Q&A: Infinite Light
Infinite Light
Question
Hello Rabbi,
In the chapter on tzimtzum according to the Ari, it speaks about a simple “supernal light” filling all of reality, and there was no empty space… Afterward it is called the “Infinite Light,” which in the end was contracted to a point. What is this light? It is certainly not meant in the everyday sense, since what existed was “darkness over the face of the deep.”
And from here one should ask: what is this “deep” in relation to the reality that the supernal light filled?
It is hard to say that these statements are intelligible. It reminds me of an unrealistic answer to a difficulty in the Talmud. But there that is fine, because they are only discussing principles, and the answer can be as abstract as possible. But here they are trying to explain the world, and it is not abstract at all. My impression is that these thinkers are trying to invent a reality, about which they have no clue, that would make it possible to define God's relation to reality without contradicting prior assumptions.
Thank you,
Ephraim
Answer
I did not understand what the question is or what the problem is. The fact that the world is real does not mean that its descriptions cannot make use of metaphors and different ways of looking at things. Clearly this is not talking about light in the sense of an electromagnetic wave, but about some sort of spiritual reality. Light is the most abstract entity in the material world, and that is why it serves as a metaphor for spiritual matters. And when they speak about vessels (as opposed to light), they do not mean cooking pots or spoons, but matter and material objects.
Discussion on Answer
I didn’t understand any of that. What is difficult here?
I also did not understand—but what is written. The difficulty, in my opinion, is the invention of ways that the Holy One, blessed be He, supposedly operates, when no person on earth has even the faintest notion about Him. Any statement about Him depends on the creativity of the speaker and nothing more. I am not saying that tzimtzum, etc., cannot be true, because anything—absolutely anything—could be true, but this collection of words on the subject says nothing. One can believe in these words, if one wants, but not understand them.
The question is not about reality but about the Creator of reality. What is the meaning of describing the scope of His presence, His actions, His desires, etc., of that Creator about whom everything that is “known” is only what is said about Him as the speaker would like it to be? Clearly it is all abstract, but what is the referent behind the “metaphors”? I am not sure that believers in Kabbalah see all these things as metaphors.