[Avodah] [Areivim] "Blei Gissen" should we believe in this?

[Micha Berger]

Someone wrote me privately that they didn't follow my post on this
subject. So, I'll try to summarize
<http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol25/v25n026.shtml#04>.

Al pi qabalah, the Or Ein Sof flows downward from His non-contingent
Existence all the way down to physicality. There are layers, veils,
which groups this route down into olamos.

The NhC writes that of all of creation, only the human neshamah is a
combination of forces from all the olamos. A mal'akh may be on this
plane or that, rocks are on their plane of domemim in the olam
ha'asiyah. However, a neshamah (really the full Nara"n concept) is the
entire beam, cutting through all the olamos. This is how the NhC
explains a person's ability to have metaphysical consequences by
performing physical actions.

The Rambam is no mequbal, obviously, but he also writes of a chain of
beri'ah from the non-contingent existence of the Mamtzi down to the
phsycial world. But his is not in terms of olamos, but rather in the
form of the different levels of mal'akhim.

Also according to the Yad, mal'akhim are tzurah beli chomer. And
according to the Moreh they are sichliyim nivdalim. Suggesting that
seichel is pure tzurah. Not surprising, we don't usually consider
thought as having substance like a physical object.

However, what all of the above does is identify thought with
spirituality.

I therefore suggested that the difference between speaking of the
Torah's symbols and speaking of spiritual forces is one of perspective
and terminology, not substance.

Add to that the fact that REED and the Alter of Slabodka each (in
different ways) say the difference between olamos is in the eyes of
the one doing the perceiving. The Tanya even says that ein od milvado
means that the existence of anything other than Hashem to perceive is
in the eyes of the one doing the perceiving -- even those "eyes"
themselves!

This again is suggestive (although far from proof) that higher
realities and true thoughts are identical concepts.

I hope with this explanation of what I was trying to do, someone might
be motivated to revisit
<http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol25/v25n026.shtml#04> and see if it
holds water.

SheTir'u baTov!
-micha

-- 
Micha Berger             "Man wants to achieve greatness overnight,
micha at aishdas.org        and he wants to sleep well that night too."
http://www.aishdas.org     - Rav Yosef Yozel Horwitz, Alter of Novarodok
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