Rav Daniel Kohn הרב דניאל כהן

Series: Be'erot, Love & Relationship with God.

Episode Transcript

I have a desire to share something with G-d’s help that will open up a different aspect of the kind of work that we’ve been doing. It’s from a teaching in Chassidut of the Alter Rebbe, the first Rebbe of Chabad, third generation of Chassidut, and I believe that these passages will, b’ezrat Hashem, open up perspective… For me these teachings are very connective in terms of getting an access to the spirit of longing. In the context of what we’ve been seeing, we’re continuing to access aspects of living that inform us of the nature of love of G-d and what brings that about, and how it’s rooted in the nature of reality and of Creation, whereas last year our focus was primarily how that works in the intereaction between people…What we’re focusing more on now is how that works between us and Hakadosh Baruch Hu and seeing how those things parallel each other.

We’ve been looking at, through the story of Gan Eden, the way Hakadosh Baruch Hu, so to speak, sets himself up for “right relationship” with man, he sets himself up for a loving relationship with man.  And He does this from the very beginning, from the very first act in which His first speaking to man is described in the chumash as “Vayikach,” as a taking. And that taking is interpreted by the rabbis as not being a physical taking, but as an emotional, spiritual taking whereby G-d made Himself, so to speak, vulnerable and susceptible to the possibility that man might say “no,” and basically tempted and seduced him into going into Garden of Eden, so that Hakadosh Baruch Hu, so to speak, evacuated the space of His all-encompassing, all-present power to allow for man to have a moment during which he would be able to choose freely. That moment is called in kabbalistic teachings “the revelation of His name.” Because in the moment of His having vacated a space for our choosing, so He vacated a space for our consciousness of otherness. And that is the revelation of what is called atah, you, as in when we give a bracha we say “baruch atah Hashem,” which in the kabbalistic teachings is a revelation dafka from baruch, which is the source of—the pool of—all present goodness of G-d to atah, which is “you,” which is the availability and possibility of you, which—as we will see when we view Aharon from this perspective— is the introduction of chesed. This is how the Ari teaches the bracha, which comes from the Zohar in Parshah Trumah: atah is the introduction of chesed, which in a different language would be the introduction of the possibility of otherness, because chesed requires that there be an other to give it to. That’s not to say that we’re not sometimes the other to give it to, as Mishlei teaches, “Gomel…chesed.” An ish chesed can also be someone who does good to himself. That’s also part of chesed as b’ezrat Hashem we’ll also explore.

But the point is, when you’re in a state that there is an other that you are able to do good to, or enhance the existence of, even within yourself—higher self to lower self, more conscious being to less conscious being, divine soul to animal soul. All of these are modes within which we are actually gomel chesed to ourselves, whether it be by contemplating divine matters, and thereby arousing the heart to have passion for G-d. That would be one example of being gomel chesed with your animal soul, or with your embodied passions.

Putting that aside, the point is that the revelation of atah is the realization of there being an other and distinct consciousness which is differentiated from G-d in His utter and complete simplicity of presence and putting it back down to the level of the pasuk in the chumash. This is our realization of G-d, when He first speaks to us, He takes us—and again as Rashi says, he uses beautiful things to say to us so that we should be tempted to go into Gan Eden—he takes us, “Vayikach, ”which is the word that appears in the Chumash as being the word of marriage: “Ki yikach ish ishah.”

It was a very important realization that we note this, that our first interaction with G-d is one which later becomes revealed and realized in the marriage relationship between two people. And this possibility of relationship comes from the allowance for an other in their freely choosing state, which requires a consciousness of differentiation and of being, at least potentially, “at odds with.” And it’s also the revelation of language, because the word atah—alef, tav, heh—is actually a reference to the alef-bet. Alef, the first—tav, the last. Heh is the five letters which double when they come at the end of a word. The ma’am sa’pach. The nun is a nun sofi, the mem is a mem sofi, the tsadi is a tsadi sofi, and the chaf is a chaf sofi. There actually is an atah, and the five that come at the end, and those five are a reference to the last heh in G-d’s name which is malchut, which is the ability for things to end where they always because doubled over, which is a great spiritual secret. When things come to an end in life, they are actually doubling over, like in a transmigration of a soul, where there’s a gilgul—literally it means a doubling over, a rolling over. You get to the end and you roll over. We talk about people rolling over in their graves. Gilgul means you’re rolling over into another reality. The end reality has arrived, the new reality is now going to begin. This is the deep secret of how the malchut, the feminine of receiving at the end becomes the crown, the beginning of the next era, and the next stage. In all the worlds it’s like that, and in all of life it’s like that, if you think about it, and hal’vai that should be conscious of it when we get to the end chapters of our lives. When you look back at your life, you realize that there are chapters in your life and when you are able to relate to life that way when you’re in it, then you’re mamash like an enlightened soul. The attitude of “A new chapter has just come to end and a new one is about to begin” is a far better attitude than “I just lost everything that I ever had.” Boy, if we could shift into knowing that, then we have shifted into the secret of the doubled- letters, the ma’an sa’pach. Of the heh that comes at the end of atah, which is the doubling over of the end, so that now a new beginning will be revealed. And that new beginning relies very deeply on our consciousness and our openness to it. It will happen faster if we’re more open to it, and we’re connected to that possibility. The blockage is usually our own, and about our fears about having to let go….

I want to point out that the Jewish people actually worshipped avodah zarah, idolatry, for the first time when they lost that consciousness. And they saw that Moshe Rabbeinu had died, or so they thought, if you remember they waited the forty days, which is gestation—forty weeks of gestation—and forty days during which the embryo becomes an entity. The rabbis say that the first forty days is just water, like the forty days that the Flood comes down in Parshat Noach, and then it becomes an entity, and Moshe Rabbeinu didn’t come back at the end of the forty days. They said, “He’s dead.”

Then the people withdrew and they created an ensconced position, meaning they created an idol that made them comfortable that things aren’t going to change. This is going to allow us to go back to where we came from, to go back to the womb of Egypt, the holy cows/calves of Egyptian worship. If one loses the consciousness of “I have not become ended here”, but rather, “I become opened up to the new chapter of opening”, so then one is able to enter the heh. This is crucial to atah, in the experience of you.

It says, “Atah Cohen l’Eyl Elyon.” The Cohen, who is Aharon, who experiences this most profoundly, and that’s why he becomes the great harbinger of love in the Jewish people, as we’ll see, b’ezrat Hashem, atah cohen l’el elyon, In other words, “You-ness” allows for Cahuna. You can become a servant, a priest, by living that consciousness rightly. Serving the One who has given you free choice and free choosing. You can become a servant and recognize and realize that there has not been a full and utter severance, severing of connection, but rather I can maintain that connection by being a servant to You, and maintain that consciousness by being a servant to You.

The first revelation of G-d’s name and the possibility of naming in general is in the revelation of these letters, and that is why atah is alef tav heh, which is the alphabet, it is the introducing of language, as we saw in Adam HaRishon calling the animals’ names, it’s the beginning of the dawning of the realization within him that there may be an other, and the recognition that it will not be an animal. And I say this very bluntly-- that needed to be a realization on his part. He is not seeking a partner who is basically a servile animal, he could have had that, —and to put it bluntly and rather disgustingly—he could have satisfied any physical urges. But he could not satisfy the real issue which is being alone and having a desire that there should be an other. By this, he creates the possibility and vacates the space, paralleling G-d Who vacated the space by saying to man, Go into the Garden of Eden, and man being able to say no… and G-d having to attract him into it is His vacating the space. It is a revelation of the story of the tzimtzum. And then man in his responding already begins the act of marriage.

                But the point is, man already had to experience that by being created alone, even though the final point is that there should be two, and so G-d first thinks to create two, because the point is that there should be a reality in which there is coupling, but in order that there should be coupling, as is brought down in this world, is that he must be created as one. Because when he is created alone, then he learns the secret of vacating space, and being able to suffer through his loneliness, and alone- ness and his awareness of his need that there should be something out there with whom he could connect and have relationship. And so that is a crucial stage, and one which we often look over and Chaya brought it to my attention in a mouch more personal way… That the awareness of those processes is crucial for us to be able to actually become who G-d wants us to be become. And to be able to own that experience of lack, not fear it, not try to cover it over or dull the ache, or ignore it, but to be in that and move into that allows for the possibility of an other becoming fully the other with whom we will have that relationship that G-d dreams of us being able to have. So that man, in seeing the animals, comes to the realization both of his vulnerability, he needs something—a tzimtzum, waiting for a light to enter that tzimtzum—the light of the other. So it will not be an animal, l’havdil. And only then can G-d realize the dream that He has of there being two. And there cannot be that other unless man fully experiences the ache of the lack. He actually creates that possibility by virtue of his being willing to be in the space of “I don’t know what’s coming, I don’t know where it’s going to come from, I don’t know how it’s going to happen.” All I know is that I have to let go of where I am now so that the new realization can occur. And that new realization will be the one with whom I can have right relationship. And he enters into that through the vehicle of language. Language is itself the expression of his entering into that realization. He begins to talk. And in talking, he becomes one whose consciousness is atah. That there is another to whom I will speak. And so woman actually becomes the embodiment of that realization. And so the rabbis teach that ten portions of speaking came into the world and nine of them women got. It’s kind of a laconic comment, it’s okay to laugh at it a little bit. It’s also a deep realization about women. She is, in a sense, language. Because she is the atah consciousness which rests in the world in there being an other. And that’s why the story is told in that rather odd fashion, and so Adam has to pass through that lack. And the Rambam explains that he is experiencing the ache of the lack by seeing all of the animals and the possibility of there being an other living creature with whom he will have relationship. It’s not with the plants. It’s with animals and their coupling. And that, then, brings about the arousal in him of desire to be with an other.

This is a divine process. When we cease to experience ourselves as being the only one, on all levels, and this is not a simple project, and are able to become vulnerable and available in that way, then in a sense, we create a mate. From both sides. He or she becomes revealed as that possibility, which becomes the atah.

And, by the way, in every bracha that you make, when you say, baruch atah, according to the Ari z”l that is actually the kavanah of the bracha. Baruch is the reference to father and mother, or that which births a new reality, who are together in their being, so to speak, and therefore they are a pool of possibilities. It is an undifferentiated pool of possibility. And then atah, that there is a You, which in a sense is in a divine world, is the potentiality of chesed. There would be One to Whom good would be done. And in our self-reflection, that would be us. It’s the possibility of there being an us. So that we can say to G-d, “You.” Of course, we’re talking to G-d, I mean, let’s not get too confused about the kabbalistic interpretation— it’s us talking to G-d.  But you see how beautifully parallel it is.  Because it’s us talking to G-d from the state of “You,” of our saying to G-d, “You.” But our possibility to say to G-d You is itself a direct product of G-d’s having revealed His possibility of saying “you.” Because in His coming to allow for someone to whom he would say “You”, we are created in a consciousness of we are separate from Him, and can say to Him, “You”… It’s not really complicated, you just have to get used to a certain kind of thinking, that when G-d said “you”, he made chesed, the possibility of awarding an other goodness and existence. And, when we say “You”, we’re living out His dream, so to speak, that there would be one who would say to Him, “You.” And the parallel to that in our own life of love is when we vacate a space that there can be an other who will say “you”, so then indeed that other comes to manifestation. But we have to be willing for ourselves to hear them say to us, “you”.           

It’s one thing for you to say to that mate, “you.” But for your mate to say to you, “you,” that’s another madraga of being present to another person as being the you in their lives. To be a you in someone else’s life, means that someone else is in the center saying “you” to you. That’s a big thing, I mean for us to be in the world saying you to G-d, as if we’re the center point saying to Him You. So to have an other in your life to say to you, atah, is a shift which is …the realization of k’negdo, of there being an other who will stand in opposite to you as a k’negdo, and in being opposite to you has the power to refuse you or to accept you. And sees you as living outside themselves. That’s the consciousness of withdrawal, which is the great humility, which is so crucial, and which is what chazal mean when they say that G-d created the world in His humility. He said na’aseh adam— wild thing for a monotheistic picture for G-d to say in the plural, “we shall make man.” So the rabbis say he was nimlach. He made himself a malchut. That’s what it means in Hebrew, but it actually means he took advice, in a less literal translation. And the rabbis say that we are to learn from there the great humility of G-d. And so if I were giving you a mussar shmooze, I would say therefore it is always a good idea to take advice. Which is also true, but the penimiut of it is that He created the malchut. Nimlach.. Rashi actually brings it in: Na’aseh adam b’tzalmenu. He created a malchut. What does it mean he creates a malchut? He creates an other. There’s a king and there’s a subject. There’s a relationship, there’s a sharing of a reality. That’s what malchut is. So that in order to create man, he needed to move into the ability to, so to speak, take advice. That it is no longer all Him. He wouldn’t be able to create man from any other condition of knowing all, so to speak, because then He would be filling all the space. So He had to turn to an other and say, na’aseh adam. That turning is in itself already the creation of the space within which man would be now existant. That’s called nimlach, which in Hebrew means “to take advice,” but in the nifal, in the passive form, “he made malchut”, basically. He became a Melech the moment he took advice, ironically; that shifting made room for another. There couldn’t have been any other way for man to be created. If Hashem had done it by fiat, then it would have been  from a state of there not being room for an other. But when Gd was m’tzamtzem Himself, ki v’yachol, taking advice from, that itself is the shift that allows space for an other.

I think that has practical implications about recognizing when you’re going at things from a place of fiat, and when from a place of acceptance and availability to, and that will have a tremendous impact on the space that is available to another. And G-d, in making us this way, actually made us live out, so to speak, His life. Because in our experiencing the depth of relationship in this pathway, we are actually enhancing and increasing the very space which allows us to be here.  In the way we are conscious of reality and creation, we are actually affecting it and changing it. If we can assume that for this moment, what you think and the way you think actually makes it happen one way or another. The more we are in that kind of available space, the more we create an available space for us to be in relationship with G-d. Did I say this clearly enough for this frequency? (Laughing) It’s a certain frequency.  In a condition where our relationship to others is pushing them away, or contestual, being challenged by them as antithetical to, impossible to relate to, don’t get it, what are you about, pull back, don’t want anything to do with this. All of the aspects of orlah, that cut you off of ralah, ralah, ralah, ralah, all that stuff. The way we do that with other people, so G-d also withdraws. (Sounds of understanding among the participants.) Because the place that is made available for G-d is when we are in the very consciousness that He, so to speak, has, which makes us creatable.

In other words, if I am always pushing you away, so then I am actually declaring, I only want space for me. The more I declare that I only want space for me, so then that’s the consciousness that’s in the world, only want space for me. Now I’m going to make Him like, human. OK, so G-d says, I’ll have that consciousness, too, I’ll only want space for me. And then He, so to speak, is not relating to, this is the reality which chazal calls, that he walks with us, b’keri, he becomes uncaring. And then, when our awareness and the way we relate to life is the realization and the revelation of His presence in the world, if we are aware of others as deserving space, that we’re all part of one inter-being and connectedness, then that’s G-d’s consciousness in the world. He—so to speak— lives through the way we are aware of things.  And I suppose I should bring you more proofs of this. That’s why the Rabbis say the one character trait about which G-d says, I can’t live with this person, is a ba’al ga’avah. So the standard interpretation is, because he’s so haughty, he’s pushed G-d away. And that’s true. But I want you to understand that it’s even deeper than that. It’s in his haughtiness, he fills all the space. I fill all the space when I’m haughty. There’s no room for anyone else. I got it all. Okay. Great. So, now you’re creating a divinity of also, I fill all the space. There’s no room for anyone else. And then life becomes devoid of His being here. Because you, so to speak, disappear from the screen of his involved consciousness. Just like the other has disappeared from the screen of your involved consciousness…The more we are able to say atah, the more he says atah. And the more he says atah, then the more we are able to be here. And the more we are able to be here, then the more we are able to live with him and with the consciousness of Him. Ultimately, the end point is also living and knowing the other aspect, which is the aspect of ezer…Up until now we’ve been exploring and expanding upon withdrawal, need, vulnerability, and atah, language and letters, etc. Now, Debbie, yes, save us!

(The one thing that doesn’ sit well for me is…we’re saying I only want the space for me and Hashem says I only want the space for me…)

  I put it in “tit for tat” human language. It’s not that G-d is being resentful (But I think there’s an important nuance there of Hashem is still trying)

Oh I see. You’re absolutely right. In describing it that way, I’m simply trying to emphasize the sort of level of “overt unconscious divine involvement.” In other words, G-d’s moving things forward is always happening. There’s nothing without Him creating it at this very moment. We all know that. We all have states of more divine awareness, and states where it’s in a dimunition. That’s impacting what’s happening. There’s less love, there’s less connectivity. There’s less divine consciousness in the world because we ourselves are conscious-ing that way. The Baal Shem Tov says, Hashem… al yad yminecha. G-d is the shadow over my right hand. In Tehillim that means that G-d is guarding you. You’re in His shadow, He’s hovering above you, and He’s shadowing over your right hand which is your hand of activity. He’s guiding you. The Ba’al Shem Tov says, there’s an opposite meaning also that says that G-d is your shadow. He is the shadow of your right hand. Meaning, as you act, and as you relate, and really as you love or don’t love, which is the right hand, so G-d in like, responds. Responds in kind like a shadow moves with you. It’s almost the opposite reading. It’s not He’s protecting and guiding you, but rather what you choose or determine where He is or is not, so that the more you, so to speak, block Him, so the less He is present. So Debbie is right, there’s a level of G-d’s presence which is unchanging and always present. Always commitment, never giving up, never leaving. But I’m talking about on more overt levels. Is He with me? Not with me? I feel abandoned, despondent. Check yourself well. When you’re in that condition. Check yourself well, in terms of how well are you with others. Are you abandoning them?  How are you with your readiness for Him to be here with you, and how much are you ready for there to be others in your life? You can’t play a game of I’m ready for G-d to be in my life, but not these other people. They’re like bugging me and wasting my time. Your consciousness is not split that way. Not in Jewish thinking, at least. (Student comment) I don’t know what I’m doing at this point (Laughing)

(There seems to be the chicken before the egg thing or the egg before the chicken. It’s hard to say when we have the ability to choose to break patterns or take Hashem in because up until a certain age, we’re not so responsible for that…)

You’re wondering where the level of choice is here? Like how will I make that shift It seems to me that part of making that shift is Hakadosh Baruch Hu showing His face and my knowing that He is available, something like that? After the class, we’ll stay around for a workshop…Why don’t we wait with that?

I’d like to share with you this piece from Admor Hazakeyn, who teaches us about two aspects of this condition of longing that there should be an other, and the introduction of atah…(Opening up to Shir Hashirim)

                The Rabbis teach us that Shir Hashirim is Kodesh Kadoshim , Holy Of Holies if all the other writing of Torah are holy, this one is Holy Of Holies…It’s very important ot recognize is the way our Temple is constructed both like a home and like a body. Like a home, there’s an entry area, and there’s the table, and the food area, and there’s the bedroom inside. And in this bedroom live, so to speak two keruvim, two youngsters who are in an embrace on the Holy Ark. No two ways about it. And the Rabbis tell us that when the Jewish people would come for the holiday meeting, the communing with G-d, which by the way is the meaning of the word “moed.” Communing, from the language of v’aad, viud, it’s a designated time in the sense of making a date. So they would come, and the cohanim would open up the gates to all the people who were standing outside, and draw the curtain on the Holy of Holies so that everyone can look inside and see the two keruvim in an embrace, and say to the Jewish people, see how dear you are to G-d. Re’eh…hamakom. So it is not a misnaming that Rabbi Akiva, who says that all the other writings are kodesh, but this one is Kodesh Kadoshim. It’s the prime rod, or the center of column, or the innermost chamber of all of G-d’s revelations. That’s important to realize, and the Zohar actually teaches in another teaching that something that’s important for us to know which is sorely missed in our conceptions. The innermost workings in G-d’s name in the yud, with the heh and the vav, and the heh. It’s aleph, heh, vet, heh, In other words, the inner chamber of yud kay vav kay is alef heh vet heh, which, of course, is ahava. Shem havayah, which is gematria of 26 is in a sense, the doubling over of ahava, which is gematria of 13, so that in shem, yud key vav jey, he becomes revealed outwards, but the inner chamber is ahava, love. The Zohar teaches it’s the root of all things…. That teaching means that the innermost chamber of all of existence is love. Which would make perfect sense, given that the Kodesh Kadoshim rests on the planet in the place from which the planet was created. The rabbis say that it was the heart, or the navel, of the universe.

So get this picture and get it clear. In the navel of the universe, so to speak, there’s different opinions about where man starts developing from, so they’re using different imageries to describe what’s happening. So the place of the Kodesh Kadoshim is the starting point of creation, that first nekudha. I’m going to use a language now that Ramban uses. I just love this language. The Ramban says that the world began with the nekudah…mamash. The world began as a small subtle or fragile dot, a spot that has nothing of substance. So the world began. That happens, so to speak, at the place of Kodesh Kadoshim, on some level, and then the world expands out from there. Which by the way, in terms of physics nowadays—

An entire universe can be collapsed in a pinhead. Are you aware of this? We are 99.9% empty space. If you were to take a basketball and put it into a football field, so you would have a neutron, and then the circumference of the atomic particle  would be thousands of miles away from the things that’s revolving around it. Matter is primarily empty space. It’s just that our consciousness experiences it as a solid. And the entire universe, were it to be collapsed into the entire amount of matter that’s in it, is estimated to be about the size of a pinhead. That is ridiculous stuff. Forget it. Don’t even try to think about it. I don’t know why I’m getting into it, I just like looking at these pictures in my head.

But the point is that that nekudah is the Kodesh Kadoshim, the starting point of the universe. Note that that starting point is represented or manifested in the aron habrit, G-d’s spoken revelation, which are two tablets, which have on it, an embracing angelic double figure. So that’s the core. So when the Zohar says that the core of the word is yud-key-vav-kay, is ahava, he’s really describing something which then becomes energetically embodied in the Kodesh Kadoshim. And spoken in Shir Hashirim. That’s Rabbi Akiva.

So when we say Shir Hashirim asher l’shlomo, so this is the song of all songs, like it’s the Kodesh Kadoshim. Meaning, all the kidushin, all relationships—kedusha has to do with relationship—all specialness, kodesh, all uniqueness, all other-ness, and all possibility of otherness. All of that is rooted in the center one which is the Kodesh Kadoshim, just like all love songs, and the songs of life, that are sung in the exuberance of existence are rooted in this one. It’s all rooted in love. That’s why, that of in all books, the Sefer Haredim, which is an early book, then it didn’t have the same implications it has now, it’s a sefer which has to do with darkeinu tzar, 16th or 15th century, the derech hachushek hashorer. It’s the way of someone who’s impassioned to sing. So that in our love of our Creator, which is so impassioned, one who loves Him with a full heart, will always sing in front of him, just like Moshe, the children of Israel, Miriam, and Devorah, Yehoshua, the children of Korach, and David and Shlomo, who all sung. Maskil yedidut. One who has high consciousness, he will sing a song of endearment, a song of friendship, as it says, Shir HaShirim, asher l’Shlomo. What does it mean, Shir HaShirim? Shir HaShirim, that is, the one that is for Shlomo. For the king, whose peace is his, whose shalom is his, who lives that wholeness. The king who finds peace is the king, as we said, G-d is nimlach, he creates kingship, and an other, he finds peace. He finds peace in there being an other and which there can now be relationship.

Peace is only a relevant concept if there is one to whom you have peace with. (Laughing) It’s nice to have peace on your own, but it’s not really peace, except when the different parts of you are holding together. But peace is a concept that has to do with other. This by the way is why our tefila ends with peace. Peace is the ultimate prayer. It’s a very deep thing People miss this. What’s going on? At the end, we gave G-d praise, then we gave thanks, we made our requests, then we’re done. What’s this business of sim shalom… What, we’re trying to shtup in before the door closes, Wait! I’ve got just one more thing I want to say, just hang on a second, don’t close the door yet, let me in! No, it’s not that we’re trying to make another request. It’s moving into a state which is ultimate prayer. Because ultimate prayer is at one-ness with what is. Fully relating to it and accepting it. It’s an inversion of the way we’re used to thinking of it.  But after you’ve gone through the lack, and experienced the lack and asked for it, and been grateful to G-d for what he has given you, then you can be at peace with what is. When that happens, really quite astoundingly, then the doors open.  It’s one of these ironies of spiritual life. When I accept it in fullness, then I am able to turn in asking for the shift to occur. At that point I’m not asking, I’m just identifying with Him, so to speak, I’m at one with Him in what He has done. I’m there at peace with it. I don’t know exactly how to describe this in a way that it makes logical sense. But it’s the ultimate state of prayer. Now I’m just at one with You. When you accept it, then you’re with Him, and then you are participant in whatever it is that’s going to happen, and then your will and His will become one and reality then opens up to its sources of goodness.

But sim shalom is ultimate prayer. So Shir Hahirim asher l’shlomo is the ss for the one who has peace. And the two become unified. That then becomes ultimate ezer. We’re in this together, G-d, it’s not just me against you, insisting that you give. We’re together in this. At peace with each other. That’s a peaceful home. That’s shalom bayit. But don’t think you can skip stages, just go to that. Then you end up with distorted religions and spiritualities  Praise of G-d as other, asking of him, recognizing that he is the one who indeed gives it, bowing down in thanks to him, and now what? We’re together. (Long silence)

I might just end with the pasuk ends with yeshakeni…piu, so the Zohar teaches that yeshakeni…piu. The reason it specifically talks about kissing, then the breath of each kisser becomes united into one breath, and they, so to speak, breathe each other. This is a very deep teaching of the Zohar, which then teaches that this is where the four letters of the name come from. That there’s a breath out of one into the other that retains part of the breath and gives part over the breath. And so from the other, the same, and those are then the four letters. The breath retained, the breath given, the breath received, the breath given and retained, those are the transmutations of the letters of G-d’s name, but the breaths become one breath. That’s why is yeshakeni…piu, let Him kiss me with the kisses of His mouth. Which is pihu, peh yud peh and vav, which is the first three letters of G-d’s name, and then the final heh is ki tov…mi yayin because Your love is greater than wine. Wine being the drunkenness of the loss of selfhood and the inability to stand up. I choose to stand up and not be drunken. I choose to stand up so that I can be an other with whom you can have this kiss and this love. And ironically, the rabbis say that the yayin is a reference to the written Torah. That’s the one which is “forced” upon us. It’s reality as it is, in the sense that you don’t have any say in it. There’s not much of an atah there. Better than the yayin of yaino shel Torah, of Torah sHakadosh Baruch Hu’chtav, of the written Torah, yeshakeni…piu, which is Torah sh b’al peh.  It’s when Jewish people in knesset Yisrael have a voice and are able to speak words of wisdom that are expression of their soul, in its reverberating with G-d and responding to him. So that’s chazal’s interpretation of that verse. Better than the wine of the Torah is the kissing. Which involves there being an atah and an ani, and it’s really a profound back and forth which occurs in that.  But in a sense, the first thought that G-d had that there should be two is indeed that ultimate picture—at least for this created world. The creating of one is in order to create the realization and consciousness that will allow for there to be two by our desire and by our choosing. And indeed, on a very deep level, this is a story of the soul coming into the world, choosing to, so to speak, separate from Him and come into the world, that there should be a level of realization of relationship, that could not be, had this all stayed embedded in its Source.

(Student question) When I am able to say atah to you, and even more, when I am able to live out being said atah to, … when we can really have that, then the consciousness that we create between us is now what’s in the world. We’ve shifted what’s around now, we shift things by the way we relate to them. We shift things in the air, so to speak. One of the impacts, the primary impact of what changes, is how much G-d is present. How close is he? Of course he’s always close. I mean, how much His presence is felt. How much is he shining His face on us? So when we shift into that with others , then He’s like our shadow, so to speak. It’s poor language, but He follows suit. So now, He’s giving us more of saying to us, atah, and making Himself available and present for us to say to Him atah. Because now we’re generating that reality into the Creation.

 (So the more I put atah in my relationships in my life, the more Hashem will shine on me…)

 Absolutely. That is the energetic core of Creation. That’s what’s happening in the Kodesh Kadoshim. That’s why He wants to show it to us. On one level, nothing’s changed. He was always there. You’re not here. It’s only Him. That’s called da’at elyon. But on the level of da’at tachton, human life, the kav, the line, it’s all up to you. Whether He will be here or not. What things will look like. I’ts hard to live them both at once. We generally live in ratzo v’shov. But there are divine moments when those realities merge. And then there is forgiveness, love, compassion, etc. (But that’s’ the goal, no? To live my life that I don’t exist, but I have to work) To know both of these at the same time. The rabbis asked the question: Which is greater, knowing Talmud, or doing it? You say doing it, so I say knowing it, so there was an argument that went like this for many years. They said, gadol haTorah…ma’aseh how great is the knowing that brings the doing. It’s only great doing because it’s known.

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Series: Be'erot, Love & Relationship with God.

Synopsis:  Opening to the awareness of need, and the ability to find what is good as a connecting point. Man and woman as ezer knegdo, being one with the possibility of being separate beings. And the possbility of language is born from this.

Episode Transcript

We've been exploring by seeing some very primary statmenets in the Chumash about the nature of why we're here in the world. We've been exploring what our having been sent here is for and doing that through in the meantime, through the most basic description that G-d gives us and that has something to do with the rain. Rashi exposed us to what it was that G-d was looking for and why he was withholding the rain. And what Rashi told us is that ther is actaully four stages to a process which is what G-d is waiting there for from us, and that is that we have an awareness and an appreciation and a compassionate knowing and an asking for. And we even did a little work around that last time.

        What that taught us was that man's being sent here has to do with those things. That kind of alignment of purpose is very significant for us in life, tha we know what it is that we're walking through life for. It makes a big difference if (I'm thinking) right, I'm here to be noticing the good, and being conscious in a a compassionate way and turning to my Source as the origin and source for the shifts in reality that I am hoping that will occur. If you walk through your day like that, then it's quite different than if you lose orientation in terms of what it is wyou're here for. You can always go back to that first statement of the creation of man  to reorient yourself as to what it is that you're in life for. Not that it's easy, but its' a starting point.

        We also saw that the point of contact, not sure how much we developed this, but that the point of contact is called something which we call "tov." This is really important. L'hakir b'tov creates communing. To recognize good creates communing, deveikut. Actually the Hebrew word is a lot better than the English one. Deveikut, which is communing. And this is so simply demonstrable, that it's almost worth doing an exercise on it already. If you just think for a moment. Here we are sitting in this class, and it's not always so easy to adjust to being here. You came with what you came with and I have a feeling that some of you have come here with quite a bit this morning, and you're carrying what it is that might stand in the way of actually being present. So here's a very simple thing that you might take along to do. If you have at least an amenable relationship next to you, to turn to them, mamash in three statements, and say three things they need to say in order to be here this morning. Three things I'd like to say in order to be present here this morning…It's really quick. It would be good to spend time writing this, but it's not a day-long workshop. But let me ask you, how many of you feel a little more present by virtue of having said what would help you to feel more present here? Good.

        I also want to ask you in terms of right now what we're going to learn? How many of you started out by saying something negative, like I have to drop, or get rid of, or remove something from myself before you got to something positive. Just put up your hands. Katie, are you willing to tell us.

I have to put the switcher on.

To put the switcher on. I oriented myself by saying that there's nothing better that I have to be doing right now than just to be here. I've a million things to do that I've put in my yoman this morning, people to call, answers to questions, and et cetera. Very important for me to say, This is the most important thing for me to be doing right now. Which is something of a removal of something else before I am able to enter in the good that's here. The reason that this is important for me to give over and for you to get a little piece of experience of is because you can come to realize in a simple movement like this is how tov is the connecting point. You see, when you come to tov, you come to It's good to be here, it's a bracha to be here. I know my soul needs this, to be here, or these are teachings that are crucial for my life. To recognize that there is something good locates you in presence. I mean it's, as I said last time, I only say simple things. This is something that everyone knows, but doesn't pay attention to. That it's finding the good in wher I am that makes me connect to the presence of this moment and this place . Finding good in it. Finding good connects.

        This is actually a kabbalistic teaching which people don't recognize the beauty of. And that is in kabbalistic teaching, the point of connection is called yesod. Everything we have in life has its abstract in the spiritual, divine world. Everything we have, whether it be love, or restraint, or balance, or ability to overcome, or the ability to accede, or the power of connection, each of these is actually a reflection in life of spiritual principles in abstraction. I'm being very concise right now but I'm also being precise. The point is that if you're familiar with the sefirot, then it will be important for you to know that the sefirah which is called yesod—which means foundation point, point of connection—is also called tov. It's just called tov. And in the verse that we saw last week, where G-d says, lo tov heyot adam lvado, it is not good that man be alone, and if you rememebr there we explored that Rashi then says that this is not good because then there are two reshuyot—and people will forever live in a particlized reality. So that lo tov is actually saying that there is no connection. No good means there's no connection in man being alone.

        This is why, by the way, the word orlah, which covers over, is actually rah-lah. It's the same letters as "bad for her." Because disconnection, blockage, separating walls, of of what orlah are, and those separating walls are actually the letters of orlah as rah lah. So that realization is very important as we continue through the teachings that we're learning, because we're taught that in the end of time, when we come back from all we've suffered in exile, so, in chapter 30 of Devarim, so we're told, in verse five, so G-d tells us that he is going to bring us back to the land which we've inherited, v'hitivcha v'hirbecha me avotecha, He'll be good to you and He'll make you greater than even your ancestors were, and then in verse six: umar lashem elokecha et levavcha, v'et levav zarecha v'ahavta hasehm elokecha b'chol levavcha nefshecha lman chayecha. G-d will circumcize your heart which means in the prophet in Yechezkel: v'hesir et levavchem. He is going to remove the orlah or your heart, which means not seeing the good, so that we live a life disconnected. Umal lashem elokecha lvavcha, I'll remove the orlah of your heart with brit milah, and I will then make it possible to love me with all of your heart, with all of your soul, for the sake of your life. The point is at the end of time, that's the vision. The removal of the orlah has to do with removing the attitude or perspective that this is bad. When you shift into this is good—whatever process you need to shift into this is good—I just gave you a very simple one, a moment ago. When I shift into this is good, then I shift into connection. When I shift into connection, then I shift into the possibility of love. until that happens, so then there's no possibility of love. Like the pasuk says, you're going to have to have mal lashem elokecha lvavcha, going to have to circumcize your heart so that you can love Him with all of your heart and all of your soul. It will be possible to have partial love, partial giving myself over to, without this milat halev that G-d is going to do. But the ultimate of it, is going to come by virtue of His having removed that orlah.

        So, there's a most amazing thing in the way the Chumash describes how we live. And that is, that everything in how we interact with other, in terms of what its purpose sis and how it works, is paralel to the way in which we interact with G-d. So much so, that you begin to suspect that the possibility of experiencing G-d in a true fashion depends upon the nature of how you're interacting with other people. Now the love that you experience between you and G-d, whether it be G-d's love for you or Your love for Him, is going to be modeled by and in miniature through the nature of our relationships with each other. So take a look, for instance, at the way that the Torah describes the next few verses around man's needing to be created. In chapter two of Bereshit. G-d has made man, He has declared that it's not good for man to be alone, going to make ezer knegdo, something we'll come back to look at. And here comes a most bizarre story. So in verse eighteen again. So G-d said, it's not good that man be alone, I'll make an ezer knegdo, and so, next thing you'd expect would be for G-d to create out of the ground or out of man or from some place—his wife. That would make the most sense. And yet in chapter nineteen it says, So G-d created out of the ground all of the beasts of the earth, all of the birds of the heavens, and He brought them to man, to see what they would name them. And everything He named them, that became its name. And then man called names to all the animals, all the birds, and all the beasts, but he could not find for himself an ezer knegdo. 

        Now, was someone expecting it to be different? Was it going to be a camel? A horse? Come on! What is the Chumash doing here? What is G-d doing? We know the end of the story What's going to happen is man is going to need a woman, someone who is like him in some way. What advantage, what gain is there going to be here by parading all the animals in front of him, before He gives him his wife? Doesn't make any sense. And why is it that language becomes so significant here before man is able to find him ezer knegdo? What is happening here? If you look very simply at the story, is a precise parallel to the very first way that G-d met man, that we talked about last time.

        You see, for man now to be standing alone and having the animals paraded in front of him, is going to arouse something in him. As long as he is standing alone in the world. As long as he is his own separate entity of person, so then there is no arousal of need. As long as man is standing alone, and there is no exposure to the possibility of a mate, so then there is no arousal of need. It's very simple. Were it to have been that G-d made man together with woman, or that G-d would make man without woman, either way, without the parading of animals, and then he would make woman and put her right down in front of him, there w ould be no desire, because there would be no experience of the need for the shift out of the experience of heyot adam lvado (19:53).

        So actually, the parading of animals in front of man does one simple thing. It makes him aware of something which is outside of him in a relational fashion. And look how interesting it is. Man is living in a world with a great deal of vegetation. We've had a description of Gan Eden. Why doesn't man call names to the trees? All we have is man calling names to the animals. Isn't that curious? After all, it could have been that he would have looked around and called trees trees, and called grass grass, and called riverse rivers, I mean there's a lot of stuff going on in Gan Eden, there's a lot to talk about. Might not have who to talk to, but he's got what to talk about. Amazing! He doesn't talk about any of it. He doesn't give any names, doesn't relate to it. The only thing he relates to are the animals that are being paraded in front of him after the declaration has been made Lo tov liyhot adam lvado.

        Are there female animals

        Actually there are some shocking things that the Rabbis say about what actually went on. One of them, which is actually one of the less shocking ones, was, they mated, he saw that they were in pairs, but the point is not sexual arousal, although that's obviously a relevant factor, but the point is that the world is pairs. You don't see that in trees. You don't see that in flowers, unless you are one of those people who study flowers. You don't see it in grass. But you do see it in animals. So G-d parades in front of him those who are overtly paired. And then he gets the idea. And what happens, most astoundingly, is that language is born. Because language is born in the awareness of other, in a way in which the possibility of relating to him is present. I know will leave the enclosed solopsistic world of self-enclosure in which I have no speech, that which is in a sense, either non-connecting or just connecting with all in a way in which there is no need for language. It could go either way. You could just batel in complete self-abnegation and connected to all, or you can be completely autistic and connected to nothing. Not meaning people who have autism—I'm not sure that's a correct application of the term given what we now know more and more about what's going on with autistics, but the simple meaning of the word, to be enclosed, and disconnected. Either way, there is no space for language. Right? Anyone who's had a deep meditative experience knows that there's a touching of an experience which is pure consciousness in which there is no language, and there is an experience of no language when—I just got nothing to say to you. In either direction, the formation of a particular connecting pattern or possibility is called dibur, or kriyat shem, calling a name.

        So there's a quite amazing parallel here. Man is becoming aware of the outside of him, that there are other possibilties or selfhood, or at least of life that can be connected to. I think it's important for women to know this. That the Raabis say that there were ten portions of talk that came down to the world. I suppose they came down to the world at the moment that man started talking. Well, one of them men got, and nine, the women got. And it's true, women are a lot more talkative than men, they just are. I'm not saying they all are, but it's a feminine principle. You just have to be careful. This is what the Rabbis teach. That something about woman, who is the repository of relationship. So most speech went there, even speech was originated so to speak, by man.

        In any case, we're dealing with a creature who's both masculine and feminine together, so, I'm not sure who was the originator here—which side of man spoke. Some opinions have hiom as being androgynous. But the point is that lanaguage is born in the outward turning possibility of an other with whom I will live. And to whom I will connect.

        So now what has occurred is that man has become available to the possibility of relationship by himself being aroused to the need for it and therefore becoming vulnerable—will I have it, won't I have it? None of these are right for him, and by becoming desirous of it. Without that, it doesn't work. Sexual drive is simply a –beside all of the good things about it and that comes with it, but one of the really powerful aspects of it, is that it forces people who are to become a couple, to overcome all of the restraints, fears, and disconnection that, were it not there, they would prefer to just deal with, rather than have to go into relationship. It's a very scary thing to go into relationship. There's a drive here which pushes people over the brink. So to speak when push comes to shove. What we want to do with that is a fascinating subject, but it doesn't necessarily have to be here.

        The point is that this is actually a teaching about this story which the Ramban tells us, when he attempts to explain what G-d had in mind when he brought all of these animals in front of him. And so he says the following, that why did He do it? Why did He bring all of these animals? So he says the following: Ramban on verse twenty: Nachon b'einai, it seems to me, ki lo yaachefetz lefanav yitbarach lakachat tzalo mimeno, G-d didn't want to take the side of this man from him, ad she yeidah ha adam, she ein ba nivrah im ezer lo. Until he would know that there is no other creature that is ezer for him. V' she yitaveh she y'hyeh lo ezer cmotah. That he should have desire, that he should have a help-mate like here. Lifnei zeh, tzarich lakachat mimeno [achak] mitzarotav. That's why He takes from him one of his sides. And this is the meaning of His passing the animals in front of him, that man should become aware of his need.

        This is very important because we see it exactly parallel as the way G-d related to us. The first thing He does is He speaks words to us that put Him into a situation so to speak of His needing us to respond to his call. Any man or any woman who does not experience that shift into a realization of I'm not whole without that other, will never really be able to experience a loving and connecting relationship. Somehow there needs to be a vaccum, a chalal, an empty space created that will be filled by an other. Now we will see this as a complex connection here. But right now the simple point is crucial, in the way man is created and in the way G-d parades in front of him the animals. So, it's not until it's happened that he's become aware of that drive and need, that G-d will then be able to do what He does to take his other half—according to one of the interpretations, and stand her in front of him so that she will become the one with whom he will have the following experience and this is described in verse twenty-three, when man says, Zot hapa'am—this is the time. This is the one. Meaning, there have been other tries, in some sense, there were other considerations, other possibilities. Etzem m'atzami, basar mbasari, this is my very selfhood, my very flesh. Vzot yikarei isha ki me ish lukacha zot. So this will be called woman because she has been taken from man. Al ken yazo ish et aviv v'imo so that's why a person leaves his father and mother. V'davak b'ishto and has deveikut with his wife. [??] basar echad. Then they become one flesh.

        So that transition begins even with man's first statement of Zot hapa'am, this is the time, indicating that there have been other possibilities which have not been ones that he is an appropriate match for, an appropriate meeting for. And only that, the Chumash tells us, only because of that will a person leave his father and mother. In other words, he has to have an experience of something outside there, outside the realm of the family, and things that he's used to and comfortable with. For him to step out and to enter the possibility of him to be davel b'ishto [??] basar echad.

        And yet, the Rabbis tell us a rather curious thing. They tell us that in the beginning, G-d actually considered making man as two separate creatures, that there would be woman and there would be man. That was the original plan. That He would make man, and that there would be woman alongside him. Not as one body but as two separate entities. And then He decided that He would make them first as one. So what happens in that process, in that initial consideration that there first would be two, and then G-d's decision that there would b one. It's rather odd, it's like why is He first considering that? That they should be two, and then they should be one? And then creates them as one. Somehow there has to be that there would be a plan, a thought, that creates a certain reality. Of two separate entities, and then the means to get to that has to be that they will first made as one. Get this. In our teachings, the first thought is the purpose. Like, when we say, when we talk about Shabbat, first in thought, last in deed. So first in thought, the first thought is that there would be two. Only then G-d does sort of a menas to getting to that point, which is that there would be a creation of one. But the creation of one is the means of getting to the point of there being two. Kind of funny, you'd think it would be the opposite, that first He thinks of them as one, but then He creates them as two. But instead, He thinks of them as two, and then He creates them as one.

So, you're saying that the whole chapter one of Bereshit is, let's make man in our image and G-d created them in His image, male and female He created them, but that's all just in thought?

That's what the Rabbi's say. That's actually how it's taught. Male and femal, that's in his mind. But then in actuality, he created them as one body. You're right, it would be good to give you perhaps more text on this, what the Rabbis say, and show you these verses. But initially, what He's thinking is that they'll be two, and then He creates them as one.  This is very important. It's not a difficult point, it's just one to be aware of. And you can see an experience of union which can only be had by virtue of you having once been one. The point is that two separate entities experience union, so the point is that two separate entities experience being outside one another knegdo, one against the other, one opposite the other, two separate free-standing individuals. That's the point, that there be two separate, free-standing individuals. That's the first thought who have the power of coming to experience oneness and union. So physically, they first need to be created as one. In order that, what will happen in this world that will be when they become separated, then they will be able to stand freely in desire of each other, experiencing the need of completion by virtue of their being in relationship.

        It's not complicated, but it's crucial to realize that G-d is setting up an ezer knegdo reality in which—and now I'm going to expose a bit of which that term means—in which there will be an ezer, a support, one who is able to be at one with, and knegdo, one who is able to stand opposite from and in opposition to. Neged means in opposition to. In other words, in order for there to be the possibility for relationship, there needs to be the ability and possibility of union, of at-oneness, of support, and knegdo, standing opposite of and saying no. And those both need to be experienced at once. In other words, there needs to be a sense of me being at union with this other, that my wholeness is a result of our coming together, but I can only experience that if that other is able to stand in opposition to me and across from me, saying No. That’s a blunt way to say it. In an existing and separated selfhood. Right-relationship will only be able to exist if both of those realities are present. Both the realities of ezer, and the reality of knegdo.

        It's unfortunate translations that miss how the Hebrew is actually describing what appear to be two opposite movements of ezer and of knegdo. Some people say "help-meet" and there are in the mefarshim, Rashi actually has something which, the Maharal says is the konic, it's a little bit of humor, that yeah, if you're ezer, you're zocheh, if you're not, she's going to be against you. But the Maharal says that Rashi's not meaning, that the verse is telling you that I'll make him an ezer knegdo. Someone that if he's zocheh, so she should be with him, and if he's not, she'll be aginst him, it's going to be hell. That's the point. The point is, that both of those need to be present in order for the possibility of relationship to be there.

        So G-d, in His first thought thinks the ultimate intention, which is that there should be fusion and deveikut. Excuse me, two separate entities who can stand on their own, who will be freely choosing and able to come into relationship, but only able to come into relationship because they have the possibility of disconnecting from it. If that possibility is not there, then the relationship is not real. No such thing as Catholic marriage by us. The relationship has to be embedded in the possibility of me walking away, demanding separation. And that is, in spiritual language, what is called the ratzo v'shov, of going out and coming back. Of going out towards the union and the meeting, and the coming back to my separated and individuated selfhood.

        It's very important that a couple learn that very delicate dance of ratzo v'shov. It's embedded in what the nature of relationship is as ezer knegdo, individuated and separate. The physical experience is of them being created as one. Because that's how this worlds experiences union, so then G-d creates them as one, so that possibility of ezer will be there, of fusion and togetherness and oneness of deep, deep, deep intimacy. But the point is that they be able to stand across from each other in separation and individuation and each have their own separate, individuated self in order to come into that fusion. So in this world they're created as one, but in G-d's mind, they are initially two.

        In this world they're created as one?

        Yeah, they're created as one body.

        Wow.

        But there's another [stage] of  separation.

        That's right.

        That's why [?] back, because we know there's separation. (44:05)

        We know it as separation, meaning that there is another stage of separation here, in this world, where G-d separates them into two.

In that case, it's so painful to be—they say that in this world you're created as one body, but if you're not whole, it's so painful. Are we not supposed to feel whole in ourselves as we come together with another? Are we not supposed to have that, maybe it's just the western idea I have that you're totally balanced in yourself and you come together with someone who's balanced within him or herself and then that's where a healthy relationship comes from.

I wouldn't belittle that. The ability to stand knegdo in differentiation and individuation is crucial for a relationship of connection to be lived rightly. But these are subtle and compound experiences. It's not like, I don't need her, I don't need him. And we'll learn about that more when we learn about a midah that's called histapkut. But for now, I just want to point out that this is embedded already in the verse that will become a root description for us of the nature of how a loving relationship comes about. It has to be able to be lived both the ezer and the knegdo. And only then can there be the possibility of davak b'ishto l'basar echad be present. Now that, as we said, is built on, well, now we have two principals. One principal is the willingness to open to vulnerability, the awareness of my need, and the other is my ability to find what is good as a connecting point. So that I will be able to be here in this situation or with this person.

        What does it mean when we say Vdavak bishto vheilo l'basar echad? So here also I want to give you a reading from the Ramban, where he says the following. There are two interpretations of what the Vdavak bishto vheilo l'basar echad, is. He leaves his parents, he walks out on a situation of being comfortable. Then he clings to his wife, or communes with his wife, and then they become one flesh. So what is the meaning of their becoming one flesh? So Rashi says that they become basar echad, Havlad basar al yadei shneihem. Vsham naaseh bsaram echad. The child that's born of the two of them. Ah, that's when their flesh becomes one, because now they have been formed into one person, the tow of them in that child, simple enough. The problem with it, of course, is that it does not teach anything unique about man. Man isn't the only creation that becomes one flesh, animals do that too! So, I guess what you're telling me, is that all animals also will become one flesh, by virtue of their coupling? So then, what is unique about man here? Well, what is unique about man, the Ramban teaches, is vdavak b'ishto, that he clings to his wife. And she also to him, that they commune together. And in that communing they become one.

        And so then Ramban says, I don't understand the Rashi. What do you mean that they become one by virtue of the child. Because animals do that too. No, but rather, with animals, there is no deveikut. You know, the male and the female come together, they have the function of reproduction, then they go off their separate ways. Not all of them. In fact, the yonah, is actually a significant symbol for us. But in general that's the way it is in the animal kingdom. Mipneh zeh amar hakatuv, that's why the verse tells us that here it's different, because she is like his very self. And of his very flesh. And therefore, he communes with her. He clings to her. She becomes to him like his very own flesh. She to him, him to her, becomes her very own flesh, and his language is only from the male perspective, but it can be read either way: v'yakptz bah, v'yotah tamid imo, he's in full desire that she should always be with him, like it was with the first man, so it was placed as the nature of all of his progeny, that all of the males and the females are deveikim, they leave their parents and they see each other as far more their own flesh than any relative they're ever had.

        So this kind of achievement of an experience of oneness with the other, is something with is unique to human life, where as for all animals, sex is a function of reproduction. For man, the way the Ramban teaches this verse, sex is not a function for the accomplishment of reproduction, but at a certain level, reproduction is itself a drive pushed two separate people to come together, the purpose being, that they should become one flesh. I'll say that again. In the animal kingdom, the sexual drive is embedded so that there should be reproduction, so once that's accomplished, they're done. But in human life, in a sense, sometimes it's even the opposite, the sexual function produces a child and creates a union between the parents that wasn't there before. And that's right. We're in this common creation. We have indeed become one by virtue of this common creation. It's quite extraordinary, it really is, that a joint creative activity, will produce a union between those who do it. I mean, we all know this. Whenever you want to create a great group dynamic. You want to get people together. So give tehm a project to work on together. Then you'll see a group united. Give them a project. The more creative it is, the more it involves a union of minds and body, the more you can get involved in that joint creativity, so the more the group becomes united and one. The creativity becomes the means by which the group comes together, That's when it's called being manipulative so that you can get a so to speak group cohesive. Group cohesiveness. But the truth is, the chumash is actually saying that. They will leave their parents not in order to have children. They leave their parents because they seek their own wholeness. Because they're aware of their being partial. And then in their coming together, it's the most beautiful thing that G-d has made the world this way in joining together, that they not only produce the progeny, but then that progeny serves to bring them into even closer and more powerful union. Both physically and emotionally, and ultimately spiritually, as being jointly devoted, as we'll see in the third level. That's an entirely different reading of the verse. Al ken ya'azov ish et aviv vet imo, He leaves his parents, v'davak b'ishto l'basar echad. He sacrifices a false experience of union which is in his family, or a level of an experience which is he is still missing his other half, and steps out in order to cleave to an other. That only comes about by virtue of this experience of the lack of other possibilities and alternative, which then also creates the experience of a knegdo, because she can say no, she is other than him, and he is in need of her, and he is vulnerable and open and to this. Which allows for—and now I'm going to use a term that we used at the end of our coming into the Land of Israel after the desert, he acquires a lev la'da'at, a knowing heart, one that can appreciate and accept it and not block it out of a need to remain separate and independent and self-sufficient and thereby, like we saw between man and G-d, l'hakir b'chasdei hashem, to recognize His goodness, l'davek bo, and become in communion with him, so also now, his next stage will be to recognize the goodness for this other to connect and then to become a entity of oneness in all the different realms in which we live.

        I had this realization. I was sitting in Tel Aviv, looking at the way people dress and walk, seeing the way women dress, and what they show and don't show, all the different games that are going on, all the different attempts to attract people, it's like it's—it's almost like there's like an embedded knowing that it's going to be really hard to overcome the walls that stand between us as separate individuals. And that they need to do something that's going to really pull this other person in. And indeed, it's very challenging. And we're going to see as we look deeper, what the nature of this orlah is. What the nature of this block that stands between us and another is. Why it is that we're so reluctant to expose ourselves to one another in a deep sense of intimacy. And have to rely on all kinds of physical drives that pull us together. Which is also embedded in the nature of reality. G-d knows our foibles, so to speak. But the point is, all of that reluctance to become exposed, has to do with, if I can come back to the point of today's class, has to do with first and foremost, with my willingness to accept my vulnerability. That indeed I am not whole with out you. That indeed there is something that my life is lacking if you are not here. Without that availability to that, with all that that implies, there will never be an intimate relationship, because there is a withholding that accompanies the interaction. And, more deeply, the maintenance of that vulnerability has to do with the ability of each member of the couple to stand as a knegdo with the possibility of separating, with the reality of being separate and differentiation, and so to speak, whole on your own.  That's ezer knegdo.

        There's a very subtle interaction between these elements and that's why—and I'll translate the phrase as one thing, but it really means the ability to hold both. And indeed the way G-d created us and the way he made that first experience of man is what we all go through. [1] An awareness that I have to separate out from my family and to become my own. It is an awareness of this aloneness that is something not go, and usually there is a whole parade of animals, so to speak, until you discover the one who's truly meant to be yours. I don't mean to be disparaging. But oftentimes, that's the way it's experienced. But what that does is it develops the possibility of language. The possibility of being able to enunciate the connecting points of communication that will allow for the possibility of deveikut, of connection that comes with years of living together and being together. All of this is parallel as we have begun to see in the way in which we live with G-d.

I'm curious how it is dealt with the difference of chapter one and chapter two of creation, in short? Your point about the first story being in thought.

I wish I was better prepared to share that with you. But indeed Chazal say that that verse, which is back in chapter one, where man was created, we're talking about chapter one, verse twenty-seven, which says, vayivrah elohim et ha adam b'tzalmo, b'tzelem elohim barah oto. Zachar u'nekevah barah otam, so the verse itself is so to speak confused. At first, in the singular, it says that G-d created him. And then it says that make and female, He created them. So which is it, did He create him, or did he create them? So that's where the Rabbis derive that actually both happened. Namely, that His creation is in practice here, barah oto. But zachar un'kevah, barah otam, is the way it was in His mind. But b'li neder, I'll look at the source of that so that you could see that better . (Editor's note: check if this teaching appears in the sequels to this lesson: Be'erot 03b and Be'erot 03c). The first story and the second story.

You are getting it confused with nifrad, lo nifrad, it feels like we don’t' know what really comes first. In thought, then in creation, it's like the chicken or the egg, that's why it's so confusing.

It's hard to find the beginning of. It's like circle[2] which both are happening, that we're one together and we're separate; we're one together, we’re separate. What sense is there in it being two separate acts? We're really living both of those at once. We'll contemplate that more.

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Series: Be'erot, Love & Relationship with God.

Episode Transcript:

We saw the beginning of Hakadosh Baruch Hu’s relationship with man, and it was very important to us to take a look at how that begins because we’re really looking in this series at the most primary points of contact between us and Hakadosh Baruch Hu and they are rooted in the way man is created and in the first interactions between us and Gd. The reason that’s important to us is because we’re sort of promoting or claiming a certain position and that is that primary relationship that Hakadosh Baruch Hu seeks between us and him as a relationship of love and that in His expressing His love towards us so then we become carriers of that love into the world by the way in which we express it and manifest it towards others and towards the planet. So we become the vessels of His expression of that love which He himself has for his creation and which He desires for His creation to reflect back to Him. And this for me is a very exciting re-orientation of Judasim, to be honest, for those of us who are used to the laws, the mitzvos, as being primary—well, that’s certainly the case, that they are the primary vehicle for that relationship. But unfortunately we often lose the core of that, and that’s what I hope to rekindle and re-establish in these teachings. The way we are going about it is by looking at these primary points and getting clarity on not only what those primary points are, and what are the factors of our own being in the world, what our perspective and experiences that will bring about what it is that Hakadosh Baruch Hu is seeking that we should know that love of Him, know His love for us and spread that through the means which he has provided us.

        There is no secret that there is a spin-off from Judaism which is called Christianity, which actually took this very prime point and distorted it by…Well, you know I was just walking through the Old City the other day and I was listening to a monk give a tour to Christians who had come over and all he could talk about was the “spirit of the Law, the spirit of the Law, they had lost the spirit of the Law”, that Paul had come to re-establish the spirit of the Law, etc. I thought this was very interesting because there is a possibility, not just a possibility but a lived reality of the both spirit of the Law and the actual fulfillment of it. It’s actually a perversion to disembody the Law like it’s a perversion to disembody a human being, and I suppose that that monk’s life is a reflection of that on a certain level—celibacy is not part of our parlance because of that commitment to the embodiment of all this in a lived way.

        So, leaving polemics aside, (sigh) it’s getting easier and easier to talk about these things, but there’s still vast regions of yiddishkeit that don’t really orient themselves this way. In any case, I want us to be as solid as we can be in terms of our exploration in establishing these points, B’ezrat Hashem.

So what we looked at last time was the first creation, and I want to take a look back at that just to remind us of a certain, not only query that Rashi makes into the pasuk, but a paradigm which he establishes about the way we are with Hakadosh Baruch Hu. So if you remember, we were in the second chapter of Bereshis, and there we have in verse four: That these are the unfoldings of heavens and earth….. And then we have the description there, there is no siach ba sadeh, there is no esev ba sadeh, because there is no man there to work the ground and we saw that from that verse it seems quite clear that man has to come to the planet in order that things should grow. He’s going to be created now in order to solve a problem, in order to make a tikkun, on order to allow for things to be blossoming. And that inversion of perspective was important to us, as we’re used to the planet serving us as being the way we look at things but here we have man here serving the planet. But as we became more deeply cognizant of what’s happening here, we really that that kind of dichotomous thinking is really the product of a wrong attitude, and that is that somehow we are not of the planet. As if in serving the planet we’re not also being served by the planet. And when the planet serves us, it’s as if we’re not serving it. That comes from a perspective that has us as if we are not part of the planet. (Laughing) That’s a product of a certain kind of an attitude and thinking which divorces our consciousness from the very being of the existence which Gd has made. And although we are of different stuff when it comes to our soul, and also to a certain extent when it comes to our mind, nevertheless we are very much a part of the created reality. And so, in the course of our learning together we realize in fact that it’s wrong to look at that kind of a split that way, as if it’s one or the other. And as we’re going to learn a little bit more today, what actually transpires in us is transpiring in the planet. But we’ll come back to that.

So what we saw was, that man should be created, such that there should be rain, such that things should grow, and if you remember we pointed out that that won’t happen unless his knowing of the need of the planet is intimate.[1] And the way his knowing of the need of the planet is intimate, is both by him being created of the planet—in other words, you’re just dirt of the ground with the water added so that Gd should knead you together into what you are. That means that you are taken from the earth. So, it couldn’t be more intimate to know what the earth needs, then by your having been taken from it. That was one aspect. And the other aspect is that Gd sets it up that for us to know that the world needs rain comes about by virtue of our working the ground. And that was how the verse worked, remember? That we are told there is no rain, and there is no man to work the ground. If you’re looking for man to pray for rain so that it should rain, so then make man and he’ll pray for rain. Why do you have to have him working the ground? Unless, as we said last time, that there’s knowing, and there’s knowing. There’s knowing that there needs to be rain, which is where the intellect looks at things from the outside, analyzes them and then reports what the earth needs, and then there’s being thirsty…and sweating…and hoeing…and plowing…and waiting for the rain.

        Content-wise there’s no difference. Both people know that there needs to be rain. Connectedness-wise, it’s an entirely different consciousness. So the verse is very careful to say Gd has not made it rain yet for there is no man to work the ground, not because there’s no man to pray for it. And this is crucial, crucial, crucial as we’ll see as we progress because that means that prayer, awareness, knowing, are really not so important to us as some kind of external observation. But only when they become en eternal experience and connectedness do they really have the import that Hakadosh Baruch Hu intended for them to have. I can’t stress this enough because so much of what’s been lost to us in terms of Hakadosh Baruch Hu is a product of quite a few processes but certainly one of them is the rise of scientific thinking, which gets the idea that knowing the greatness of Gd’s creation, that means science and cold analysis and picking apart so that you see how it works, and then you’ll appreciate HIS,, is doesn’t work that way. I’m not saying it isn’t a valuable enterprise, I’m not in any way anti-scientific on the level of that project being a significant project. But when that project becomes the singular project and the connectivity to what is is lost, that’s when you lose the intensity of connection that is meant for us, And if it’s not going to be from working the ground, which for most of us it isn’t, then it’s going to have to come from some other way that we have a shift in consciousness so that that kind of intimacy is recovered.

Then we began to look deeply into how the chachamim analyze this verse. And they tell us what is meant to happen. What will be, Rashi tells us, is that there will be created a man who will be…I’m reading at the end of the Rashi in verse 5 where Rashi gives us three statements about what man is going to be. Well, actually four. There needs to be a man to work the ground, to recognize the goodness of rain, (keeping the distinctions of the Hebrew) and then pray for them. There are four stages here. One is a real and direct involvment in what is, he’s working the ground. Two, is he recognizes the goodness the rain, that’s the starting point. Three, he sees the need, and four, he prays, connect to Gd, has intimacy with Gd. So, be involved, connect and be involved, it matters, there’s caring by being involved. It’s a principle in avodah so that it’s intimate and real, there’s recognizing the good (and seeking it) there’s coming to know the need, and there’s asking, turning to the source. All these in order to have rain, and to put it a different way, all these because there is no rain. By there being no rain, all this can happen. Apparnetly had there been rain, there would be missing intimate involvment, an appreciate awareness, a compassionate stance, and a connection to source. In other words, these four elements are why there’s no rain, so they should be elicited is one way to look at it. The simpler way to look at it is because there is no rain all these processes have to happen, but I think that Rashi gives it away that we’re not just talking about rain when he says, “veyn makir btovatam shel geshamim. I think that’s the giveaway in the Rashi, that if there’s no man working the ground, then there won’t be someone to recgnize the goodness. That is to say, we’re not just talking about someone coming here to pray, we’re talking about someone who can recognize the goodness, that’s what we’re after. If what we’re after is getting the rain to fall down, then you wouldn’t have to make a world in which people had to pray in order to get it, I mean you want things to grow, Gd, You created it, it’s what it’s for, I mean why did you create a world where people had to recognize the goodness and go through all of this. Clearly, it begs the question “man for world or world for man”—it becomes a silly point. It’s all one entitity, one organic reality in which there is a conscious element, which is the one God is waiting for a coming to a recognition of the good in order for the whole planet to function. When that happens, then creation is fulfills. I want to tell you, it’s not only that when that happens, then creation is fulfilled’ we need to get deeper into what this means but we actually have a something of a repeat of this in the parsha which describes the Jewish people coming inot the land of Israel and what this needs to be. I’m talking about Parshat Ki Tavo nmuch later in Devarim, where we have a repeat of a similar phenomenon where we’re waiting for man to be “makir…tov” Take a look there in Parshat Ki Tavo. In chapter 26, and then at the end of Ki Tavo, put your finger in chapter 29….

Let me summarize up until now this thing Rashi has taught us. There needs to be intimate connection or involvment, awareness, but it’s an awareness of tov, compassion, like a compassionate knowing, the world need him—that ‘s the compassion, and it’s da’at, and then finally a connection to source. Becoming a channel or arousing the source of the water to give it. As most things with four, it parallels the structure of the divine name, with the lower heh being the intimate connection in reality, the vav being da’at, being makir be tov, as we’ll see later, and then knowing that the world needs him, something needs to be brought out, and finally connection to Source, the upper yud. That’s for the advanced students (laughing).

What I want to show you, just like at the beginning, so to speak, at the end. By the end, I mean when we finally get to the land of Israel, leave this, complete the process of redemption which has taken us through the desert, we get to Israel: “Vhayah ki tove, when you get to the land…which got has given you as a nachalah, and then you’re going to take from the first fruits of the land to bring them to HaKadosh Baruch Hu and then you’re going to  to the Cohen who’s there certain things about where you’ve come from and what has been up until now. And Rashi say, “Why are you doing this? Why do you have to make the declaration to HaKadosh Baruch Hu: Why isn’t it enough just to bring the fruits? If this is like another korban, if this is like another sacrifice, so just bring it, to the cohen, like you bring him trumah, like you bring to the Levi ma’aser, like you bring when you have to bring a sacrifice, you bring it to the Cohen and then you’re done—you don’t have this whole verbiage of declaring, boy it’s been a long trek. So why do you have to say it? So Rashi says that the reason why you have to say it is to declare (end of verse three) you are not someone who is the opposite who is opposite of makir b’tov. A cafui be’tovah is someone who is covering over the good. In the Mishnah, lichpot et hacli is covering a vessel. Nowadays, cafui ley har caguiguit at Har Sinai. Most people think that He forced them, using the guiguit. But really in the language of chazal, he covered them over with a guiguit, a pail. C’fiyah datit, nowadays, is a usage of force which originates in covering over.

In any case, you come and the reason you have to declare to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, it’s been a long trek, it was fantastic, we’ve made it back, is in order to declare that you are not a cafui tovah. It’s basic…Because it’s basic, it’s profound, but it’s really very simple (laughing). And that is the declaration: I recognize the goodness. I’m not a cafui tovah. And there’s a reason why he sayd I’m not a cafui, and we’ll get into that deeper, we’ll come to that more. What I just want you to see is that you get to Israel, that’s what you declare. It’s something like a re-entry into the God (whoops) Gan Eden where the condition for coming in has to do with … b’ tov.

Now look how it ends, parshat Ki Tavo in Chapter 29. Moshe Rabbeinu says very explicitly, why we had to wait forty years to get back. And that declaration of why it took us forty years to get back is the same declaration of why we had to wait so many years to get back and are still waiting to get back. Because look at the beginning of chapter 29, “and Moshe called to all of Yisrael and he said to them You are the ones who saw everything that Gd did in front of your eyes in Egypt. You’ve seen all the great wonders, the miracles, etc. And you know what, Gd didn’t give you a heart to know, and eyes to know and ears to hear until today. That’s why I took you forty years in the desert so that your clothes wouldn’t wear out, and you didn’t have to eat bread, and you didn’t have to drink wine, in order that you should come to da’at that I am your Gd. “  So I look at these verses and I ask, What is it that took so long? Well, I didn’t have eyes to see and ears to hear. But you just told me that they had eyes to see the great wonders and miracles—they saw them! Didn’t they see them?! Nah. They didn’t see them. Why? Because really seeing requires a lev lada’at, a knowing heart. Now, what is this knowing heart? What does it mean to have a knowing heart such that now you have eyes to see and ears to hear, Such that Gd says I took you through the desert so that you should come to da’at. Without da’at you can’t come in. Without da’at, you can’t be here. So, again Rashi tells us something so deep and crucial. In verse three there, Rashi tells us what lev lada’at is. Lehakir….bo. To recognize Gd’s goodness and to have devaykut with him. Language of communion and clinging. It’s amazing. So Rashi tells us what lev lada’’at and it’s what we need to wait forty years in the desert to get. It’s what all galut is waiting for us to achieve. And that is how to… (not clear) achieve da’at? Which allows ledavek bo. I have a guide. A guide, we’ve seen that man has been created to be l’hakir tov be geshamim, same thing as when we come into Israel to be makir b’tov, makir b’chasdei Hashem, l’davek bo… Where did Rashi get the lhidavek bo from ? Did the verse say lehidavek bo, to cling to Him? The verse said, it’s about knowing, right? Unless we’re talking about a knowing which is a clinging, unifying, communing knowing and it’s clearly what Rashi means, because otherwise he has no source for saying lehidavek bo, that wasn’t there. Lehakir bo, I can get from the verse, but lehidabek bo? Ah, that’s the lev ha’da’at. It has to do with knowing the goodness. And I want to tell you something. It’s not always so simple to know the goodness. And the reason why it’s not so simple to know the goodness is because human beings have a pension for insisting that they are self-made. By which I mean, it’s very difficult to accept from another in which that acceptance implies that that other is participating in making me. Most of us prefer to think of ourselves as being self-made by which I mean, I’m my own person. It’s a very profound opening and maturing to recognize that in my selfhood I am interpenetrating and interpenetrated by the reality that I’m a participant and part of. There is no, so to speak, independently self-made me. And so we have a tendency to try to cover over and step aside from and avoid the goodnesses which we were given. And I believe it takes a particular midah,  trait to develop which I want to talk about and I believe we’re going to see(k) profound things in a particular personality, maybe that of Avraham, that’s able to accept goodness, but  the “I am a rock, I am an island” kind of a mentality, which is a kind of in physics, it’s sort of a Newtonian vitality?, actually before Newton, that the construction of reality is these myriad impenetrable atoms that everything is made of, these, like, particles. I think it was Lucretious who invented the paradigm. So it was like a particle-ized reality, which is really coming to an end in physics, where it’s not a particle-ized reality. It’s like a stream of energy that takes different dancing formations. That has vast implications. Also in terms of how we relate to one another and our connection and our participation in all that is. I really feel like it’s the movement toward a lev l’da’at, as the paradigm for all that is shifting. I mean, on one level there’s me and you, and we’re separate and apart. But there’s another level in which that’s not an accurate depiction of how that all works. We’re all interconnected all of the times and participating in the making of each other. In higher or lesser frequencies or intensities. In other words, a shift from an individuated and particle-ized sense of reality to one of a mutual sharing is what a lev l’da’at is all about. And that , if we put that back into a sort of avodah, it comes down to l’hakr be tovatam. To be makir the tov. In Hebrew, it means on one level or another, to appreciate.  But it’s better translated into recognizing the good, always connecting. I’ll put it to you this way. If you’re always analyzing, like in a scientific way, so you won’t connect to it, but if you appreciat it and recognize how good it is, then you become connected to it. In Kabbalistic language, tov is the midah of yesod. Yesod is the connecting point. This is why when we’re told by HaKadosh Baruch Hu his evaluation of Creation, --I’m going to return now to something more simple and direct-- so we’re told that Gd looks at everything and He says that it’s good. The first thing that Gd does is that He is makir b’tov. He’s connecting to it, we’d say today. That’s what we do, if we appreciate it, we connect to it. If you’re just analyzing it, you’re not connecting to it. If you criticize it, then you are relating to it, but you’re not connecting to it. But, oh, that’s good. Somehow that means that this is a reality that is serving existence. My existence, the formation of that which is meant to be and exist. That’s why I connect to it because I’m participating in that manifestation of reality, it’s good, it’s good. Just a simple thing. If you’re looking at this cup and you’re thinking bad things about it, you’re going to disconnect. If you’re looking at this cup and you appreciate it…

If you’re looking at this notebook and you say (makes a nasal voice) “It’s too small, I don’t like that color, too many pages—disconnect. But if you appreciate it, you know, what a good feel it’s got, they really designed it right so that it will fit into the pocket, etc. so being makir b’tov is another language for connecting to.  From experience, that’s the way it is. Very simply the Chumash says a very beautiful thing. Does everyone see how beautiful this is, it began with the creation of man, with Gd making a creature who is makir b’tov. We can’t get back to the bechinah of Gan Eden, which is Eretz Yisrael, we can’t get out of the desert, the disconnect until we learn the bechinah of makir b’tov. You can see the all the miracles in the world, Gd says, and you have seen them all, but you haven’t had a lev l’da’at until now.

(Responding to student question) That’s true. That needs work and understanding. (Looking for a Gemara) But I think what Chaya’s pointing out is, what is the nature of our participation in making a lev lada’at? If it seems that it is divinely conducting, whether we get it or not. Let’s leave that ze tzarich iyun. I’m not sure what to say about it, I think she’s right…

(Student comments)

What we saw there is that coming into the land of Israel requires of us having hakarat hatov l’hidabek bo. And here the fullness of the picture was all about communion. Gd has done these miracles, these beautiful things. As long as you’re not communing with Him by virtue of them, then the purpose has not been served. So it’s not positive thinking, and it’s nice to be appreciative, those are all good midot. They are not particiapant in the redemptive process until those midot because participant with the ultimate purpose of communing with Gd. But that can come on levels of communing which are going to happen and they can come by virtue of communing right in this world with other human beings. Do you understand? If this were a mussar shmooze I’d be talking to uou about appreciating. But as a spiritual teaching, which is rooted in what it is that man’s purpose is, we are being informed by Rashi that it’s about lhakir et chasdei Hashem lhidabek bo. And I believe that from the very beginning of what that’s for. So, you can actually see this in the way that the Chumash uses the word, in the pasuk that you are all familiar with, I’m sure. And that is where Hakadosh Baruch Hu has looked at all the things in Creation, and then finally he looks at the fact that man is alone and he says, “It is not good for man to be alone.” It’s a very deep description. Because it means that everything in Creation has been good. It means that everything in Creation has been participant in this connective reality, except for one, and that is man’s being alone. That is “lo tov” but what I want us to un is that lo tov, it’s not thwat it’s a bad thing in a moral sense. It is the embodiment of lo tov. The emb of lo tov is being alone. It’s not that it’s not good to be alone. Right? Which is also true, I mean, what do you mean like that? I don’t like it, it isn’t pleasant. Or, not good, in an ethical sense. Like you have a job to do. It involves getting married and having kids, what is going on with you? Get going. We all heard enough of that. But what I’m saying is, just like Gd looks at all things and says they are good that’s what’s called in philosophy an ontological statement, it’s a description of the reality so also this is a description of reality, meaning that there is by definition lo tov in being alone. That’s what it means. Tov means being together. Lo tov means being alone. And the amazing thing is that Rashi again one of the advantages of learning with me is that I’m always very simple. Chumash, Rashi, it’s enough for me but that’s also the disadvantage. Because it’s so simple, it’s hard to get a grasp on it. But I hope you’re with me on this. I was you to see the Rashi. Rashi says something so pertinent, Rashi says on that verse: What does that mean “lo tov…l’vado”? People are going to come to say, they shouldn’t say….One way to read that is it’s not good because it’s going to produce a mistake to think that he’s Gd. You know, there’s a Gd up there and there’s a Gd down there. But the deeper teachng that Rashi’s giving us is that lo tov means that the reality will be particlized into two reshuyot.Two domains. There’s not two domains, there’s only one domain. It’s all one field. It’s all one interconnected reality. That they would come to see reality as particle-ized. They wouldn’t see reality as an interconnecting field. (Answering student) That is so deep and so crucial for us to realize that it’s in creation of another that we do away with the mistaken consciousness of two reshuiyot as long as I’m standing alone, I might think that all is separate. But it’s when I’m standing together with that I know that all is One. That’s the way our consiousness has been designed. You have no concept of oneness in standing alone. You can only achieve a consciousness of oneness, of one domain, when you’re standing with another. And it’s all a matter of makir b’tov but that word has come to mean far more than we had originally given it weight for meaning. So now when we come back and swe see the other element in Rashi here, is that it’s Gd’s interest that there not be that consciousness of dichotomoy of shty reshuyot Like nowadays to say, like it’s not that you’re single, it’s not good for you. No, this is the Creation, this is what the Creation is about. This is what Gd is seeking, is that there should be a conscious (?) self, one reshutand the way He is bringing this about is that there should be creating down here  a relationship between man and woman which will now create a consciousness of one reshut and both express His desire for unity and realize it. This is big stuff here. This is so Jewish! I have no idea, what do the goyim do, what do Christians do with this pasuk, that believe in celibacy. What do you do with a verse like this that makes it so crucial for creation.  So, what we saw last time, and we’re going to B”H see how this parallels human life and, so to speak, in our relation with the divine…

We already began to see one beginning element which is really deep, and now we can much more appreciate how crucial to this process of tov, and that is the first thing that Gd does with man is that He gives him a choice. And what I’m reminding you of is, that the first time Gd speaks to man, according to Rashi, is where it says, “Vayikach (2:15) And Gd took man and placed him in Gd Eden, and then He commanded him. So again it looks like He took, He took him and then put him down. He spoke to him attractive things and tempted himl orseduced him into the Garden of Eden. This is amazing on two crucial account. Namesly one, that man is beign given a choice. There is no picking him up, taking him and putting him down into the Garden of Eden. You will not be in the Garden of Eden unless your heart is there. He has drawn him there. Rashi is so deep because you can’t be in the Graden of Eden any other way. Imagine being in the Garden of Eden by force? That’s hell! But more deeply, the first interaction between Gd and man is when man’s ability to say no is respected. One side of that is of course, he’s being given his independence of entity, which is of course crucial for a loving relationship. Rape is not a loving relationship.  OK, that’s an obvious point, but that deserves investigation. The other point which is more relevant to us and where I want to follow things is that Gd himself ahs made himselfe vulnerable in giving man a choice. We ended with my granddaughter saying no, I’m not going to give Saba a hug. And I end up hanging there like a jerk. Well, it’s not quite that bad, but it feels pretty stupid. Here I am fifty years her senior, and she’s saying no to me, that’s it, I’m done, but that’s what happening to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, if man had said no, done! HaKadosh Baruch Hu has made himself vulnerable. But it’s in that vulnerability that availability happens. And it’s in availability happening that connection can become, and there can be tov. I’m not going to be open to the possibility of a no and the yes will really have no substance, significance, connection. And that’s clearly part of the lev la da’at. And that is indeed the other meaning of eni cafu letovah, and that’s why Rashi said in Ki Tavo, he didn’t say “ani makir b’to” when he brings the fruits, but rather eni cafui tovah, I don’t experience this tov as being something that’s been imposed upon me, cafui in sense of imposition. In other words, I’m not one who covers it over, but I’m also not one who is covered over by it. Because cafui tov means to be covered over, not I’m not cofei hatov, it didn’t say, that I covered the tov, but rather I’m not cafui tov,  that I’m not covered by it, meaning I’m not being forced by it, that’s what you have to say when you come into the Land of Israel, I am  willingly and openly accepting this. I don’t experience it as being imposed upon me as if it is an antagonism to my project of self-made person.  I recognize that I am ready to join you in a joint and mutual project of creation of my selfhood, and I see you Gd, you’re not forcing this upon me. I have a lev la’dat to know that it is given to me from your own, so to speak vulnerability of having given me the chance to say no.

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