I didn’t really understand—are you saying the light is an illusion?

I mistakenly wrote “luminary.” I of course meant “light.” All this is according to their bizarre view, obviously.

So then what is the meaning of the discussion whether the light is God’s essence?

I don’t know whether you know this short article:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BwJAdMjYRm7IRElmb0F6RFpENkU
It wasn’t published, and was circulated among people who know Rabbi Avivi, but it analyzes the issue of “surrounding” and “filling” and argues that the words of the Tanya are wrong from their very foundation and have neither root nor branch in Kabbalah.

I looked on your site and can’t find your full explanation of why this way of thinking is nonsense.

But a few minutes ago a fellow named Harel asked you about it, and I’m adding this for you—read it; maybe it aligns with your view and maybe not.

I’ll note that there is a great similarity between you and Avivi, except that you are in the field of philosophy and he in Kabbalah, and I would very much recommend that you speak with him. He is a giant—clear-eyed, wise, and possessed of rich and exotic knowledge.

I explain this in the book I’m currently writing on Jewish thought. The claim that everything is divinity and everything else is an illusion and not a real existent raises the question: an illusion of whom? Who is the one being deluded? Basically, this means that I do not exist, you do not exist, and nothing at all exists besides Him. And that is of course nonsense.

Thank you for the reply.

Indeed, I always wondered who exactly is being deluded—and I answered myself that God deludes Himself because in that way He attains some kind of new insight. A kind of meditation, a higher need.

These kinds of ideas are very common in the New Age, and speak of the world as a kind of divine experiment, to experience matter, impulse, and imperfection through His clothing Himself in human bodies and in the world. The individual person who arrives at self-nullification in the Chabad understanding of “there is nothing besides Him” resets the game and seeks to return to the initial state. And as they say: God made the nothing into something, and the righteous make the something into nothing.

And in another style, according to Ramchal’s explanation of the need for the revelation of divine unity, one could say that the need—a higher need—is for God Himself. Indeed, these things are puzzling, but if it is Kabbalah, we accept it (laughing).

In any case, the nice and serious attempt to trace R. Shneur Zalman’s thinking is found in Professor Yoram Jacobson’s long article: “The Doctrine of Creation of R. Shneur Zalman of Liadi,” in the journal Be’er Sheva, part 2, I think.

All the best.

Everything you wrote seems to me mere empty verbiage. What does it mean that we are His illusion? These are just word games. And the one thinking these very thoughts—is that also Him? So what is all this for? Doesn’t He know the truth about Himself, that there is nothing besides Him?

Apparently, in order to know that, there is a need for distancing and contraction. There is a lot of similarity here to the development of a baby’s consciousness, which begins to become aware of itself only when it no longer experiences unity with everything around it and understands that there is itself and there is its mother, and that they are different. The second stage is that it recognizes itself. That self always existed, but without awareness. Awareness was created with separation. So too, in a far more remote sense, one could say that God comes to know Himself through the contraction and separation of the world from Him.

I think there is such an aspect in Ramchal, if we say that when the unity is revealed, it will be understood retroactively that there was never any evil and never any free choice. It would follow that the one who understands this is God Himself. This is admittedly an interpretation of Ramchal, and if I find the source I’ll send it.

As I said, all this talk is empty of content. It is mere lip movement.

Mere lip movement is an excellent way, though a long-term one, to connect with the truths behind the mumblings. We all began that way in connecting with all our concepts of knowledge, starting with acquiring the language of speech and thought.

Of course, one should not expect an infant at the stage of meaningless syllables to hit the target and produce only correct words, and natural babbling is part of the developmental game. So too here: naturally and legitimately, emptiness exceeds substance, but in the end, after many attempts, some of the abstract and revolutionary concepts also find a place within the narrow understanding of people like us.

It is worth not mocking giants of humanity and great thinkers from a place of narrow vision, if only so as not to cause burdensome commitments and unnecessary contortions later on.

Good luck.

Thank you. You too.

“The ultimate purpose of knowledge is that we should not know.”
The absurdity of this issue is precisely the key to understanding that God transcends human comprehension.
R. Nachman presented the question of the vacated space as the mother of all questions. On the one hand, divine transcendence is necessary, and on the other hand, divine immanence is necessary.

Hello Rabbi,
I’m happy to be reading your trilogy, thank you.
If possible, could you explain and expand on what the difference is between the light and the luminary, and what it means that there is contraction in the light but not in the luminary, etc.?
Although I connect more with the Vilna Gaon’s approach that tzimtzum is literal, I’d be glad to understand the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s position.
Also, are there any practical implications of the differences between the various kinds of tzimtzum?
Thank you!

I don’t have much to add. The claim there is that the contraction is not in divinity itself (the luminary) but in something that proceeds from it (the light). In the language of the kabbalists, this is not a contraction in His hidden essence but in the Infinite Light (and the assumption is that the Infinite Light is not the essence).