Mysticism – Lesson 14

Table of Contents

• Kindness and judgment as a framework that explains phenomena
• The Hatam Sofer’s responsum on Lag BaOmer and the tension between obligation and negation
• Pri Hadash, “do not add,” and communal holidays established because of a miracle
• Lag BaOmer without a miracle, the Yaavetz, hod within hod, and judgment within judgment
• Judgment as a kal va-homer argument, logic, and wisdom versus understanding
• Purim, breaking rules, and what remains beyond justifications
• Rama of Pano: kal va-homer, the supreme keter, and “it is sufficient for what is derived from the law to be like the original case”
• A sage is preferable to a prophet, and abstract principles that apply in all worlds
• The discussion of whether Kabbalah is a psychological metaphor or a description of real worlds, and the test of truth
• An analogy to existentialism and the question of coherence as an indication of truth
• A question about applying Kabbalistic conclusions, and the lecturer’s answer

Summary

General overview

The text argues that mystical language, and especially the pair of concepts kindness and judgment, can provide a broad, unifying meaning for many phenomena and ideas, and in that way strengthen the indication that there is truth in the mystical description even if it is not accessible to direct verification. It proceeds through two sources: a responsum of the Hatam Sofer about Lag BaOmer and communal “Purim” celebrations, and a passage from the Rama of Pano about kal va-homer, the sefirah of keter, and the principle of dayo, in order to show how judgment within judgment is revealed as founded on a point that cannot be justified logically. It concludes by distinguishing between a Hasidic approach that sees Kabbalah as a metaphorical-psychological language and the Leshem’s approach that sees Kabbalah as a description of real worlds, measurable in terms of truth and falsehood, and with the claim that coherence and broad interconnections can serve as an indication of the correctness of Kabbalistic claims.

Kindness and judgment as a framework that explains phenomena

The text presents kindness and judgment as right and left, male and female, yin and yang, matter and form, something from nothing and something from something, and wisdom versus understanding, and emphasizes that this pair spreads across wide areas of thought and the conceptual world. It argues that the ability of these concepts to organize many connections gives some foothold for judging a mystical claim as possibly true even though it is not directly accessible. It seeks to complete the example through two passages in order to sharpen the mode of perspective and conclude the demonstration of the ability to decide regarding mystical statements.

The Hatam Sofer’s responsum on Lag BaOmer and the tension between obligation and negation

The Hatam Sofer, in Yoreh De’ah, siman 233, describes an ascent to Safed on Lag BaOmer for the celebration of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai of blessed memory, and states that their intention is for the sake of Heaven and that their reward is surely great. But he himself is “among those who separate” and does not want to join their custom, and does not want to sit there and alter their custom in front of them, so as not to stir up dispute. The text interprets this as a tension in which Lag BaOmer has a positive aspect and a negative aspect, and that despite possible intentions and benefits, there is a principled problem in the eyes of the Hatam Sofer. The text adds that this is presented as a reason to distance oneself from the situation so as not to get entangled in dispute.

Pri Hadash, “do not add,” and communal holidays established because of a miracle

The text brings the Pri Hadash in Orah Hayyim, siman 496, in the pamphlet on prohibitive customs, letter 14, about the custom of communities to establish a Jewish holiday on the day a miracle occurred for them, such as “Purim Frankfurt” and “Purim Casablanca,” and asks whether this does not violate “do not add,” like someone inventing a holiday out of his own heart. Opposed to this, it places Purim and Hanukkah, which were established by the sages even though they are not written in the Torah, and it brings the dispute over the count of the Baal Halakhot Gedolot, who includes Hanukkah and Purim in the 613 commandments, and Maimonides’ attack on this in the first shoresh, alongside the Hatam Sofer’s claim based on a kal va-homer argument from tractate Megillah that gives Purim Torah-level status. It explains possible answers that place the authority of the Sanhedrin and “do not turn aside” as the framework that allows enactments, and notes that there is a dispute among the medieval authorities (Rishonim) over whether “do not add” applies to enactments of the sages, while presenting Maimonides’ view in the laws of rebels that the sages are obligated to state that something is rabbinic so as not to violate “do not add,” and the remark that the Talmud does not always specify rabbinic/Torah-level, which creates a difficulty.

Lag BaOmer without a miracle, the Yaavetz, hod within hod, and judgment within judgment

The text quotes the Hatam Sofer, who explains that communal Purims rely on a kal va-homer argument of “if we say song from servitude to freedom, then from death to life all the more so,” but to establish a date “on which no miracle occurred, and which is not mentioned anywhere in the Talmud or halakhic decisors, not in any place, hint, or allusion,” such as preventing eulogies and fasting on Lag BaOmer, is something whose reasons are unknown to him. It brings in the name of the Siddur of Maharai Yaavetz an explanation “according to the hidden teaching” that “it was like a religious court that was entirely obligated and yet became acquitted,” and interprets this through the counting of the Omer, where Lag BaOmer is hod within hod, meaning judgment within judgment, since hod is on the left side. It explains that according to this, it would have been fitting to establish a day also for gevurah within gevurah on the ninth day of the Omer, but that falls in Nisan, when one does not eulogize anyway, so “what benefit does a candle have at midday,” and thus the uniqueness of Lag BaOmer remains.

Judgment as a kal va-homer argument, logic, and wisdom versus understanding

The text identifies “judgment” in the language of the sages with kal va-homer, and maintains that the holidays one is permitted to add rest on such an argument. It argues that a day with no kal va-homer that justifies it is interpreted as “judgment within judgment,” in which it is revealed that at the foundation of judgment there is no further judgment, but rather a point that cannot be justified in the terms of the rules themselves, similar to the question of the logical foundation of inference rules like modus ponens and the claim that at the fundamental level the answer is simply “that’s how it is.” It associates an argument that explains with “understanding” as opposed to truth by its own force as “wisdom,” and states that understanding rests on wisdom, so someone who grasps only understanding without wisdom is left with no foundation. It presents Lag BaOmer as a holiday of the hidden because it expresses the basic point that is not logically justified, the point that underlies even everything that appears understood and explained.

Purim, breaking rules, and what remains beyond justifications

The text presents an earlier lecture of his on Purim in which, he claims, several halakhic rules are intentionally broken, and halakhic decisors look for explanations for phenomena like costumes and drunkenness even though they have no source in the Talmud. It connects this with the statement that all holidays are destined to be nullified, but Purim will not be nullified, and argues that Purim remains precisely because it does not depend on the usual justifications but on the point above them, while mentioning that the Arizal links Purim to the eighth millennium. He uses this to reinforce the idea that judgment within judgment reveals a foundation that does not rest on judgment itself.

Rama of Pano: kal va-homer, the supreme keter, and “it is sufficient for what is derived from the law to be like the original case”

The text brings from the Rama of Pano in Asarah Ma’amarot the connection between the measure of kal va-homer and the sefirah of keter, with the claim that keter is “light” and “dark” relative to its cause, and even though one is forbidden to gaze at it, all the more so at what is above it. It explains a dispute among Kabbalists over the relationship between the Infinite Light and the Holy One, blessed be He, and presents an approach in which the Cause of causes is above keter and the sefirot are manifestations, so that keter becomes the point of the “light” from which one learns about the “heavy.” It adds the example of Miriam, “If her father had but spit in her face,” and the question, “then all the more so with respect to the Divine Presence, fourteen days,” and the law, “she shall be shut out seven days,” as the basis for the rule “it is sufficient for what is derived from the law to be like the original case,” and presents dayo not only as a logical explanation of the limit of proof but as an essential principle that makes learning from the lower to the higher possible.

A sage is preferable to a prophet, and abstract principles that apply in all worlds

The text brings the Maharal in the introduction to Gevurot Hashem on “a sage is preferable to a prophet” and interprets it to mean that prophecy is limited to what is seen up to a certain height, while abstract principles of wisdom are valid in all worlds and above. It uses this to ground the possibility of learning about the higher through kal va-homer, limited by dayo, and suggests that the principles of wisdom do not depend on levels of sight but on abstract essence. It returns and argues that kal va-homer itself rests on a foundational point that has no logical justification, and that the attempt to justify logic from within logic leads to an inability to stand within pure judgment.

The discussion of whether Kabbalah is a psychological metaphor or a description of real worlds, and the test of truth

The text distinguishes between a Hasidic approach that sees Kabbalah as a metaphor and a language for describing the human soul, as a kind of “Jewish psychology,” and the approach of Leshem Shevo Ve-Ahlamah, who argues against this and claims that Kabbalah deals with actual spiritual worlds and is not just a linguistic translation of those contents. It connects this to the distinction between global fit and local fit, and argues that according to the metaphorical approach there is no point in asking whether Kabbalah is true, only whether it is useful, whereas according to the Leshem the question is truth or falsehood, similar to a scientific description even though there are no experiments here. It criticizes measuring Kabbalah by experience, emotional connection, or increased fear of Heaven, and argues that falsehood too can increase fear of Heaven, so that cannot be the criterion.

An analogy to existentialism and the question of coherence as an indication of truth

The text argues that existentialism is more a branch of psychology than philosophy because it describes experiences and attitudes rather than claims about reality that can be examined as true or false, and uses this to distinguish between a “linguistic” use of mystical concepts and engagement with mysticism as claims about the structure of being. It concludes that the coherence produced by the Kabbalistic description and its ability to connect phenomena constitute an indication of correctness and not merely a source of experiential comfort. It formulates that mysticism is engagement with claims about being that are measured in truth and falsehood, and not merely emotional practice or the use of mystical terms.

A question about applying Kabbalistic conclusions, and the lecturer’s answer

The questioner suggests that a person who accepts mystical teaching as plausible will also bring it into his research tendency and his search for correspondences such as kindness versus judgment. The lecturer answers that this is indeed what he does, but sharpens the point that this is not a “tendency of the soul” but a conclusion, like the law of gravity, and when the conclusion is that kindness and judgment go together, one should apply that to explain phenomena or else give it up. The lecturer states that this is a philosophical enterprise and not a psychological one, and grounds the justification in truth and not in an emotional pattern.

Last time I tried to take the pair of concepts grace and judgment and see—or use them to show—how looking through a mystical language can make sense of a great many phenomena, ideas, in many different contexts, and through that perhaps give us some indication that there really is something here. Meaning, that there is some sense in which truth exists in the mystical description, even though it isn’t itself accessible to us. We can’t really check what grace is and what judgment is, and exactly how they relate to one another, and lines and sefirot and all kinds of Kabbalistic concepts of that sort. But through the description I gave, I tried to show that when you understand the context this gives to many phenomena and ideas, that can strengthen our confidence that there is something here. In other words, in a certain sense we still have some kind of handle by which to try to see whether a mystical claim can be true, or whether a mystical distinction can be true, even though directly it isn’t accessible to us directly. So I spoke about grace and judgment as the right and left lines, male and female, yin and yang, yes, and matter and form, creation ex nihilo and creation from something, wisdom versus understanding, and I tried to show through all those contexts—grace yes versus judgment—I tried to show through all those contexts how this pair of concepts really spreads across almost the entire realm of thought, or the entire world of ideas and concepts, and through that to present an example of the explanatory or contextual power of mystical concepts. Just to complete that picture and sharpen the way of looking at it a bit more, I want to look at two passages. A few years ago we studied them here, if I remember correctly, because I think they also give a perspective that will finish what I did last time, and with that I’ll complete this example of grace and judgment and my claim that mystical statements can be judged. So let me share the file for a moment. A responsum of the Chatam Sofer, Yoreh De’ah, siman 233: “Indeed I know, for I have heard that now the generation has become fit,” the generation has become worthy, “and from afar they come to seek the Lord in the holy city of Safed on the thirty-third day of the Omer, at the celebration of Rashbi, of blessed memory.” Right, they hold celebrations in Safed on Lag Ba’Omer. “And although all their intention is for the sake of Heaven, their reward is certainly great,” I’m skipping a bit, “nevertheless for this very reason I was among those who separated themselves, like my forefathers, so that I would not need to sit there and alter their custom before them, nor would I wish to join with them in this.” So incidentally, this appears in another responsum of the Chatam Sofer in a somewhat shorter form. Basically he’s saying here that he doesn’t go up to the Land of Israel so that he won’t have to get entangled in this knot of the Rashbi celebration on Lag Ba’Omer. Because on the one hand he doesn’t want to join them in it, and on the other hand he doesn’t want to sit there in the Land of Israel in that very place and change their custom in front of them, to stir up disputes over this matter. So he’s in a certain kind of tension, and notice he begins by saying that their intention is for the sake of Heaven and their reward is certainly great—but he doesn’t agree. That is, in principle there is a problem with this whole story despite the good intentions and despite the possibility that there may even be good outcomes and benefits. But he doesn’t agree with it, and therefore he is in a certain tension. I don’t know if this really explains why he didn’t come to the Land of Israel—it sounds a little exaggerated—but that’s how it appears, at least. In any case, what matters for us is the tension he describes, the attitude toward Lag Ba’Omer as something with two sides, a positive aspect and a negative aspect.

Then he says: for the Pri Chadash already chirped quite a few chirps in Orach Chaim siman 496, in the pamphlet on prohibited customs, section 14, about places that establish a Jewish holiday on the day a miracle happened to them. Right, we know there is such a phenomenon, that various communities establish a holiday on a certain day of the year on which a miracle happened to them, and for generations their descendants also observe it that way. There is the Purim of Frankfurt and the Purim of Casablanca and all kinds of days like these. Right, not on actual Purim—they call it Purim because it’s a salvation like Purim, but on different dates that different communities established for themselves in memory of a miracle that happened to them. And the Pri Chadash, in the pamphlet on prohibited customs, discusses this question: is it even permitted to do such a thing, or is it prohibited? Because really this is adding to the Torah. A person invents a holiday out of his own heart—like Jeroboam son of Nebat, basically—he invents a holiday out of his own heart, and he violates the prohibition of adding to the Torah. He creates Torah out of nothing, which the Holy One, blessed be He, did not command. Now one has to remember that Purim and Hanukkah are like this too. Purim and Hanukkah are also festivals established by the Sages, which of course the Torah did not command. True, the BaHaG—this responsum of the Chatam Sofer is also connected with that issue—the BaHaG counts Hanukkah and Purim among his 613 commandments. And Maimonides, in the first shoresh, attacks him on that point. And the Chatam Sofer wants to argue that since Purim is learned by a kal va-chomer, an a fortiori inference, it therefore has the status of Torah law. If from slavery to freedom on Passover we were commanded to say Hallel, then from death to life on Purim—if from slavery to freedom on Passover we were commanded to say Hallel, then from death to life on Purim all the more so we should say Hallel. Since Hallel is not recited outside the Land of Israel—never mind—but they derive Purim from a kal va-chomer, and a kal va-chomer is one of the interpretive principles by which the Torah is expounded, so they make a kal va-chomer from Passover, and then this is basically Torah-level. There are those who want to explain the BaHaG’s view this way. Maybe. I don’t know.

In any case, for our purposes: the Pri Chadash argues that there is here a violation of adding to the Torah, that it is forbidden to invent a holiday from your own heart—but Purim and Hanukkah are also like that. So here, indeed, one can raise the same point in different formulations. First of all, they were established by an authorized religious court, the Sanhedrin. Both Purim and Hanukkah were established by a Sanhedrin, and the Sanhedrin has authority to establish things, just as it can establish Jewish law. Every rabbinic law that a Sanhedrin establishes is, on the face of it, adding to the Torah: it adds a law that the Torah did not command, whether prohibition or commandment, whether positive commandment or prohibition. So every rabbinic law is basically a kind of adding to the Torah. And regarding that it is accepted that since the Torah itself said, “Make a guard for My guard,” or “Do not turn aside from all that they instruct you,” and “According to all that they instruct you, so shall you do; do not turn aside,” then the Torah itself said that with respect to the Sages they are exempt from adding to the Torah; they can add things to the Torah. Therefore Purim and Hanukkah, which were added by a body that has authority given by the Torah—“do not turn aside,” both a positive commandment and a prohibition—can add to the Torah. The Jewish people the Jewish people the Jewish people the Jewish people. I thought at first someone was asking me something. Okay.

So why not say, “We act as their agents”? Hanukkah—why not say “we act as their agents,” just as in many areas we continue what they did, and Maimonides himself—about this, the law of agency doesn’t apply. The rule of “we act as their agents” is stated in the Talmud regarding monetary loss, something involving financial loss and something common. So then what about what Maimonides instituted for himself concerning the miracle that happened to him, and he commanded that all his children after him observe that day? Same question, same question. That is basically the question the Pri Chadash asks. And then he says, “According to my poor understanding”—I’m now reading from here—“according to my poor understanding, since we say from this kal va-chomer that from servitude to freedom we say song, from death to life all the more so”—right, that’s a passage in tractate Megillah. What does that mean? If the Torah—the Talmud itself says there is a kal va-chomer, just as—incidentally, maybe in passing I’ll add: in practice, the question whether the Sages, when they enact, violate the prohibition of adding to the Torah is a dispute among the medieval authorities (Rishonim). There is Tosafot in Rosh Hashanah 16b and Rashba—a dispute there between Tosafot and Rashba—whether in principle the prohibition of adding to the Torah does not apply at all to rabbinic enactments, or whether it does apply and they have to do it in a very specific way in order not to violate adding to the Torah. For example, in Maimonides: Maimonides, in the laws of rebels, writes that when the Sages enact a prohibition or a commandment, whatever it may be, they must announce that this is a rabbinic prohibition or a rabbinic commandment, because otherwise they would violate adding to the Torah. That means that Maimonides too holds that in principle even the Sages can violate adding to the Torah. It’s not that they are exempt from this prohibition. Rather, if they act according to what the Torah says—that they may add rabbinic laws—and they declare this and make clear that we are talking about rabbinic law and not an addition to the Torah, then they do not violate adding to the Torah.

Incidentally, this instruction of Maimonides is very difficult, because in the Talmud itself the Talmud does not make a point of saying about things whether they are rabbinic or Torah-level. Very often there are disputes among the medieval authorities (Rishonim) and later authorities (Acharonim) over a certain law—whether it is rabbinic or Torah-level; whether a derivation is merely an asmakhta or a full derivation. Whether a certain law is rabbinic or Torah-level—there are many disputes about this. Now if the Sages themselves had been careful about what Maimonides says, that one must always indicate in every law whether it is rabbinic and not Torah-level, then there would be no room for disputes. When they indicated it, it would be rabbinic, and when they did not indicate it, then it would be Torah-level, because otherwise they would have indicated it. Therefore I think the Talmud itself somewhat serves as evidence against Maimonides’ view on this matter. That’s just a remark in parentheses; I don’t know a good answer to it, but it’s a remark—I don’t know what to say about it.

In any case, for our purposes—just in parentheses I’m saying this because I said that the Sages are exempt from adding to the Torah, so I’m noting now that this is not agreed upon and is not so simple. But returning to our matter: in any case, certainly. Why not say the opposite? Rabbi, why not say the opposite? Everything the Sages enacted is rabbinic, and if they want to say it’s Torah-level, they say it’s Torah-level. After all, when the Sages want to say Torah-level, they can rule Torah-level. That gains you nothing, that gains you nothing. When the Sages don’t specify, and there is a dispute among the medieval authorities (Rishonim) whether a certain law is rabbinic or Torah-level, then according to your explanation and according to mine it’s problematic. What difference does it make? They didn’t indicate that it’s Torah-level, so how can anyone say it’s Torah-level? And according to my view, it’s difficult: they didn’t indicate that it’s rabbinic, so how can anyone say it’s rabbinic? You gain nothing from that. In principle, they need to indicate it—indicate it at least systematically. So they can indicate all Torah-level laws and leave the rest for us to infer as rabbinic, or do the opposite. But according to Maimonides they must establish some clear method that gives us an unequivocal tool for knowing about every law whether it is rabbinic or Torah-level. It doesn’t matter which tool they choose.

That reminds me of the dispute—Rashi and Turei Even disagree there about how they made the lottery for the two goats in tractate Yoma. How did they make the lottery for the two goats? It seems to me Rashi writes that they drew two slips, one of which said “for Azazel” and one of which said “for the Lord.” And Turei Even argues—and really this begins with Meiri—that they drew one slip saying “for the Lord,” and the other was automatically for Azazel. Meaning, you can choose by whichever method you want to indicate which is for the Lord and which for Azazel, as long as the outcome is clear; it’s just instrumental. According to Rashi, it’s apparently not instrumental, because he requires two slips that determine both the “for the Lord” and the “for Azazel.” It’s not just there to clarify which is which; the lottery itself is part of the service. Fine, that’s not important.

For our purposes: Hanukkah and Purim, which were established by the Sanhedrin, are not a problem because regarding them it is like any rabbinic law. What the Pri Chadash asks is: what about various holidays of communities that were not established by a Sanhedrin? A community establishes one for itself, or various occasions like that that were not established by a Sanhedrin. Incidentally, Israel Independence Day is also one of these. And the question is: how can such a thing be established? There is adding to the Torah here. But as a holiday it has no definition from the Torah’s standpoint; there is no definition of prohibited labor or things like that. It has no such holiday-definition. You might perhaps suggest an answer to this question: as long as it is clear from the terms of the holiday that it is not one of the Torah’s holidays—because, after all, there is no prohibition of labor in it—then perhaps there would be no issue of adding to the Torah. The Pri Chadash apparently did not accept that. He raises the question, and it’s clear to him that all these community “Purims” were not Purims in which labor was forbidden. And probably the reason is that even among the Torah festivals there are differences: Yom Kippur is not like the Sabbath, the Sabbath is not like a Jewish holiday, let alone rabbinic observances like Tisha B’Av, on which labor is prohibited but not exactly the same labors as on the Sabbath and holidays; and not to mention Hanukkah and Purim, on which labor is not, in principle, prohibited in the way it is on the festivals. Yes. Therefore it is permitted for them to add it. What? I can’t hear. Therefore they may add it. Yes. But you can’t declare that it too is rabbinic, because that would still be adding to the Torah even relative to rabbinic law—because it’s just a community establishing something for itself. It doesn’t even have the standing of rabbinic law. The question is whether there is a rule that says one may not add—so rabbinic law can’t add? Why not? What’s the difference? Someone who innovates a rabbinic law without authority would apparently violate the same thing—what difference is there? Especially according to Maimonides, under the standard understanding of Maimonides, that every rabbinic law actually involves violating a Torah-level “do not turn aside,” then basically you are adding a prohibition. You tell me that something is rabbinically prohibited; in effect you are telling me that if I do it I will violate the prohibition of “do not turn aside.”

But in any case, obviously you can’t just do that casually. At the very least you need to clarify it, as Maimonides notes. So the Pri Chadash asks: how can this be? How do communities do such a thing? And then the Chatam Sofer says, “According to my poor understanding, we say”—why really do they make these holidays, these “Purims”?—“from this kal va-chomer: if from servitude to freedom we say song, then from death to life all the more so.” What does that mean? The Talmud basically establishes this way of thinking: that if we are saved from death to life, then one can say—must say, not merely can—song. Because there is, after all, a kal va-chomer from Passover: on Passover we went merely from slavery to freedom and we say song, so all the more so from death to life one says song.

And I mentioned before that the Chatam Sofer wants to claim that this answers the BaHaG: according to the BaHaG, Hanukkah and Purim are Torah-level. But according to this answer, every Purim of every community would come out Torah-level. That’s even more far-reaching, and certainly the BaHaG did not count them among the 613 commandments. But for our purposes: he says that same kal va-chomer, even if it does not obligate, at least permits us or removes this from the category of adding to the Torah—that one may make the Purim of Frankfurt, one may make the Purim of a certain community, because we were saved from death to life. Incidentally, a smaller rescue—not from slavery to freedom and not from death to life—perhaps really would be forbidden according to this, because there is no kal va-chomer. Only salvations greater than servitude to freedom.

But, says the Chatam Sofer, to establish an occasion on which no miracle happened, and which was not mentioned in the Talmud or halakhic decisors anywhere, not even by hint or allusion, merely refraining from eulogy and fasting—this is a custom, and I myself do not know its reason. Right? To establish an occasion on which no miracle happened and which was not mentioned in the Talmud or the decisors anywhere, not by hint or allusion—I do not know how one may do such a thing. What is he talking about? He is talking about Lag Ba’Omer. The various Purims—there a miracle happened, we were saved, so there is the kal va-chomer from tractate Megillah. But on Lag Ba’Omer nothing happened. You are inventing something out of nothing, establishing refraining from eulogy and fasting and so on, and there is some sort of custom about it, and he does not know the reason for it. And therefore he says: I don’t want to come out against it, but on the other hand I can’t join it, because to me it seems forbidden; so I stay far away so as not to get caught up in this dispute.

Then he continues: “And in the siddur of Rabbi Yaakov Emden it is written according to the hidden teaching that it is like a religious court all of whose members found him guilty, and yet he is acquitted; namely, hod within hod—see there. But according to this it would have been fitting to establish every good thing when we reached gevurot, on the ninth day in the counting of the children of Israel. But in any case those are the days of Nisan, in which eulogies are not given, so what benefit is a lamp at noon?” This is always that favorite passage—it looks like some sort of riddle text where it’s not clear why he suddenly slips into these obscure statements. What is this doing here, what is he even saying? So I’ll decode it for you.

In the siddur of Rabbi Yaakov Emden it is written that according to the hidden teaching, according to Kabbalah—the question we asked was how is it permitted to celebrate Lag Ba’Omer? Because Lag Ba’Omer is a day on which no miracle happened, and therefore there is no kal va-chomer from the Talmud in Megillah, so basically you can’t—you can’t—it’s adding to the Torah, right? You can’t hold such a celebration. So the Ya’avetz proposes an explanation. Incidentally, the Ya’avetz was one of the great challengers of the Zohar, but he engaged deeply in Kabbalah and also ruled according to it. He was not opposed to Kabbalah, contrary to what many people think. He had criticism of the Zohar, and certainly of the thesis of the Zohar’s antiquity, but he engaged in Kabbalah and also used it.

So he says: according to the hidden teaching, his answer is that it is like a religious court all of whose members find him guilty and yet he is acquitted. Right—what does he mean? This alludes to the well-known law in capital cases: if a religious court of twenty-three judges sits—capital cases require twenty-three—and all the judges vote that the defendant deserves death, then he goes free. Right, this is the famous riddle: what should the twenty-third judge do? You surely know it. If there are twenty-two judges who voted that the man deserves death, and now I, the twenty-third judge, have to say what I think—if I think he deserves death and I say so, then all twenty-three will have said he deserves death, so he will go free. And if I think he does not deserve death and I say so, then they will execute him, because it will be twenty-two against one, which is a death sentence that is carried out. So whatever I say, the opposite of what I said will be done. The question is what am I supposed to do? Should I lie so that in the end what I believe will happen, or should I tell the truth?

That’s just an anecdote in parentheses, not related to the lecture. For me it’s obvious that one should tell the truth. Why? Because the Torah has a reason for this law. Why is it that when all twenty-three judges convict him of death, he goes free? Because we suspect there has been some distortion of justice—not intentional, but some kind of bias in thought—where somehow all the judges are leaning in one direction for some reason, because it simply isn’t plausible that in any case you would find twenty-three Torah scholars saying exactly the same thing about a case. It can’t happen. Okay? So if there are twenty-three, then apparently there was some kind of bias, and therefore out of doubt we acquit him; we can’t kill someone like that. Now, suppose I think he really is guilty, and I lie so that he will be executed—I say he is innocent, and then it comes out twenty-two against one and they execute him, okay? But in truth the real state of affairs was that he ought not to have been executed, because if I too think he is guilty, then it comes out that all the judges thought he was guilty, which means there was probably some kind of bias here, and then according to the Torah he really may not be executed. And by lying I caused him to be executed, even though I think he is guilty—but the law says that if I think he is guilty, then he may not be executed. In short, the Torah already took into account what I did as well, and I am not supposed to be smarter than the Jewish law. I should say what I truly think, and the law tells us what to do according to the circumstances that arise.

Okay, this just reminds me—I had some kind of confrontation yesterday, yes, about ethics and belief in God, in the discussions we had before with Professor Enoch from the Hebrew University. In those prior discussions I wanted the opening statement to be longer. They gave each of us five minutes for an opening and then discussion. I wanted the opening to be longer so it would be possible to lay out some thesis. So he asked me by email whether I wanted him to support my position in order to persuade the organizers to change the lineup, so that the opening would be longer. I told him no, no—I think you should say what you think, and they will make their decisions based on the data. I’ll say what I think, you say what you think. If that’s what you think, say it—but don’t say something you don’t think just to help me get a longer opening. And I brought him this halakhic law of the Sanhedrin. Anyway, never mind. Yes, he really is Kantian.

So in any case, the claim is that a court all of whose members find him guilty—then the defendant goes free. And the Chatam Sofer says that this is the explanation for why we celebrate on Lag Ba’Omer: because it is like a religious court all of whose members found him guilty and yet he is acquitted. Literally. What does that mean, how is it connected? He explains—yes, I’m continuing to read here—namely, hod within hod. You know that the forty-nine days of the counting are divided according to the seven Kabbalistic sefirot, apart from wisdom, understanding, and knowledge: grace, might, beauty, eternity, splendor, foundation, and kingship. The seven lower sefirot, each of which contains seven within itself: grace within grace, might within grace, beauty within grace, eternity within grace, hod within grace, foundation within grace, and kingship within grace, and so on. So there are seven sefirot within each sefirah, which comes out to forty-nine altogether. And each day in the counting corresponds to grace within grace, might within grace, beauty within grace, and so on, until you get forty-nine days. The sefirah combination that marks Lag Ba’Omer is hod within hod. How do I know that? We have seven sefirot, and hod is the fifth sefirah. The fifth sefirah—sorry, not count, the fifth sefirah, right? There is grace, might, beauty, eternity, hod. Fifth sefirah. Hod within hod is the fifth day of the fifth week. Right? Twenty-eight days are four weeks, plus five days in the fifth week is thirty-three total, which is exactly Lag Ba’Omer. Yes, the fifth day of the fifth week is exactly hod within hod in terms of the sefirot.

Now what does that mean? How is it connected to a religious court all of whose members found him guilty? I’ll remind you of what we discussed in the previous lecture. I said that the sefirot are divided into three lines: there is the right line, which is grace; there is the left line, which is judgment; and there is the middle line. And the sefirot are grouped in triads. There is grace on the right, might on the left, beauty in the middle. Eternity on the right, hod on the left, foundation in the middle, and kingship below, kingship below foundation. So it comes out that there are three sefirot on the right, three on the left, and four in the middle, making ten sefirot total. Now let’s see who the three sefirot on the left are. Right, so it’s might—always the second in each triad—so that’s might. Understanding, grace-might-beauty gives you might, and eternity-hod gives you hod. Okay? Understanding, might, and hod, which is of course the left line—the judgments. We talked about this last time.

Now the first three—wisdom, understanding, knowledge—are not counted here, because the counting of the Omer goes with the seven lower ones. So in effect we have only two sefirot in the left line: either hod or might. Right? So what if we have pure judgment, absolute judgment? Then that is hod within hod. Hod within hod is judgment within judgment; it is the most judgment possible. And therefore Lag Ba’Omer, which symbolizes the day that is the most judgment possible, is hod within hod. But, says the Chatam Sofer, there is another possibility. It’s not only hod within hod. Let’s keep reading. “But according to this it would have been fitting to establish every good thing when we reached gevurot.” What does that mean? Might within might. Not only hod within hod—might too is on the left side. So just as hod within hod is the peak of judgment, so too might within might; hence “gevurot,” yes, two mights, might within might. So “when we reached gevurot” means when we reached the day of might within might. Which day is that? Might is the second sefirah. The second day of the second week is the ninth day of the Omer, right? “On the ninth day in the counting of the children of Israel.” That is “when we reached gevurot.” So if you are looking for a day that is pure judgment, it is not only Lag Ba’Omer, which is the thirty-third day of the Omer; the ninth day of the Omer is also like that. There are actually two more—might within hod and hod within might—but let’s leave that aside for now. He doesn’t even consider those at all.

“But in any case those are the days of Nisan, in which eulogies are not given, so what benefit is a lamp at noon?” What does that mean? The ninth day of the counting of the Omer—the Omer begins on the second day of Passover—so the ninth day of the Omer still falls in Nisan. In Nisan one does not give eulogies anyway, so to establish a day in Nisan on which one does not give eulogies is like lighting a lamp at noon. “What benefit is a lamp at noon?” Right? There is no point to such a day. So the only possibility left is to establish a day on which one refrains from eulogies on Lag Ba’Omer, which is hod within hod, because might within might drops out, leaving only one option that is pure judgment. That is Lag Ba’Omer.

What is the meaning of all this? So look—this is exactly why I’m bringing it. It’s a nice example of a Kabbalistic perspective that gives some deep meaning to several things. Let me now try to explain what he is saying. What is “judgment” in the language of the Sages—not in the hidden teaching, not in Kabbalah? “And is it not a logical argument?” Or “we do not derive punishments from a logical argument,” or “we do not derive warnings from a logical argument.” Like a kal va-chomer, like a gezerah shavah, things like that, no? Not like. Kal va-chomer. Exactly. Judgment means kal va-chomer. Maimonides, who argues that “we do not derive punishments from judgment” applies to all thirteen interpretive principles—the Ramban attacks him for this, but that is a lone view. In the Talmud itself it is clear that “we do not derive punishments from judgment” means from a kal va-chomer. Okay? And “is it not a judgment?” when the Talmud says that, it means only a kal va-chomer. Okay? So judgment means kal va-chomer.

Now notice: all these holidays that we are allowed to add, as he said above—what are they based on? On a kal va-chomer. On the kal va-chomer in tractate Megillah: if from slavery to freedom we say song, then from death to life all the more so. Okay? Meaning, they all have a “judgment” that grounds them. They emerge from some rule. Remember I said that judgment is basically acting according to a rule. There is a logical rule that tells us that here one may hold the celebrations, yes, one may establish a holiday. There is one day on which we want to show that we establish a holiday through judgment within judgment. What does that mean? It is a day for which there is no kal va-chomer. But a day for which there is no kal va-chomer is not judgment—so what would I have said it is? Grace. He says no, it is judgment within judgment. What does that mean?

Whenever I think about this, it always reminds me of when I first studied logic. I remember studying from a book by Avron Pulkov at Ben-Gurion University. I read it once when I was in Gush. So I studied various rules there, rules of logical inference. Right? If every X is Y and A is X, then A is Y. Right? If all human beings are mortal and Socrates is a human being, then Socrates is mortal. And so on. There are all kinds of rules that allow me to derive conclusions from premises. Then I asked myself: and this rule itself, how do I know it? This rule of deduction—that if every X is Y and A is X, then A is Y. Let’s call this rule modus ponens, if P, okay? Now really, if I want to formulate properly the argument “all human beings are mortal; Socrates is a human being; conclusion: Socrates is mortal,” then how many premises does this argument have? Two: all human beings are mortal, and Socrates is a human being. And the conclusion is that Socrates is mortal. But that’s not true. It has three premises. One premise is that all human beings are mortal, a second premise is that Socrates is a human being, and the third premise is modus ponens: the rule that if you have such premises then that conclusion follows. Now you can derive the conclusion—but of course you can keep going. Who says that this inference with the three premises is valid? You need to produce a modus ponens prime, some modus ponens tag, that says that if there are these two premises and the rule of modus ponens, then one may derive the conclusion—and add that too as a premise, and so on endlessly, obviously. You get an infinite regress.

So the question is basically why—why—where does the rule of modus ponens come from? How can I say that this rule is true if I have no argument that justifies it, that proves it? And the only possible answer to that is simply: because it is. That’s it. It doesn’t require explanation. I have no explanation, but it also does not require explanation. Okay? That is basically the claim. Then the question is: what this means is that when I ask “why” about some claim, then one can bring an argument that answers that “why” question. If I ask for a logical explanation, yes, then something can answer the question. But when I ask for the rationale of the rationale itself—what is the rule underlying the rule—there is no answer. There cannot be an answer.

Now something that has an argument grounding it—that is understanding. Something that has no argument grounding it, that is true by its own force—that is wisdom. We talked about this in the previous lecture, right? So it comes out that understanding is grounded in wisdom. When you ask “why” about the very “why” questions themselves, the answer will be: just because. That is wisdom. An argument that explains is understanding. And when you ask “why” about something and they answer you “just because, it’s true, period, I have no explanations,” that is wisdom, okay? What this really means is that when you ask what judgment within judgment is—judgment is the logical rule, yes, the rule that justifies something. When I ask what judgment within judgment is, that means: what is the rule that justifies the rules of justification? That is judgment within judgment. The answer is that it is grace. It has no explanation. It has no explanation in terms of judgment. When you ask what lies at the foundation of logic, the answer will not be that it derives from logic. Logic cannot justify itself. It is simply true, and that’s it, because I see that it is true, period. It cannot be grounded in something else. When I do not ground it in something else—understanding means understanding one thing from another, grounding something in something else. Here it is wisdom. I do not know how to ground it in something else. It is true by its own force—koach mah.

So the claim is that at the root of judgment, the inner point within judgment, is grace. The inner point at the root of rules, of explanations, of logic, is really some point that does not arise from logic in its logical sense—that is, from argument. It comes from some kind of immediate recognition, what I call synthetic thinking, or intuitive apprehension, or the “hearing logic” of the Nazir, or Husserl’s eidetic seeing—these are all basically the same thing to me. Therefore when you go into the innards of judgment—judgment within judgment—you discover that it is founded on grace. And that, basically, is what is celebrated on Lag Ba’Omer. That’s what the Ya’avetz says.

What does that mean? You take the day for which there is no kal va-chomer that justifies it. Right? That was our question. There is no judgment that justifies it. Which day is this? The day that is judgment within judgment. And I want to celebrate it precisely because there is no judgment, there is no kal va-chomer that justifies it—but it does not need a kal va-chomer to justify it. It is simply a holiday by virtue of the fact that it is clear to me that there should be a holiday here. It doesn’t need justifications. There are no justifications, there is no kal va-chomer that justifies it.

Now one can ask halakhically: how is one allowed to do such a thing? Fine. After all, what I just did is not anchored in the rules of Jewish law. But that is the whole idea. The whole idea here is that I am trying to teach, or show, or express the fact that the rules of Jewish law are not the end of the road. At the foundation of the rules sits some point that is itself not thinking according to rules, according to logic. And I express that on the day when I ask: what is the rule that stands at the foundation of the rules—the judgment within judgment? And the answer is: there is no such rule. And I celebrate that. I celebrate that insight. And that is why this is also the holiday of the hidden teaching. Because the hidden teaching is as though something we do not understand, okay? What does it mean that we do not understand it? That is precisely the point. But at the root of the things we do understand there also stand certain axioms—and where do they come from? They come from that same inherent truth, yes, not from something grounded in something else. And that is really the meaning of the hidden teaching.

And so Lag Ba’Omer, this day of judgment within judgment, basically expresses that point: we have no justification in the halakhic rules, and yet we do it. Incidentally, once I gave a lecture on this—maybe even here, I no longer remember—about Purim. On Purim several halakhic rules are broken. And yes, that’s what people mean when they say all the holidays will in the future be annulled but Purim will not be annulled, and the Scroll of Esther will not be annulled. My claim was that on Purim people intentionally violate Jewish law. All the halakhic decisors try to look for explanations—there is rabbinic-level shaatnez, the prohibition of dressing as the opposite sex, all kinds of prohibitions, simply getting drunk, all sorts of prohibitions that people violate there—and there are decisors who bring that there is some point in violating these prohibitions, some point in dressing up. There is of course no source for this in the Talmud. It all comes, I think, from Mahari Mintz—there’s a responsum on it—and many decisors discuss it, but it’s some sort of invention that suddenly appeared somewhere out of nowhere.

And I think the point is that Purim is really the same thing that will remain with us in the future to come, after all Jewish law is annulled and all the festivals are annulled and everything—because it is basically an occasion that is not really founded on the justifications people bring for it. Therefore it will remain even in a time when justifications no longer exist and are no longer needed. All the festivals that are based on some particular justification will disappear, but there is one occasion in which we—yes, the Ari ties Purim to the eighth millennium, which is the very, very highest, the farthest away. And therefore I think that in Purim too one sees something like what the Ya’avetz says about Lag Ba’Omer. Only in Lag Ba’Omer it is of course even more abstract, because for Purim the Talmud itself makes some kind of kal va-chomer. But for Lag Ba’Omer there is not even that. There is nothing. And therefore there is here a point saying that the foundation of all comprehensible, rational things is actually located in some primary intuition that you do not know how to justify. And perhaps that is also where one can grasp the hidden teaching. Even though it is seemingly not logical and not accessible to us, we may nevertheless have some kind of apprehension that it is true. It simply seems true to us—or at least to the mystics, who have such a spiritual intuition, perhaps they can sense that it is true. Okay? And that is the meaning of Lag Ba’Omer, and why it is the holiday of the hidden teaching, and likewise the celebration of Rashbi and so on, because everything is connected to the hidden teaching. And the language of the hidden teaching is what helps us realize this, because suddenly we understand that Lag Ba’Omer is hod within hod, and hod is the left line, the line of judgment, and judgment within judgment simply comes out empty. Right? This is what I also spoke about last time: communism is basically judgment within judgment, and therefore it has no existence. Judgment alone, pure judgment, has no existence—just as pure grace has no existence.

Okay? Therefore Lag Ba’Omer comes to say that judgment within judgment, in the very inside, cannot hold on its own. Just as in the intellectual context: someone who thinks he will accept only things for which he has a logical justification, a proof, a logical argument proving them, will end up with nothing. Because someone built only on understanding without wisdom has nothing, because understanding can tell you that if X is true then Y is true, but it cannot tell you that Y is true. So in the end you are left with nothing. You don’t know whether anything is true or not. All you know is that if this, then that, and if this, then that. And what we see here in judgment within judgment is that even that you do not know. Because who told you that if this then that? Do you have a justification for the very rules of inference themselves? No. So perhaps even the rules of inference themselves cannot be accepted. So even hypothetical, conditional inference—the if-then—even that does not really hold water in this world of pure understanding. And that is the meaning of judgment within judgment: it cannot stand. We see this in understanding, we see this in might, and we see this in hod.

So that is regarding Lag Ba’Omer. And here I want to show one more passage, from Rabbi Menachem Azariah of Fano in his book Asarah Ma’amarot. It seems to me that Rabbi Menachem Azariah of Fano was among the students of the Ari when the Ari was still in Europe. I think so. This is the early Ari, when he was still in Europe. It’s a completely different Kabbalah from the Kabbalah of Rabbi Chaim Vital, who learned from the Ari here in the Land of Israel. “Kal va-chomer—the allusion in it is to the supreme keter in its relation to the Cause of causes, for keter is dark and dense in relation to its cause. And nevertheless gazing upon it is forbidden; all the more so regarding that which is above it.”

I’ll perhaps begin with—there is in the Passover Haggadah, from time to time I disconnect the screen share because I want to see you; when there is sharing I can’t see you. In the Passover Haggadah there is “Who knows thirteen?” What is “who knows thirteen”? What do you say? There is the “thirteen who knows.” What is “thirteen who knows”? What do you say? The thirteen principles by which the Torah is expounded. Exactly. In most literature you’ll see around that passage, they will tell you: these are the thirteen attributes of mercy—“The Lord, the Lord, God compassionate and gracious, slow to anger…” Where, of course, did I find the second interpretation? In the Brisk Haggadah of Beit HaLevi, yes, by Gurlik. There in the Haggadah he says that “thirteen who knows” refers to the thirteen interpretive principles. Okay?

So the question is how Lithuanians look at it and how Hasidim look at it—whether these are the attributes of mercy of the Holy One, blessed be He, or the interpretive principles. In any case, Rabbi Menachem Azariah of Fano reconciles the Lithuanians with the Hasidim and sets these attributes opposite each other: the ten sayings against the ten sefirot, and the thirteen interpretive principles against the thirteen attributes of mercy—“The Lord, the Lord, God compassionate”—and he ties this to the sefirot. So this passage is taken from his discussion of the first principle. The first principle is kal va-chomer, all right? And he compares it or links it to the sefirah of keter, the topmost sefirah. Kal va-chomer is the first principle, okay? And then he says: “Kal va-chomer—the allusion in it is to the supreme keter.” Why? What’s the connection? So he says: because the supreme keter relates to the Cause of causes in the form of a kal va-chomer. Because keter is dark and dense—the word means black, dark—in relation to its cause. Meaning, it is more coarse, more material in relation to its cause, to what is above it. And nevertheless gazing upon it, upon keter, is forbidden; all the more so regarding that which is above it. That is the connection between the sefirah of keter and kal va-chomer.

What does that mean? There is a dispute among mystics about the relation between the Infinite Light and the Holy One, blessed be He. I allow myself here to drift a bit because the subject of this series is mysticism, so here we touch a bit on the thing itself and not only talk about it. The question is—this I described last time—the Kabbalistic worlds are arranged in some structure of one above another, both the sefirot and the worlds. The first world is the world of the Infinite Light filling all reality. Beneath it there is the world of line and contraction—the circle from which the light withdrew and into which the line entered, okay? The world below that is primordial man, around the line. The world below that is emanation, creation, formation, and action. There are seven.

Now the question is: is the Infinite Light the Holy One, blessed be He? The mystics disagreed about this. It seems to me that the author of Shomer Emunim HaKadmon says yes—that the Infinite Light is the Holy One, blessed be He. But already the Ra’avad on Sefer Yetzirah, in his introduction to his commentary on Sefer Yetzirah, argues that no. There is the Holy One, blessed be He—what here is called the Cause of causes, meaning some something, or His hidden essence, what the Leshem calls Him—that is He Himself. And all the sefirot, including keter, which is the most abstract and highest sefirah, are all some sort of revelations of the Holy One, blessed be He. The Ra’avad argues that keter, unlike all the other sefirot, is not a revelation but only the will to reveal. But it still is not the Holy One, blessed be He, Himself. The Holy One, blessed be He, Himself is something more abstract, above the sefirot. Okay?

Rabbi Menachem Azariah of Fano is probably following that view. And he argues that keter, the uppermost sefirah, which is somewhat connected to the Infinite Light, is not the Holy One, blessed be He, Himself. The Holy One, blessed be He, Himself is the Cause of causes, which is above keter—or above in the sense of more abstract than the sefirah of keter, okay? Keter is the most abstract sefirah. But the sefirot, by virtue of being sefirot, are already some sort of concretization, tangibility, imagery, in contrast to the Holy One, blessed be He, who is Himself completely abstract and about whom nothing can be said. So keter is not the Holy One, blessed be He, or the Infinite Light; keter is not the Holy One, blessed be He, but rather the most abstract of the concrete things, of those things that have form, of those things that have some kind of imagery. Okay? Of the Holy One, blessed be He—what is above that—nothing can be said.

But he argues that keter teaches us about what is above it by a kal va-chomer. What does that mean? After all, with regard to keter we are forbidden to contemplate it. If so, then all the more so we are forbidden to contemplate what is above it. Meaning, the whole reason keter was born was to be the lighter case from which a kal va-chomer is made to the heavier case, namely the Cause of causes. Therefore keter belongs to the sefirah of kal va-chomer. That is really his claim.

And in broader, more principled language, the claim is basically “from my flesh I behold God.” What does that mean? From the things we encounter below, one can learn about what happens above. So from the flesh of a person, from the human body, one can learn about the abstract worlds. From the abstract worlds one can learn about the Holy One, blessed be He. Meaning, even though about Him Himself we cannot say anything, He has certain kinds of representations that come to express in our language, in our concepts, certain statements or claims about Him. And therefore, for example, the mystics, unlike the philosophers, see no problem in positive attributes. For Maimonides one needs negative attributes. The medieval philosophers argued that it is impossible to describe the Holy One, blessed be He, with positive attributes, only with negative ones. The mystics describe Him with positive attributes, because the positive attributes describe the sefirot, which are only the “light case” teaching about the “heavy case” above them. And that I can say in a positive way.

And the connection he makes between keter and the principle of kal va-chomer, which is first on the list of the thirteen interpretive principles, basically comes from the fact that everything created here—keter, and of course everything below it, but keter is the symbol, the first thing that expresses this mechanism—is a mechanism of kal va-chomer. Everything created below is there to teach us about what is above it. And how do we learn that? By kal va-chomer.

Now you’ll ask: but how can one learn by kal va-chomer? Maybe everything I say about keter is irrelevant to what is above it, because what is above it is much more. Then really one cannot learn anything at all, certainly not something positive. Here he speaks about the prohibition of gazing, so that’s not such a novelty. But positive things that I learn from the sefirot—can I also say that they are descriptions of the Cause of causes, of the Holy One, blessed be He, Himself? So the kal va-chomer approach says yes, but that really is problematic. So look how he continues:

“Similarly, you say: ‘If her father had but spit in her face, would she not be shamed seven days?’ One might have thought: all the more so with regard to the Divine Presence, fourteen days. Therefore Scripture says: ‘She shall be shut out seven days.’” What does that mean? One of the ten kal va-chomers that appear in the Torah—there is a midrash that brings ten kal va-chomers that appear in the Torah—one of them is this verse about Miriam. “If her father had but spit in her face, would she not be shamed seven days?” If her father had spat in her face, she would have had to be ashamed for seven days. So if the Holy One, blessed be He, spits in her face, certainly she should be ashamed for seven days. Therefore after she spoke evil speech, she became leprous and had to be shut out for seven days.

So the Talmud in tractate Bava Kamma, second chapter, says: one might have thought all the more so with regard to the Divine Presence, fourteen days. After all, if when her father spits in her face she must be shamed seven days, then if the Holy One, blessed be He, spits in her face, I would have said more—fourteen days, not seven days. About this the Talmud says: “It is enough for that which comes from the law to be like the case from which it is learned.” Enough. From here they learn the principle of dayo, “enough”—that’s how the Talmud in Bava Kamma presents it. What does that mean? Everything you know about the lighter case, that is what you apply to the heavier case. In the lighter case, if she is shamed seven days when her father spits in her face, then also when the Holy One, blessed be He, spits in her face, it is seven days. The accepted approach is a logical one. In principle, when the Holy One, blessed be He, spits in her face, it ought to be more than seven days. But how much more? Maybe seven plus epsilon? Eight? Fourteen? Twenty? One hundred thousand? How many days? I don’t know. I have no measure by which to determine how much more. Therefore I say: the minimum I can establish is seven days. Certainly not less than when her father spits in her face. And that is the principle of dayo: it is enough for what comes from the law—the heavier case, what is learned by kal va-chomer—to be like the case from which it is learned, the lighter case. So the heavier case will be no more than like the lighter case. “It is enough for that which comes from the law to be like the case from which it is learned”—that is the principle of dayo. There is a dispute there between Rabbi Tarfon and the Rabbis in Bava Kamma, but the rule is that in kal va-chomer we apply dayo.

What does this mean for us? Why does Rabbi Menachem Azariah of Fano bring this here in Asarah Ma’amarot? Because that is exactly the point. This is what the masters of the revealed teaching say: you cannot say anything at all about the Holy One, blessed be He, from the greatest thing to the smallest. The masters of the hidden teaching say: you can—even positive attributes. You can speak of Him in positive attributes. But here there is a problem. Everything you say comes from what you know in our world or even in the sefirot, in the abstract worlds—but this does not pertain to the Holy One, blessed be He. He is more abstract than everything. So how do you know that what you learn about the lighter case can also be said about the heavier case? Maybe in the lighter case it is seven, but in the heavier case it is twenty-two thousand four hundred and fifty-one? How do you know? How can you say that in the heavier case too it is seven? The answer is: because there is dayo. And here dayo is understood not as a logical rule but as something created by the Holy One, blessed be He, in the world. There is a rule of dayo, in such a way that He created the sefirot so as to enable us to learn things about Him by means of the principle of kal va-chomer with dayo. Not the logical explanation I gave earlier—that it’s seven plus epsilon and the minimum you can prove is seven—but rather a substantive claim. Maharal, in the introduction to Gevurot Hashem, discusses the idea that a sage is superior to a prophet.

And in my language I’d say his claim is: a prophet—the Ari basically attached each prophet to a sefirah or a world, how far he managed to see. The prophet sees the abstract visions. The question of how far the prophet can see distinguishes among prophets. Each prophet reaches his own height. Okay? But the sage is superior to the prophet. Why is he superior? Because two plus two equals four. What comes to you from wisdom is true all the way up. What you saw—you cannot know whether what you saw also expresses what is above what you saw, or whether what you saw is all there is at that level. About what is above it you can say nothing. That is the limitation of prophecy. Prophecy rises above our world, but wherever it reaches, there you have to stop, that’s it. Wisdom, once you arrive at the conclusion that two plus two equals four—that is an abstraction from things you encounter in our world, but once you understand that idea, that idea is true in all the worlds, in all the sefirot, all the way. It is always true, everywhere, because it is an abstract idea. It is not something you see. Something you see is some kind of appearance—perhaps in the upper worlds there are no appearances at all? You can’t infer. But abstract ideas—that is the difference between wisdom and prophecy. A sage is superior to a prophet. Since wisdom is abstract, it is true in all the worlds. There is no difference between the worlds in the principles of wisdom. The difference between the worlds lies in how those principles look or are implemented.

Once we discussed what Torah is, and there I explained the relation between Torah in the upper worlds and Torah in our world—the dispute of Moses with the angels, if you remember—and there I tried to explain what the dispute was about. In any case, the claim is that you learn from what is here also about what happens above, with the limitation of dayo, but you still can learn what happens above. If, for example, the Holy One, blessed be He, is one, then He is not two. Because one is not two. How do you know? Maybe that’s a rule that applies only—no. If it is an abstract mathematical rule, then it is true not because of our world. It is not connected at all to one kind of world or another. It is always true, essentially. Okay? Therefore it has no limitation of altitude—up to where it is true and from where upward it is no longer true. It is always true. Okay? That is the meaning of a sage being superior to a prophet.

In any case, principles of wisdom can be learned by kal va-chomer from the lower to the higher, or from the dark and dense—from the concrete, from the more concretized—to the brighter, more abstract, from the vessel to the light. You understand that this is very interesting, because he presents kal va-chomer here as the basis of all the principles, while I remind you that kal va-chomer is judgment, and what usually grounds everything is grace. So how do you place judgment, kal va-chomer, at the beginning of the list, in the supreme keter? The answer is that what stands at the beginning of the list is really not keter. What stands at the beginning of the list is the Cause of causes, His hidden essence. Keter is the kal va-chomer because it is the judgment that lets us understand something about what is above it—the first revelation. The moment you reveal, revelation is contraction, right? It is a vessel, a form, judgment. Every revelation, every contraction of abstractness into something more concrete, is judgment. Therefore the moment keter comes into being, that is already some kind of contraction of the Holy One, blessed be He, and therefore it is judgment. And that judgment comes to teach us about the unconstricted reality. From the constricted we learn by kal va-chomer about the unconstricted. This means that at the root of judgment—judgment within judgment—there sits something abstract, there sits grace, as we saw in the previous passage from the Ya’avetz.

He continues, and I’ll just finish because this is taking me longer than I thought. “And the reason is that ‘her father’ refers to the supernal wisdom. ‘If her father had but spit in her face’—who is ‘her father’? In Kabbalah there is father and mother; father is wisdom, mother is understanding. Okay? So ‘her father’ refers to the supernal wisdom, which is existence from nothing. What does existence from nothing mean? The first sefirah that emerges from nothing. What is nothing? ‘Wisdom is found from nothing,’ right? That is what the verse says. What does ‘wisdom is found from nothing’ mean? Wisdom does not emerge from something prior to it; it comes out of nothing, out of no thing. Okay? But that ‘nothing’ is not simple nonexistence; it is not absence, but rather something abstract—that is what ‘nothing’ means. ‘The nothing exists, the nothing does not exist’—all those philosophical acrobatics. So ‘her father’ refers to supernal wisdom, which is existence from nothing. And understanding too is existence from existence, what we saw before. Wisdom is existence from nothing—it is true by virtue of itself and not by virtue of something before it. And understanding is existence from existence, because one derives something from wisdom.

The Torah says that in the case of Miriam both of these were turned into greenishness. ‘If her father had but spit in her face’—greenishness; her face became green. And the verse speaks in their terms: ‘Would she not be shamed seven days?’ corresponding to the attributes beneath them that are activated through them. So there is no real kal va-chomer here—only for the eye according to the concrete plain meaning. And in order that the reasons of Torah, the revealed and the hidden, should be equal in their law and established together on our lips, the law came and fixed dayo. And thus all rabbinic matters are resolved.”

He is basically saying: there is no real kal va-chomer here, it is only an appearance, but there is the principle of dayo, and dayo nonetheless allows us to learn the kal va-chomer, to learn from the light case to the heavy one. And this is a substantive principle. It is not because of the logic I explained before in the interpretive principles. It is a substantive principle that one can learn from the lower to the higher. But in the interpretive principles of exegesis we say dayo because of the logic I mentioned earlier: if “her father spits in her face” means seven days, then with the Holy One, blessed be He, it should be more than seven days—but you don’t know how much more. So all you have evidence for is seven; everything beyond that you do not know, and therefore you place it at seven. So that is the logical explanation of dayo. But he says that is only on the surface. The concept of dayo is substantive. It is not because of that logic. Dayo means that what is in the light case really is in the heavy case too.

Therefore he says this correspondence—“If her father had but spit in her face,” wisdom and understanding departed, leaving the seven lower ones. “Would she not be shamed seven days?”—the seven lower ones remained. Fine? And these seven lower ones teach by kal va-chomer about what happens above, and what happens above teaches by kal va-chomer about the Cause of causes. Okay? So this whole move is really a move of kal va-chomer, from the lower to the higher, from the more tangible and concretized to the more abstract. Okay? And that is really the meaning of kal va-chomer.

Because when you look at it this way, you immediately see that kal va-chomer is indeed some kind of principle that cannot have a basis on its own, but sits on something abstract—not on something that can ground it on the logical level, but on something abstract. When you ask why kal va-chomer is valid, the answer is: that’s just how it is. There is no further “why.” That’s it. Therefore kal va-chomer really sits at the base of the whole enterprise, even though it is judgment. And it is not grace. But the idea behind judgment is grace. When you ask me why logic works, the answer is: because. Meaning, when you ask a “why” question about logic itself, you will not get an answer in terms of logic. There isn’t one. It is impossible to answer that in terms of logic.

So this example just comes to complete the picture I gave last time, to show you how one handles ideas we know from other fields through the prism or perspective of Kabbalah. You can say it is drash, you can accept it, you can reject it—but I am trying to show a bit how the Kabbalistic perspective organizes things that are, all in all, familiar to us in other contexts, and sometimes we even have explanations for them, in a completely different way—and somehow the things become coherent. A coherent picture forms. Things connect to one another. So that gives some kind of insight, some sort of feeling that there is something real here. So with that I have really finished this demonstration of how Kabbalah can organize things and in that way give us some indication that it has substance.

But I want to make a few more remarks in the minutes I have left, so I’ll at least manage a few more comments. There is a discussion—which I think I also mentioned in one of the previous lectures—about whether Kabbalah is metaphor or description. Among Hasidim, at least that’s how the Leshem understood Hasidism, and I think to a large extent he was right: Hasidism sees Kabbalah as some kind of metaphor or description in another language of the human soul. It is basically Jewish psychology in a Kabbalistic conceptual system. Therefore all the descriptions of Kabbalistic processes do not deal with some upper worlds somewhere out there or anything like that; rather, it is simply another way to describe the human soul through a different conceptual system, and so on. We once talked in this series about earth, wind, and fire versus the periodic table. I spoke about it. It is basically just a different coordinate system for describing the same phenomena.

So often the impression one gets from Hasidim is that they do not see Kabbalah as description. They see it as a useful language for describing human psychology, but it does not describe entities. It is simply a different way of describing human psychology in a language that is perhaps deeper or more useful, more efficient, or whatever. Okay? By contrast, the Leshem comes out furiously against that view. The Leshem—the grandfather of Rabbi Elyashiv, author of Leshem Shevo VeAchlama, a very important Ashkenazic kabbalist, and a friend of Rabbi Kook—argues that this is not called engaging in Kabbalah at all; it is psychology. Psychology in a different conceptual system. Just as there is Freud’s conceptual system, with all kinds of notions that nobody saw or heard and which of course also do not exist, but Freud merely claimed that this conceptual system is an efficient one for treating the human soul—so too, the Hasidim basically relate to Kabbalah in a very similar way. It is another kind of psychoanalysis. Fine? Theoretical psychoanalysis—not the psychoanalysis of a particular person, but the theory of psychoanalysis.

And the Leshem opposes this and basically says: absolutely not. Whoever engages in that is engaging in psychology. Engaging in Kabbalah means engaging in the worlds over there. It means engaging in other worlds of content. It is not a different language for describing the ordinary worlds of content. Also in the context of legal rules, for example: a Kabbalistic explanation of laws is not describing the same thing in different words. I spoke about global correspondence and local correspondence, if you remember—that’s the meaning here: this is a global correspondence and not a local one. Because it is not one-to-one, not that I am describing the same thing in another language. Rather, there are other worlds in which the matter unfolds in different forms, but there is a correlation between the results of what happens there and the results of what happens here. That is the meaning of the global correspondence I discussed earlier in this series.

And then the claim is basically—understand that according to the Hasidic conception there is no point discussing whether Kabbalah is true or not true. It is not a question of truth. It is simply another language for describing psychological facts, psychological processes. Fine, then it’s this language or that language—it doesn’t really matter. Therefore there is this trend, following Rotenberg and Baruch Kahane and that whole school, of trying to create a Jewish psychology. Okay? “Jewish psychology” means: I want to address the same phenomena psychology deals with, only in another language—perhaps within different assumptions, different starting points. But really this is a translation of the same phenomena, a description of them in another language. Okay? And then it is not so relevant to ask whether it is true or not. You can ask whether it is useful or not. But not whether it is true or not, because these are not factual claims.

By contrast, in the Leshem’s view, Kabbalah is a description just as physics describes our world, metaphysics describes certain Platonic worlds, and Kabbalah describes spiritual worlds from Atzilut and above. And to engage in Kabbalah is simply to engage in the physics of those worlds. It is another field of content, not another language intended to describe the same field of content we ordinarily talk about. So of course those worlds also appear in some form within our world. Deep down, at the root—yes, in the secret of judgment within judgment there is grace. Within the more tangible world of judgment, might, the left side, there is the right side somehow inside it, at its central point. There lies a root from the more abstract world. And then the question really does arise whether this is true or not. Here you really do need to ask whether the Kabbalistic claims are correct.

And in our world, when you see all kinds of people, populists and the like, who deal in Kabbalah, they explain all sorts of ideas in Kabbalistic language. There you cannot ask whether it is true or not. That is not relevant. They are using Kabbalah; they are not studying Kabbalah. They are not even using Kabbalah properly; they are using Kabbalistic language. They are not engaging in Kabbalah at all. The question of truth or falsity should be asked about the phenomena they are describing. Are those phenomena true or not—not the Kabbalistic description of them. When you study Kabbalah, says the Leshem, you are studying what happens in the world of emanation. And just as in science there is a correct description and an incorrect description of the world, so too in Kabbalah there is a correct or incorrect description of the world of emanation. And it is measured in the same way as science. Of course the way of running experiments does not exist here, but in terms of whether it is true or false, it is the same question that arises there. It is not some subjective matter where if it helps you, then great. If it has emotional value, if you connect to it, then wonderful. Those are usually the kinds of arguments one hears from mystical types. If I connect to it, if it nourishes my soul, then apparently that’s excellent and apparently it is true. What do you mean “true”? It is neither true nor false; it is simply useful. Okay? But if I relate to Kabbalah as a body of teaching that describes something, as a quasi-scientific field, then there is indeed a question whether it is true or not true. Either it is true or it is not true. And it doesn’t have to be all or nothing. It could be that part is true and part not true—that, for example, is what I tend to think. Fine. But it is open to judgments of true and false. That is the point.

Therefore this has nothing at all to do with what people usually associate with emotional or experiential worlds and the like. That is irrelevant. Even if emotion or experience accompanies it—and that does happen sometimes, though not always—even if it does, that is a side effect. It doesn’t matter. It is not measured by how much it connects me to things, what emotion it arouses in me, whether it increases my fear of Heaven. There are many falsehoods that can increase fear of Heaven. Our own eyes see this at every turn around us—from all sorts of “space” stories and whatever else you want. It increases people’s fear of Heaven. But it is a forbidden, false, and undesirable move from every other point of view. So in Kabbalah too, the question I want to ask is whether it is true or not, not whether it is useful, whether it gives me good experiences, whether it has results, whether I connect to the Divine Presence or to the commandments or whatever. That is not how I measure it. I measure it as an intellectual, quasi-scientific body of teaching that comes to describe something and make claims. And the question is whether it is true or not.

If I make an analogy—and with this I’ll finish—to existentialism: existentialism is not philosophy, contrary to what people usually say. Existentialism is a branch of psychology. A person comes and tells me about certain experiences he is going through, what he feels in relation to various things. Okay? He could have lain on a couch and I could have charged him 200 shekels for it—or I don’t know, 500—and then everyone would understand that it’s psychology. But when he writes it in a book, it is called a philosophy book. I don’t know why. He is not making any claim about the world. He is simply telling me what things do to him, how he relates to them, what processes he undergoes. Fine—it can be very interesting and very enlightening, everything is great—but these are not claims about reality. These are not claims measured in terms of true and false. Did anyone ever imagine judging Kierkegaard—yes, the aesthetic, the ethical, and the religious—by whether it is true or false? I have never heard anyone discuss those categories in Kierkegaard’s thought in terms of true or false. The question is what it means, what it does to me, what experiences it expresses—that’s all. So that is psychology, not philosophy.

And in that sense there are also these two approaches in Kabbalah. There are those who see it as a kind of spiritual-psychological practice, and there are those who see it as a theoretical discipline measured in terms of truth or falsehood, not in terms of whether it helps me, gives me good experiences, or increases my fear of Heaven. Maybe it also does that, and maybe not—I don’t know—but that is not the point. Okay? So that is the claim. Meaning, if I say we have some way of palpating, in some form, the correctness of Kabbalistic claims by the fact that it gives me a whole coherent structure and links things together and so on—understand what that means. It means there is true and false here. It means this is not just feelings. Because if it were just feelings, then you’d be saying: the fact that it creates a coherent structure for me gives me a lot of satisfaction in the gut, makes me feel good, gives me a lot of fulfillment, gives me experiences. I’m saying no: the fact that it creates a coherent picture is an indication that it is true—not that I like coherence because it gives me good feelings. Coherence is an indication that it is true, and that it makes claims about reality. For me, that is mysticism. Other things are not mysticism. Other things are just, I don’t know, mystical language, but not mysticism. Engaging in mysticism means engaging in the structure of reality and making claims about it, about that domain.

Okay, let’s stop here for now. Whoever wants to comment or ask— Just one question, yes yes, can I ask? Yes. So this really connects to the summary of the lecture now. I was wondering to myself: if a person now accepts some mystical teaching and it seems to him reasonable and logical and true, say in the way you just described, because he sees some correspondence between it and other things and that serves as an indication of its correctness—suppose that person is a rationalist, a scientist, a researcher. Do you think he would use that same basic assumption, as it were, in his research as well—not necessarily claim it in a scientific article, but in his own terms, when he identifies some phenomenon and, say, in Kabbalah he identifies some phenomenon of judgment, would he then look for the corresponding grace and the whole general framework of the seven sefirot? Obviously. What do you mean? I showed that—really the whole previous lecture was exactly that. I tried to take the Kabbalistic ideas and look through them also at the world around us. But I’m not claiming that those ideas are another description of our world—that’s what I added now. Those ideas are a description of the upper worlds that exist there; that is the physics of those worlds. But they serve as a root for things that happen here. Therefore through them one may perhaps better understand the depth of what happens here, the context of what happens here.

Let me sharpen it, though yes, you already answered it—I’ll just sharpen it. I mean that he wouldn’t relate to it only as an interpretation of existing phenomena today, but also in terms of his disposition, so that when he sees a phenomenon that has only—let’s call it a one-sided character—he would look for its counterpart, or for the whole general context of the seven sefirot. First of all, the second part is correct, except for “disposition.” It has nothing to do with disposition at all. It’s a conclusion. Do you have a disposition to think there is a law of gravity? If you encounter a certain phenomenon, will you try to explain it in terms of the law of gravity, or will you abandon it? Not because you have such a disposition, but because you reached the conclusion that there is a law of gravity. So if I reached the conclusion that grace and judgment always go together—they clash, but they go together—then for me that is a conclusion. Now in every place I need to apply it—not because it is a psychological tendency. That is exactly the point. I’m not speaking here about psychology. I’m speaking here about philosophy. All right? Yes, thank you. Anything else? Thank you very much, have a peaceful Sabbath. Okay, have a peaceful Sabbath, goodbye. Have a peaceful Sabbath.