my definition of mysticism, I’ll show that there is no contradiction between these two statements. Okay, but for that we will still need a few more assumptions before we get there. Okay, I’ll stop here, because now I’m starting the next section and we’ve run out of time. I’ll stop here. Does anyone want to comment or ask? Thank you very much, Shabbat shalom. Shabbat shalom. Shabbat shalom. Goodbye.