Chapter 1 - Part 1 Hear O' Israel

"Hear O’ Israel, the L-rd is our G-d, the L-rd is one" (Deuteronomy 6:4). This is the passage in the Bible , which contains the commandment to meditate on G-d & his ways, so as to become closer to Him. As Maimonidies writes: "It is the basic of basics & the pillar of wisdom (i.e. intellectually and spiritually essential) to know that there is a G-d & that He made exist all things which exist (basic laws of the Bible, chapter 1, law 1)… That G-d is one…& this knowledge is a direct commandment from the Bible, as it states "Hear O’ Israel…"(law 7)."

Reb Hillel Paritcher writes (in his explanatory work on "Shaar HaYichud" - "The Gate of Unity ", which contain the writings of his master, Rebbe Dov Ber Schneuri of Lubavitch):

"It is obvious from the words of Maimonidies that the commandment in the passage "Hear O’ Israel…" does not refer to physical hearing alone, but rather includes also to hearing on an intellectual level i.e., the hearing of the mind, which is the faculty of comprehension, known in Kabbalah as Binah (Beenah), in particular the level of comprehension within comprehension (Bina of Bina) – the meditative form of analyzation called Iyun (eeyoon). It must therefore be understood why the Hebrew word for analyzation (Hitbonenus) () is written with two letters "nun" () (the Hebrew letter that makes the N sound), as it is known that no letters are extra in the holy tongue (ancient Hebrew, the language of the Bible) & the doubling of a letter stresses a certain point. In addition, it must be understood why the Bible uses the term "Hear" which denotes the level of understanding on the level of Binah (the faculty of comprehension), instead of the term "See" which would denote the level of understanding on the level of Hokhma, the faculty of intuition. Being that the Hokhma, the intuitive faculty, is higher in level than Binah, the comprehensive faculty, it seems strange that the comprehensive is stressed over the higher intuitive faculty. (Chapter 1)."

We begin with these 2 questions (that Reb Hillel asks on Maimonides' wording), because they sum up the purpose of this book. To understand what meditation is and in particular what analytical meditation is, for, as Reb Hillel points out, this is the type of meditation that is essential in becoming closer to G-d in mind & spirit.

Before we get started, it should be understood that the meditation that we will be speaking is not the same as the meditation that some lines of eastern thought speak of which consists of mostly concentration rather than learning followed by concentration (This does not apply to all eastern thought btw)let me give an allegory to illustrate why.

Thomas Edison had a problem. He needed to find a way to make a working light bulb. He needed to draw down an idea, a spark of intuition (of which we will learn more later) from a higher source, so to speak. He meditated long and hard on his problem and, as we now have working light bulbs, it would be safe to assume that he found a solution. Now, what if the blacksmith down the road were to "meditate" on a candle and totally blank his mind out and wait for the way to make a light bulb to pop into his brain. How good would his chances be? Not very good at all! For one thing, the candle has no connection with the issue at hand. In addition, making the mind into an empty vessel is not enough by itself. In order to receive light of a higher level, whether intellectual light or spiritual light, the mind must be prepared through analytical meditation – through blanking the mind of anything besides for the issue at hand, and filling the mind completely with the issue at hand!!!

As Dr.Napoleon Hill writes in his book "Think & Grow Rich", perhaps the widest read business motivational work ever published, that one who wishes to become wealthy or succeed in some other physical way must completely fill his mind with the object of his desires if he wishes for his mind to receive a plan to reach his goal. It isn’t enough to just blank your mind & wait for an idea. So, too is it in spirituality. If one wishes to receive a spiritual "intuition", it does not suffice to blank one’s mind. To reap the harvest you must work the ground. To reap the fruit of spirituality, you must work your mind. You must analyze and meditate on the ways of G-d and how he brought (and constantly continues to bring) the world into being.

So these are the goals of this work: to explain:

A) what proper meditation is (according to Kabbalah) i.e. how to meditate; &

B) how G-dliness comes down from the highest of high, down to this very physical world i.e. what to meditate about.

Interestingly, Kabbalah teaches both of these things at the same time, for although meditation is a process of the human mind, it is also a study on G-dliness. In the Bible it states that man was created "in the form (shape) of G-d". For every level of the thought process in the human mind, there is a corresponding level in the process of G-d’s Light coming down in creation of the world. This is why the human mind is possibly the best allegory for G-dliness and thus widely used as such in the teachings of Kabbalah.

Note, however, that the similarities are purely allegorical, for the infinite greatness of G-d is so beyond us that He cannot be categorized by physical terms. For although He contains every mind, body, soul and in fact every existing thing, still He cannot be categorized as an intellectual, physical or any other type of being. He is infinite and thus cannot be categorized by the limiting vocabulary of human language. Even though we compare G-dly levels to those that we are more familiar with, it is only for the sake of our understanding, if even a miniscule amount of how clueless we are to His True Greatness.

Like the metric system, the creation of the world has a base of ten. Everything works in sets of ten characteristics. These are like the three intellectual faculties & the seven emotional faculties in the human mind. Even in upper levels of G-dliness, where the spiritual light is so great that there cannot exist any separation or subjectivity to characteristics, even there these ten can be found in a certain sense, but that’s getting way ahead of ourselves.

We will begin by introducing the 3 intellectual faculties, for they are the more important to understand in order to realize this meditation of which we will speak. This is not to say that the emotional faculties are not a factor, for the ten faculties work so closely together, that at times it is difficult to discern between them. To the end of explaining their characteristics & how they function in relation to one another, however, we will look at each separately so that we may be able to later understand how they work together.