שלהבות של אמונה כ״בFlames of Faith 22
א׳
1WILL AND INTERNALIZATION404The entirety of this lesson is derived from Tape 7 of the Stitchiner Rebbe’s lessons on the Tanya.
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2Da’as is the force that decides how much of a particular emotion will appear. What causes me to balance my love of candy with restraint? Da’as. Da’as begets responsibility, it directs my soul to acknowledge context and to reveal only a measure of love or a measure of fear. According to Jewish law children are exempt from religious duties since they do not have it. A child possesses chochmah and binah; he can think creatively and can comprehend difficult ideas. He also has all seven feelings: generosity, fear, harmony, dominance, submission, creative balance, and humility, but he is missing responsibility; he has no da’as. A child does not have full control over his feelings. He does not know when to stop crying and how to take matters in their true context, which is why he is not obligated in Mitzvos.
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3What determines context? Why do doctors’ warnings about the dangers of smoking resonate with me while concerns over sugar consumption do not lead me to refrain responsibly from sweets? The depth to the nature of da’as is the key to responsibility. Da’as is more than focus and concentration; it is the part of the brain that decides whether an idea will be truly internalized.
ד׳
4Sometimes you hear a lecture and your life changes. You become a different person whose actions reflect what you learned. At other times you will hear speakers, and they will say things that you fully grasp and comprehend yet your life does not change. The force of da’as determines what you assimilate and make part of yourself and what you do not let in to your essence.
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5Lessons that a student feels are truly relevant become part of the individual and are heeded, while warnings that one feels are not truly relevant for his essence are ignored.
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6Why do some ideas become part of your very personality, fostering feelings and behaviors? Because those ideas resonated with your unique soul. Your soul has a particular character. It might be a very loving soul, because the most powerful part of you is chesed, or you might have a very poetic soul since tiferes is the primary force of your personality. Certain presentations correspond to your core. For the giving individual, Talmudic legends (Aggadah) will resonate. His essence is Love (chesed); the Talmudic stories contain moral ideas that stem from the same source, and they are compared to water, another manifestation of chesed. The poet might find that Jewish poetry, such as the heartfelt songs of Rabbi Yehudah Ha-Levi, enter him in an intrinsic manner.405The examples of the poet and the kind soul are my own (ZR). Da’as is a manifestation of your very essence. Da’as is the awareness of what is truly relevant, for what is meaningful and relevant to my essence is what I will internalize.
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7Examples of Da’as
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8The Code of Jewish Law406Orach Chaim 581:1. details the ideal attributes for the one who leads the prayers on the High Holy Days. He should be married, well- liked, at least thirty years of age, a Torah scholar, and have children. In the town of Brisk they found an individual who had all these qualifications. However, he had a poor voice and did not pray in a manner that would arouse the emotions of the community. Rabbi Chaim of Brisk rejected this cantor. “The lessons of the Code of Law,” he explained, “are advantages among prayer leaders, but this individual is not a prayer leader in the first place!” R. Chaim was displaying da’as. What is truly relevant is that a cantor himself pray with devotion and arouse his listeners. The other qualifications were not fully relevant when compared to something as essential as a melodious voice and heartfelt prayer manner.
ט׳
9The focus of Chasidim is da’as, to be aware of what matters. Some criticize the Chasidim for seeming to flippantly ignore the laws of prayer times. It is an unfair critique. Chasidim are very stringent about the essentials. Prayer is the “Service of the Heart.”407See Mechilta de-Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, Devarim 22:25. They are stringent in ensuring a devotional, full hearted service, so they insist on preparing for prayer.408Chasidim are extremely stringent in their efforts to maintain purity in the realm between men and women, for they know that violating Abraham’s covenant is the source of enormous spiritual impurity. Da’as leads them to acknowledge the lesson of the Zohar that this misdeed is the worst of all sins (the Stitchiner Rebbe).
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10Da’as and Keser
י״א
11In light of da’as as an extension of essence it can be understood why da’as is linked to keser. Keser represents will. Will is an extension of essence. I want that which corresponds to my very essence, the real me.
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12Why do some dedicate their lives to teaching Torah, and others spend their days serving God through ethical business practices? Each soul leads a person to a life mission that conforms to the nature of one’s essence. The innermost will, or the Sephirah of keser, is an expression of one’s essential core, and it corresponds to the soul part of yechidah. Da’as is externally what keser is internally; they both reveal the essence of a person.
י״ג
13One perspective sees keser as the name of this concept within the ten Sephiros. A different point of view feels that discussion of keser is too exalted for mere man. As a result, it sees the da’as-aspect of innate essence, and its Sephiros are chochmah, binah, da’as and the lower seven. Both approaches express the same truth, for keser and da’as are two sides of the same element. The root of da’as is keser, a display of the essential life of the individual.
י״ד
14Ten Not Eleven
ט״ו
15The realm of holiness is symbolized with the number ten, while the realm of impurity is either nine or eleven. In holiness there are ten forces that emerged from the ten Sephiros. In impurity there are corresponding forces; however, in evil they become eleven forces. The reason for this is that only in holiness are keser and da’as united. When I internalize an idea of holiness, that is an expression of my essence. However, in the realm of evil, will and internalization are two separate elements. Da’as of evil states that holiness is irrelevant, materialism is what matters. Such a perspective is not an extension of the true essence of man. The realm of evil has essential life that it has captured from the realm of the holy. That is why in evil, da’as and keser are divided and there are eleven forces of evil.
ט״ז
16Perhaps these are examples of the basic forces of evil. Wisdom of evil would be the study of basic philosophical principles that lead man away from love of God. Understanding of evil might be the investigation of the thought of a heretic. Internalization of evil is the cynic who claims that miracles are irrelevant, and therefore one should not change his life based on them. Love of evil would be lust. Fear in evil would be to recoil from the observance of a difficult Mitzvah. Harmony of evil would be arrogance, such as a slavish commitment to wearing the most beautiful clothing in order to feel haughty and proud. Rock music that engenders a renunciation of all authority other than one’s own wishes would be another example of harmony in evil. Dominance in evil would be a totalitarian regime. Subservience would be following an evil man’s advice. Foundation of evil would be misuse of human seed, instead of creating life, squandering its potential. While malchus of evil would claim that the ruler deserves his own honor, or misuse of language, such as haughty tale-bearing. Keser of evil would be an innate intrinsic opposition to the message of the Jewish nation.
י״ז
17The innate anti-Jewish hate might be linked with the da’as of evil. Da’as of evil divides the heart from the mind. It claims that one should not be inspired to change from miracles or Torah lessons. It says that they are not truly relevant, they should not be internalized. This divisiveness stems from an innate opposition to Jewry and God. But there is still an innate hidden advocate for good even in the realm of evil; this keser is not the same as the da’as of evil. This spark of good has been captured by evil, and evil has masked it to make it appear evil, at its core though, it belongs to the realm of holiness. As a result there are really eleven forces in evil.
י״ח
18Examples of Evil Elevens
י״ט
19The number eleven is often found in the realm of evil. The Sinai desert was a distance that normally took eleven days to walk through (see Deut. 1:2). The desert was the place of the four kelippos.409See further Shem Mi-Shmuel at the beginning of Parashas Bemidbar. Noah’s ark was submerged eleven ammos (cubits) into the waters of the flood. Noah’s ship was a refuge that saved holiness from the clutches of evil. It reached to the very depths of the realm of the unholy, to the eleventh ammah and preserved sparks of the Divine from that depth.410Heard from Rav Wolfson. The ketores (incense) had eleven spices, and its secret was taught to Moses by the angel of death, the head of the force of evil.411See further Shabbos 89a. The incense would stop plagues, for it had the ability to remove all the life force out of the realm of evil.412“The idea of transforming evil by elevating it back to its source in holiness is intimated in the incense” (Innerspace, pg. 86). Since evil has eleven forces, there were eleven spices in the incense mix.413The desert was the place of evil, of kelippah forces. Hence the verse in the Song of Songs, Mi zos olah min ha-midbar ke-simros ashan mekutteres mor u-lvonah mi-kol avkas rochel, “Who is she that arises out of the desert, she is perfumed [with ketores] of sweet myrrh and galbanum, [sweeter] than all the spices of the cosmetician” (Song of Songs 3:8). The Jewish service in the desert was to break the forces of evil that inhered there. The incense symbolizes break-ing evil through removing its life-force which is why the entire desert sojourn is symbolized in the above cited verse with the sweet smell of the ketores (heard from the Stitchiner Rebbe). The tabernacle was covered with a roof of eleven goat skins. The Hebrew word for goat is aiz, whose gematria is 77, which is seven times eleven. This symbolizes a state where the physical seven are controlled by the eleven forces of evil. The roof of the tabernacles was also meant to break the entire realm of evil, all eleven of its powers. Goats are a symbol of kelippah, which is why on Yom Kippur the sacrifice that symbolized misdeeds was the goat that was sent to the wilderness.414The word shaatnez (שעטנז)—a prohibited mixture of wool and linen—can be rearranged to spell satan aiz (עז שטן). This teaches that the goat (aiz) is the symbol of Satan.
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20Da’as and Amalek
כ״א
21Da’as of kelippah is epitomized with the ancient nation Amalek. Amalek attacked the Jews, and the Bible called their attack a “cooling down” (Deut. 25:18). After the miraculous exit from Egypt, the entire world was scared of God; in awe of His people, Amalek challenged that lesson. Amalek claimed that the miracles were happenstance, that there was no need to internalize the ten plagues. Amalek stated that morality was irrelevant and there was no need for the mind’s ideas to filter down to the heart and behavior.415According to classical commentators, the spiritual damage Amalek per-forms is that they divide the letters of God’s name. The Tetragrammaton has four letters, Y-H-V-H. These letters correspond to the Sephiros, The first two letters, the yud (with its apex) and the heh, are the sources of the three intellects, keser, chochmah, and binah. The last two letters are the sources for the lower seven Sephiros. The Sephiros of chesed, gevurah, tiferes, netzach, hod, and yesod are from the vav, and malchus is from the last heh. Amalek divides the first two letters from the last two letters—they divide the intellect from the heart. Ama-lek is said to divide parents from children. Within each man, his intellects are the parents that sire emotions as their children. Amalek sets up a wall between the mind and the heart by claiming that the lessons of miracles should not be internalized (the Stitchiner Rebbe). See also Rashi on Exod. 17:16 s.v. ki yad. Spiritually, the war with Amalek represents a struggle to attain internalization, to fully assimilate what is true and to reject unholiness.
כ״ב
22Before any receipt of the Torah it is necessary to defeat Amalek. The Torah is not given to those who are cooled down. People who need a com- mittee meeting to decide whether or not God’s word is relevant will not receive the Torah. The Torah demands passion. Torah is given to a nation that has an open heart. People who will internalize Torah’s directives and change their behavior accordingly—without any hesitation—are the ones who can merit God’s Torah. Those who view Torah as the voice of their inner soul can hear its directives. Defeat of Amalek taught Israel to avoid vacillation and to allow for internalization of Torah.
כ״ג
23After passing through the Red Sea, the Jews had to defeat Amalek before they could arrive at Mt. Sinai. Similarly, in the aftermath of the first exile, Haman—a descendent of Amalek—had to be defeated before the Jews could reclaim the Torah, which was done through the holiday of Purim.416According to the Talmud in Tractate Shabbos, the Jews at Sinai accepted the Torah against their will, and after defeating Haman they accepted the entire Torah willingly. Purim celebrates the defeat of Amalek. If Amalek is the antithesis of correct da’as, Purim must be a manifestation of holy da’as.
כ״ד
24At the beginning of this lesson, we learned that a child does not have da’as because he lacks responsibility. A child is not aware of context. A child lacks control. He does not realize what really matters and what is irrelevant. On Purim we all seem to act childlike. According to the Talmud’s directive, we are to drink to the point of no control.417Megillah 7b. Purim seems to be the antithesis of da’as, so how can it be a celebration of da’as?
כ״ה
25In light of our analysis, true da’as is an expression of innermost will, keser. Keser is sheer vitality, a vividness and passion that transcends reasonable limits. The rules of nature reflect a world of God’s chochmah; the miracles that play with the rules of nature are expressions of God’s Ratzon Ha-Elyon, His Highest Will, His keser. The term for will is ratzon, which connotes a connection with the word ratz, “run.” When God jumps ahead of the cloak of nature and clearly reveals how He controls all, it is a sighting of keser. Within my personality, when I feel my innermost will, I rush to fulfill it, with absolute disregard of how to accomplish my goal.
כ״ו
26Da’as of evil, Amalek-type thinking, entails dividing the mind from feeling and behavior. Evil da’as means excessive hesitation and trepidation before permitting a moral concept to change behavior or feeling. The defeat of Amalek merits a grand display of holy da’as. Purim is a celebration of the roots of da’as of holiness. That is why it leads to passionate celebration and it demands intoxication. When one loses self-control through drinking wine, the essence of man emerges. The excitement of the observant Jew on Purim reveals essential life-force. This is especially true about tzaddikim. Once a tzaddik is drunk on Purim, his innermost core emerges. The way Torah insights pour out of the mouth of the inebriated tzaddik on Purim is a display of the root of holy da’as—the innermost, essential will that wishes to fulfill every religious precept.418In earlier lessons, this will was called the yechidah part of the soul. Purim attunes the mind and heart to the innate holy desires, and it reveals the nature of holy da’as—unbridled, passionate, devotion for God and His law.
כ״ז
27Knowledge of the sephiratic view of the personality can inspire. Knowledge of the depths of internalization and its connection to innermost will and essence can arouse the soul of a Jew to serve God with greater spirit. Celebrate Purim by letting your soul express its soaring self. When you do, you will have merged internalization with will; you will have defeated Amalek who divided them. Within your personality, you will have killed the eleven of evil, who are represented by Haman and his ten sons who were hung together, and in turn, you will cause a reaffirmation of the ten commandments of holiness.