My attempt to explain why Hashem 'trapped' us into eating the 'forbidden fruit'.
Please read until the end to understand what i'm trying to say.
If there was no sickness, nobody would appreciate the gift of healthy body and healthy mind. if there was no poverty, nobody would appreciate the gifts we do HAVE.
If there was no war, we wouldn't appreciate peace. lf there was no hate, we wouldn't appreciate LOVE.
Without death, we wouldn't appreciate LIFE. Without sin, there would be no HOLINESS!
The giving of the ''Tree of Knowledge of good and evil'' has CREATED the concept of holiness and repentance in the universe.
The 'punishment' for eating- physical death and working for a living- has created the concept of life, and of physical attainment....
The banishment from the 'Garden' has created the concept of closeness to G'od....
......
°° imagine a world where everyone has unlimited riches. In such world nobody would truly strive to increase one's possessions or work for a living. So the concept of being RICH only has meaning if there is POVERTY.
°° imagine a world where nobody ever gets sick. in such world nobody would appreciate the gift of having a healthy ming & body. The concept of ''well-being'' has any meaning only bcuz there is the possibility of NOT being well.
••• Now imagine a world where nobody ever dies, and nobody has any physical or spiritual needs.... Would anything have any meaning? If we had no fears, no physical or spiritual needs, would ANYTHING matter?
Perhaps we can say that by placing the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in Adam's garden, G-od has in effect created the CONCEPT OF SIN & HOLINESS! How? If nothing is forbidden, there can be no sin or morality, or holiness..
By commanding us to 'not eat the forbidden fruit of Tree of Knowledge', G'od has forced us to intellectually discriminate and make moral CHOICES about using knowledge for good or for evil.
G'od has ''drawn a line in the sand'' -creating the concepts of moral ''right and wrong''.
After all, if G'od didn't decree that covetous thoughts or adultery are a 'SIN', there would be no reason not to engage in those actions.
••• by the same token, if G'od didn't decree the physical death as a result of partaking of the forbidden fruit, life would have no meaning, it would just be a... condition of existence, just like the color green or gravity...
•••can we say that by banishing Adam from the garden, G'od created the concept of closeness to Him? perhaps that very ban had CREATED the concept of teshuva, of ''returning to Go'd''?
...Perhaps we can say that if the act of sinning distances us from G-od, it also creates the concept of RETURN to Him. Otherwise, being connected to Go'd would just be a fact of life, not a goal to strive for!
°° perhaps if Go'd is LIFE, we only ''die'' a °tiny bit° when we sin, relative to the severity of the transgression of the individual. And each time we do a mitzva, we return/gain life/become CLOSER to our Source....
There are infinite levels of life and of holiness. Every thought and every gesture can bring us closer to Eden!!!
(week of parshat Vayakhel-Pekudey 2018 תשע'ח
Wednesday, March 7, 2018
Thursday, March 1, 2018
Secret of Shema and of name Yisrael
Secret of 'Shema' and of name 'Yisrael'
mystery of name °Yisrael° and of the prayer °Shema°~
Torah refers to G'od by many names, but each one (except ONE), are only descriptors, not ACTUAL NAMES.
When Yaakov fought with a mysterious ''man'', it was really the patron angel of Esau. That same angel is the eternal enemy of Israel, the evil inclination (yetzer ha'Rah), aka the Temptor, the đevil personified. (Bava Basra 16a)
The hint of that is in the answer the angel gives to Yaakov: When asked about his name, the patron angel of Esau answered ''Lamma Zeh Tishaal Le'Shemmi'' , Why do u ask my name. It LITERALLY means ''why should this be asked'' is for my name''.
~As our sages explain, the angel of evil inclination only has power if we abandon reason and give in to our inner base impulses. Once we start asking questions, the power of evil vanishes. So literally, ''Don't ask my name'' is the essence, the name of the evil inclination.
When Yaakov was able to understand it, he reached the level of ''Yisrael'', Sar-EL, ''ruler of ''EL''.
''EL'' literally means ''power'', hence we often refer to G'od as ''E'lo'him'', the Source of all powers. In the physical realm, we mainly connect with G'od through the manifestation of divinity known as divine providence, aka ''natural laws''. Thus it is possible to ''see'' this natural manifestation of Go'd in Nature. Hence, Yaakov was able to say, after his struggle with the angel, ''I have seen 'Elohim' aspect of divinity ''face-to -face''.
It is indeed possible to 'see' how G'od manifests in our physical world through the 'lense' of His attribute as ''E'L''
~But that is NOT G'od's actual NAME. lt is only a ''descriptor''. G'od is not just brute ''power'' but also Infinite Mercy.
The truest divine Name in human language is the Ineffable hebrew name Yod. Hey. Vav. Hey. which jews never pronounce or write besides the High Priest on Yom Kippur. That Name signifies INFINITY, past/present/future merged into ONE. (Haya-was, Hove-is, Yihye-will be, combined)
That Name is the ultimate holiness. We are commanded to EMULATE G'od: ''be holy, for l your Go'd am holy''.
How can we BECOME ''holy''? By interacting with the world powers, the ''elohim'', through the laws of Torah.
Every time we deal with the natural world tbrouhh Torah- we sanctify it, and ourselves, becoming ''Sar-EL'', a 'prince' or 'ruler' of ''EL'', of worldly powers.
Relating to the world through Torah, we unify all world powers, and infuse the universe with the awareness of the Infinite One,
Yod.Hey.Vav. Hey.
That is what we attain through the Shema meditation-
through becoming aware of the true purpose of the physical world- which is to infuse it with godly purpose-
we bind it with the Ultimate Infinite One. Through recognizing the ultimate purpose of all worldly forces, that they all work for one godly goal in the long term, we are rectifying the world and ourselves.
...
Shema synergy: it is clear that the 'man' in Yaakov's struggle wasn't a 'man' but some kind of spiritual force. Yaakov called the spot the fight occurred ''Peniel'' for a reason....
Yet obviously u cannot win a fight with Go'd. But it seems it was some ASPECT of Go'd's presence..
Many Torah commentaries agree that 'e-lohim' represents the more ''natural''/revealed aspect of divinity, i.e. ''teva'', aka ''midda k'neged midda'', aka ''strict justice, aka GEVURA.
Perhaps we could theorise that since the name ''Yaakov'' might be construed as ''because'' (parshat Ekev!!!) it might imply the ''heel'' of the law, the most basic minutiae, the ''Go'd of the details'', -perhaps as 'Yaakov/Eikev' he related to G'od in a more mechanistic ''tit-for-tat'' formula, vs. the Y. H. V. H. which conveys infinite mercy, CHESED.
Perhaps we need BOTH- a balance of the detail-oriented gevura approach of ''yaakov-eikev'' TOGETHER with the more ''synergistic- holistic'', chesed-oriented approach of ''yisrael/Sar-E'L''...
mystery of name °Yisrael° and of the prayer °Shema°~
Torah refers to G'od by many names, but each one (except ONE), are only descriptors, not ACTUAL NAMES.
When Yaakov fought with a mysterious ''man'', it was really the patron angel of Esau. That same angel is the eternal enemy of Israel, the evil inclination (yetzer ha'Rah), aka the Temptor, the đevil personified. (Bava Basra 16a)
The hint of that is in the answer the angel gives to Yaakov: When asked about his name, the patron angel of Esau answered ''Lamma Zeh Tishaal Le'Shemmi'' , Why do u ask my name. It LITERALLY means ''why should this be asked'' is for my name''.
~As our sages explain, the angel of evil inclination only has power if we abandon reason and give in to our inner base impulses. Once we start asking questions, the power of evil vanishes. So literally, ''Don't ask my name'' is the essence, the name of the evil inclination.
When Yaakov was able to understand it, he reached the level of ''Yisrael'', Sar-EL, ''ruler of ''EL''.
''EL'' literally means ''power'', hence we often refer to G'od as ''E'lo'him'', the Source of all powers. In the physical realm, we mainly connect with G'od through the manifestation of divinity known as divine providence, aka ''natural laws''. Thus it is possible to ''see'' this natural manifestation of Go'd in Nature. Hence, Yaakov was able to say, after his struggle with the angel, ''I have seen 'Elohim' aspect of divinity ''face-to -face''.
It is indeed possible to 'see' how G'od manifests in our physical world through the 'lense' of His attribute as ''E'L''
~But that is NOT G'od's actual NAME. lt is only a ''descriptor''. G'od is not just brute ''power'' but also Infinite Mercy.
The truest divine Name in human language is the Ineffable hebrew name Yod. Hey. Vav. Hey. which jews never pronounce or write besides the High Priest on Yom Kippur. That Name signifies INFINITY, past/present/future merged into ONE. (Haya-was, Hove-is, Yihye-will be, combined)
That Name is the ultimate holiness. We are commanded to EMULATE G'od: ''be holy, for l your Go'd am holy''.
How can we BECOME ''holy''? By interacting with the world powers, the ''elohim'', through the laws of Torah.
Every time we deal with the natural world tbrouhh Torah- we sanctify it, and ourselves, becoming ''Sar-EL'', a 'prince' or 'ruler' of ''EL'', of worldly powers.
Relating to the world through Torah, we unify all world powers, and infuse the universe with the awareness of the Infinite One,
Yod.Hey.Vav. Hey.
That is what we attain through the Shema meditation-
through becoming aware of the true purpose of the physical world- which is to infuse it with godly purpose-
we bind it with the Ultimate Infinite One. Through recognizing the ultimate purpose of all worldly forces, that they all work for one godly goal in the long term, we are rectifying the world and ourselves.
...
Shema synergy: it is clear that the 'man' in Yaakov's struggle wasn't a 'man' but some kind of spiritual force. Yaakov called the spot the fight occurred ''Peniel'' for a reason....
Yet obviously u cannot win a fight with Go'd. But it seems it was some ASPECT of Go'd's presence..
Many Torah commentaries agree that 'e-lohim' represents the more ''natural''/revealed aspect of divinity, i.e. ''teva'', aka ''midda k'neged midda'', aka ''strict justice, aka GEVURA.
Perhaps we could theorise that since the name ''Yaakov'' might be construed as ''because'' (parshat Ekev!!!) it might imply the ''heel'' of the law, the most basic minutiae, the ''Go'd of the details'', -perhaps as 'Yaakov/Eikev' he related to G'od in a more mechanistic ''tit-for-tat'' formula, vs. the Y. H. V. H. which conveys infinite mercy, CHESED.
Perhaps we need BOTH- a balance of the detail-oriented gevura approach of ''yaakov-eikev'' TOGETHER with the more ''synergistic- holistic'', chesed-oriented approach of ''yisrael/Sar-E'L''...
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