BH

Lecture Notes 5 of Tamuz, 5771

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FrommyfleshIwillenvisiontheAlmighty
from Harav Yitzchak Ginsburgh 1

Introduction
This is the 2nd part of a class begun the previous evening. There, Harav Ginsburgh began meditating on the verse, 2 From my flesh, I will envision the Almighty ( ). He taught and explained a number of different interpretations, beginning with the interpretation offered in Midrash Rabbah, that this verse refers to Abrahams attainment of a new level of prophecy after having performed Gods commandment of circumcision.

The 5th of Tamuz

In Jewish history, today is the day in which the Divine chariot was revealed to the prophetEzekiel.ThedateofEzekielsprophecyisstatedinthefirstverseofhisbook,It came to pass, in the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, on the fifth day. We have noted in the past that the fourth and fifth words of this verse are the fourth and the fifth respectively, a beautiful example of selfreference. Since this is the first verse of Ezekielsbook,thesearealsothefourthandfifthwordsoftheentirebook.

Job and Abraham

This class is a continuation of the class begun yesterday, during which we talked about the different interpretations of the verse, From my flesh I will envision the Almighty, a verse spoken by Job. We mentioned yesterday that even though this verse appears in the Book of Job and was said by him, the sages interpret it to also refer to Abraham, who through his act of circumcisiona commandment performed in his fleshmeritedenvisioningtheAlmightyatawholenewlevel.Indeed,theassociationof Abraham with a verse spoken by Job is not unique. There are many statements by the sagesthatcompareandcontrastJobandAbraham.Jobisdocumentedasheraldingfrom the Land of Ootz, which is where Abrahams family originated from. Indeed, Rashi statesthatJobcamefromthesamefamilyasAbraham. In the story of Jobs suffering, there are 5 that come to talk to him. They are his 3 companionswho spoke poorlyElihu the son of Berachel (whose name in Hebrew incidentally equals Mashiach) and finally the Almighty Himself who reveals Himself to

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Job, asking him questions meant to highlight the limits of his own intellect and understanding. But, returning to the connection with Abraham, Elihu is described as being from the family of Ram, which, as the sages explain, refers to Abraham whose originalname,Abram,readsexalted[ram]father. Every verse in the Book of Job is full of secrets. Even though the rebuke he receives from his three companions was not rightful, every word that they speak is explained accordingtothesecretsoftheTorah.ThefirstthingthatEliphaztheTeimaniasksJobis, ). The sages explain If one tries to talk to you, will you be grieved 3 ( that Eliphaz is alluding to the Ten trials of Abraham and is asking whether Job has withstood the same trials experienced by Abraham? The sages are thus explaining that allofthisisinordertoexaltAbraham.ThereisanopinionamongthesagesthatJobwas greater than Abraham in his service of God, because Job served from fear together with sincerity and honesty 4 ( ), whereas Abrahams service is 5 describedinoneplaceasbeingonlyfromfear ( ). Another opinion among the sages says that Job received 4 crowns corresponding to these four descriptions of his Divine service, whereas Abraham received 10, correspondingtohis10trials. Of the 53 (the gematria of Elihu and the number of letters in the first verse of Job) times that the Name Elokah () appears in the Bible, the Name of the Almighty that appearsintheverseFrommyfleshIwillenvisiontheAlmighty,41areinJob. The major characters in the book of Job represent and give voice to the 5 levels of Jobs soul. His three companions that come to console him correspond and reflect the first three levels of Jobs soul: psyche (nefesh), spirit (ruach), and soul (neshamah). Job himself expresses the words of his own lifeforce (chayah). Finally, Elihu ben Berachel, the fourth visitor who interjects and answers Job properly, reflects the level of Jobs singular one (yechidah). The Almighty, who reveals Himself at the end of the book, correspondsandvoicestheveryessenceofJobssoul,denotedasthesoulitself. speaker theAlmighty ElihubenBerachel Job 3companions levelofsoul thesoulitself singularone(yechidah) lifeforce(chayah) psyche,spirit,andsoul(nefesh,ruachneshamah)

The Ramban (Nachmanides) is the first to explain that all of Jobs suffering came to rectify an earlier lifetime. His companions did not understand this. But, the Ramban doesnotidentifythepersonwhowasreincarnatedasJobandrequiredthisrectification. The Arizal though makes this identification, based on the verse that appears in Job, and ). isspokenbyJobhimself,Whocanbringthepureoutoftheimpure? 6 ( The sages explain that this verse too refers to Abraham, in this case to his pedigree.

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ThesameconnectionisfoundinregardtoJobswifewhoissaidtobeareincarnation of Amtalai daughter of Kornavo, Abrahams mother (who later reincarnated as Dinah the daughter of Jacob and Leah, Jobs wife according to the sages). So here we have anotherconnectionbetweenJobandAbraham. When we look atthenumbers, thissame connection is revealed. Thenumerical value ofTerach( )is608,whichis32timesthevalueofJob( ),19.Additionally,Amtalai ( )plusDinah( )togetherequal551,29times19,Job.

Workings of the chariot

Actually, what is most interesting is when we add Job ( ) to Abraham ( ). Together they equal,chariot ( ), which as we mentioned is particularly related to today,thedayonwhichtheDivinechariotwasrevealedtoEzekiel. TheworkingsofthechariotareabouttheconstructionoftheHebrewletters,onewith theother,andtheirfillings,etc. SowhatwehavehereisanideathatthereisaspecialchariotwhereAbrahamrides as it were, on Job. Its not even known if Job was a Jew. The sages teach us that it was Moshe Rabbeinu who wrote the Book of Job. He wrote three works, the Pentateuch (excluding the prophecies of Balaam, which are in this weeks Torah portion), the book of Job, and the prophecies of Balaam. These three works correspond to the three books known as the book of the righteous, the book of the intermediates and the book of the wicked. TheideahereisthatinorderforAbrahamslighthisrevelationoftruemonotheism toshinetothewholeworldhemustconnecttotheuniversalsoulofJob.

Ripeness
One of the things we mentioned in the previous class on this topic is that in Hebrew the word flesh, , interchanges with the word unripe, . Whereas flesh,From myfleshIwillenvisiontheAlmighty,representstherectificationofthecovenant,mans sexualpower,theunriperepresentstheopposite,asitsaysinregardtoKingDavid,who hadrelationswithBatshevainanimpropermannerandthisisdescribedbythesagesas, Heateherunripe. In this same respect there is a statement by the sages that compares Job to Abraham, whereAbrahamisdescribedas,heswallowedherripe,andJobswallowedherunripe. The sages are referring to a similar statement made by Abraham in his dialogue with God regarding the impending destruction of Sodom and Gemorrah. Abraham asks, Would You kill the righteous together with the wicked? Abraham is not arguing that God is unjust, but rather that His justice, that the righteous should not even seemingly suffer the same fate as the wicked, should be open and revealed and not left to faith.

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This is quite different from Jobs rebuke of the Almightys justice the righteous and the wicked You kill implying that he surely does not deserve his fate. So, what is seemingly a similar statement made by both Abraham and Job turns out to be very different, with Abrahams statement described as ripe, i.e., thought out and rectified, whileJobsisunripe.

The bodys undoing

Another thing we need to add in this respect is what the Tikunei Zohar says, 7 that if a person merits rectifying his fleshhis sexual powerthen he merits envisioning the Almighty. But, if he does not, then his flesh becomes his undoing, the letters of flesh, ,permutetobecomethelettersofshattering, . As we know, the Rebbe Rashab actually said the shatteringthe breaking of ones soul that causes him to seek true repentance, that causes him to seek to rectify and put his personality back together againthat occurs because of this fault (improper sexual conduct) is a positive phenomenon. Having this yearning to put oneself back together again, from the deepest point of ones being, is one of the most important things necessaryinordertounderstandChassidut,tohaveasense( )inChassidut.

Breaking ones head

ThoughtheTikuneiZohar,onlyconnectsfleshwithitspermutation, ,whichmeans shattering, there is also a connection as mentioned with the unripe () since the leftshin( )andthelettersamech()areinterchangeable. Thus flesh ( ) can become , which means to contemplate, to have an intellectualunderstandingoridea.ToreallyhaveatrueopinioninTorah,asvara( ), 8 as its called in Aramaic, a person has to shatter as in break his head ( ) and he has to break his heart. Not only the intellect needs to go through a shattering process, but the heart too. Breaking the head without breaking the heart is worthless. A person who breaks his head and heart in order to understand is promised that he will becomeavesselforGodsrevelation.ThephrasethatdescribesthisintheTalmudis , which means, he surmised [thought] and received. This phrase equals 400. 400 is notonlythevalueofthefinalletteroftheHebrewalphabet,thetav(),italsorepresents thefourhundredsilvercoinsAbrahampaidfortheCaveoftheMachpelah.InKabbalah, ).TheTalmudrelates thesecoinsaresymbolicofthe400worldsofpassion( that Rabbi Freida had a student who needed things repeated 400 times until he understoodwhatwasbeingtaught.

Informing the body

To understand something fully, you not only have to understand it with your Divine soul, you have to understand it with your animal soul. To understand things with your

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animal soul, you have to break your head, searching for a way to explain things to the intellectualsoul,whichisanintermediatebetweenthem. Divinesoul Intellectualsoul Animalsoul Once it reaches the animal soul, it will also penetrate the body. Explaining things to the intellectual soul requires that we build metaphors, parables and models that can reflecttheknowledgeandoutlookoftheTorah.ThisistheparticularmethodofChabad, which always strives to explain the deepest Kabbalistic and Chassidic concepts, and every topic in Torah for that matter, with parables and metaphors. The critics of this method, those who opposed the Alter Rebbes methodology, described the followers of Chabadasmetaphorists( ). Now Rebbe Nachman says that there are two related verses, From my flesh I will envisiontheAlmightyandYoushallnotignoreyourflesh. 9 Therelationshiprevolves around the wordflesh, which appears only once in the entire Bible in the form (my flesh) and only once in the form, , (your flesh). As we explained this is a very good example of how envisioning Godliness, by learning Torah should permeate allthewaytoonesbody,toonesflesh.RebbeNachmanexplainsthatthisisparticularly important when there are times that the psyche is downthis even occurs with great tzadikim. If you worked hard to instill the holiness of Torah into your body through the metaphorsunderstoodbytheintellectualsoul, thenattimeslikethis,your bodywilllift your spirits! This is a very difficult passage to understand in Rebbe Nachman if not explainedinthewaythatwejusthave,whichistheChabadcenteredexplanationofthe relationshipbetweentheDivineandanimalsouls.10

Distraction from ones illness

Now,letusseeanotherintrerpretationoftheverse,FrommyfleshIwillenvisionthe Almighty. The Sefat Emet explains 11 that you should read it as More than my flesh, I envision the Almighty. When a person feels his body, when something is wrong, the body has a tendency to capture all of our attention. So, says the Sefat Emet, at times like this you should focus so intently on the Almighty, that you can distract your thought from the body. To distract oneself from ones body is something anyone can achieve. There are stories such as about the Modzhitzer Rebbe who was able to go through an entire operation without anesthesia because of his tremendous ability to focus his mind elsewhere. Not everyone can reach this level, but certainly everyone can achieve a basic levelwhichiscertainlyaveryChabadcenteredapproachtoailment. All of what we are saying was meant to be a class given in the recent trip that was cancelled.

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Becoming a chariot
Let us give over another introduction to a topic that was meant as part of another classwehopedtoteachonourtrip. ) and unification ( ) and There are two types of Divine service, clarification ( thedifferencebetweenthemisusuallywellknown. The Lubavitcher Rebbe once explained that the service of clarification includes and .AnexampleofthefirstistheescapefromEgypt.TheEgyptians both represent evil that a person cannot transform and therefore can only flee from, or coerce (as in the drowning of the Egyptians in the sea). But, there is also the service of transformation, something that is described later in the same Torah portion (Beshalach) that describes the fleeing from the Egyptians. When the Jewish people came to Marah, thebitterwatersweretransformedintosweetwaters,andGodsaid,ForIamGodyour ), which is the special service of the month of Iyar (the initials of Healer, ( thewords spell ,Iyar). But, says the Rebbe, the service of unification is actually neither coercion or transformation of evil. Unification is actually the service that was practiced by the ) for Patriarchs and the Matriarchs, which is the service called being a chariot ( God. Obviously since they are male (Patriarchs) and females (Matriarchs), they have to dowiththecouplingbetweenthem,theunificationsbetweenthem. How should we understand this? The Rebbe explains that there are three interpretations of the verse,Refrain from evil and do good, that explain this. The first interpretation is that your main focus in serving God should be to refrain from evil, and as youre running away from evil, you should do as much good as you can. This is of course the most predominant stance adopted by frum Jews. This is service that is called . Thus, according to this stance, the main thing is fear of Heaven, which is of coursetrue. There is a second interpretation, that you should capture the evil and turn it into goodness.Asyourefrainfromevil,youactuallycaptureit,butthenasitsinyourhand, because you are controlling it, you have power over it, you turn it into something good. ). Thisisofcoursetransformation.Thisisstillpartoftheserviceofclarification( Now what about unification, being a chariot? The key is complete distraction from evil. Just forget about evil altogether, in every respect. Even when it comes to your God forbid own suffering, you just have to ignore it altogether and keep your mind only on God (as in the famous story with Rebbe Zusha). By doing so, you simply add more and more goodness into reality. This is the service of unification. We said this because of the SefatEmetsexplanationoftheverse,FrommyfleshIwillenvisiontheAlmighty.

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Numerical Analyses
Now we come to the very important part of analyzing this phrase, And from my fleshIwillenvisiontheAlmighty( )numerically.Firstofall,thevalue oftheentirephraseis621,thevalueofcrown( )inAramaic. In this phrase, the second and third words have a ratio of 1:2, or as we call it, a wholeandahalf.Ishallenvision( )equals21andtheAlmighty( ) equals 42. Together they equal 63, which is the sum of the 3 times that the Name Ekyeh ( ), whosevalueis21,appearsintheTorah. 12 Thevalueofthephrase,621isalso3times207,light().Indeed,thecrown() contains 3 lights, which in the earliest writings of Kabbalah are described as lights: , , . 13 The three levels of the crown thus correspond to the three wordsofthephrase, wordinphrase theAlmighty Iwillenvision Andfrommyflesh lightofcrown

levelofcrown faith pleasure will

Lets explain this correspondence. An interesting point we learn from this correspondence is that the flesh is an expression of a persons will. It is not the person himself, but rather something more external, but it is through it that a person can envisiontheAlmighty,byrectifyingthefleshandpurifyingit. To envision (even though this happens in the minds eye) is of course related to the eyes. Of all the senses, the eyes and sight are considered the most pleasurable. In this case,weseethatenvisioningisrelatedtopleasure,theheadofnothingness. Ofcoursethethirdlevel,theAlmightyisrelatedtothehighestheadofthecrown,the unknowablehead,whichinthesoulmanifestsassimpleandpurefaithintheAlmighty. Now, for more complex analysis of the phrase. Looking at the initial and final letters theyare,,and.Wecandenotethepatternthatrepeatshereinanalgebraicform, like a formula, abb (with regard to the initials: a = , and b = ; with regard to the final letters: a = , and b = ). So this is one level of pattern in the words of this phrase. But, nownotethatthepatternhastwolevelstoit,becausethedifferencebetweenthetwoas andthetwobsis4! Now, let us say something about series. This is a bit technical and is meant for those students that are either teaching these topics in our schools or are writing books on the subject. If a series begins with the form a, b, b (e.g., 2 3 3) then it is a quadratic series (a seriesofsecondorder)withfemininesymmetry.Inaserieswithfemininesymmetry,the averagevalueofthefirst13numberswillbethevalueofthe8thnumber. NowintheentireBible,thispatternrepeatsonlyonemoretime,inaversethatisalso from Job (thus this pattern is unique to the Book of Job), Have I caused the eyes of a

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Now note that the full verse from which the phrase is taken connects the envisioning of God with Jobs skin. Regarding skin and how it symbolizes the expression of inner lights that strike one another and become surrounding light for a partzuf, the Arizal teachesthefollowing.InthecaseofZeerAnpin,thefillingofHavayahis .The yud is the intellect received from father, which enters into the intellect received from mother, thus there is a striking of the filling of these two letters: (20) times (6) = 120. The next thing is that the intellect of the mother strikes the emotive faculties, the midot, (6) times (13) = 78. Finally the lights of the emotive faculties strike the kingdom, which is (13) times (6) = 78 once again. So, altogether, the three acts of strikingormultiplicationyieldasumof276,whichisthevalueofskin( ). Now lets go a step back. We know that there is a special relationship between the words light () and skin () , especially in relation to the garments of skin God made Adam and Eve, given that the letters alef and ayin have special relationship between them (alef is the inner light of the letter ayin). This special relationship can also be seen numerically, because both light and skin have a very large common denominator,69.Light,207is3times69.Skin,276,is4times69. Another way of saying 4 times 69 is 12 times 23. But, since 12 is the midpoint of 23 it follows that their product is the triangle of 23, or 276, as we already know. But look at the other products the Arizal mentions in this process. 120 is the triangle of 15 and 78 is the triangle of 12. Since 78 appears twice, twice a triangular number is a diamond number. So this particular meditation from the Arizal yields a beautiful algebraic equationinvolvingfiguratenumbers: U15b a12=U23 Weleavethegeneralizationofthisequationforanothertime.

3 levels of meditation
Now let us end with the commentary on the Mittler Rebbes Kuntres HahitpaalutA TreatiseonExcitationwrittenbyRebbeHilelofParitch.Ifwerecall,thebeginningofthe Kuntres is about how to elevate ourselves above excitation from the flesh (spirituality thatexpressedonlythroughtheflesh)toexcitationfromthepurelyspiritual.TheMittler Rebbewritesthathisfather(theAlterRebbes)mainfocuswastoelevatehisfollowersto achieve spiritual excitation from the soul and not from the flesh. One might make the mistake that the verse, From my flesh I will envision the Almighty, one should seek excitation of the flesh. But, obviously this is not true and to understand this clearly, we needtoreadRebbeHilel.

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RebbeHilelbeginswithateachingthatheheardfromRebbeIsaacofHomilwhichhe explainstobeveryrelevantforexplainingthemeaningoftheMittlerRebbeswords. Rebbe Isaac explained that there are not only two types of service, service of excitation from the flesh and service of excitation from the soul. Before the Alter Rebbe thereistheworldofintellectualmetaphorsunderstoodbytheintellectualsoul.Aperson who meditates upon this comes to an excitation from Godliness, but this excitation is still relatively corporeal. This corresponds to meditation in the sefirah of understanding. Understanding is mother, and this is the place of Jewish meditation. But, if the meditation, the intellectual contemplation only reaches ideas and forms that are related to the flesh it is only at the level of understanding. This existed before the Alter Rebbe. This is still called service of God, and the person seems to experience some light of Godlinessfromhismeditation,butrelativelythisisstilldarkness. Now, the second type of excitation comes from meditation that is centered on the Divine soul. These types of meditation focus on Gods Name, Havayah. 15 This is not just looking at how Gods Name permeates reality, but how it is above reality. Because of ), but rathercontemplation ( ). this it is not called merelymeditation ( We once said that there are young children who have pure eyes and have the ability to seehowGodrecreatestheworldateverymoment,physically.Thisisarevelationofthe Divinesoul,aboutwhichitsays,Whoiswise?Hewhoseesthenewborn[world]!This ofcoursecorrespondstothesefirahofwisdom. The third level is meditation that iscentered somuch on the Divine itself, that it goes beyondevenwhattheDivinesoulisexcitedby.Atthislevel,thepersonisexcitedbythe essenceoftheDivineitself,whichistheveryessenceofthesoul.Thisexcitationleadsto two opposite states, joy and pleasure, which is the lower level and the second is sorrow andbitternessonbeingcapturedwithinthecorporealrealm. These three levels correspond to the three words in the verse,From my flesh I will envisiontheAlmighty.Andwecansummarizeitasfollows: partofphrase theAlmighty Iwillenvision Andfrommyflesh typeofmeditation unification( )
contemplation( )

sefirah crown wisdom understanding

meditation( )

ThisiswhatRebbeHilelheardfromRebbeIsaac,andhewritesthatthisisrelevantto thewordsoftheMittlerRebbehere. ThisiswhattheAlterRebbededicatedhislifetorevealinginhisfollowers,theability tomeditateontheessenceoftheDivine. But, after all this, the literal meaning of the verse,From my flesh I will envision the Almighty, is that even if a person reaches the high level of total unification with the Divine, because we are still a soul in a body, this is not the end. The end has to be to

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explain things in such a way that the body can be imbued with this Godliness that is contemplatedandthiscanonlybeachievedthroughthemetaphorsdiscussedearlier.As RebbeHilelexplainselsewhere,eachtopicinTorah,eachpointthatonewantstoinform the intellectual soul about requires two metaphors. One metaphor based on something inthephysicalworldascientificmetaphor.Andanothermetaphororparablebasedon somethinginthepsychologicalrealm.

One last analysis

Now let us look for a moment at the wordunification, . It is special because it is thelettersgoingbackwardsfromto,skippingonelettereachtime. If we would continue with the same pattern, we would find that the letters surrounding are : The value of unification together with these two letters , = 60, which is itselftheproductofthetwosurroundingletters,times. The letters that we skipped are and their value is 44, the value of blood ( ). Sotheheart() ,thetwolettersthatsurroundalltheseletters,isfullofunification( ) andblood( ).
.WrittenbyMosheGenuth. .Job19:26. 3.Job4:2. 4.Ibid.1:1. 5.Genesis22:12. 6.Job14:4. 7.TikuneiZohar19(41b). 8. In English this is idiomatically referred to as wrapping your head around some new idea. But, note the difference between the two idioms, breaking your head, vs. wrapping your head. The Englishidiomimplies that new understanding merely requires expandingyourmind in order to fit something new into it. But, the Hebrew, Torahbased idiom, implies that to truly understand a concept in Torah one has to break ones mind, that is, to shatter original concepts that are based on the understanding of a corporeallycentered mindset and replace them with all new ones that are diametrically their opposite. The new mindset must then reinform our corporealidentityinordertobefullyplantedinourlives. 9.Isaiah58:7. 10.LikuteiMoharan22:5.Forthoseinterested,hereisthecompletepassageinHebrew: , ,
1 2

, ' " ( " ) , ' , , ,

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. , , , , - , - , , - , , . - , - , - ' " ' , "( " : ) . , ". , ' ; ' , 11.Vayeira5659.SeealsoMetzudatDavidontheverseinJob19:26. 12.Allinasingleverse,Exodus3:14. 13.SeeRabainuBachayeionExodus34:6. 14.Job31:16. 15. These are the types of meditation included in our volume, Sod Hashem leeyereiav and in the companionvolume,ShiurimbasefersodHashemleeyereiav.

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