Q&A: Hidden and Revealed
Hidden and Revealed
Question
Hello Rabbi,
I’m currently listening to your series on mysticism. I think I understood the relation you defined between the revealed and the hidden—that they are not just a translation of the same thing, but that each of them constitutes an independent explanation, except that in practice in the overwhelming majority of cases there is a correspondence between the two.
But I still can’t understand: if we go down to the resolution of a specific case (such as rainfall), it can have only one explanation. True, both the considerations of the revealed realm and the considerations of the hidden realm are supposed, in parallel, to cause the rain to fall. But in practice, the specific case before us can have only one cause or explanation. So how is it caused? By a combination of the two planes? (Apparently not, because then each one would not constitute a sufficient condition.) And if each of the planes is supposed to cause the case to occur, then seemingly it should happen twice… In short, I did not understand how in actual reality there can be two different explanations for the same case, each of which is sufficient.
Answer
The mystical claim is that the Holy One, blessed be He, created a situation in which two independent systems of laws produce the same result—except for pathological cases in which a miracle or a scriptural decree is required. True, from the standpoint of the causal factor it really seems that there can be only one, but there can be multiple explanations.
But even from the standpoint of the causal factor, perhaps this is similar to situations of coercion and will that the later authorities (Acharonim) discussed (as in the modest and the promiscuous women in Tractate Ketubot). When I force someone to do something that he would in any case have wanted to do, can one say that this act had only one cause?
Discussion on Answer
1. See sources in the Talmudic Encyclopedia, entry “Coercion,” in the discussion of coercion and will. That’s more efficient.
2. No. All the explanations can be correct. The force of gravity brought about the event, but it was created and operates (also) in order to punish sinners.
3. Because otherwise parallel explanations have no meaning, and the clear sense is that they do.
Thank you.
1. Could you please give a reference to the passage in Tractate Ketubot?
2. You wrote: “True, from the standpoint of the causal factor it really seems that there can be only one, but there can be multiple explanations.” That is, is there a dispute about reality (“there can be multiple explanations”), while in practice one side is apparently mistaken in its claim that it is the causal side (“it really seems that there can be only one”)?
3. Why force all of the above (the comparison to the passage in Tractate Ketubot), instead of going with the simple assumption that only one side is correct, or that the two sides are equivalent?