 Previous |
 Enlarge |
 Next |
This series is a continuation and should be read in order. If you are not familiar with previous posts you may have trouble understanding later ones.
And now Chapter 12.03
The Mittler Rebbe will now give two general analogies for the concept of the Tzimtzum:
1.) a summary of a concept and
2.) the limitation of the soul’s spiritual powers to a particular physical power.
Now for the first analogy:
This is similar to the analogy of the light of a deep and broad concept, as the idea is within the essential self of the mentor, that in order to bring this concept out from himself to a recipient who is not comparable to him, for this the mentor has to hide within himself the entire depth of his understanding, and to leave only an impression [Reshimu], which is like a single point from the entire depth and breadth of the concept as it grasped by the mentor. For the mentor sees the inner truth of the idea along with all of its many details, explanations and ramifications. All of this, however, is too much for the recipient to grasp and so the mentor must leave all of the wealth of his knowledge and the breadth of his understanding to himself, choosing only one point to explain to the student and even this must be a simple one that is on the level of the student’s understanding. However, this is not to say that the light of the concept was removed or hidden completely within the mentor himself, i.e. he didn’t forget the concept, only that it is like one who relates a teaching in short, that at that time the entire depth and breadth of the logical arguments and proofs that gave rise to this ruling exist within his mind, only that they are temporarily hidden within himself while he relates, in short, the final ruling that arises from his understanding of the logical arguments. As it is understood that at that time he didn’t forget or lose his original understanding of the concept and, therefore, immediately upon being asked any sort of question about the reasoning behind the final ruling, how he arrived at this conclusion or how this ruling relates to another one, etc. he will expound upon the matter etc. So that it is seen conclusively that he is not missing in his understanding in the slightest, even at the time when he is thinking only about the final ruling and not about the logic behind the ruling. Only that in order that the student should understand this short way of explaining the concept, which at the time is the only way that the student will be able to understand, the inner reasoning behind this conclusion being beyond him, therefore, the mentor temporarily hides this understanding even within himself etc. and as is explained at length elsewhere about the particulars of this analogy.
The analogy that the Mittler Rebbe uses is that of a Talmudic scholar, who is proficient with all of the intricacies of Jewish law as well as rules of derivation and logic by which the Torah is expounded. However, when asked for the ruling in a particular situation, the scholar does not begin to expound upon the intricacies of the Talmudic disputes that arrive at the conclusion, for not only is this unnecessary at the moment, it is also way above the head of the simple layman, who only wishes to know how to conduct his life in accordance with G-d’s will and any attempt to explain the methods by which this law is derived would, as for the moment, probably do more to confuse than to clarify. Therefore, the scholar must at this time put aside all of the lengthy debates and intricate reasonings and simply state the final ruling as it is pertinent in this instance. At the same time it is understood that even at the moment that the scholar puts aside all of the lengthy debates by which he arrived at this final conclusion, he does not lose this understanding in any way, quite the opposite it is specifically as a result of this understanding that he knows the final ruling and this understanding is hidden in the back of his mind at the time that he renders the final ruling and is the real cause for this decision. In addition, the same obviously applies equally to a teacher or mentor for any subject.
An example in secular studies: A math teacher has to limit his own understanding of mathematics in order to teach 1st grade children and he only teaches them 1+1=2 and even that has to be made concrete into 1 fishie + 1 fishie = 2 fishies.
Until now the main point that the Mittler Rebbe emphasized was that even when the mentor makes a Tzimtzum within his knowledge and understanding there is nothing missing from the mentor's point of view. The Mittler Rebbe will now show that this is true even for the recipient, that nothing is missing for him either when the mentor says the teaching in short, but rather, the entire length is hidden within the summary.
Now in the words of the Mittler Rebbe:
As for this that the concept remains only in the way of a point, which is an explanation of the concept in a short way, this is not a complete and true Tzimtzum [removal], such as one who removes and hides a concept completely, so that it is completely missing to the recipient, but rather, the idea is that the entire lengthy explanation of the concept is included within this summary, so that it is not missing even the smallest point. For example, such as how the brief laws of the Mishnah include the entire lengthy logical arguments of the Gemorah.
The Torah consists of two parts, the Written Law and the Oral Law. The Written Law consists of the Five Books of Moses, the Prophets and the Writings. The Five Books of Moses were given to Moses at Mt. Sinai and they constitute the foundation of Judaism and Jewish Law. They are in a sense the first and final word of G-d, in that they can not be contradicted by any later prophet. As is explained by Maimonades, the reason for this is that we do not believe a prophet because he performs miracles or signs, for maybe they are false, rather the only reason we believe a prophet is because we are commanded in the Torah that if a prophet fulfills the criteria laid out in the Torah, then, and only then is he to be believed. As for the Torah itself and the prophecies of Moses, these we believe in because all of the Jews were present at Mt. Sinai themselves and there men, woman and children all saw and heard the commandments from G-d Himself as well as Moses receiving the commandments. The later works of the Written Law represents selected later prophesies and historical records, which hold a timeless message to all generations, all urging the Jews and all of mankind to follow the good straight path, heeding that which is stated in the Five Books of Moses.
However, the Five Books of Moses was not all that Moses received from G-d at Mt. Sinai, he also received the interpretation of the Torah on all of the levels of PaRDai"S [lit. orchard; an acrostic for Pshat, Remez, Drush and Sod; the names of the four dimensions of Torah interpretation respectively, the simple interpretation, the interpretation hinted by numerical values, variant spellings of words etc., the homiletic interpretation, and the mystical interpretation, all of which were given, in full, to Moses at Mt. Sinai]. Aside from the necessity for this oral tradition within the realm of Kabbalah and the other non-literal dimensions of the Torah, this oral tradition is also absolutely essential for the understanding of the laws of the Torah on the simplest level. For example, the Torah dictates that in order for meat to be permissible to be eaten it must be slaughtered and prepared "as I have instructed you," however, these instructions are found nowhere within the Written Law, and likewise with many other examples.
Originally this oral law was just that, a strictly oral law, passed on from generation to generation, each learning it in its entirety by heart and in addition it was not permitted to be written down, save for personal notes. Later, due to the mounting persecution, mass dispersal of Jewish communities and various political and social upheavals that took place under the Roman rule, it became increasingly difficult for large schools where many could dedicate themselves to the mastery of this law to exist. Therefore, Rabbi Yehudah the Prince, the leading sage of his day took upon himself to compose an extremely condensed work that would capsulize the whole of the Oral Law into a sort of short notes called the Mishnah and to circulate copies of this work amongst the leaders of each community so that, in this way the Oral Law would not be forgotten. This work was reviewed constantly and learnt by heart by the sages of many generations and served its purpose as a reminder of the whole of the Oral Law. Then, some generations later again with mounting persecution people were not able to spend the required amount of time and effort to learn the whole of the Oral Law, even with the help of the Mishnah. Therefore, once again the leading scholar of the generation, this time Rabbi Ashi, took upon himself to record the entirety of the Oral Law, as well as how it was derived from the brief laws of the Mishnah, this work is called the Gemorah and together the two are called the Talmud.
All of the explanations and logical derivations of the Gemorah were also given to Moses at Sinai and were known before the Gemorah was recorded in its present form. In fact, even though the Mishnah consists only of simple laws without the reasoning and methods of derivation, however, in writing this work Rabbi Yehudah was extremely meticulous with the language, structure and order of these laws and wrote them in such a way that the entire Oral Law could be reconstructed out of them, this reconstruction being the present day Gemorah.
So that, from this it is understood that just as one who knows the entire length of the logical arguments does not lose this knowledge and understanding even at the time when he reviews to himself in short only a summary of his understanding etc. The proof for this being that we find that the mentor’s knowledge of the length surrounds the entire revelation of the summary in a hidden way, and that this knowledge is not completely removed from him as if he had forgotten, as we see that if he is asked to expound upon the concept he can immediately do so and also that this understanding subtly affects the manner in which he phrases this summary. So too, the brief explanation or summary of the teaching that is given to the student is not missing anything from the original length and depth of the concept, only that the explanation is hidden within the brief teaching and is hinted to by its subtle details, as with the Mishnah and the like etc. and as this explanation is written at length in another place.
From this analogy it is apparent how even when the mentor limits and contracts his understanding of a concept, that at the same time the light of the concept is not really missing to the mentor, nor even to the student. However, this analogy is imperfect, for, the type of Tzimtzum [contraction] that takes place in this analogy is not a complete one. First of all, even though the relationship between the mentor and the student may be incomparable for the time being, such as if Einstein were to explain his theory to a small child, yet the gap between them is not a complete one, for it is possible that one day the child will understand just like Einstein does. In addition even if this where not to be the case they are both people and do share some similarities in how they think and understand. Therefore, even after the idea is capsulized, it still remains an intellectual concept and furthermore the summary still speaks about the same subject as the original concept. Such as with the Mishnah, which states the same basic cases that are discussed in the Gemorah, for example, if some one finds an old garment he can not keep it, but must post a public claim so as to find the owner, but if someone finds a new garment he may keep it. The Gemorah explains the principle behind this that if it is old then it would have a distinguishing mark by which ownership could be verified. On the other hand, a new garment would not yet be recognizable by its owner and if the rightful owner can not be found then the finder has first rights to it, so he may keep it (if no other means of identification are present). So it can be seen that even though the light of the idea as it is found within the Gemorah was limited within the Mishnah, still its essential nature was not changed. Therefore, the Mittler Rebbe now gives the analogy of the transfer from the spiritual life of the soul to the physical life of the body, to better illustrate the point that a complete change of nature is taking place, so that non of the original light remains.
Previous |
Enlarge |
Next |
The material in this series is copyrighted by Rabbi Yossi Markel