Q&A: A Question About the Fifth Notebook
A Question About the Fifth Notebook
Question
Hello,
I wanted to ask how the assumption that man was created also for the sake of some kind of rectification in the divine being (Fifth Notebook, p. 10, the words of the Ari and Rabbi Kook) fits with the one-sided dependence of the created being on the Holy One, blessed be He, according to law 3 in Maimonides’ words at the beginning of the Mishneh Torah (Fifth Notebook, pp. 52-53)?
(And if you could also, in this context, explain how you understand what is called “theurgy” — the human being’s influence on higher worlds and the like, as well as the phrase: “for the sake of the unification of the Holy One, blessed be He, and His Shekhinah.”)
Intuitively, one might perhaps understand that there is no contradiction, because everything is one essence. But it is very hard to explain this. Maybe you could help.
Answer
I wrote about this in columns 170 and 360; see there.
I can suggest reconciliations (that He does not need us for His existence, but He does need us for His perfection), but why do you assume this is supposed to fit with Maimonides?a0
Discussion on Answer
I no longer remember the details. There is a contradiction between the two conceptions if you take them totally. But one can say that He does not need us, except with regard to His completion.
Thank you very much. As I understood it, in the notebook this was not presented as contradictory approaches. True, they were not brought together, but it seemed like part of a general line of thought connected to the things explained throughout the notebook. (The story about the bread and the flower…) Are these in fact contradictory approaches? Or are they not contradictory? Could Maimonides (perhaps elsewhere) agree with the theurgic approach?
The theurgic approach, and also the two supposedly separate “entities” implied by the phrase “for the sake of the unification of the Holy One, blessed be He, and His Shekhinah,” which need human help — all this feels very foreign and strange when you encounter it for the first time, but of course the Zohar is full of this.
“Not for His existence but for His perfection” is still not really a reconciliation. Maybe the reconciliation is to see this as a kind of continuum between man and the Holy One, blessed be He? But that too is problematic.
I read both columns you referred me to; there is no full answer there. I’d be glad to hear your view on this.
As for the Holy One, blessed be He, and the Shekhinah — if the Shekhinah is the divine presence in the world, then what exactly are we asking for in the phrase “for the sake of the unification”?