שלהבות של אמונה ט״זFlames of Faith 16

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1FOUR PRIMARY KELIPPOS

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2When the prophet Ezekiel experienced the vision of God’s chariot, he first encountered obstacles that clouded the Divine light:

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3Va-ereh ve-hinneh ruach se’arah ba’ah min ha-tzafon, anan gadol, ve-aish mislakkachas, ve-nogah lo saviv.

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4And I looked, and, behold, a stormy wind came out from the north, a great cloud, a fire flashing up, and a bright sheath around Him (Ezek 1:4).

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5The four barriers that Ezekiel mentioned are the primary veils in our world, and they encompass the various kelippos that we experience.²⁹⁷The world was created with God’s name of Havayah (see earlier lessons). That name contains four letters. Evil’s four categories correspond to them, and conceal the fact that the life in our universe stems from those four letters. The first kelippah was ruach se’arah—a stormy wind. The second was anan gadol—a great cloud. The third was aish mislakkachas—a fire flashing up, and the fourth was nogah—a translucent curtain.

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6All kelippos hide God and prevent the prophet from reaching the Divine, yet there is a difference in degree of opaqueness among the four. The first three are total veils that fully conceal sight of the Divine; however, the fourth is translucent. Nogah is like a thin sheet of cloth used as a curtain. One sheet will not hide what occurs behind it, while many such sheets together will cloud sight through them.

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7Similarly, three categories of behavior contain irredeemable sparks. God cannot be seen through these walls, and one should avoid them. The fourth category, kelippas nogah, has a spark that can be raised through correct use while incorrect use will hide God.²⁹⁸Tanya Chapter 1 pg. 10, and Chapters 6-7. See also Chasidic Masters pg. 74.

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8The lower three kelippos are the spiritual source of all foods and acts the Torah prohibited, while nogah is the source for permissible physical pleasures. The Hebrew term for forbidden acts is asur, which also means “tied” and “in bondage.” In the forbidden foods and forbidden acts, God’s sparks are tied in bondage and meager man cannot release them. Permitted foods are called muttar, which literally means, “untied,” or, “released.” These foods and acts contain Divine sparks that are untied and through proper behavior and context the sparks are liberated. Most physical items in our world are permitted. That is why Chasidim teach that our world derives from kelippas nogah.

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9The Zohar explains the verse, El ginnas egoz yaradti, “I went down to the walnut garden” (Song of Songs 6:1) in light of the lesson of the four kelippos. A walnut has four shells. When it first grows and is still on a tree, it is covered with a velvety thick green peel that surrounds its hard shell. This peel is totally inedible. Behind the peel is the “wooden” shell that is also indigestible and requires a nutcracker to crack it open. Once the walnut is opened one finds that it has slight brittle walls that seem to shape the walnut into a nut consisting of four parts. These walls are inedible. Finally, surrounding the fruit there is a thin filament. If the filament is on the nut it will be eaten together with the fruit and the sweetness of the nut will overwhelm its bitterness. However, if it is separated from the nut it will not be eaten and most of us will not even consider it food.

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10The walnut is a parable for our entire physical world. God created the world with the four letters of his name, Y-H-V-H. Traces of these four letters are to be found on the walnut fruit, which is why it seems to have four parts. It is difficult to get to the fruit because the fruit is covered with four shells. The four letters of God’s name, and the special lights they produce, are hidden by the four kelippos. The first three barriers of the walnut represent the shalosh kelippos ha-teme’os, the three incorrigible evils, which is why they are inedible. The filament represents kelippas nogah. The filament is edible when attached to the fruit. Similarly, when kelippas nogah is connected to holiness it adds sanctity; however when it stands alone, it connects with the three lower kelippos and is evil.

י״א

11According to the Talmud, there are two parts to the Mitzvah of circumcision, milah and periah. Milah occurs when the mohel, the individual who performs the circumcision, cuts off the foreskin from the eight-day old baby boy. In periah, the mohel lifts a layer of skin to ensure that the crown atop the male organ remains revealed. R. Tzvi Elimelech of Dinov²⁹⁹He was a student of the great Seer of Lublin. He was born in 1783 and he passed away in 1841. His most famous work is his book Bnei Yissachar about the twelve months of the year. pointed out that three layers of skin are cut during milah while a fourth layer of skin is pulled for the sake of periah. These parallel the kelippos. The three lower kelippos are irredeemable and as a result are cut off entirely. The fourth layer of skin is a representative of nogah; it can be rectified if it is appended to holiness, which is why this skin is lifted up and connected to the holy.

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12Perhaps it is these two classes of kelippos that are referred to in the following verse: U-maltem es orlas livavchem, ve-arpechem lo takshu od, “And you shall circumcise the foreskin of your heart and you should not harden your stubbornness any further” (Deut. 10:16).

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13The foreskin of your heart refers to manifestations of the three lower kelippos, they must be removed entirely. Arpechem, “your stubbornness,” refers to nogah—that which does not have to be eradicated but rather redirected hence the instruction, “Do not harden it any further.”³⁰⁰Heard from the Stitchiner Rebbe.

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14The prayer against heretics states: Ve-hazeidim meheirah te’akker u-sishabber u-simagger, ve-sachni’a bi-meheirah bi-yameinu, “May you speedily uproot, smash, whittle away, and subdue the wanton sinners, speedily in our times.”

ט״ו

15This prayer employs four terms of destruction: uproot, smash, whittle away, and subdue. The first three connote total annihilation, for they address the three totally impure kelippos. The fourth term is sachni’a, “subdue,” which implies overcoming yet not destroying. This refers to kelippas nogah, expressing the hope that it will be channeled towards good.

ט״ז

16According to the Torah, the fruit from the first three years of a newly planted tree in Israel is prohibited. This produce is termed orlah. The fruit of the fourth year, neta revai, may only be eaten in Jerusalem, and outside the holy city it is forbidden. Orlah is from the three forbidden kelippos, while neta revai is from nogah; if it is in Jerusalem there is a Mitzvah to eat it, when the fruit is outside of Jerusalem it is prohibited; man determines whether ingesting this fruit will increase or decrease his spirituality.

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17Permitted versus Prohibited

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18A prohibited act like worshipping idols is from the three impure kelippos. Conversely, permitted pleasures such as enjoying comedy is from nogah. Nogah can be raised, and the Talmud records that Rabbis would introduce their lessons with jokes. Their humor was attached and subordinated to a Torah goal, relaxing students to facilitate more effective learning of Torah. As a result their jokes caused an increase in Divine feelings within the students and the sparks within the kelippah were redeemed. However, for those who use comedy to waste time, or to consider inappropriate thoughts and ignore Torah study, their nogah act is being utilized in a way that renders it evil. The act is then like the three impure kelippos—it will increase a sense of arrogance, coarseness, and physicality.

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19Eating pig is very different from enjoying comedy. Pork belongs to the class of the three impure kelippos and its nitzotz cannot be raised. Even if one eats from the pig, the energy the pork provided will inevitably lead to misdeed, not holiness. On the other hand, kosher meat is in the category of nogah. One can recite a blessing before eating and thus raise the sparks in the food through turning the moment of eating into an occasion to acknowledge the Almighty.³⁰¹There is a Chasidic custom that on the Yahrtzeit (the date of a person’s passing) food that was purchased from the deceased’s money is served, and those that eat it say, “Let the neshamah [soul] have an aliyah [ascent].” The explanation of this custom is that within a person’s property are special nitzotzos, sparks, that relate to that person’s soul. When a blessing is recited with correct intent prior to the eating of food, its spark is raised. On the day of the soul’s passing, its level in Heaven is reevaluated by the Heavenly court. Eating food that belonged to the soul, and reciting a blessing beforehand to raise the spark, can serve as a merit for the deceased and the soul will then ascend to a higher level of enjoyment in Heaven. Even if one did not sanctify the act beforehand, after one eats, it is possible to use the strength gained for study of Torah. In such cases, after the eating, the sparks within the food are raised and the nogah becomes holy. According to the Jewish tradition, after one enjoys food a blessing thanking the Almighty is recited. This reflects the fact that the nitzotz in the food can be raised after the eating. On the other hand if one eats a forbidden food, one may not recite a blessing before it nor after its ingestion, because the sparks are tied and they cannot be released.

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20A student of the Tzemach Tzedek³⁰²Tzemach Tzedek is the name of the book of Rabbi Menachem Mendel, the third Lubavitcher Rebbe. He was born in 1789 and he passed away in 1866. once asked his teacher, “Why are there so many types of food that the classic halachists permitted, yet modern custom is not to eat them?”

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21The Rabbi answered that within all permitted food is a nitzotz that can be raised through virtuous ingestion. He then added, “As we grow more distant from Sinai and the Temples of Jerusalem the spiritual level of the generation decreases. We have less spiritual strength than our ancestors. They could raise the sparks in those foods, we cannot, and that is why God guided our custom to develop a prohibition forbidding those foods.”

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22The Tzemach Tzedek was teaching a perspective on life. The forward march of history is a downward slide of spirituality.³⁰³In Chasidic literature, our era is called ikvasa di-meshicha, “the heels of the Messiah.” In a body, the head is the highest point while the heel is the lowest. All Jewish souls can be viewed as a single body. The generation that left Egypt and received the Torah was the head. That is why they were called dor de’ah, “the generation of understanding.” The generation of King David was the heart of the Jewish body. King David was the epitome of his generation. In Jewish literature, King David is called the sweet singer of Israel, for he was the greatest master of emotional expression in Jewish history. Our present era, since the sixteenth century, is the heels of the body. We are at a very low spiritual level. Yet we will play the most momentous role. Our meager spiritual accomplishments are to be added to the great achievements that earlier generations wrought. Our service to God will complete all the merits needed to usher in the world of Redemption. Thus we are a heel, but this heel will bring the Moshiach. We are ikvasa di-meshicha (Rav Wolfson). We have reached a low level; as a result, even items in nogah that were redeemable in the past are now prohibited by Jewish law and are treated as if they belong to the three lower kelippos.

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23The Elements and the Four Kelippos

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24Ancient science divided the physical world into four elements: aish (fire), ruach (wind), mayim (water), and afar (dirt). Modern science also has these categories, yet it has different names. Today, the scientist speaks of solids (afar), liquids (mayim), gasses (ruach), and energy or electricity (aish).

כ״ה

25The physical world is what leads to sin for the spiritual is all Godly.³⁰⁴The physical world also has more tragedy and evil than celebration and virtue. Calculate the days of your life, the days of joy are the minority. There are more impure (unkosher) animals than pure ones. There are more animals than men, and more evildoers than saints. It is a world where the majority is evil, sadness, and tragedy. The four elements of the physical world therefore represent concepts that resemble the four kelippos. Water, dust, and wind (which can be felt in a balloon) are physical, tangible items and they parallel the lower three kelippos. Energy or electricity is qualitatively less tangible, for there is a strong spiritual streak in energy. Thus aish parallels nogah,³⁰⁵Heard from the Stitchiner Rebbe. the kelippah that is a tree of evil and good.³⁰⁶The Tree of Good and Evil was in fact kelippas nogah. While God prohibited its consumption to man on the sixth day, the Or Ha-Chaim (Rabbi Chaim ben Attar) explains that it was a grape vine and God intended for Adam to use its wine for Kiddush (the sanctification blessing) on Friday night. Like all nogah, the tree of good and evil had the option to be bad or good. Adam was impatient and he ate from it on Friday afternoon when it was prohibited, instead of exercising patience and using it that evening for Shabbos. The Jewish nation had an opportunity to rectify Adam’s sin when we received the Torah at Sinai. Receipt of the Torah entailed spiritual heights, the Evil Urge was silenced and all Jews reached an exalted level of prophecy. Then Moses was late returning from the mountain. The nation lost patience; they despaired, and constructed a Golden Calf. Instead of rectifying Adam’s sin we repeated it.
Judaism seeks to lead us to correct Adam’s failing. That is why patience is so important in our tradition. We wait patiently for the coming of a better age, even though this wait has lasted millennia, for we will correct Adam’s sin. See further Tomer Devorah Chapter 1.

כ״ו

26It is no wonder that four is such an important number in this world, for this world was created with the Tetragrammaton, the four-letter name of God. All fours evolved from those four letters.³⁰⁷Energy (aish) emerged from the letter yud. Wind (ruach) emerged from the first heh. Water (mayim) emerged from the vav. The final heh developed into solids (afar). (Anatomy of the Soul, pg. 34.)
In Lesson Ten, we learned that due to the apex of the yud there are five parts to the Tetragrammaton. Therefore, there is really a fifth element that is hidden in the world like the apex is hidden in the yud. The ancients called this element the koach ha-galgalim, the spheres that caused planets to rotate. Today’s science identifies this fifth element as the koach ha-moshech, the force that attracts, gravity. Gravity is a hidden element that causes all the other forces to move. Thus, it parallels the apex of the yud out of which a hidden life force that animates others emerged (heard from the Stitchiner Rebbe).

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27One God created this multifarious world. A deep look at reality will find many common denominators. Therefore, within every item, even though it is classified as a solid or a liquid, all four elements are to be found.³⁰⁸Our world is a series of repeating patterns. A broader perspective reveals one pattern, but within each individual element the same pattern is revealed. A good illustration of this is the stones from Mount Sinai. All stones from Sinai have a unique rock structure whereby a picture of a bush, a main branch with twigs emerging, is on the stone. Cut the stone and try to only have offshoots, you will have a smaller picture of a bush. No matter how small you cut the stone you will still have a bush. Or, consider the fern tree. The fern is broad at its base and it narrows as it rises. Cut the tree at the narrow top and the piece one might hold will also be wide at its base and narrower at its top. Wherever along the fern you cut, you will have the same structural pattern. Similarly, while there are four elements in the broader sense, in the narrower sense each of the elements has all four elements, and within that it is repeated again and again. This principle is also true in regards to generations. From the perspective of all of Jewish history, the first generation was a head and our generation is a heel. Yet if one cuts a piece off of the picture, if one considers our generation by itself, one will find individuals who are the head-souls, others who are heart-souls, and others who are heel-souls. Within the era of ikvasa di-meshicha, the times of the Ari were the head relative to our times which are clearly the heel part (see further Anatomy of the Soul, pg. 34).
The technical term for this concept is bechinah, “relative value.” Wood com-pared to water is afar to mayim, yet when the parts of wood are compared to each other there is a bechinah of mayim in wood and a separate bechinah of afar in wood. For example, a log of wood is classified as afar, a solid. A deeper look reveals more to the wood. Light the log, why does it burn? Because the fire element (energy) within it is unlocked when it nears revealed fire. While burning, it will cackle due to the water element (liquid) in it. Smoke and steam will emerge from it due to the ruach (gasses), within the log, and it will turn into ash because of the afar (solid) element within.

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28The entire physical world can be understood in terms of the four elements.³⁰⁹Rabbi Nachman of Breslov (Likkutei Moharan 1, Lesson 4, Paragraph 8) points out that the physical world can be divided into four types of items, inanimate beings such as wood or air (called domeim), growing items such as fruit and trees (called tzome’ach), living creatures such as animals, fish and fowl (called chai), and humans who speak (called medabber). These four groups display the same pattern as the four elements; in fact the spiritual root for the four elements (the four letters Y-H-V-H) is also the spiritual cause for the four classes of physical items. The energy element (that has within it a strong spiritual streak) corresponds to humans (who possess a soul), the wind element to living beings, the water element to growing items (who all need water to grow), and the earth element is the source for the inanimate items. See further Razei Ha-Bosem pg. 177, Paragraphs 7-8. Even personality traits can be seen as expressions of the elements. For example lusts and desire for pleasure stem from the liquid element. Water is the source of all pleasure in this world; in the personality it becomes a desire for pleasure. Wind is empty, and it can fill a balloon with nothingness; similarly the desires for meaningless prattle, cynical laughter,³¹⁰Cynicism states that no matter is important, no person is sincere, and no activity is meaningful. It is like wind, it is all about emptiness and nothingness. See further Pachad Yitzchak, Purim, Ma’amar 1. and false glory emerge from ruach. Dust and solids are stationary. The desire to laze about or to be depressed³¹¹Depression is a state of minimal energy and life, it stems from the urge to be caught in place. is an expression of afar. Fire and energy leap ever higher and the desire for haughtiness and anger stem from that part of the personality.³¹²Ancient science felt that the human personality is determined by the four liquids (“the four humors”) within the body. These too correspond to the four elements. The black liquid (foul fluid) corresponds to inanimate items and the earth element. The green bile corresponds to the growing class or the water ele-ment. The red blood corresponds to the wind element and living creatures. The white liquids correspond to the energy element and the human class (Anatomy of the Soul, pg. 34, and Likkutei Moharan Lesson 4, Paragraph 8).

כ״ט

29Some people have a physical soul that emerged from the lower kelippos. These people can never elevate their physicality. Within such people the physical urges for haughtiness, anger, and wasteful speech are evil and fully selfish. Even human mercy and empathy that they naturally feel is tinged with self-interest and is not fully for God’s sake. For example, they will give charity so that when they eat at night they will not feel guilty at their own luxurious lifestyle. These individuals can attain great spiritual heights through destruction of the physical, but their four elements and the personality they spawn are irredeemable. Others have physical souls from kelippas nogah. They too have a desire for pleasure, anger, prattle, and laziness, and physical empathy and concern for others, yet these desires have an admixture of selflessness within them that is virtually apparent. These people will sometimes give money to the poor solely for the poor man without thinking of themselves. Such individuals can direct the parts of their personality in the holy way, and their physicality can become holiness.³¹³See further Tanya Chapter 1, pg. 6.

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30The Talmud mentions four different ways to destroy chametz: burning, crumbling and scattering it to the wind, throwing it into the ocean, and bittul (nullification) whereby the owner of the bread declares that he does not value the bread at all, renounces ownership, and declares that it is like the dust of the earth. These examples are representatives of the four elements (burning = fire, throwing to the ocean = water, crumbling into the wind = wind, nullification = dust). Chametz represents arrogance, the foundation for the entire world of kelippah; as a result, it must be destroyed in all the four elements of the physical world.

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31The Strongest Weapon against the Kelippah

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32The most effective way to legally rid oneself of possessing chametz is bittul. According to Jewish law, nullification affects even the chametz that is unseen and beyond the reach of the owner. This law can be understood with our analysis. Since the essence of evil is arrogance, when one recognizes its emptiness, one has directly confronted it and it can be overcome. Peels might think that they are important, yet in truth relative to the fruit they are worthless. Similarly, evil thinks it is something, but if you recognize its emptiness, you will undoubtedly overcome its charms.³¹⁴There is a tradition that Abraham’s war with the four kings occurred on Passover. The Midrash Rabbah on Parashas Lech Lecha (43:3) teaches that Abraham had a unique way of battle—he would throw dust. The earth he threw would miraculously turn into spears, arrows, and swords that pummeled the enemy. Perhaps the symbolic import of Abraham defeating the four kings with dust was the following lesson: The four kings represented the four kelippos, they sought to encourage a life of sin, and the most effective way to combat them is dust. Consider how empty evil is, recognize how its pleasures are so transient and its claims so spurious, and you will defeat evil.
The four kelippos stem from what chametz represents. Abraham implanted through his act the ability within his progeny to do as he did, we too, can declare that the evil is nothing, we will then overcome it (Rav Wolfson).

ל״ג

33Rebbe Nachman of Breslov expressed this thought in the following parable: The Evil Urge is like a prankster running through a crowd, displaying a tightly closed hand. No one knows what he is holding, and he accosts each one, saying, “What do you suppose I have in my hand?” Each one imagines that the closed hand contains just what he desires most. They all hurry and run after the prankster. Then, when he has tricked them completely, he opens his hand, and there is nothing in it. The same is true of the Evil One. He fools the world, tricking all into following him. People think that his hands hold what they desire most, but in the end he opens it, and it is empty. No desire is ever fulfilled. Worldly pleasures are like sunbeams in a dark room. They may seem solid, but one who tries to grasp a sunbeam finds nothing in his hand. The same is true of earthly matters.³¹⁵Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, Sichos Ha-Ran 6 quoted in Chasidic Masters pg. 111. See further the Vilna Gaon to Prov. 6:25, where he explains that lust is a form of deceit since the evil urge presents its urgings as a source of benefit to the individual while in truth they are a trap that will ensnare the individual in eventual pain and suffering.