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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 12.04
The Mittler Rebbe gives 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 the life of the body and to a particular physical power.
The first was discussed in Chapter 12 Part 3. Now for the second analogy:
The second type of analogy, which is drawn from the life force of the soul as it is enclothed within the body, also arrives to a point similar to the one mentioned previously. This being that in order to change from the spiritual life of the essence of the soul to the life of the body there first needs to be a sort of concealment and contraction of the light of the soul, being that there is no comparison between the spiritual life of the soul and the life of the body, as was explained at the end of Chapter 10. Yet still, even after this concealment and contraction the soul is affected by what occurs to the body. If so, even the light of the body’s physical life is connected and bound to the light of its spiritual essence. In other words, when the physical eye sees the soul is seeing, when the physical brain is thinking the soul is thinking and if the physical body is cut the soul feels the pain. The soul feels joy from physical pleasures and becomes saddened or even at times depressed over physical misfortunes. So we see that even though the soul must limit and contract its light so that it is not revealed in its lofty spiritual state, in order for it to become a physical power, yet the spiritual powers of the soul are not missing, quite the opposite - they are the entire force behind the physical powers. As it is understood that without the soul the body can’t see, move, think or feel; as a student of mine put it "dead dogs don’t bark." This is similar to the analogy of the power of growth that was given previously, so that just as the earth’s ability of physical growth is bound to the spiritual power of growth within the Earth etc. so too are the physical powers of the body bound to the spiritual power of the soul.
So, on the one hand, we see from all of this that even when the spiritual power of the soul is contracted to be enclothed within the body, changing from a spiritual essence to a physical one, that the physical power of the body has the entire essence of the soul enclothed within it, to the point where the soul is affected to its very essence by what occurs to the physical body. Yet, on the other hand, at the same time if a limb of the body is cut off this does not detract from the spiritual light and life of that limb as it is within the soul. The proof for this is from a blind person who gives birth to a completely healthy child who can see etc., as is known. So from this we see that, though the soul is in a way completely enclothed within the body, it is at the same time completely removed from it. The soul being eternal and complete, any type of physical defect, therefore, is only that - a physical defect and not a spiritual one. In other words, if someone is, G-d forbid, blind this does not mean that their soul is missing the power of sight, rather the soul is perfect and it is only that the body is not a proper vessel to receive this light of the soul, for one reason or another. Therefore, it is theoretically possible to heal someone who was blind at birth, for once the vessel is fixed the light of the soul will immediately shine into it. Also, even if the person was blind for his entire life and the power of sight was never revealed from his soul, it was still there in a spiritual potential and so it is possible for the ability of sight to be passed on to his offspring.
Therefore, it is understood that the meaning of this Tzimtzum [contraction] of the light of the soul is only that the spiritual life of the soul is concealed, but it does exist, "hovering" over the physical life of the body and this spiritual life force is what is refered to as the "form of man" etc. Every person has a spiritual form in their soul that hovers over the body and constantly forces it to rebuild itself into the form of a person. All living beings are composed of basically the same materials, all coming from the dirt and these materials have to be constantly arranged into the proper form to make the organisms body. This is a process which requires a positive motivational power, the nature of things being to decompose into its simplest form and to remain a chaotic heap of matter. Therefore, life constitutes a constant struggle to build a complex structure and to keep it repaired. The more complex the construction the more work it takes to maintain this form. Therefore, the soul must constantly hover over the body and induce it to assume the proper form. The spiritual letters of the soul transfer over into the physical letters of the DNA, which are the actual physical instruction and physical life of the body. However, these must be arranged by the soul as we see that even if a body is physically sound, if the soul leaves the body it will immediately begin to deteriorate. So that, even though the spiritual form of the soul is contracted and concealed within the physical form of the DNA, yet at the same time this spiritual form does exist and must be constantly connected to the physical life or else the body will get sick and eventually die.
This spiritual form being similar to the knowledge that is concealed and yet exists completely when the mentor is explaining a concept in short simple terms and is actually the true source of this sort explanation; so that the hidden knowledge and understanding of the mentor is actually the source of the short explanation and is constantly effecting it (and all of this is explained at length in another place).
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The material in this series is copyrighted by Rabbi Yossi Markel