Contraction, Lesson 2

Table of Contents

• The question of “the whole earth is filled with His glory” and tzimtzum
• Debate as religious consciousness and practical implications
• Hasidism, the Mitnagdic approach, holiness and the mundane
• Religious Zionism, Haredi society, and sociology versus ideas
• The attitude toward academia, politics, and repairing the world
• “Authentic” Hasidism and today’s Haredi world
• Hanukkah, permission-commandment-prohibition, and the view that “there is no middle”
• Critique of non-literal tzimtzum as a logical claim
• The Lubavitcher Rebbe’s letter to Rabbi Dessler on four approaches to tzimtzum
• Nefesh HaChaim: “there is none besides Him” and the caution against practical conduct based on esoteric teaching

Summary

General Overview

The text raises the philosophical question of melo kol ha’aretz kevodo—“the whole earth is filled with His glory”—and the problem of whether there can be any space in creation that is outside the Holy One, blessed be He, and translates that into the language of Kabbalah as the question of whether tzimtzum is literal or non-literal. It argues that these debates are not necessarily attempts to decide what “happened” in reality, but are ways of shaping religious consciousness and a mode of acting in life, and it illustrates this through questions of human effort and trust, providence, and medicine. It sketches a connection between the Hasidic-Mitnagdic dispute and differing conceptions of holiness and the mundane, and from there describes implications for attitudes toward Religious Zionism, academia, politics, and repairing the world, while qualifying any sharp generalizations and emphasizing that sociological practice does not always reflect the underlying theological “root.” Later it brings a letter of the Lubavitcher Rebbe to Rabbi Dessler mapping four approaches to tzimtzum, followed by a passage from Nefesh HaChaim presenting “there is none besides Him” in its literal sense, while warning against practical application that would undermine foundations of Jewish law, thus sharpening the tension between theological truth and binding conduct.

The question of “the whole earth is filled with His glory” and tzimtzum

The question is presented as an inquiry into the relationship between the Holy One, blessed be He, and creation: can there be a creation that exists “outside” Him, and can one say that there is a place empty of Him without compromising His infinity? In the language of Kabbalah, the problem is formulated as the question whether tzimtzum is literal—that is, an actual withdrawal that leaves a space in which creation exists without His presence—or non-literal, meaning concealment and hiddenness that only appear that way to us. The kabbalistic description portrays the “gap” as a gap filled with worlds and emanational stages such as the Infinite, the line, and the tzimtzum, Adam Kadmon and Atzilut, and the passage from one world to another is called tzimtzum, which is the condition for the coming-into-being of a lower world.

Debate as religious consciousness and practical implications

The text argues that these debates are not necessarily about metaphysical facts but about the religious consciousness from which a person acts, and that there need not be complete overlap between “what happened” and “how one ought to live.” It formulates a position according to which someone who says that tzimtzum is non-literal sometimes means that there is no tzimtzum in reality, but one is still required to act as though there is tzimtzum, and as though the human being is “the master of the house” within his sphere of action. It illustrates this through parallel patterns in questions of human effort and trust, belief in relation to medicine and prayer, and the choice whether to act in the world or to leave everything to divine management—especially through the third position: “everything is the Holy One, blessed be He, but you are required to live as though it is not.”

Hasidism, the Mitnagdic approach, holiness and the mundane

The text presents the common view that the root of the dispute between Hasidism and the Mitnagdic camp is connected to whether tzimtzum is literal or not, attributing to the Vilna Gaon a position identified with literal tzimtzum and to Hasidism a position identified with non-literal tzimtzum, while saying that the idea of tzimtzum first appears in the teachings of the Ari and that there are disputes over how to interpret it. It states that literal tzimtzum creates the possibility that there are areas of reality that are not divinity, whereas non-literal tzimtzum says that everything is divinity and the tzimtzum is only a mask, and it formulates this through leit atar panui minei—there is no place devoid of Him—including places of impurity and mundane life. It ties this to the difference in the service of God: in Hasidism even eating and everyday acts are seen as sorting out sparks and revealing holiness in everything, whereas in the Lithuanian consciousness many realms are viewed as mundane, without positive religious significance, or as an area from which one should keep away.

Religious Zionism, Haredi society, and sociology versus ideas

The text warns against being swept away by slogans and points to the difficulty of defining sharply the difference between Religious Zionism and the Haredi world, because sociological expressions do not always match the underlying ideological assumptions. It brings examples of Haredi figures about whom stories were told of an emotional attitude toward the state, reciting Hallel, or identification with state symbols—such as Rabbi Gustman, Rabbi Ovadia, Rabbi Kahaneman, and Rabbi Shach—and presents the position that one can identify with the state without granting it a “Merkaz HaRav”-style religious meaning. It argues that Lithuanian opposition to Zionism may stem from a view that it is “mundane,” and therefore not a proper field of involvement, while extreme Hasidic opposition sees Zionism as the “other side,” and therefore loads it with negative spiritual meaning rather than neutral meaning.

The attitude toward academia, politics, and repairing the world

The text describes a Haredi-Lithuanian outlook according to which areas like academia and science are “neglect of Torah study” and have no independent religious value, and are sometimes seen as a zone of temptation or as the “other side,” whose purpose is to distance a person from the study hall. In contrast, it presents a consciousness associated with non-literal tzimtzum that sees all realms of reality as a field for the revelation of divinity and for repair, and connects this to the Religious Zionist conception of vekivshuha—“and subdue it”—and of national, political, and historical engagement as “divine manifestations.” It adds that the dynamic between idea and practice can get mixed together, and that at times the language of “repairing the world” can look like assigning responsibility to the human being in a way that brings back motifs of literal tzimtzum, so the parallels are not mathematical.

“Authentic” Hasidism and today’s Haredi world

The text argues that most contemporary social Hasidism is not really a continuation of the original ideological Hasidism, and draws a distinction according to which Breslov and Chabad remain Hasidic movements that continue broad engagement with the different arenas of life. It gives examples of artistic figures such as Shuli Rand as an expression of the idea that Hasidism can live within culture and art as part of the service of God. It connects the historical Hasidic rebellion against Lithuanian elitism to the view that social stratification exists from the outset and that there is room for ordinary people and for life-engagements, as opposed to the Lithuanian ideal according to which everyone is “supposed” to sit in the study hall and outside involvement is only ex post facto.

Hanukkah, permission-commandment-prohibition, and the view that “there is no middle”

The text uses the model of commandment-prohibition-permission to argue that there is a view according to which there is no real “permission,” and everything that is not a commandment becomes a prohibition, at least as the prohibition of neglecting Torah study, illustrating this with a saying attributed to the Rabbi of Sanz about cutting challah on the Sabbath. It presents a parallel to the dispute about the Greeks and the Hasmoneans: the Greeks are portrayed as those who held that everything is mundane, and the Hasmoneans as those who held that everything is holy, and both extremes are presented as a deviation from the balance in which there is holy and mundane, each within its own proper sphere. It weaves in popular stories to illustrate how a consciousness that erases “zero” and recognizes only “one or minus one” shapes conduct and education.

Critique of non-literal tzimtzum as a logical claim

The text presents a sharp philosophical critique of formulating non-literal tzimtzum as an ontological claim, arguing that if everything is divinity and there is no human being, then there is no one who lives “as though there is tzimtzum,” and so a logical loop is created: “whose illusion is it?” It uses something like Descartes’ cogito to argue that doubt itself presupposes an existing subject, and presents this as a proof by negation that requires literal tzimtzum. It formulates a distinction between “theology” as truth-claims about reality and stories meant “to constitute consciousness,” and argues that theology has to hold water and cannot rely on a ban against asking questions.

The Lubavitcher Rebbe’s letter to Rabbi Dessler on four approaches to tzimtzum

The text brings a letter in which the Lubavitcher Rebbe rejects the claim that all the approaches to tzimtzum “go to the same place,” and states that already in the first generation after the Ari there were disagreements from one extreme to the other. The Rebbe divides the dispute along two axes: whether the tzimtzum is literal or non-literal, and whether it applies only to the light or also to the luminary itself, and maps the four possibilities created by combining them. He attributes to the opponents in the days of the Alter Rebbe a position of literal tzimtzum even in His very essence, and explains that for them leit atar panui minei means providence alone, while noting their argument that the presence of the essence in every place contradicts the laws concerning filthy alleyways.

Nefesh HaChaim: “there is none besides Him” and the caution against practical conduct based on esoteric teaching

The text quotes Nefesh HaChaim as stating that “there is none besides Him” is literally true at every single point in all the worlds, and that all places have no independent reality, rather the Holy One, blessed be He, is “the place of the world,” to the point that from His perspective “they are all considered as though they are not in reality at all, even now just as before creation.” It brings Nefesh HaChaim’s warning that too much contemplation of this is dangerous, that this is a matter fit for “the wise person who understands on his own,” and that its main place is “to inflame thereby the purity of his heart for the service of prayer,” in a movement of “running and returning.” It explains that Nefesh HaChaim saw a need to speak out because in his generation people were using the slogan “after all, in every place and in everything it is complete divinity” in order to establish practical conduct, and he warns that such an application could lead to the destruction of the foundations of Torah, such as permitting thoughts of Torah in filthy places, and he attributes to this the severity of “for he has despised the word of the Lord,” to the point of “he shall surely be cut off” in this world and “shall be cut off” in the World to Come.

The philosophical question, the question of “the whole earth is full of His glory,” is: what is the relationship between the Holy One, blessed be He, and creation? Can there be a creation that exists outside the Holy One, blessed be He? Because that would basically mean that He is not infinite, that there is some place empty of Him. And that raises philosophical problems. I started describing—before I spoke about the revealed and the hidden in terms of the worlds, I spoke about it, right? About the kabbalistic formulation of that same problem. That is basically the formulation of whether contraction is literal or not literal. It’s the same problem in kabbalistic language. So here—I don’t remember exactly how much I managed to say last time—but basically there is some description according to which the relationship between creation and the Holy One, blessed be He, is different in the world of the revealed and in the world of the hidden. Did I talk about that? I already don’t remember. In the world of the revealed there is some infinite gap between us and Him, and that entire space is an empty space. And in the language of Kabbalah, the description is that this space is full. Meaning, there are worlds: Infinity, line and contraction, Adam Kadmon, Atzilut. In other words, the space is a filled space. And the transition from one world to the one beneath it is called contraction. Meaning, the upper world contracts, and then it makes possible, leaves room for, the world beneath it to come into being. Which is basically the process—in philosophical language—that is the process of creation. The Holy One, blessed be He, so to speak withdraws and leaves us some kind of existence that is not inside Him, that we are not Him. That is a kind of description of contraction, but in philosophical language. And the question as formulated in the language of Kabbalah is formulated as whether the contraction is literal or not literal. What does that mean? Was there really contraction? Meaning, in the place where creation exists, the Holy One, blessed be He, is not there; He withdrew from there. And that again raises the philosophical problems we spoke about. On the other hand, another possibility is to say no, it’s only as if there were contraction. He hides; it’s something subjective, only from our perspective, but not really. All kinds of formulations of that sort: contraction is not literal. Contraction is only a way of describing things, but it’s not really what happened in reality itself.

Maybe I’ll say one more word about the philosophical things we discussed. Very often these debates are not really debates about what is happening in the world, but debates about the question of what kind of religious consciousness I live and act within. There does not necessarily have to be overlap between the question of what happened in the world and the question of what kind of religious consciousness I am supposed to live with. In other words, what all those who say contraction is not literal really mean is that in fact there was no contraction, but you are supposed to act מתוך a religious consciousness as if there were contraction, as if you are in fact the master here, as if the Holy One, blessed be He, is not here. If there was no contraction, then why do you need to act? So we’ll talk more about that, but I’m saying—that’s the claim.

And many times you also see expressions of this in classic questions like providence, or effort and trust. Faith and trust, right? The question is whether I have to make an effort in order to achieve the goals I set before myself—or whatever goals are set before me—or whether in any case the Holy One, blessed be He, runs everything. Do I need to go to a doctor in order to be healed, or to pray? Or even not that—whatever the Holy One, blessed be He, does, He’ll do. In other words, this discussion too very often receives those same kinds of answers. Meaning, there are those who say of course you have to do your part. This isn’t the Holy One, blessed be He, here; here it’s us, truly. Others say, what do you mean—it’s all the Holy One, blessed be He. A third way is to say true, it’s all the Holy One, blessed be He, but what is demanded of you is to live in a consciousness as if it were not all the Holy One, blessed be He. Which is exactly the mirror image of that same matter. In other words yes, overall this is the question whether everything is the Holy One, blessed be He, or not—but now I’m translating it into a question from life. In other words, the question is how we act in our daily lives, in our daily religious lives.

Now I’ll broaden the picture a bit before I go back into the matter itself. Basically, as you could already understand from the example I gave, this question is not just an abstract question—whether contraction is literal or not literal, some kind of thing dealing with upper worlds. What does that have to do with us? So first of all because it’s interesting to discuss upper worlds too, but this also has very strong implications for life. Quite apart from the question of which view is correct—first of all I’m saying, let’s see that the question is interesting, that is, that it has implications.

I think it is widely accepted among many people to think that the root of the dispute between Hasidism and its opponents is this question: whether the contraction is literal or not. Now before I go into more detail, notice that this has a very practical implication—different forms of serving God. It does show up in life. It isn’t just some detached theoretical philosophical reflection; it has expressions in life. Now it’s true that often the expressions in life, which sometimes seem very far apart, their philosophical root—if there even is a philosophical root, and it’s not certain there always is—but if there is one, it is sometimes thin. And the distinction—the degree of extremity in the distinction—you can’t always infer it from the degree of difference in its practical appearances. A good example of this, which I think I already discussed in previous years—

Isn’t that related, for example, to the question of individual providence?

Also, also. I’ll still talk about all those aspects. I think I discussed in previous years the question of what Religious Zionism is as opposed to Haredi Judaism. Okay? There too, when you try to define really well what exactly the difference is, I’m not sure you can define it at all. I can describe a person to you about whom you won’t be able to say whether he is Religious Zionist or Haredi. I even know several such people. And on the ideological level, when you try to find the difference, it’s very hard to define, if it’s even possible.

Just briefly—someone who relates to the State not in terms of “the throne of God in the world” or “the beginning of redemption” or anything like that, but with a high degree of empathy. He’s a citizen here, he’s happy here, it’s a Jewish state, he likes being here, everything is fine. How would you define him—Religious Zionist or Haredi?

He’s half-Leibowitzian.

Okay, let’s say within that dichotomy. What, if he’s Leibowitzian then he’s Religious Zionist? I think a great many Haredim would fit that definition. So are they Religious Zionists? Okay, that’s exactly what I’m saying. So the practical, sociological expressions don’t always express the definitions that perhaps we’ll find at their root. And that’s not the only distinction; there are other distinctions between the sociological group and the—no, no, I’m not talking about modern religiosity, I’m talking about Religious Zionism.

What does he do on Independence Day?

Certainly not ideologically.

Where does he go to pray on Independence Day?

What do you mean, where does he go to pray on Independence Day? Here in the synagogue and comes to say Hallel.

Ah, so he’s Zionist—and that’s the measure?

He says thank you to the Holy One, blessed be He, for the fact that he lives here. That’s all.

There are those who say psalms of Hallel. Rabbi Gustman—there’s no doubt that he was Haredi, at least in the accepted definitions. Every year on Independence Day, so they say, he would go to the parade, when there was a military parade, and he would cry there. And he would say—his students asked him, his students were young yeshiva students—he said to them, you’ll never understand. He said, whoever wasn’t there won’t understand. And I have no doubt that in fact—I don’t know if he said Hallel, he said Hallel in his heart; maybe he even said Hallel with his mouth, I don’t know. The same with Rabbi Ovadia—I think he said Hallel, at least that’s what I once heard. I’m not sure, I didn’t check, but that’s what I understood. So is he Haredi or not Haredi? I don’t know. It’s a kind of—

Rabbi Kahaneman?

Rabbi Kahaneman, yes—about him I always like to tell the story, with the—he fought with his students over the flag, he played the flag game with them. He sat—Gadi Chopski told me, Dov Gnihovski, that he sat with Rabbi Kahaneman on the roof of Ponevezh and they guarded the flag all day so the students wouldn’t take it down. The students didn’t agree, they would take down the flag. The rosh yeshiva sat upstairs all day, and Dov Gnihovski told me that he sat with him, he sat there together with him, guarding the flag. And Rabbi Shach continued it afterward, after Rabbi Kahaneman passed away; Rabbi Shach continued that. He put up a flag there because that was the tradition of the yeshiva, and he guarded it and made sure it wouldn’t be taken down.

Even today too?

Today I don’t know if they still do, yes maybe, because someone told me that it has changed somewhat, but I’m not updated.

In any case, and there’s the well-known story about the rabbi of Ponevezh, where people always say, well, that was because he was afraid the Zionists would murder him, all kinds of foolish statements of that sort. That’s nonsense of course. And the most famous story told in the name of the rabbi of Ponevezh—which all of Bnei Brak tells with enormous enthusiasm and doesn’t understand that it’s an own goal—is that he said he neither said Hallel nor omitted Tachanun on Independence Day, just as Ben-Gurion neither says Hallel nor omits Tachanun on Independence Day. He’s no more Zionist than Ben-Gurion. That story, by the way—I don’t know if it’s true, but it could very well be true, because I think that really was his approach. His approach really was that—in free translation—this has no religious significance for me. I’m not Religious Zionist in the sense found in Mercaz HaRav, or Mercaz HaRav and beyond it in broader circles. But I am Zionist. I am happy that the State was established, I identify with it. That’s all. Alongside what I described earlier.

Now would someone say that Rabbi Kahaneman was Religious Zionist, in sociological definitions? Obviously not. So the attempt, the drift after slogans, very often does not really express the true conceptions, and vice versa. Very often the true conceptions do not find expression in practice, at least not the way we would expect them to show up in practice. Fine. You can have a great deal of criticism of how the State behaves and still recognize the goodness of the Holy One, blessed be He, and thank Him for the fact that you have a state and all that. On the other hand, you can be in many shades, and I don’t think it’s possible to define sharply which of them we identify as Religious Zionist and which of them we identify as Haredi.

Now you can always define it, no problem. Propose a definition and it’ll divide them. But the definition is, say, a Zionist is someone who identifies with the State, is for the State, and religious is someone who—what is Zionist? Anyone sane. So here you excluded maybe a hundred crazies from Mea Shearim. That’s it, that’s all.

Why crazies? Why? They’re against the State?

They’re against the State. A hundred crazies are against it. Satmar, that’s all.

From Bnei Brak too.

Not true. They say it.

They don’t say anything.

They do say it!

They don’t say it! What—

So I’m telling you the idea is not right. Even though, just as they take part in government in Poland in order to get this and that—when they sit in the Knesset, when they send representatives to the Knesset, then yes, their focus is how do we take care of ourselves. But there is no such thing as being chairman of a committee and seeing that you’re working for the public—what do you mean? The Finance Committee?

Money.

But in the Finance Committee he does substantial work in many areas.

Minister they aren’t willing to be.

Fine. Why? Because they don’t want responsibility.

They don’t want responsibility?

They don’t want ministerial responsibility for government decisions. According to the law there is ministerial responsibility that is not divided according to portfolios. Every minister bears responsibility for the whole government.

And in the Finance Committee?

In the Finance Committee they allocate funds to all sorts of very, very—fine. And the chairman of the Finance Committee signs off on it. Don’t convince me of the inconsistency of the conception. I’m only telling you that sharp definitions don’t work. No—what, he took responsibility for some obscene performance? Fine. So then why doesn’t he want to be a minister? Ask him. Responsibility—I’m not, again, I’m not claiming the conception is consistent.

Is he against the State? Against its existence? No. No, absolutely not true. Not true. When you get to the declarative level, push him into a corner, maybe he won’t—then he’ll tell you yes, yes, Zionist. In life he will never try to cause this State actually to collapse. If there were a real danger that something would happen to this State, he would be right at the front. He would be at the center of the front. Only what? Today he relies on the Zionists to do the work while he sits quietly in Bnei Brak and can criticize everyone without doing anything. But fundamentally that’s not true; he is part of the matter. You can criticize to what extent this affects your actions, to what extent you shoulder part of the obligations—fine, all true. There is something in the ideology that also trickles down into practice. But they are not there, absolutely not. We’re talking about some bizarre margins of Satmar and those who supposedly really want the whole thing to collapse. Let’s see them when the whole thing collapses.

There are those who don’t want National Insurance.

How many such people are there? How many are there? So there are those margins in Mea Shearim. Because it’s hard to live without—no, no, not only hard. What happens today is thousands of people. Fine, that’s still marginal, thousands of people. Thousands out of—exactly. Out of a million, there are a few thousand. It’s negligible.

I’m bringing this as an example. Again, there’s no point going into it; it’s not our subject—though maybe it kind of is our subject, actually, we’ll see later. But I’m bringing it as an example of the caution one has to use when searching for philosophical or theological roots of a practical phenomenon, a sociological phenomenon. The roots very often do not appear sharply in the sociology, in the practice. So one has to be cautious about this, and everything we say is some kind of generalization. Still, there are generalizations that are better and generalizations that are worse. So again, none of this is a mathematical theorem.

But now I’m coming back to our topic, and this will connect again. This example is not just an example. The difference between Mitnagdut and Hasidism, as I said, is commonly thought to be the difference between a view of literal contraction and non-literal contraction. And the Vilna Gaon is considered the father of the view that contraction is literal. There are those who say this is a dispute between him and the Ari, of blessed memory—that the Ari, of blessed memory, says contraction is not literal, though in the writings of the Ari it is not clear, but that is what they claim. And the author of Leshem came to prove from the Ari too that contraction is literal.

Wait—which started the idea of contraction? Where does it first appear?

The Ari. Meaning, the Ari is the one who created the idea, and afterward they disagreed over its interpretation?

Meaning—even though what does it mean, created the idea? It first appears there. And the ideological question is whether he created it. There are those who will say: many things appear in the Ari, but in fact it was a tradition he received from Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, from Moses our Teacher, I don’t know. That’s already an ideological question. I tend to think that what? It’s well known that with the Zohar they say Rashbi wrote it. But the writings of the Ari too—not exactly; there are things he didn’t write, he said orally. But Kabbalah is perceived by some people as something that is part of the Torah tradition from Sinai. There are people who understand it that way. Again, that’s already entering ideologies, and I can’t go into that. I’m not so inclined in that direction. But fine—regarding the Ari, the issue of contraction appears there for the first time. So he discovered it, revealed it, invented it—call it what you want.

But it is accepted that the Vilna Gaon held that contraction is literal, and the Hasidim generally hold that contraction is not literal. And later we’ll read Nefesh HaChaim by Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin, which seemingly crosses the lines—a student of the Vilna Gaon.

Maimonides didn’t address this?

Maimonides—no. He doesn’t have contractions. He didn’t know this whole business. So why is this connected to Hasidism and Mitnagdut? Because when you say that contraction is literal, you are basically saying that there are parts of reality that are not divinity. Setting aside the theological prices of that for the moment, but that is basically what you’re saying. Why? Because He withdrew. Contraction. He contracted. He’s not here. Okay? That’s the dispute—whether there are parts of reality in which there is no divinity. They are other parts, something else; it’s not divinity. The conception of non-literal contraction basically says no—everything is divinity. Sometimes under disguise, sometimes in all kinds of parables, other illusions—but it’s all divinity. Literal contraction says that reality as a whole is reality without divinity. Maybe aside from holy places—ten degrees of holiness are the places where holiness appears—maybe there there is more divinity; that can be debated.

So what’s the practical difference? What’s the difference? Because the Hasidim, as is known, also try to repair the— they see importance in repairing even the simple ordinary daily actions. Eating is the clarification of sparks. Right? What does that mean? It basically means that there is holiness even in eating. There are no domains of holiness and domains of secularity; everything is holy. Meaning, sometimes holy under disguise—

If you say “clarification of sparks,” then that means there is also something that is—

No, there’s an illusion there, right? In this conception, clarification of sparks means getting out of the illusion. Meaning, removing the disguise from divinity, because it is actually there. That is the conception of non-literal contraction. And basically it means that it is found everywhere. “There is no place empty of Him.” He is in the bathroom, He is with the wicked, He is with the righteous, He is in the secular domain, He is in holiness, in impurity, in purity. Basically, all of this is our imagination; it doesn’t truly exist. Divinity exists everywhere. That is exactly the Hasidic conception. The Hasidic conception basically says that divinity is present everywhere—in the ordinary person, in the Torah scholar. It has many expressions.

And the implication of this is of course the Religious Zionist conception. The Religious Zionist conception can really be seen in two ways. Religious Zionism in its classic sense—Rabbi Kook, say, who had a Hasidic background, after all, Chabad Hasidism—he basically understood that all the national, political, and historical actions contain holiness. These are all divine manifestations; there is no secular act here. Now the opposition, part of the Haredi opposition—some see it as a deed of Satan—but the centrist opposition says: at most, it is secular. Meaning, what does it have to do with anything? There is a domain here that is unrelated to divinity. It is unrelated to holiness or to unholiness. And therefore now this becomes a question of ideology. In other words, whether you are—okay—but am I willing also to live the secular? Or do I say, what do you mean? I focus on holiness, and I have to distance myself from the secular.

The Haredi conception—what is called Haredi today—is a Lithuanian conception. The Hasidim too, because Haredi means that there are domains of reality in which the Holy One, blessed be He, has no interest in our dealing with them. They are domains that from His perspective are a test for us; they are not things that have value in themselves. These are not domains we are supposed to engage in.

What? There are domains in reality that are unrelated to any Jewish law? I mean, I don’t understand the issue of holiness, I can’t get it.

Yes, maybe they are related to some Jewish law, and even so—academic domains. What does that mean? You study one or another academic field—who cares? It’s just neglect of Torah study. Meaning, there is no point, no divinity there, there’s nothing there—it’s neglect of Torah study. You will never hear there a conception saying, I go to academia because it’s a worthwhile activity, I want to see the Holy One, blessed be He, through physics or mathematics or whatever. What do you mean? There is no such thing there. Those are secular domains. Not muktzeh. Those who go farther, of course, will say it’s also muktzeh, it’s heresy, it’s—fine, but those are people who don’t know how to distinguish, that is, they don’t understand that there is also zero between 1 and minus 1. So for them, everything that isn’t 1 is minus 1. But those with a slightly more complex conception, the middle-of-the-road people I spoke about earlier, are people who say no, it’s zero; it’s not minus 1. But the righteous deal only with the one. They are in the study hall; we don’t go outside. We have no interest in going outside. It’s not defensiveness, it’s not only—there are those who see it as defensiveness, but it’s not only defensiveness in the sense that it’s dangerous, that it corrupts. There is an earlier conception here that says: what do you mean, why deal with this? I need to study Torah in the narrow sense. The whole surrounding world is a house of tests to see whether I will deteriorate and get involved in things other than Torah or not. The Holy One, blessed be He, basically created a world that is entirely the “other side,” which in essence is a Haredi conception. The Haredi conception at its core is a conception that says the world outside the study hall is the “other side” in a fundamental way. Meaning, now there are degrees, more and less, but fundamentally it is somewhere I am not supposed to be. The test—

What? De facto, not de jure.

Yes. They test me to see whether I can withstand it. It’s a hard test. But in principle, the whole world was not created for some purpose; it was created so as not to be there. It’s as if the world was created in order not to be in it. It’s a strange kind of conception.

Now that is a conception of literal contraction. It is a conception according to which God is located in some—again, I’m not talking now about ontology, about what happens in the world itself. But at the level of consciousness, this comes from a conception of literal contraction. It comes from a conception that reality—we’re talking about the World to Come. I once told a story about how when I was in Yerucham, after some time I suddenly saw that in several respects something here was different from what I had seen in Bnei Brak. I had been in Bnei Brak beforehand—when I was there in a hesder yeshiva, I mean—not South versus Center, but a hesder yeshiva versus the Haredi world.

So one of the aspects—there are several aspects—for example, a sense of humor, but another aspect—actually in favor of the Haredim, I mean. But beyond that, there is also the—by the way, it’s connected. That’s what Rabbi Lumenstock once told me, and I think he was right. Another aspect is really that in Bnei Brak you are constantly talking about the World to Come. Meaning, you work, you’ll have a World to Come, you won’t be in Gehenna, you— you live there. Everything here is just a test so that you’ll get your inheritance there, and then everything will be fine. This world—

What? A corridor?

Yes, exactly, a corridor. Fine? Now in Yerucham I never heard about the World to Come. Ari, did you hear? Occasionally. It wasn’t mentioned. I don’t know, I didn’t hear. After some time I suddenly noticed—I hadn’t heard anything about the World to Come, not Eden, not Gehenna. Not that they didn’t acknowledge it or believe in its existence. It isn’t present. It isn’t—that’s not the point. We don’t work for there; we work for here. We need to repair the world here, not in order to inherit the World to Come, not to get through this world so as to inherit the World to Come. We are not making a lousy this-world in order to have a good World to Come. We are trying to make this world good—good, of course, in the spiritual sense, not only—but also in the material sense, in every sense. There is nothing wrong with that. The material sense too—these are all ramifications. And all these ramifications, at root, come out of a consciousness—again, I’m not speaking about an ontological conception—but in consciousness this is literal contraction or non-literal contraction. In other words, whether you are willing to see parts of reality, or even all of reality, as something unrelated to divinity.

But isn’t that a concept from a consciousness of exile, where there was no state—

So I’m saying: there are many shades, and obviously I’m making this—it’s not zero and one hundred either. I said there are—and to keep the Torah—and here there is a lot of holiness, and outside there is—there is divinity, but— I said it in a dichotomous way; I said this is not a mathematical theorem. I’m trying to sharpen things so we can see how it comes to expression. Obviously there are shades and shades of shades, and one says this and does that and another says this and does that. Obviously, and each in different proportions, and the world is complicated. But broadly I’m saying there are here two phenomena that do express two religious consciousnesses. One religious consciousness of literal contraction and another religious consciousness of non-literal contraction. Because you see the entire world as the handiwork of the Holy One, blessed be He, which you need to repair—“and subdue it,” “and have dominion over the fish of the sea,” and so on. “And subdue it”—that they haven’t heard in Bnei Brak in their lives. They don’t know the verse. It simply doesn’t exist. In the Oral Torah it doesn’t exist, in any case. And that—what is “subdue it”? “Subdue it” is exactly this Zionist conception, that you need to take hold of all the expanses of reality and repair them and live this world—not get through this world in order to reach the World to Come, not shut yourself up in Noah’s arks. The yeshivot are Noah’s arks.

But—how does that fit with the conception of contraction—of non-literal contraction? I mean, if your conception is that everything is divinity and everything is this, then it doesn’t fit the conception that you have to repair the world.

Why not? To remove the masks. Then you don’t need to repair physical reality; you only need to remove the masks.

That is called repairing. That is called repairing physical reality. Repairing physical reality means revealing the divinity within it that is there even without you. But you live in some all-encompassing—in a conception, again, I’m taking this into a kind of theology—not everyone lives this way—but that’s the root. You basically live in a world in which apparently divinity is covered up, and your task is to reveal it. For the Lithuanians there is nothing to reveal; it isn’t there. Dance until tomorrow—it isn’t there. There are parts of reality that were created only so that one should keep away from them. They were not created to be repaired, not to act within reality. Those are not fields in which you are supposed to walk.

Now often—and this is very interesting—the dynamics of ideas are very interesting, because sometimes the practice can switch around. The opposite, in fact. For the Zionist conception of repairing the world says that the world is not repaired without me. So that is specifically my task, and suddenly you take this toward contraction that is literal, because this is the part given over to human beings, not to the Holy One, blessed be He. So it gets mixed up, and again, I’m saying, these are not mathematical theorems, but this correlation exists. It begins there. And with Nefesh HaChaim, as we’ll soon see, that is one of the issues around it.

Why? Why? If we are repairing, why is that literal contraction?

What? If we are repairing, that means we are supposed to run this operation, otherwise it won’t be okay. So that means we are the agents, not the Holy One, blessed be He.

But who says that we have work upon us to run something here? I don’t understand. Even someone who says it’s not literal still says there is work upon us—to sit in the study hall and learn. The world—what do you have to do with the world? The Holy One, blessed be He, runs the world in His glory. What does that have to do with you? Don’t interfere at all. And all the same He made me an emissary. It’s all such illusions, one illusion or another, the test being that you should sit in the study hall and not go there.

I have a friend who is newly observant, a very sharp guy, full of ideas, ten schemes a day, interested in everything, theories—he works on himself, because he is in an extremely extreme Haredi conception, so everything is the “other side.” Meaning, he works on himself so hard not to get involved in anything, not to take interest in anything, nothing at all—and it is really against his nature, against his natural tendency. He is doing insane work on himself, really.

Anyway, there is also a saying in the name of the Rebbe of Kotzk, that the Holy One, blessed be He, is found wherever people let Him in. Do you know the story about the person who went to a Reform synagogue on Rosh Hashanah to pray, and he found a sign: “Closed for the holidays”?

In any case, the point is that this theological dispute has expressions in the practical world. That’s the point. Again, the descent from there to practice mixes in many things. It appears in different and strange forms. Ultimately—I started talking about the Hasidic courts—ultimately, somehow, Hasidism today is not really Hasidism. Most Hasidism today—and I think I mentioned this before too—that people say, look, the Lithuanians and the Hasidim get along more or less now; it’s not the wars of the past. And that is of course nonsense. Those who are still Hasidim today are basically Breslov and Chabad. All the rest are not Hasidim; they are Lithuanians with a shtreimel, that’s all. And in Breslov and Chabad the war is exactly what it used to be. Among the Lithuanians it’s the opposite process—the Lithuanian rebbes. But present-day Hasidism, the anti-Zionism and all those things, often really connects to Lithuanian conceptions.

Those who really remained Hasidic—look, in Breslov people really move around in many places where Haredim don’t move, in many domains where Haredim don’t move. It’s not incidental that all kinds of artists and such can be Breslovers, like Shuli Rand and others, and can be active artists and that is perfectly fine in that framework, because they truly engage in all areas of life. That’s Hasidism in the authentic sense; that’s not the innovation. The innovation is Hasidim who don’t do that. In other words, real Hasidism is precisely to continue engaging in all areas while being a Hasid. The same with Chabad. But in Vizhnitz you won’t find that, nor in Gur. Because they aren’t Hasidim. They’re stockings and a shtreimel, but they’re not Hasidim.

You’ll find it there, but not as ideology. Of course there are such people. In every large group there are exceptions. But it isn’t there. You do that under the table; that’s not the story. If you mention the story of the three yeshiva boys who were told: you have one day, you can do whatever you want, whatever you want, complete exemption from all the rules—but in the period when these disputes between Hasidism and the Lithuanians really existed, what characterized Hasidism? Did it operate like Breslov and Chabad today? Where did they turn? To what sort of audience?

Certainly. What do you mean? All of Hasidism is a revolt against Lithuanian elitism, okay, which sees only the Torah scholar as some—no, also the wagon driver, also the person occupied with trades.

Fine, but only within the vineyard, only within the community.

No, but also like Chabad today. It’s a Jewish element; it’s not Lithuanian.

That’s not exact. It’s true they saw it that way, and they really tried to work with the householders that way. The immediate Hasidim were the same thing. The rabbi of Zlotshov and Rabbi Zusha wandering about—they were exactly like Hasidim today, exactly like Lithuanians today; it’s a division of roles. They held that the role of the righteous man is to be detached, and also not detached—it doesn’t matter, all the—fine. But he exists for the community, which is not supposed to be there. It’s not that by accident they’re not there because they’re weak; they’re not supposed to be there. He has his Hasidim who are there, and then there is the common folk who— that’s the division. But that is a division from the outset. Now here is the point: you need to create some kind of detached avant-garde. The messianic era has arrived, and we as an entire community are now all in the inner circle. In the circle, yes—but we’ll continue dealing with everything. Not everyone becomes rebbes. That’s exactly the point. No, the principle is that this stratification is built in. For the Lithuanians, anyone who is not like us is a nebach, fine, you have to take him into account, but he is someone who is second-best. In principle everyone should sit in the study hall. And that is the basic conception. You understand? It’s true, reality is reality, okay, most of us acknowledge reality. But among the Hasidim, it is supposed to be this way from the outset.

That is why Religious Zionism emerged from Hasidism, very clearly. Religious Zionism emerged from—actually, no wonder that today all the Hasidic awakening—where are there still real Hasidim today? “Where are there still people like that man,” the Baal Shem Tov? Where? Where are such people? There are in Chabad and Breslov, and there are in Religious Zionism. There are no Hasidim in the other places, not really. Hasidim in the sense of wild human beings, from the hilltop youth to all kinds of people occupied with unusual forms of Hasidism. It doesn’t matter—these are Hasidic phenomena in their essence. Hasidic phenomena. And this exists only here; it doesn’t exist in other places.

Hesder yeshivot.

Hesder yeshivot are mostly not this phenomenon. Yes, there are some, but mostly this is not the phenomenon. But it exists in various places; these are expressions of Hasidism now, quite clearly. Hasidism itself—those called Hasidim today—most of them are no longer really Hasidim. And here there really is a phenomenon that is Hasidic at its root, both in its political and social expressions and in its religious expressions. There is here this desire to repair the whole world, to engage in all fields, the ideology with which we so much identified ourselves and were educated—that comes from there. Among the Lithuanians there is no such thing. You will not hear anything like, “What do you mean repair the university?” Its repair is to smash it like an earthen vessel—that’s the repair. That’s what needs to be done, to blow it up. There is nothing there to repair. There is nothing there at all; it is just some human artifact. In other words, there is nothing here.

And so this is the implication of these two conceptions of contraction—literal or non-literal. Now the interesting point is that indeed the Hasidic opposition to Zionism, in the ideological sense—I’m not talking now about practice—the ideological opposition, Satmar and those who see it as a deed of Satan, notice that there too it is not the Lithuanian opposition to Zionism. The Lithuanian opposition to Zionism is because it is secular and we do not engage in the secular—in one sentence, of course, a generalization. The Hasidic opposition to Zionism is because it is the “other side.” And they elevate the “other side.” Because the “other side” too is something connected to holiness. There is nothing that is merely secular, nothing that is not saturated with some kind of spiritual reality, with powerful religious energies. It’s just that it can be taken in positive or negative directions; there is no middle. Now in the Lithuanian conception, the Lithuanian ideology, there is a middle. We just don’t deal with the middle. In Lithuanian ideology, Zionism is zero, and in the Zionist ideology it is minus one. Only among Hasidim is there either one or minus one; there is no zero. That is non-literal contraction. In other words, one can oppose Zionism also from within a view of non-literal contraction—but then you will see Zionism as the “other side,” not as mere secularity.

Literal contraction means—fine, here there is no divinity. The Holy One, blessed be He, expects us to sit in the study hall, not to be in academia, not to be politicians, not to be in business fields or science, technology, and the like. Not to deal with that. It doesn’t matter. It’s secular. For the others it’s the “other side”; it’s not secular. But even they have the translucent husk, which is something half-and-half like that—good and bad mixed together. There is no zero, no secularity. There is either good or evil or a mixture of good and evil. It’s some sort of potential thing that can—no, but it isn’t secular. It’s good and evil mixed together. There is no secularity.

Yes, we talked about this once on Hanukkah, about these conceptions—whether the Greeks, I think in one of the last few years, held that everything was secular, all secularity; and against them came the Hasmoneans, who held that everything was holiness. And in fact both were wrong. There is secularity and there is holiness, and it is not true that the whole world is one solid block. So here are two mistaken conceptions. And you can see it in various respects, this extreme dispute between—after all, the Hasmoneans had to rise up against the Greeks only in order to balance back toward the middle. But the Hasmoneans themselves were also a deviation. They made priests into kings. The Jerusalem Talmud says there is a prohibition in that, and so on. You can see that they instituted writing the name of God on contracts. Contracts—business with a person in the marketplace—why are you writing the name of God there? In other words, from their perspective priests need to be kings, the name of God needs to be on contracts—everything is holy. And for the Greeks everything is secular; they breached breaches in the courtyard, they defiled the oils—yes, everything has to be secular. They do not recognize the concept of holiness.

And in the end, one needs to repair the thirteen breaches in the courtyard. That is what the Mishnah says in tractate Middot, that the kings of Greece made thirteen breaches, and corresponding to them the kings of the Hasmonean house repaired them, and corresponding to this they instituted thirteen prostrations. In other words, ultimately there should be holiness here and secularity here; there is some synergy between them. But one must not let one take over the other. Neither one can take over the other, neither holiness nor secularity. Rather, there are domains. And of course there is also a domain of impurity. There is impurity, prohibition. In halakhic language, say, there is prohibition, there is commandment, and there is permissibility. There is permissibility too. Not everything that is not a commandment is a prohibition. There is prohibition, commandment, and permissibility.

Now there are people for whom, in their basic mode of being, there is no such thing as permissibility. Everything that is not a commandment is a prohibition. At least the prohibition of neglect of Torah study. Always. The moment you are not involved in something that has value, it is neglect of Torah study. So by definition everything is a prohibition. Behind this too again sits some conception of one and minus one. There is no zero, no middle. As it says, everything that is not permitted then—yes, exactly.

The Rebbe of Sanz once said this—I heard it from the previous Klausenburger Rebbe, the old one. He said that if it had not been written that it is permitted, he also would not have cut the challah on Shabbat. So from his perspective everything not explicitly permitted is forbidden—which is a crooked conception. In Jewish law, everything not forbidden is permitted. That is clear. You need proof in order to say something is forbidden, not proof in order to say something is permitted. Everything is permitted unless there is proof that it is forbidden. It’s simple.

That’s like the story about the yeshiva students who were given permission to do whatever they wanted. So there were three students—I no longer remember whether they tell this about Ateret, Ateret of Rabbi Baruch Mordechai Ezrachi, Ateret Yisrael yeshiva, and Ponevezh, and I don’t remember someone else. So one from Ateret Yisrael went to a movie, and someone else—I don’t remember what he did—and the one from Ponevezh went under the table and drank Coca-Cola with Landau supervision. Fine.

So these are the practical expressions of the conceptions. Now in this context, the Hasidim who wrote about this issue explicitly—there aren’t so many, but there are some. Usually it is wrapped in all kinds of other things. They really do express a conception that contraction is not literal, but nevertheless the Torah speaks of contraction because we need to live in a consciousness as if there were contraction. And that really is the point. Now I already spoke last time about the logical problem in such a conception: if contraction is not literal, then who is this “I” that is supposed to live in that consciousness? I—who is that “I”? I do not exist. Everything is divinity. If contraction is an illusion, whose illusion is it? Of someone who created for himself an illusion? In other words, you cannot say something is an illusion if you do not recognize the existence of the absolute, right? But the one being deluded is himself an illusion—so illusion of whom? Of the Holy One, blessed be He? In my view there are some philosophical errors here. I don’t even want to understand this discourse at all. I do think, however, that it has what we might call consciousness-forming goals. In other words, it comes to shape a religious consciousness of a certain type. The philosophical, ontological consistency in this matter seems to me hard to find. But I do think the goal is not really a philosophical goal. It is an attempt to shape a different kind of religious consciousness.

Okay? And when you say that contraction is not literal, what you are basically saying is: you have to know that there is divinity everywhere. Fine, you don’t live that way; you are in fact also supposed to act in reality. People tell all sorts of stories: you need to make an effort even though everything is predetermined. Am I an idiot? In any case I’ll recover or I won’t recover—it doesn’t matter. So why take the medicine? There is a scriptural decree; I have to take medicine when I’m ill. And there are those who went further and said, fine, if you don’t do that, then as punishment you also won’t recover. Meaning, the Holy One, blessed be He, won’t give it to you because you didn’t do what you were supposed to do, as punishment for the transgression. As though someone is revealing a secret to you—and if you look at it, then it won’t be a secret anymore. Fine, but the question is whether that secret is true or not true. You can’t play games. If the secret is true, then what? Then you say: it remains a secret; I’m not allowed to talk about it. Fine—but you also can’t say it’s a secret and look at it and also—so don’t speak. You can’t speak. I’m just trying to understand.

Fine, so I’m thinking about it now; I’m not speaking. Now, I know that if you look at it, then it’s no longer a secret. It’s as though they tell you there is something here. And if you look at it, then it doesn’t exist—this—again I’m telling you: two plus three, two plus three is nine. But you’re not allowed to ask questions about it. That’s all. When you ask questions, I told you—if you ask questions, you’ll discover it’s not true. But two plus three is nine. That’s all I’m saying. You can say any nonsense that way. I mean, what do you mean? The moment I ask questions, I understand this is nonsense. And then—well, you asked questions; we said you’re not allowed to ask questions about it. It doesn’t work that way. This thing is nonsense, and now they tell me fine, but you’re not allowed to ask questions about it.

As if the only thing I claimed is that we have limitations.

No, so we have limitations in grasping things. If we have limitations, then don’t talk to me, because you too have limitations.

No, not limitations in that sense. Rather, when you begin to spell it out into details, you reduce it. It’s like the motion of an arrow. We spoke about this with negative attributes. It’s not a collection of points. We know—it’s motion. There are things you can’t reduce, can’t break into little points.

But I—I don’t even see the motion. I don’t need to break them into little pictures. The concept of motion I understand. So I have a problem with how to define it, but I understand there is such a concept. The concept of non-literal contraction, in my opinion, is idle chatter.

Doesn’t that rise above some particularity?

That’s what I’m saying. So if you want to create a consciousness—

I understand.

If you want to create a religious consciousness, I understand. But don’t make it into theology, because theology means statements about reality. It is done out of need. It’s instrumental.

Exactly. If you do theology instrumentally, then fine—do whatever you want, I don’t deal with that. It’s not theology for a purpose. If you make a claim about reality, then you are saying that is reality. This is not reality, but I’ll tell you about some imaginary reality in order to shape a consciousness. Fine, say whatever you want—tell me this is my consciousness. Yes, I’m telling a story, knowingly, supposedly to create a consciousness. I know that those I tell it to do not have the ability to understand that there is actually a logical problem here. They will receive it that way, and it will create a consciousness in them. I understand. It just doesn’t interest me. Fine, so he can speak with fools however he likes. I do not deal with such a thing as theology. If something is theology, it has to hold water. In other words, if you tell stories to shape consciousness in people who do not know how to think, then okay, no problem; maybe that can be done. But it doesn’t interest me.

It’s exactly like rabbinic decrees or various things with which they want to guide people, which are not truth in themselves.

But rabbinic decrees are not something meaningless. You say fine, so you decree it ad hoc. Okay, that’s legitimate. What’s the problem? But not to say this is the law, though one does not rule that way. Exactly. That’s the problem. So you’re basically telling me: contraction is literal, and this is the law, though one does not instruct that way, and I’m telling you stories that contraction is not literal. So okay—that’s what I’m saying. Therefore I am not willing to engage in this discussion of whether contraction is not literal, because clearly it is literal. Okay, when you ask what the truth is.

Right. But I am dealing with truth now. I’m not dealing with forming religious consciousnesses. What is the truth? The truth is that contraction is not literal, but our consciousness can grasp only—if the discussion is a sociological one. According to the truth, there is no human being here. If contraction is not literal, there is no person here. What is a human being? Everything is divinity.

But the divinity contracted itself away from human beings and gave them the feeling that they exist.

But there are no human beings. There aren’t. Human beings are an illusion. So for what—fine, it gave us the feeling of an illusion. And who is this “us”? Human beings. But we do not exist. So who is that one who has the feeling that he exists? You won’t get out of this.

But that’s Descartes’ cogito. I think, therefore I am. I can’t get out of that.

Descartes’ cogito is the argument against non-literal contraction. Because I’m basically saying: I am being deluded, therefore I exist. Right—that is basically the claim. But that is what he says there. If I cast doubt on my own existence, that means that this doubt is being carried out by someone. There is someone who is doubting. So that means I exist. It’s Catch-22.

Catch-22 is a proof by way of negation that contraction is literal. Catch-22 is a loop you can’t get out of. Here you can get out. This is simply a proof by way of negation. Fine.

But what interests me—the point I wanted to reach—maybe from here take the pages. It’s taking much longer than I planned. Everything’s fine. No, no, I understood that this could happen; current events are always present. I brought here a letter of the Lubavitcher Rebbe. Some people have the illusion that he died, but that isn’t literal. In the letter he deals with the question of contraction, and I’ll just read it briefly because it’s not my main purpose, but so that you can see.

“And regarding what he writes concerning contraction, that one of his acquaintances says that all the views on this go to one place”—I also say this; I think everyone agrees. There are some who play with words one way, others who play with words another way. There are not two views here, there is one view. There cannot be two views. “I was greatly astonished even by such a thought,” even by such an initial assumption I am very astonished. “Especially since his honor in the Torah calls him in his letter ‘one who studies books of the Kabbalists’”—that is, the one from his acquaintances. Because it is obvious that this is not so at all. “Already in the first generation after the Ari, who revealed to us the secret of contraction, there were differences of opinion concerning contraction between masters of war, from one extreme to the other, as is evident in their books. And the dispute continued afterward as well. And it is in two principal matters: whether contraction is literal or not—withdrawal or concealment.” Withdrawal or concealment means: literal contraction is withdrawal; concealment is non-literal contraction. Meaning, the light exists in all places, but in some places it is concealed, hidden.

“Whether the contraction is only in the light or also in the luminary.” About that we spoke last time when I described the worlds. I said that the Infinite Light—there is a dispute whether that is the very essence of the Holy One, blessed be He, or whether it is the will to reveal, the beginning of revelation, while He Himself is something beyond the Infinite Light, and about that we do not speak. So now when we speak about contraction, the question is whether it is in the light or in the luminary, and that basically depends on this. If the contraction the Ari describes is a contraction of the Infinite Light—the Infinite Light withdrew, a void was created in the middle, I described this last time, and within it all the lower, more material worlds were created—now, the Infinite Light withdrew. If you say that is the Holy One, blessed be He, then that means the contraction is in the Holy One, blessed be He Himself. If you say this is only in the light, in the will to reveal, but the Holy One, blessed be He Himself is not in the picture, then the contraction is not in the Holy One, blessed be He Himself but only in some derivative concept, yes? In the Infinite Light. But we are not speaking about Him Himself. And that is the luminary.

That’s it. Now he translates this as the difference between the light and the luminary, which is not exactly the same thing but is equivalent. There is the light—that is the Infinite Light—and the luminary is the source of the light. The light in the literal sense and the luminary not in the literal sense. The light is the Infinite Light and the luminary is the lantern. In other words, that from which the light emerges. And that is the essence, basically. So that is what he says.

And then he says: so there are really two questions here—whether it is literal or not literal, and to what it is said. Now understand: if it is literal contraction in the luminary, that is the most extreme, because it means that the Holy One, blessed be He Himself is not present in all places, right? If I say the contraction is literal in the light, then that means that the Holy One, blessed be He, is basically present in all places. When we speak of contraction, we speak of contraction of the light, of the product of the Holy One, blessed be He, which in a certain sense is non-literal contraction. Literal contraction in the light is contraction that is not entirely literal. There are many possibilities. Right, exactly. Now non-literal contraction—if I say non-literal contraction in the light, then that does not mean—well, then obviously it is also non-literal in the luminary, because it is impossible for the light not to contract while the luminary did contract. If there is no lantern, there is no light, right? But the reverse could happen. There could be non-literal contraction in the luminary but literal contraction in the light.

So he says this: “And there are four possible views here. Literal contraction”—literal contraction also in His very essence. Fine? That is one view. “And the obvious proof is: how can one say that the King is found in a garbage dump, God forbid?” Which is exactly the Lithuanian conception, saying that in places of impurity, prohibition, negative places, places of evil—there certainly there is no divinity. It is impossible that the King is found in a garbage dump. Therefore the contraction must be literal. That is the claim.

Second: literal contraction, but only in the light. Fine? The luminary, the Holy One, blessed be He Himself, is not contracted, and of Him we do not speak. The Infinite Light contracted, but literally.

Third: non-literal contraction, but also in the luminary. There is contraction that is not literal. You can say there was no contraction at all, you can say there is contraction but not literal, and you can say there is literal contraction. Now he says there is non-literal contraction but also in the luminary. Meaning, both the luminary and the light are contracted, but not literally.

And fourth: non-literal contraction and only in the light. Meaning, in the luminary itself there is no contraction at all, neither literal nor non-literal; contraction is not said there at all. Meaning, even in religious consciousness I do not need to live with the idea that the very essence of the Holy One, blessed be He, is not present somewhere. Only the Infinite Light, in religious consciousness, needs to withdraw. In consciousness—not truly. Fine? So that is the claim.

In other words, what he is basically saying is that there are three divisions regarding contraction itself. There is something where there was no contraction at all. There is contraction but not literally, which is some kind of—I don’t know—subjective thing. And there is literal contraction. So there are three levels. And since there is light and luminary, it comes out to four possibilities.

“And behold, the opponents in the days of the Alter Rebbe held view one above, as stated.” What is view one? Literal contraction also in His very essence. “The opponents,” of course, means the Mitnagdim—the dispute between the Mitnagdim and the Hasidim. “And they interpreted ‘there is no place empty of Him’ to mean His providence.” “There is no place empty of Him” does not mean that the Holy One, blessed be He, is physically present in every place, that He is all places; rather, His providence is in all places. Fine? “And they said that the view that the essence is found in every place contradicts the laws concerning filthy alleyways.” There are filthy alleyways in which one does not say words of Torah. How can that be if divinity is found everywhere? This is only an illusion, so there should not be things like that. Therefore it is impossible that divinity is found there. That is the Lithuanian claim, yes? “As is written in the broadsides and notices published in the time of the Baal Shem Tov and the Alter Rebbe. See also Shaar HaYichud VehaEmunah chapter 7, Iggeret HaKodesh, and I think it is also written in Beit Rebbe in a letter from the Alter Rebbe dealing with this.”

“The view of the author of Nefesh HaChaim, whom his honor mentions in his letter”—yes, that’s his authority of course; this is from a Lithuanian study hall, so Nefesh HaChaim is the rebbe there—“is according to the third view above.” What is the third view? Non-literal contraction, but also in the luminary. Fine? He wants to show why Nefesh HaChaim too is different from Hasidism. Because at first glance there is similarity with Nefesh HaChaim; the picture of contraction he describes fits Hasidism completely when he speaks of non-literal contraction. So he says there is still a dispute, because Nefesh HaChaim is view three. Fine? He says contraction is not literal, but it is both in the luminary and in the light. This, according to him, Hasidism does not accept. “And in this he disagreed with his teacher, the Vilna Gaon.” Fine? “And in general it appears that Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin saw Chabad books”—this is disagreeing with his teacher, the Vilna Gaon, in the opposite direction of course. The Vilna Gaon is in one or two, yes? Hasidism is in four. And Rabbi Chaim, standing at three, disagreed with his teacher, the Vilna Gaon.

“And in general it appears that Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin saw Chabad books, especially the Tanya, and was influenced by them.” In truth you can see this in many places in Nefesh HaChaim. There is a very interesting similarity between them, even though it was written really against it. But there is a very strong similarity between them, “although I have no conclusive proof.” It is pretty clear he saw them, because he argues against them. So if he argues against them, I assume he knows what is being discussed. But for some reason he is also influenced. And this is what he says one must beware of. When you go to argue with someone and you read his books, in the end you are influenced too.

“But we have only the fourth view above: that the contraction is not literal, and even that only in the light, not in the luminary.” In the luminary there is no contraction at all, and in the light there is contraction, but it is not literal. Fine? That is the fourth view, and that is basically his conception—the Hasidic conception, let’s call it, or the Chabad conception. “And only in the lower aspect of the light, as it was before the contraction. And as explained in the books and writings of Chabad, and in our days, since we have merited its light, the tractate of contraction has been explained at length, relatively speaking, in many particulars in the printed books of Chabad Hasidic teaching. Behold, one who wishes to know the matter of contraction, at least to some degree in understanding and grasp, there is no other path than to study the above. And in order to verify this, it is enough to compare what is said here with what is said in other books, since it appears that some of them did not wish to spell out the matter for various reasons.”

The point with Chabad is that they are willing to write about everything. Other books try to hide things, and in Chabad there is no problem writing. But in any case, here you really see a very sharp description of the picture. That is why I think this letter is very rare. Very few write directly about this issue, at least from what I have seen. And indeed he maps out a very clear picture here: the Vilna Gaon as father of the conception—view one or two—literal contraction, whether in the light or in the luminary, but literal contraction. Nefesh HaChaim is already more moderate—contraction not literal, but in both the luminary and the light. And the Hasidic view is that contraction is not literal and only in the light, not in the luminary. In other words, this is the view that leaves the most of contraction while still being as moderate as possible, as minimal as possible.

Now this is of course problematic, because Nefesh HaChaim usually sticks close to the Vilna Gaon. It is hard to see him disagreeing with the Vilna Gaon, certainly on such matters. But that is indeed how it is commonly thought, and when you see his words inside, you see that apparently he writes in a way very similar to Hasidism. Look here. Maybe we’ll begin to read and continue this next time, because I see we won’t finish.

“And this is the meaning of the verse, ‘Do I not fill the heavens and the earth.’ And more explicitly in Deuteronomy: ‘Know this day and take it to your heart that the Lord is God in heaven above and on the earth below—there is none else.’” Fine, this is basically “the whole earth is full of His glory.” “And likewise, ‘You have been shown to know that the Lord is God; there is none else besides Him.’ And it is literally as it sounds—that there is none besides Him, blessed be He, at all, in any aspect or specific point in all the upper and lower worlds and all creatures. Only His simple unified essence, blessed be His name, alone.” Here this is really a very Hasidic, very extreme conception, saying there is nothing—it is all Him, there is nothing that is not Him.

“And this is the inner meaning of what our sages said in Devarim Rabbah: ‘That the Lord is God.’ Jethro gave it, Rahab—Moses placed it”—I’m skipping some detail there—“Moses placed it even in the void of the world.” Jethro thought that the Holy One, blessed be He, was not in the void of the world; Moses placed Him also in the void—as though in the void of contraction, translated into the language of the Ari. And it says: ‘That the Lord is God in heaven above and on the earth below—there is none else.’ What is ‘there is none else’? Even in the void of the world. And this too is included in the words of our sages that He, blessed be He, is the place of the world, and the world is not His place. Meaning, that even all places perceived by the senses as existing—the places are not self-subsisting places.” He means to say they are not places that truly exist. “Rather, He, blessed be His name, is the place of all places, which from His perspective, blessed be He, are all considered as if they do not exist at all even now just as before creation.” Meaning, from the perspective of the Holy One, blessed be He, from the perspective of truth in itself, nothing happened in creation. The Infinite Light is still in the same state it was before creation. We apparently see it differently, but from His perspective nothing happened. This is really a conception of non-literal contraction.

“However, we already informed at the beginning of our words that the words of our sages are like fiery coals, and one must be very careful with their coal not to enter into too much contemplation and inquiry.” Meaning one must be careful with this idea. This is the truth, but one must be careful with this idea, because one can get burned. “In matters where permission is not given to contemplate much, lest he be burned, God forbid,” and so too in this awesome matter. “This is said only to a sage who understands of his own knowledge the inner aspect of the matter, in matters for which permission is not given except in the measure of the heart alone, in the movement of running and returning, to inflame thereby the purity of his heart for the service of prayer.” That is, to say contraction is not literal is good for inflaming one’s heart for the service of prayer. To connect to the Holy One, blessed be He, it is easier to see Him in all places. But one must be careful about living this way in the rest of life. That is basically his claim. And his Lithuanian side is expressed in this: that at least in daily practical consciousness you do need to create a consciousness of contraction, even though the truth is that the Hasidim are right. That is basically what he says—I’m putting it in my own language.

“But much contemplation in this is a tremendous danger, and of this it is said: ‘And if your heart runs, return to the place,’ as we said above in chapter 2 and as we shall write, God willing, below in chapter 6. And truly I would have refrained from speaking of this matter at all, because the early authorities concealed the matter greatly, as you will see in the holy words of the holy Rabbi Elazar of Worms, of blessed memory, and generally he only hinted at it. For they were faithful in spirit and covered the matter.” This is an allusion to Rabbi Akiva, who revealed secrets of Torah, and someone said to him that the Holy One, blessed be He—meaning that the Ancient of Days covered it, and you reveal it. You are a talebearer, Rabbi Akiva, for the Holy One, blessed be He, covered it and you reveal it.

“But I reconsidered and saw that that was fitting for them in their generations. But now many days have passed without a teacher, and every person’s way seems right in his own eyes, to go after the inclination of his intellect. And beyond all else, the imagination of the heart of man is only to fly in thought to wherever his intellect impels him. And above all, since this is the whole Torah of man, and it has become a saying even in the mouths of fools to say: ‘Is not every place and every thing complete divinity?’” He means the Hasidim, of course. “‘Is not every place and every thing complete divinity?’ and these words are not in their hearts. To the point that even mere youngsters, with their hearts still un-anointed, establish all their actions and conduct on the basis of this idea according to their own understanding.” Meaning they also draw practical conclusions. After all, extreme Hasidim would sometimes also do things against Jewish law. Why? Because in their view Jewish law too is only from our perspective. That is basically the meaning: they break all the frameworks because this whole framework is, in truth, an illusion. Now in the extreme conception this can lead people to a situation where—okay, if so, then let’s live the truth itself. This is intended only for weak people, for those who don’t understand, but we will live reality itself. So this can often lead to various kinds of deviations and framework-breaking of that sort. We know such phenomena today too: all kinds of people who pray the Saturday night service on Tuesday, or make Havdalah on Tuesday, or all sorts of things like that. Havdalah is still possible; the Saturday night evening prayer is more problematic.

So this is basically a statement that we are above the rules. That is, the rules are some kind of illusion from which a person can also be exempt, because in truth it shouldn’t be there; it doesn’t exist. “And how much extra caution must a person take in this matter, and guard his soul greatly with guard upon guard, lest, God forbid, our heart should set this thought for ourselves in order to permit ourselves also to conduct ourselves in deed according to this thought. For from this could be born, God forbid, the destruction of several foundations of the holy Torah, Heaven forbid.” Here you really see the tension between the true conception and the formation of religious consciousness, or even the practical translation. A theological conception is not always supposed to find expression on the practical plane.

“And one can easily be caught, God forbid, in the net of the evil inclination, which will show him permission according to this idea. For example, to think words of Torah while in a state of bodily relief, even in filthy places.” You see what the Lubavitcher Rebbe we read earlier was referring to, right? He mentioned that the Lithuanians say, according to this, then why can’t you think words of Torah in filthy places? Here—this is the conception of Nefesh HaChaim. Notice: Nefesh HaChaim does not go exactly like the straightforward Lithuanian conception. He says true, in fact the Holy One, blessed be He, exists there too, but the rule is that there we are supposed to behave as if He is not there. And if you tell everyone that this is only “as if,” they will immediately draw the conclusion that if so, let’s act according to the truth and think words of Torah even in filthy places. And that is of course a parable for: let’s go into places where we are forbidden to be. Let’s do the things we are forbidden to do. Because this whole business is really only an illusion intended for weak-minded people—but we, who know the truth, let’s now do the truth.”

“One who says, ‘I will sin and repent, I will sin and repent’”—it is known, yes, there is a very interesting Hasidic rebellion that says yes, one should sin and repent so as to become a penitent, who is preferable to a wholly righteous person. So the one who says, “I will sin and repent,” it is known—they say he is not given sufficient opportunity to repent. Why? Because this is basically an opening to the fact that in the end you won’t repent. But if you sin and really repent afterward, then you are in a higher state than someone who never sinned at all. Meaning the sin too is basically some kind of illusion invented so that you can repent and climb to a higher level. And it is not really something bad in itself.

You understand how such a conception can lead to complete breakdown of the framework. “After he first establishes in himself that all is complete divinity. Our sages greatly emphasized this and with their holy spirit cut him off from having a share in the World to Come, Heaven forbid, as it is written: ‘For he has despised the word of the Lord’—and this refers to one who thinks words of Torah in filthy places.” Meaning his claim is that to think words of Torah in filthy places is “despising the word of the Lord,” that is, here you are cut off from the World to Come. This is the gravest transgression possible. You only want to study Torah even there—it sounds okay; the motivation is positive. His claim is that thinking words of Torah in filthy places is a theological mistake. The problem is not the prohibition involved; it expresses a conception that is a theological error. That is the point. That is why it is so severe.

“And the latter part of the verse is thereby understood: ‘He shall surely be cut off.’ And our sages explained in the chapter Chelek: ‘cut off’ in this world, ‘surely cut off’ in the World to Come. And there are several other mistakes that can emerge, God forbid, if conduct in deed were established according to this path. And this is what brought me to enter and speak on this matter, and to warn and distance from the mistake that could be born from it, God forbid, and to understand properly all that our sages taught us in this. And behold, they are all like the straight ways of the Lord.” What does he mean? That the upright walk in them and transgressors stumble in them, of course. “For the ways of the Lord are straight; the righteous walk in them and sinners stumble in them.” He says that since today this is already on the table and people can get confused, I too have no choice but to enter this discussion, and I will try to explain what is really going on here. Okay? And then we’ll continue reading this here. So maybe we’ll do…