What follows in this post after a quick introduction is a digest of my reading notes to Me’or ‘Einayim (Light of the Eyes) (1763 -1797). Translated into English with erudite care by Arthur Green, this early Hasidic text is a canonical collection of teachings by Rabbi Menachem Nachum of Chernobyl (1730–1797) organized as a gloss to the Pentateuch. It goes largely unnoticed and unremarked that Me’or ‘Einayim does not come from the direct hand of Rabbi Nahum himself. The teachings were, instead, assembled by a student. It is this distance at least once removed which lends to the text the book-like coherence and distant iconic aura surrounding the ghostly presence of the Hasidic master. These are not my first impressions. Indeed, the literary and thematic consistency is something I am coming to see more clearly as I work my own reading notes into the body of this digest. Green’s marvelous translation preserves what seems to be the composition of separate original teachings within a single parsha. As I reconstruct my own notes into this digest, I blend these separate teachings together. For me, this has heightened the impression of the strong editorial work of the student compilers, each parsha standing out as a comprehensive and coherent statement as part of the commentary’s larger conceptual arc.

The ME’OR ‘EINAYIM is Cossack Baroque

Early Hasidism is Ukrainian or, more colorfully, Cossack Baroque, a late seventeenth and early eighteenth style defined by “religious icons painted in a distinctive, expressive style blending Byzantine tradition with Baroque dynamism,” or, alternatively, “the religiosity of the Middle Ages with the ideas of the Renaissance (the interest in nature, history, and the individual).”  CHAT GPT will tell you that Cossack Baroque is a style of “bright, vivid colors and ornate gilding in religious paintings and altarpieces” with a focus on “saints, leaders, and historical themes.” Cossack Baroque “reflects the national and cultural aspirations of Ukrainians under Cossack rule, asserting their identity amidst foreign domination.” According to the Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine,  “The main features of the literary style known as [Cossack] baroque are a great emphasis on originality and an overabundance of stylistic devices, particularly metaphors, hyperboles, and antitheses” intended to move and evoke strong emotions in the reader or student. These are all features of the Baroque characteristic of the iconic tradition in Hasidic literature, the image of light surrounded in the dark.

The ME’OR ‘EINAYIM is Da’at

As per Green in his introduction and notes, the ME’OR ‘EINAYIM is philosophy of mind and anthroposophical theology. It is of a piece with what Yonathan Garb calls Modern Kabbalah. The main theme that saturates all the constituent topoi of the commentary is Da’at, the third of the sefirot in kabbalistic theosophy balancing Hochmah or wisdom and Binah or understanding as the world of Thought. Green translates Da’at  variously as Mind and Awareness, and will just as frequently stick with the Hebrew. My intention is to do the same, toggling between the Hebrew Da’at and the English Mind and Awareness and even Mind-Awareness as much as possible to maintain a necessary link to the Hebrew while highlighting the philosophical aspects of the Hasidic text.

The ME’OR ‘EINAYIM IS dyadic

Reflected in “metaphors, hyperboles, and antitheses,” the iconic picture world is conceptually dyadic in the ME’OR ‘EINAYIM and arguably in Hasidic literature writ large.

In the garb or garment of carnal knowledge and knowing, Da’at is tzimtzum –the supernal theomorphic force of Mind entering into the creaturely-created world of contracted distinctions, the life-force or ḥiyyut revealed in physical beings, but made especially manifest in human speech, especially prayer and Torah study, splitting into a chaos of individuated minds and other channels.  On the lower rungs of spiritual being, human beings are unable to withstand unadulterated the bright love of divine Hesed. The light of God is therefore concealed in the physical world, dark and carnal and sexual, manifested only by these filters of divine contractions and judgments, even to the point of harsh suffering and cruelty. Intermixing good and evil in this low level of human mind-awareness, Da’at descends into the world not so much to embrace as much as to elevate sexual desire, even “the place of bad love,” and also converse with gentiles into the service of God, the co-mingling of the fear of God and the love of God.

As if in pantheism, this awareness of the divine life-force or ḥiyyut in all things is, however, only the penultimate expression of mind-awareness as it begins to open up and expand before the acosmic image of God embedded in the holy four-letter name –YHWH. The expansion of Da’at is the most radical and humble awareness that there is no-thing in the world but God, that earthly objects and other beings taken on their own and apart from the divine are truly void and without purpose and form. Da’at is beyond material and material-mental illusion. At its most expansive and highest height, Da’at is Mind-Awareness manifesting the humility of ascent and elevation, the pure mercy and good and light of  God’s holy name, the union of God and Torah, the union of Torah and Israel, the union of God and Torah and Israel, the power of the Tzadik to sweeten and nullify the judgements of God in the place of divine Thought, the coming of the messiah, corporeal matter turning into spiritual form, this world turning into the world to come. No longer of this world, Da’at is pure pleasure, the supernal beauty of God and God’s light garbed in the protective garments of Torah one day without a garb.

I hope to continue to build up this post over the course of the new Jewish year. In the beginning with Genesis, the digest starts now below the Read More mark

ME’OR ‘EINAYIM

APPROBATION (R. Levi Yitzchak of Berdichev)

A panegyric in an age of disenchantment. Yitzchak indicates that the people today are exiled among their enemies, that vision has been sealed off, the sun of our prophets having set. But God’s mercy continues to extend over those who fear him, and a remnant remains who open the gates of light to our eyes even here.

EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION (Eliyahu son of Zeev Wolf Katz of Yurevich)

Eliyahu son of Zeev Wolf Katz of Yurevich  describes how his teacher Rebbe Nahum would sit and expound on Shabbat and holidays. He relates the desire of people for a written version of his words. The students assembled two volumes, these being this collected commentary on the Torah and a separate exegesis on Aggadah and midrash. The light was good and the words were pleasant, and approved as in accord with his own heart by Rebbe Nahum.

GENESIS

[[A theoretical arc: God is the source of the life-force. God enters into the material-corporeal world of creaturely contraction and assumes shape as Torah. In the dark place of the world, bound up in sexual desire, Love and Fear combine into Da’at, which is the image of God in the human person, namely the Tzadik, represented by Jacob]]

Breishit*

[[Green calls the commentary to this parsha an introduction to the entire ME’OR ‘EINAYIM (p.109). It’s not explicitly stated, but it seems as if the entire focus of this parsha is Wisdom, Hokhmah.]]

Torah is the beginning of God’s way, but what is God’s way in the world of creation? The ME’OR ‘EINAYIM starts with contraction (tzimtzum) of God and descent of Toah into chaos of dark matter, which is like death. Even here, Torah still bears fruit. The attention of the ME’OR ‘EINAYIM is fixed on the inner ḥiyyut of God in all things + the rejection of the material corporeal aspect of creation. On the one hand, all beings animated by inner hiyyut-Torah-God; a light in the dark. On the other hand, everything is dark: the world on its own is formless and void. The Hasidic commentary already contains a rich vein of misogyny before the creation  of Eve. The life force is hidden in the dark, on the lowest rung, which is repulsive, represented by women and sexual desire. What attracts in women, in the world, is a thread of grace, not body and bodily needs. In the beginning, God creates the human with only a low mind or da’at. Because darkness desire to be folded into light. The very order of creation is darkness expanding into light. The waning of the moon is the waning of Mind- Awareness, coupled with the sanctification of moon. Mind waxes and wanes. Waning first in exile, and then waxing in the future when it Da’at will emerge from diminution. The enlargement of Da’at  in all things, even the lowest and corporeal, creates a place for God in the world. The creation of Adam, the human, is the small temple, is Israel, the entire community or klal, through whom God’s kingdom spreads in the corporeal world in order to overcome materiality. Moses is prefigured in this parsha as pure awareness, the humility of the Tzadik to see the self as nothing compared to God, to grasp that serving God is without end. There is nothing in the world without God, because there is no place devoid of God. All Torah contained in single point, the divine sefira of Hochmah, the unity of the left brought into right, the lower into upper wisdom. God remains within and beyond. Darkness  and youthful folly are absorbed into light.  This is the more or less final word of the parsha. The world is house with no light. A lamp is brought in and the whole house lights up.

Noaḥ*

[[The world needs the help of God, the Torah in all people, the power of the Tzadik, and the fear of God]]

The parsha transitions awareness from wisdom to fear. According to the secret of reincarnation, we learn that Noah is Moses; the people of the flood the people of the desert. Noah is a tzadik who takes from people the good they contain. But he needs help. Israel are “woman” in their relation to God. Noah had no arousal from below so God had to arouse him first, to give him the desire to cleave to him. ME’OR ‘EINAYIM teaches that God and Torah are one and the world needs Torah to exist, that there is no place without God, that God is not whole without Israel and Israel is not whole without God. The tzadik raises bits of Torah fallen among the nations. Indeed, the wholeness of Torah includes conversation with non-Jews. “Think about this.” Torah is in every person. But the tzadik is special, the one who gives pleasure to God, mitigating the forces of divine judgment. To do so one has to break one’s material self. Ultimately, creation is but for the sake of awe before God. Perfect is Torah, not the world. At a higher rung of understanding, yira is Shekhinah’s fear of YHWH, a “man of war.” The King commands, Israel obeys, even as the closeness of the Tzadik to God’s compassion and desire causes judgments to flee from this place.

Lech Lecha*

[[Abraham is Love or Hesed, including sex, the lifting of illicit sex back to the divine root by means of proper gazing and ultimate ascent]]

“Abraham, Abraham,” “Jacob,Jacob,” “Moses, Moses.” The double calling of the righteous indicates that “God’s people are a part of him” (חלק ה׳ עמו) (Deut. 32:9). The tzadik lives above and below. If Jacob and Moses manifest Da’at, Abraham is the master of love and the love of God. But he needs to leave home and descend to the nations, who attach themselves to Abraham, in order to raise back to God not just the debased or fallen nations, but corrupted sexual desire itself, “that  place of bad love.” The human soul is garbed in foul matter with bodily and earthly desires, which  lead her back to God. The sexual thoughts and bad or illicit or fallen love are brought back to God and to the fear of God by means of that very arousal itself. God and Torah are one. Israel is God’s channel of blessing into physical world. The great Tree, which is God, and the lesser tree, which is the human, are grafted together. But the light of great Hesed is too bright for human creatures to withstand. The light needs a veil and a garb. In the Hasidic inversion, sin, which is Din, the source of judgment, i.e. evil, is itself Hesed. Without the joining of Din and Hesed, there is no revelation of Hesed to creatures. In this way, the greater the good, the stronger and more harsh the contraction, which folds into good. Why force Abraham to leave his country? Because Hesed and the good qualities have to fall into a mixture of good and evil, which are then raise up. Bad forms of love,” even incest in the story of Lot and his daughters, and sexual thoughts, are understood as fallen fruit from the supernal tree. Isaac is introduced as the force of din spreading in world without which divinity cannot be known. Circumcision would be a force that removes judgement and reveals the inner life-force or hiyyut in all things. Torah is also circumcised, the casting of shells being aides to the battle against the evil inclination of the Yetzer, the sinking into sexual desire which damages the “covenant.” Therein lies the spiritual meaning of true speech and words of Torah, which includes ordinary speaking about worldly matters. Not unrelated to the theme of proper gazing, the parsha concludes with the mitzvot of tzitzit and tefillin, which mark out any place where God is present as God’s throne of glory. We make of ourselves in the world a throne of God. Even illicit love and evil becomes a throne for the good when brought back to the good. This ascent to God is gradual, not sudden, as you bring your own mind into the great sea from which you ascend to the sky and from there to the throne of glory.

Va’Yera*

[[The stature of the righteous]] 

The three men who appear before Abraham at the terebinths of Mamre are Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They are the chariot of God. God appears to “him,” in every Jew, even the most wicked in their rebellion. Torah derives from the divine wisdom or Hokhmah, garbed in a single point, all those words in a single word, in the yud of God’s name.  Abraham grasps Torah in that single point, in Hochmah which is the life of all the worlds. Before Abraham, there is chaos in the world. Abraham enters into the covenant of circumcision in order to inherit the Land. He greets and welcomes the Shekhinah. At the gates of hell, Abraham wants to bring wicked Jews under the Shekhinah and raise fallen gentile souls. God appears even among the wicked; as long as they don’t conceal the sign of circumcision; so God can be seen there as well. Again, we learn that Torah and Israel are inseparable. When they are separate, the Tzadik brings them  back together. The wicked believe in the Tzadik in whom shines light of God. In the world, sin contains the Fear of Heaven and the life force. The Fear of Heaven should be on a person like the fear of flesh and blood, the fear of being watched; this is the hiyyut within the sin. In this light, the Tzadik enters the place of klippot, the Kingdom spreads over all beings, even over the place of sin and places of thick darkness. The righteous are greater than ministering angels, who can only see and know the aspect of Abraham through seeing Sarah.

Ḥayyei Sarah*

[[Dying to this world to cleave to God in the image of God impressed in the human person]]

The person who seeks to live must die, i.e. to the vanities of the physical world. Abraham is the first to make known God’s divine in world. His virtues are humility and acts of loving kindness (gemilut ḥasidim). Sarah is body, subjugated to soul (Abraham). Abraham put the physical body to death in Kiryat Arba, which is a reflection of the 4 letter name of God. Elohim is the tzimtzum of God and life force into the letters of Torah, which makes God and Torah one. The hiyyut or life-force channels into the limbs of the body thru the corresponding mitzvot and their study. The concomitant power of the Tzadik is healing and wholeness and raising the sick with divine names. God dwells within  the person and the His fear falls upon him. The Great King stands before the person and dwells within him. But only if the person is humble, imbued with the faith that there is nothing but God, and that everything will be set right of its own accord. By manipulating divine names, the Tzadik assumes power over God. Divine judgments are brought by him to the hidden world where there are no negative forces, only simple mercies. They are sweetened there, all of them nullified. Abraham’s merit is an arousal from below channeling divine blessing into the world which God created to be an object of His mercies. But the ultimate intentional object is the glorification and making God’s name great by Israel in the image of God, the human realization of divine attributes through the combination of deed followed by supernal wisdom (the secret of na’aseh va’nishma, we will do and we will hear). The human being is a microcosm of God whose spiritual middot are impressed into human form. The human cleaves to God, not the God of fire, but to the 13 attributes of mercy, clothing from below the divine glory above, becoming one with God by means of these qualities or glory (the 13 attributes of the beard). God is impressed into a human form, which is how a person can cleave to God. The person who cleaves to God is like the angels who love and compassion in receiving one another. The divine Hokhmah or wisdom is no more than a dot, high and impossible to grasp, divinity itself from which all letters emerge.

Toledot*

[[Love + Fear + Knowledge]]

At this elevated stature, the ME’OR ‘EINAYIM positions the Jewish people as the feet of the divine chariot (beauty, wisdom, strength). If there is a system in the commentary, it might be this. First, the raising of all sexual desire, including that place of bad love like adultery and incest, is intended to broaden the holy in the world, which is a mix of good and evil. Second, yirah or  fear is the house that contains and refracts direct light of love. This is why God commanded Abraham to offer Isaac as a ritual offering. The Akeidah manifests for Abraham an arousing of cruelty within his own self. The Binding of Isaac manifests that fearsome aspect, subsuming judgment or Din (the quality of Isaac) in Abraham (the sefira of Hesed). The intentional purpose is for Abraham to raise fallen forces and negative powers. We love and fear God through Abraham and Isaac. Third, there is now in this parsha a recognizable shift in the human theomorph. Joining the hesed of Abraham and the fear of Isaac, we come to know God through Jacob who raises the entire matrix of generative forces in things to the service of God. Love and fear are joined are in common purpose. It is Jacob who ultimately raises the life-force or hiyyut in things  to the service of God, garbed in garments that smell of all things, like the smell of a field or orchard of apples. In this way, Jacob manifests the image of God in “man,” which is Torah, a contraction from the world of Thought and dressed in letters and other garments. “In my own flesh I see God” (Job 19:26). Not cut off from the source, the person is one with God. Perhaps the reference is to Abraham at the Akeidah: one kills the self, doing only what brings pleasure to God, becoming one with the divine image in you. I think it is Jacob described as the one who draws water from the divine wells dug by his father Isaac. In this theodicy, evil has its source in divine judgments which are sweetened and annulled when drawn to the right side which is Isaac. God contracts into this lowly place to extend life to the nations. Isaac loves Esau. Isaac wanted to give this world to Esau, but Rebecca gives to Jacob this world, even if the enjoyment of which is postponed until end of days so as not to distract Israel from service of God. (see p.330 in Va’Yetze). Jacob and Esau have to be joined. Jacob raises holiness in Esau, who is, after all, a container for holiness, i.e. R. Akiva. This is not a statement of ecumenical universalism. After purification, the evil vessel falls apart on its own, now empty of holiness, leaving Da’at which must suffer diminution before being raised higher into a second and more expanded Mind-Awareness. Da’at stands at the center of all created being as balancing theomorphism. The greater awareness of God sought from below is now granted from above. God derives pleasure in the offering of sin. That which was faraway is now brought near to God.

Va’Yetze*

[[Da’at assumes external form in the world]]

Da’at now assumes central position in the ME’OR ‘EINAYIM. Jacob is the manifestation of da’at hidden in the legendary house of Eber. Jacob must leave the place of Torah’s hiding to gather Torah elements scattered in the world. Jacob prepares the way for the revelation of Torah in this world by means for purifications in Haran, the place of evil forces. Before going to Laban, there is no revelation of this hidden da’at/Torah in the world. Jacob is the quintessential chariot. The Tzadik is like the Temple, in the image of light and beauty. Jacob carries the holy place with him wherever he goes. Once hidden in Beersheva, Torah only now assumes external form. Torah or Da’at is all one. Jacob is choicest among all the patriarchs. In the story of Jacob’s flight, we see how Mind-Awareness pours forth from the unified supernal source and divides into individual minds that fight and struggle in this world of distinctions. There are 12 stones, 12 tribes, 12 minds. Da’at separates into channels. The stones quarrel until formed into one pillar by Jacob and anointed with oil. All opinions (de’ot?) are now seen as equally good. “These and these are the words of the Living God.” Like a Temple in miniature, the Tzadik lifts others with him to sublime holiness, attaching them to letters in which glory and light dwell. In this dream-vision of Israel’s exile, the ladder is Shekhinah connecting heaven and earth after Hurban for us today. (Jacob should have ascended the ladder but was afraid of falling, and his children are punished for this lack of faith.) Da’at is drawn from the world of Thought (Hochman + Binah) and into speech (Torah), raising judgments back to  their source in the world of Thought where there is no judgment. There are only friends, here. No longer enemies, everything is now part of the good, with no dregs of evil left. Jacob leaves this place and goes to Haran, a place full of harsh judgments. Jacob raises them by speaking words of Torah and in mindful prayer, repairing damage. In exile, the Mind-Awareness of Da’at is the unifying force set upon earth and reaching heaven. In the messianic age, Da’at is purified. Now God despises Esau and loves only Jacob. In this eschatology, the excess and luxury enjoyed by nations are lifeless and repulsive.  In the messianic age, matter turns into form, the nations fall away. There is now total oneness of God-Torah-Israe. In the messianic age, this world is no longer this world. Matter so purified becomes one and now called world to come. For his part, the Tzadik struggles up the ladder, rung by rung towards holiness,falling and rising. Ordinary Jews fall and God descends in contracted form for you, which is God’s mercy. Mind expands at the moment called Elijah when the whole “earth” fills with knowledge, each of us aware of God’s glory. By looking into Torah, the human person activates the divine point of Hochmah within the human creature, expanding Da’at, the flow of living water from Eden.  The fulfillment of Torah is rooted in faith, accepting rebuke, a maintaining a state of humility. God dwells in the pure heart. In the act of teshuva, returning to YHWH, you become a  throne for the sublime glory, for God himself. Worship through material things, including money, is a great service. The ladder in Jacob’s dream is poverty and wealth. One sorts out sparks in earthly things, silver and gold, and concern for financial gain, all the things that remove people from God and expose them to Sitra Aḥra. These are all raised to the chariot, while  God contracts self in exile. Jacob returns back to the Land of Isael whole and builds a house. Creation is still not complete. Creation requires purification, the ultimate widening bounds of the holy in the days of our messiah.

Va-Yishlach*

[A short stump of a  commentary; Green suggests this is a  Tisha b’Av homily. It’s very grim. It may be that what follows is just an appendage to the commentary to Genesis]

The ME’OR ‘EINAYIM  teaches that world, soul, and time share the same structure. We continue to wrestle with the Sitra Aḥra and the Yetzer until the messianic dawn and full face-to-face coupling of Israel and God. Ninth of Av is when Sitra Ahra takes power, which is why we fast. The angel with whom Jacob wrestles harms Israel. Secrets of Torah handed over to evil forces, namely the nations, which God will return to us. Then Mind will be fully present, only the presence of God face to face just as it was when Torah was given.

Va-Yeshev*

{Mitzvot]

This is also a very short teaching. Green explains that the ME’OR ‘EINAYIM, like almost all other Hasidic commentaries taper off after Jacob, perhaps because the Joseph narratives are relatively secular (p.337). But the final point seems important. Back down to planet earth after the commentary to parshat Va’Yetze, Torah-Da’at now puts on the garb of [mere] stories. (Green suggests that primordial Torah is non-narrative [p.338n.2]). God creates the world for good. The truest part of the good is the pleasure in doing of mitzvot by Israel in the world. When the righteous speak of worldly things for the sake of ordinary people, they remain attached to God. When we speak about the Exodus, the Exodus should be present. Joseph is a tzadik raising up all souls by means of speech, etc.

Miketz*

[The power of the Tzadik, Hanukah and holidays, Egypt]

The Tzadik embodies divine power, which is the rule and power of the Tzadik over God. The Tzaik raises Israel which strengthens the divine family and nullifies divine decrees and forces of judgment. God suffers with Israel. By raising the community of Israel, the Tzadik adds strength to God. In the case of Mattathias the Hight Priest, he is a great Tzadik and teaches people Da’at, i.e. how to cleave to Gpd, uplifting Malchut and defeating the Hellenists, and setting forces of judgment aside. Torah teaches that the human person is part of God. Every mitzvah creates a garment. So does sin. Hanukah is time to return to God after the defiling wisdom by the Greeks. The mitzvah of lighting Hanukah lamps constitutes a low grade of wisdom. In contrast to Shabbat, whose lights are supernal and high, God descends on Hanukah right to where the person is in order to draw us near.  That’s why wicks and oil forbidden for Shabbat are permitted on Hanukah. The seven beautiful cows in Pharoah’s dream are the seven lower sefirot. The ugly cows are their perversion. Evil eats up the good, i.e. Torah and mitzvot. We then repent. The ME’OR ‘EINAYIM speaks about the entire holiday cycle (pp.348, 352). Perhaps a pessimistic comment about early modern Jewish life in his own time and place, the upshot is that our strength today to hold fast to Torah and to our laws comes from our ancestors who pray for future generations. Joseph’s blessing of Benjami (yeḤoNekha)  is a prayer for God to perform miracles and wonders on Hanukah which prepares for messiah. Is this now the end of the commentary to Genesis, with Shabbat, revealed here as a name of God, called covenant, another name of Torah, marking the completion of Creation, present in the world from the beginning but caught in the clutches of Egypt and reduced to fragments? The final word of the parsha is teshuva, restoring the broken lower sefirot to God, and the promise of true service in the Temple.

Va-Yigash*

[Torah is God’s glory and beauty]

ME’OR ‘EINAYIM teaches that Torah is not just stories, but God’s glory and beauty, clothed in protective garments. Torah is fire and water, the love and  fear of God held together as Da’at, the person a microcosm, containing all worlds in miniature held together by God. Tzadik has authority over God. God issues decrees and the Tzadik annuls.

Va’Yehi*

No commentary

EXODUS*

[The difference between Genesis and Exodus is Thought and Speech. In the book of Genesis, Da’at is divine Thought entering into the corporeal world where awareness is completed in Jacob. In the book of Exodus, Moses brings Da’at-awareness into the world of Speech. The commentary to Exodus goes from [1] the exile of Da’at-awareness in in the lower worlds of harsh suffering symbolized by Egypt to [2] Da’at-awareness-mind in the garment of Torah, the fearsome Gevurah-beauty of YHWH, and God’s holy brilliance, to [3] Da’at in the Tabernacle-Mishkan, the power and mercy of God, the dwelling place of God, an immanent presence engraved inside the human heart, expanded Mind and unlimited pleasure in a dark, spiritual world. Boiled down to its essence, the commentary on Exodus reflects upon purification, the purging of poison in us. Expanded Da’at is knowing there is nothing but God. On the one hand, Da’at never leaves the material world, but, on the other hand, there is only God. Israel is nothing less and nothing more than a part of God.]

Shemot*

[Descent of Da’at to lowest rung of awareness and corporeal garbs; Torah enters into the world of Speech from its origin in the world of Thought]

The commentary to Exodus starts with the descent to the lower rungs and the uplift of fallen souls. The Tzadik is the emissary who goes to the low places to which he is sent. All who serve God are priests. In the book of Exodus, we now begin to see the crystallized emergence of Da’at into the world of ordinary awareness. The Jewish body (skull, right and left arm, right thigh and left thigh, the corona of the phallus) is full of holy names.

The new king does not know Joseph because of the exile of Da’at in the exile in Egypt. Da’at awareness is knowing that “all one’s power and vitality are the blessed Creator, the powerful and able One, Master of all powers…who sets all of one’s powers into motion” (p.371). When Da’at is in exile, there is no creation, just chaos and void. Composed of Hesed and Gevurah forces, Da’at awareness emerges as such only in exile. When Da’at leaves Egypt, the world is created anew.

Originally, Torah was in the place of Thought. God’s bright light is then garbed, hidden and dressed up in garments of Torah, allowing us to see that light bit by bit. Torah-Da’at is the garb/garment/shield that protects the finite awareness of the limited human being from the great divine light, which in the future will be revealed without garb. The midwives are the first to perceive the fear of God.  Pharaoh’s daughter sees the Shekhinah with Moses, as does Yocheved, the mother of Moses. In the future redemption, the divine light will be without garment; before that, the mitzvah of circumcision merits the direct gaze. Attaining brilliant light is becoming one with God above time. Israel is part of YHWH.

There are different levels of Da’at-mind enmeshed in Torah. Words of Torah are like mother’s milk. For a sickly infant, a mother bends down to nurse, whereas she picks up a healthy infant to nurse. God reduces Himself to the lowest rung of awareness. Above the lower mind that wants reward, the higher mind is free from self-interest and thinks only of God.

Adam’s sin puts Torah in a corporeal garb, introducing the knowledge of good and evil. Torah is poison. How is it poison? Because Torah is a reflecting mirror. You see yourself in the mirror as you really are. A person with evil in them sees evil in Torah. One who obliterates evil in them makes a Torah of perfect goodness. Reflecting on R. Meir in the Talmud, a sage is better than a prophet because the wisdom of the sage belongs to the world of Thought. There are all kinds of Thought and love, good love and bad love. They are all purified in Ḥochmah. Egypt is dominated by sexual lust. Israel purifies fallen thought, lifting lust to Ḥesed. Originally, Torah is in the world of Thought as grasped by the patriarchs. Torah now begins to crystallize, brought by Moses to the world of Speech, dressed in material garb at the banks (sefat) of the Nile.

Va’Era*

[Suffering; Elohim is YHWH, judgment is mercy]

Da’at is in exile. But no place is devoid of  God. God is the pleasure of pleasure and the life of life dwelling in all things to whom one should cleave with all one’s qualities. God contracts the intensity of presence in accord with what the world can bear. What we now come to know is that the harsh judgment suffered in this world is itself an act of mercy. The act or power of accepting and transforming or sweetening judgment is the essence of Da’at-mind. Redemption is the awareness that Elohim is YHWH. Elohim or YHWH, it’s all one. What seems like evil or harm is only a point of human confusion because people are unaware of the unity of divine names. The ME’OR EINAYIM draws the distinction between diminished versus heightened Mind-Awareness of God’s presence in everything. The plagues break the shells surrounding awareness by diminishing it and bringing about a trial.

Bo*

[A very short commentary on the plagues and free choice]

Pharoah’s free choice was taken from him, resolving the classical conundrum of human freedom and divine foreknowledge. Choice depends on Da’at-awareness. Without awareness, there is no choice. When Da’at is taken, when a person loses that quality of awareness, then there is no choice. One chooses by virtue of Mind. One chooses between good over evil only through awareness. The people in Egypt are unaware of YHWH. Pharoah denies the essence of faith, believing only in sorcery. Picking up the theme from the last parsha, the exodus from Egypt is the manifestation that the mercy of YHWH is Elohim, namely strong and omnipotent, master of all powers. A person falls from awareness because of some trial from God. Will the person stand by the ways of God? This requires faith.

Be’Shalach*

[Compact commentary (12 pages translation) on devotional practice and the power of purification. To serve and pray in a perfect way is to clear the mind for the imprint of Torah.]

Moses in the battle against Amalek is an emblem of devotional practice. Da’at is the essence of worship, the embodiment of love and awe. Fully aware of God, one loves God and stands in awe, hearing His voice and keeping mitzvot. Moses is Da’at. He raises his arms to lift the cosmic arms of love and awe, directing the gaze of Israel to look upward.

Manna from Heaven is also an emblem of daily practice. Food manifests Shekhinah contracting Herself to produce food for Israel, garbing Herself in food. Battle the evil yetzer when eating. Torah words leave an impression on the mind through the letters of the words spoken. An imprint remains in the brain even as it is cleared, making room for another imprint. The entire world is created through letters, which are the hiyyut in all things. The letters with which God created the world are the life-energy of all existence.

Purification is the core of devotional practice. If goodness is withheld from our lives, it is for us to return to YHWH and sweeten harsh judgments. Da’at is the awareness that everything is from God and is good, that the whole world is a revelation of divinity and everything is as it should be. Each person is part of Torah, and each part contains all, thus a Jew is the entire Torah, which is perfect. Israel was so pure in body that the Red Sea had to split before them as part of the purification by which the poison placed in Eve by the snake passes out of them.

The wise person sees that the divine ḥiyyut or life-force is garbed in vessels. A person of Israel is a spark of the Ein Sof. Each person contains all 10 sefirot, which are purified by serving God with the Creator’s life-energy within them. Special practices by the Besht and Rabbi Nahum’s teacher for cultivating holiness and purity, especially on Sabbath eve, include reciting Psalm 107. One seeks nothing for oneself, only for God. Even matters that seem profane are carried out in a pure and holy way. The person puts their own ḥiyyut into the world or something they do, binding themselves with all Israel and all the righteous, linking thoughts.

Yitro*

[On purification, only Torah can repair the broken world and overcome death, sweetening the forces of judgement. Torah purifies the human creature of the poison cast into Eve by the snake. The purifying power of Torah-Da’at starts with the fear and awe of divine Gevurah, and rises to the rung of bliss, the world of pleasure, the world of Binah, the life of life, ecstatic joy and love. The commentary to this parsha seems to be the main word on Torah by the ME’OR EINAYIM]

The commentary to this parsha starts with the paradigmatic statement uttered by Israel at Sinai: na’aseh va’nishma (we will do and hear).

First, we “do,” work and make an effort at God’s service, which demands fear and awe, awakening and desire and arousal for holiness. Fear is Gevurah. We attach, feel pleasure, fall to lower rungs from which we work and do and rise to an even  higher rung of awareness than the one before. we cleave to God even as we fall. Then we “hear,”  which is understanding at the level of Binah. We come to know that the earth is filled with God’s glory even at the lower rungs. We cleave to God in the life of the world alongside cattle, beasts, birds, and humans whose life-force is rooted in the life of life.

On the power of God or Gevurah, after the sin of Adam, the world is a broken place, which only Torah, dressed in snakeskin, can fix. We study Torah for her sake, to remove the poison cast into her by the serpent. That’s why the ten commandments are spoken by Elohim (Gevurah). Awe of the Creator and fear God is the beginning of wisdom/Torah. The Tzadik binds Creator to creatures through the medium of Torah and the letter alef in him. At Sinai, divine speech is garbed in the voice of Moses. God is made small in us to dwell in us. One attaches oneself to letters of Torah, cleaving to God who dwells in the letters and removing the poison from Eve, i.e. from oneself. The Messiah is the great Tzadik, the channel through which all blessing will flow into the world.

Gevurah folds into Binah, the world of pleasure, the life of life. At Sinai, Israel attains the heart of Heaven only through fear. “I am Binah, Gevurah is mine” (אֲנִ֥י בִ֝ינָ֗ה לִ֣י גְבוּרָֽה) (Prov 8:14). Binah is the world of pleasure who draws all the judgments from Gevurah into Herself, sweetening them as they return to their root in Her. Only Torah can repair broken world, i.e. the world broken by judgment forces which arise from Binah and returned to their root in Her.

The ME’OR EINAYIM is critical of Hasidim who do not grasp the essence of fear.  Elohim speaking the 10 commandments manifests Gevurah. Because wisdom or Torah depends upon Gevurah, fear is the vessel of Torah that contains all Torah and prepares the people to receive Torah. The patriarchs were in awe of the Creator and as such grasped the entire Torah. At Sinai, Israel hears Torah in a single word. God speaks this quality of awe and fear, which is how Israel could receive Torah. Fear is the vessel with which one takes up fire and without which we would burn up.

Creation requires the surge of ḥiyyut emanating from the Creator. To receive this, finite creatures require an intermediary and pathways and channels to protect from the yetzer, Sitra Achra, Satan, the Angel of Death. This intermediary is the Tzadik who is related to the Creator through his neshamah, the alef within him that is truly a part of YHWH. The world is created for the Tzadik and sustained daily by him. Once there were multiple tzadikim, from Adam, Seth, Methusaleh, Enoch, Noah, and the patriarchs, whose mental powers were so great. Today there are fewer tzadikim and not so many blessings. The purpose of service today is to restore the portion of the messiah that belong to each one of Israel. The Messiah will be the great Tzadik, the channel through which all goodness flows. But now after the sin of the Golden Calf, Israel returns to its prior polluted status without a great Tzadik. Every year on Shavuot, which commemorates the giving of Torah at Sinai, all Israel has to rise to the level of the Tzadik to open channels and kill the Angel of Death.

The Torah of scholars without fear is not Torah. A person today must continue to hear the voice showing the path in study and worship. Israel enters the spiritual Sea of Wisdom split open at the physical Red Sea. God is clothed in the voice of Moses. Torah study is the attachment of the self to God who concentrates His presence and dwells in the letters of Torah. These are the palaces of the King. No evil can dwell in the person gazing at the beauty of endless life flowing through them. The poison from the serpent in Eve passes out of the person as it did at Sinai. Free from poison, Torah study  weakens the material self and the things that keep a person from God. Removed from the defilement of the serpent and his powers, cleaving to Torah allows one to gaze at the beauty of YHWH and God’s holy brilliance. One studies Torah for her sake, for Eve. The only free person is the one who engages in study of Torah, free from the yoke of kingdom and the ways of the world, binding a person to Ein Sof and giving power over death. Purification from poison is the condition for the coming of the Messiah. Otherwise, one must suffer oppression at the hands of the kingdom for the Messiah to come. Attach to Torah and the forces of evil split apart on their own.

At lower rungs of awareness, the anthropomorphic theology of the ME’OR EINAYIM is coarse and immanent, gentle and close. God  contracts into thick cloud, making God small enough to dwell within the limited creature. God places God’s soul-neshamah in us. How to cleave to an infinite God? Through the attribute of goodness. If God had not created the world, how could God have been good and merciful, compassionate, and long-suffering? For YHWH potential and actual existence are one and the same. In goodness, God contracts into the merciful self that garbs the Ein Sof. Acting according to these qualities (middot), the person cleaves to God and dwells within the corporeal, within those very limbs by which God is represented. God dwells within the bodily and the coarse so that the people will hear a spiritual hearing with the heart.

Mishpatim*

[Torah permutations and Creation, fixed in the mouth; Torah, God and Israel are one. There is noting in the commentary to this parsha relating to law, social law, and politics.

After revelation at Sinai, the mishpatim (ordinances) as permutations that can arranged, disarranged, and then rearranged back into good. The world was created for the sake of Torah. Torah is united with God and Israel. Torah, God, and Israel are all one. (Green cites Tishby who notes that this notion is attributed to Zohar e.g. 3:73a but that it is actually from Luzzatto.) Torah is composed of permutated letters, which the wicked can disorder and destroy world, causing the King to be garbed in wicked arrangements of letters, transforming good into wicked permutations, blessings into curse. Suffering atones for sins and enable arrangements to change again back to their original order. One places forces of judgments into their our Da’at-awareness and this transforms the orderings from evil to good.

Terumah* [Gestations of Da’at from Shekhinah in exile to messianic age; and Purim]

Shekhinah is in exile only for Israel, a divine self-contraction to meet our needs, not over other nations. Even in exile, God does not abandon Israel. The essential indwelling of Shekhinah will be  with the coming of our Messiah. Merriment marks the month of Adar. Haman’s plot is in Adar because Moses died in Adar, but Haman didn’t know Moses was also born in Adar. The plot is foiled by the Da’at in each Israel flowing in each generation, hidden in the mind of anyone who considers himself lowly, hidden in mind of the humble. Da’at enters a person at 13 years of age and matures over time as a person matures. Da’at is incomplete in our generation. Complete Da’at of God belongs to the messianic age.

Tezaveh*

[Green calls this very short commentary to this parsha one of our text’s “clearest and most statement of its mystical metaphysic {p.470}]. All Israel is rooted in Torah; Torah and God are one.  God contracts self, garbed in Torah, a garment of light]

All Israel has a soul rooted in Torah, which unites the souls of Israel with YHWH. Torah and God are one. The infinite God can only create a finite world, bounded by space and time, by means of Torah. God is garbed in Torah, the garments of light God made. In the tzimtzum of Torah there are borders, limits, measures. How to cleave to God, an infinite all-consuming fire? Through middot (qualities; measures). Middot of God are contractions dressed in the radiant garment that is Torah. One cleaves to God through Torah study or by supporting scholars (for those who can’t engage in Torah constantly). Moses is the Mind-Da’at of all Israel through whom Torah is drawn forth and joined.

Ki-Tissa*

[Space and Place, Nothingness and animating Divine in-dwelling; ritual, Shabbat, Mishkan/Tabernacle as place of purification and joy]

Da’at is revealed on Shabbat, perfect and lacking for nothing; one lacks for nothing on Shabbat. The commentary to this parsha is a discourse on place and space and the presence of God and human nothingness. Divinity spreads forth and reveals itself to Israel. Now complete, all Israel is a Mishkan for God, the dwelling place of God, which reduces the human self to the state of nothing. Even ignorant people are in awe of Shabbat. Every Shabbat reveals fear and love, the two crowns revealed to Israel at Sinai. God delights even in the worship of small Da’at, confident that this small Da’at will expand. On Shabbat, greater energies and mental powers flow without limit, pushing away dross and negating negative elements, and foreign thoughts are wiped away from the person. First comes the suffering of birth pangs in the major battle with the great snake. Our weekday conduct is that of Hanoch or Metatron in a hidden state, God’s name hidden within him. Dedication of the work of the six-day week is the path of preparation for Shabbat. Power of the Tzadik to rearrange permutations of letters. The Mishkan belongs to a larger spiritual matrix leaving no space empty of God. Space is void and empty without God’s living, animating presence filling all worlds, all letters, which are a palace. There is nothing without God; without God there is nothing. Shabbat and Mishkan is the place of joy, of bride and groom, the renewal of Creation, the place of attachment even in separation where all minds become one, words binding two friends together.

Va-Yaqhel*

[Shabbat; no contraction; expanded Da’at; unlimited pleasure ]

The commentary to this parsha carries the panegyric forward from Ki-Tissa. Sabbath joy is an inheritance without limit or border of Shabbat. No contraction, nothing broken. This is the holiness of Shabbat. Shabbat depends on 6 days of work, building up all that has fallen into brokenness. We make a dwelling for God’s dwelling  in lowly things, bringing them to their upper root: the Creator’s rule over the entire world and all creatures, the whole earth filled with  God’s glory.  Divine service is manifest in speech, thought, and deed, the life-force enclosed therein in a broken state. In human speech, thought, and deed, the divine life-force is channeled. Broken letters and broken souls come during prayer, included in those letters one speaks in awe, love and with great energy. Shabbat is expanded Mind, whole, unbroken, the great endless pleasure   which is the Creator in the letters of our Shabbat prayer. This joy depends on preparation of six-day workweek and holiness of Shabbat drawn back into the workday. Moses assembles the entire community, gathers all the crowns of Israel to whom is given the work of repair with help from above from the previous Shabbat. Shabbat is a name of God, perfect form every side with no judging forces. Shabbat is the world of Thought (Ḥokhmah), which is the source of Torah. The sage is called Shabbat because he’s bound to the world of Thought. The human being should have no labor apart from serving God as it was and will be in the future, lacking for nothing, your heart a Tabernacle for God. The glory of God is garbed in our midst, called Shekhinah, the tent dwells in the person once the person has removed evil from them. Against pride and the teachings of the haughty. Torah is the gift of holy Speech fixed in our mouth through which it conducts all worlds and repairs our deeds, which arouse flow of blessing from upper worlds downwards into the world. The work of building the Mishkan is our own connecting to God. In all our physical actions and needs, there is none beside God and nothing without God.

Pekuidei*

[The last fragmentary word of the commentary is teshuva and the word of God engraved in the human heart]

In every generation, Torah garbs itself in a way appropriate for the time. God gives Torah to bring down blessing from above. One can’t be a dwelling place of God if the evil inclination is in them. Sin makes the life fore of YHWH disappear. Repairing sin through self-affliction and confession which humbles the person and engenders regret, and then God will return to dwell in you. The word of God is engraved within us.

LEVITICUS*

Genesis takes place in the world of Thought. Exodus is the world of Speech. Leviticus takes shape in the World of Action where the power of the Maker is found in the Made. Leviticus is the pleasure principle of the Me’or  Einayim where everything is joined together, like the construction of the Tabernacle-Mishkan. From the place of darkness represented in Exodus, cracks begin to open out into the light. Fear and the divine attribute of Gevurah are quickly overcome. The principle of divine immanence is magnified inside the Mishkan, inside the letters of Torah which are objects of meditation. The image of God in the image of “man” is manifest in the image of Torah, the 248 positive mitzvot corresponding to the limbs of the human body, the 365 negative mitzvot correspond to the sinews of the human body (as per rabbinic tradition). There is relatively little evil inclination/yetzer or suffering in the commentary to Leviticus. Because the divine mind or Da’at has been scrubbed clean. The last word of the commentary to Leviticus is completion-perfection of the cosmic form.

Va-Yiqra*

[contraction; teshuva]

The Tabernacle or Mishkan is the ultimate purpose of the exodus from Egypt, the splitting of the Sea, and the giving of Torah. But God dwells not so much in the Mishkan as much as in  the people. The spiritual approach is gradual, not exposing the human person all at once to the divine light. A person lives life in the dark. The Mishkan opens a little crack to see just a bit of light, which then widens into a window. In this version of the Platonic cave, after this point, the person is taken outdoors and exposed directly to light. Israel in Egypt was sunk in fifty measures of defilement. God is the cosmic alef in contracted form in every  one of Israel, calling the people to return and repent from the wicked path back to the Creator.

Tzav*

[From dark shells and garments of skin Dark to the place of Torah light]

Da’at is ascending above darkness through Torah letters to the place where Torah is all light. Israel in Egypt, sunken in dark shells and low Da’at, is unable to come to God. YHWH brings them out, redeeming them from Egypt in the month of Nissan, which is also the month when they will be redeemed in the future. Passover is Ḥesed revealed in the world, drawn forth by means of the Passover Seder and other acts related to the holiday. The divine compassion for Israel is hidden in their sustenance. Holiness is matza, the evil shell is hametz. The purpose of yirah or fear is submission of the Evil Yetzer and turning that urge into good. After Adam’s sin, light is hidden away for the righteous in the future, hidden in  garments of Torah. Rabbinic sages R. Meir, R. Akiva, and R. Shimon bar Yoḥai turn garments of skin into garments of light in which there is no distinction between present and future, where what is and will be are all the same.  The covering garb is removed. The person who studies Torah sees letters before him, meditates upon them; the gates of wisdom open in the World of Separation, in the world of Action. A river flows from Eden, separating into four: Hokhmah (contemplation), Binah [understanding], Da’at [awareness] which splits into love and awe. This brings one higher than the letters to the place where Torah is light, where it was before Adam sinned and there were no garments of skin.

Shemini*

[Worldly pleasure, sexual love and incest, the love of God, Ḥesed and other divine middot in the world]

The day after the seven days of dedicating the Mishkan is a coming near to God. Love represents divine Ḥesed filling the earth. In turn, the human person’s imperative is to love God, not superficial things. Physical love is fallen from high; the person immersed in physical love is considered dead. But within their divine root, the divine Ḥesed is entirely refined and spiritual, beautiful and lovely. Within the innermost core of worldly pleasure is the love of our  blessed Creator. Our greatest love among pleasure of the world is the love of women  Do not hold on to “dead lie” but see life, look at the-life force which is YHWH. God conducts the world according to 7 middot [1] Love, which includes incest. Incest is the most basic form of illicit love, is Hesed, but in an ugly place. One should use this illicit desire in you to cleave to Ḥesed itself [2] Gevurah or power; fear of Isaac before the exaltedness of God. Awe requires wisdom. For weaker minds without wisdom, God uses lesser fears (fear of wild animals)  to bring you to a state of awe before God [3-7] Tiferet (glory), Netzaḥ (triumph),  Hod (beauty). Yesod binds these qualities together to flow into Malkhut, Shabbat, Queen).  The Tzadik repairs middot  despoiled by the wicked.

Tazriah*

Missing

Metzorah*

On the power of speech, do not speak evil of any Jew, even if the words are true, because this diminishes the pleasure of God and introduces in God sadness. The power of speech and Torah binds speech to the letters of Torah, which is the kingdom of heaven brought before God.

Aharei Mot*

[The death of Nadav and Avihu manifest female waters, arousal from below]

In kabbalistic and Hasidic teaching, arousal from below is intended to stimulate arousal from above. The arousal from below of feminine waters through every person (the Elijah within them) is stimulated by the prayer of perfect awe. Nadav and Avihu are the feminine waters which rise to holiness above. There are permutations of Elijah in all of us, each one unique to the particular individual. The brothers Nadav and Avihu died in a state of intense devotion and righteousness, gave themselves over to death, became wondrously attached to God, their souls remaining there, cleaving to divine light, the channel of energy rising above. Usually, a person serving like this comes back to earth more alive. But with Nadav and Avihu there was a sin blocking the downward flow of blessing. Moses is male, his rung is Torah, husband of Matronita, but, because he is male, he and cannot arise in the playful delight of female waters that God desires.Were it not for the feminine arousal from below, God would have destroyed the lower rungs. The female waters of Nadav and Avihu and Pinḥas (who is Elijah) are joined and sweeten harsh and accusing forces. Joy aroused in demons of the lower world and their negativity is wiped away. With “THIS’ (zot) (f.), the female waters, Aaron approaches the holy.

The finite proceeds from the infinite through garbs of contraction and corporealization. This emanation culminates in a point, the letter yud or Hokhmah (Wisdom) (Abraham), which then spreads into Binah (Understanding) (Isaac) ( the power to distinguish between one thing and its opposite) (including true and false) (from which condemning forces are first awakened). And from there to Da’at (Jacob) (the secret of presence which balances and synthesizes).  The blessing of Creation, previously existing only in God’s thought now flows out, revealing infinity to lower creations. From a foul-smelling drop of semen, Creation is created out of Nothingness. The presence of the Maker (God, infinite Nothing or Ayin) is in the Made (Creation/Something). From that very drop of semen, the human person comes to the upper land. Abraham is blessing on the right, Isaac sweetens judgment on the left, Jacob balances left and right, aware of good and evil, drawing and binding the left to the right, the chief intent of which is to unite Shekhinah below with light above. The glory of the King’s daughter is inward, Shekhinah drawn into the shadow of the Most Hight, all lower rungs rising with Her. The merit of the two mothers, Binah and Shekhinah, is to act compassionately with the lower rungs.

Kedoshim*

[Be holy! The hallmark of holiness is the line from the psalter: “I place YHWH ever before Me always.” But how can an endless and infinite God dwell among an impure people? First comes the warning,  “Be holy, but you are not ‘like’ God.” But by the end of the commentary, God is calling Jacob “God.”]

Are we created beings as holy as God who is infinite and endless?  The ME’OR EINAYIM’s starting point is that the purpose of Creation is fear and awe of YHWH and service through mitzvot. I place YHWH ever before Me (Ps 16:8) is most the basic tenet, the rung of true awe. The teaching is included in a note by Moses Isserles in the Shulchan Arukh, but which the ME’OR EINAYIM traces back to Maimonides, Guide for the Perplexed,3:52). Creation starts with the point, the letter yud, Creation out of Nothing, an unformed drop. This power of the Maker is in the Made. In everything made by a person, the power of the artisan is present in a hidden way. The Nothing from which beings emerge remains present in potential, hidden in the point rooted in every one of Israel. The ME’OR EINAYIM asserts that the nations of the world are the vineyard meant to protect the vine and are otherwise truly nothing, that essential yud exists  only in Israel. All things have supernal purpose. We see only sensory objects, but a hidden force, the inner life-energy or form, animates existence from within, joining matter and form through the 39 labors defined in the Mishnah. “I place YHWH before me always” (Ps 16:8). The force of YHWH dwells within the object. In every single action, a person stands before the King of kings. But without the “hands” of love and fear, mitzvot don’t rise upward. The things we love (food, sex) derive from God’s life energy. When the person turns love and fear to superficial things, they become the hands of sin, the opposite of their intended purpose.

The ME’OR EINAYIM keeps returning to the basic question about the infinite holiness of God vis-à-vis the created world. The connecting principle is anthropocentric: the human person is created in the image of God, referring to the 613 mitzvot as they are sectioned into 248 limbs (positive mitzvot) and 365 sinews (negative mitzvot).  Love and awe are the hands that rases them to holiness There are 49 gates of understanding given to Moses, the last gate being divinity itself. The end of knowing is that we don’t know. Moses is given even that gate. In each generation, a person like Moses can enter it.  Holy Israel attaches matter to form and rises to the place of holiness. All are able to enter before God, attaining the 50^th gate. Like God? God is holy, above the human holiness of Israel, is not grasped at all Essence is conceived, but that is not grasping God.  No person will see God and live. Therein lies the humility of Moses.

“The word of God is refined,” the mitzvot given to refine and heal the mystical body of Israel. Why, for instance, does the Torah command the slaughter of animals at the throat and not the nape? They reason is to refine the people. Torah is the word of God, a complete body with separate limbs: eyes for seeing, ears for hearing, limbs for locomotion. We slaughter at the throat because that’s the place of speech which stems from the throat and needs to be purified in order to cleave to God. All Israel is one body-form. But when Moses, the head, stumbles, the whole body of Israel suffers, the head most of all. In heavenly matters, a person desires more than he has achieved. Because Moses was so great in spiritual grasp, he had a great sense of what he was lacking, which means that his lack was greater than that of ordinary people. Torah is what restores damage to the broken body, cleaving the parts back together, fully joined.

In this way, holiness is caught between the humility and greatness: the humility and greatness of God, the humility and greatness of Israel.

Torah: What then is the power of Torah? The humility of God is God’s contracted greatness in worldly Torah, which restores damage to the broken body. Dressed in majesty and humility, the greatness of YHWH is perceived through everything that is. This includes those broken qualities, like bad love and fear that manifest the contracted greatness of God in the world. All things in world are naught and non-existent before God. God is garbed in majesty, garbed  in little worlds so small relative to Him, hidden worlds that came into being through Torah. The humility of God is a mirror to the humility of a genuine sage. The wisdom of a wise person is not their own. The ME’OR EINAYIM warns against the sage who dresses up in the King’s garments, the person who deifies and makes into a strange god the divinity in himself. Torah is the power of Israel to hold onto the King’s own garments, holding them in place so they don’t fall from their proper rung. “God girds Himself with strength” is Torah, the girdle attached to Him by Israel that attach God’s garments to Him.

Israel: In the image of God, the people Israel manifest the contracted greatness of God. On the one hand, the ME’OR EINAYIM retains what is a penultimate caution, this in relation to the power of the demonic. The shells of Egypt were so great. The angels don’t go down to Egypt, lest they become corporeal among the shells there. That’s why God is the one who has to go down to redeem the people. Human beings are not like God. They should not go down among the shells in order to raise holy sparks.  God’s holiness is higher than yours, no one can do this but God. On the other hand is the power of the Tzadik to conduct all the world according to Torah, to create worlds by cleaving to God to become one with God since no place is devoid of God. Israel is a part of God above. Israel makes God unique in world, to whom nothing compares, Therefore God makes Israel unique in the world.  God and Israel are one, because if they were two then there is no true One. Israel is a portion and God is the whole. They contain God’s holy name. From my flesh I see God (Job 19:26) and seek God from where He is found (Isa. 55:6). The power of human speech binds together and unites throat, palate, tongue, lips, teeth.

Like God: Make yourself holy from below, and also from  above, in this world and in the world to come. Becoming like God, Israel is the soul of universe. When Israel serves God, they bring the Creator’s life-force down into each thing. God contracts His Shekinah and dwells within the person. The mind within us is of God. God creates worlds through the arousal of the tzadik. Whatever the Tzadik does is the act of the Creator. Through your arousal below you create worlds “like Me.” To be sure, God’s  holiness is above yours, but flowing through upper worlds because you made yourselves holy first. There is the sublime pleasure of attachment to the world to come within one’s prayer or study while still in this world. The ME’OR EINAYIM warns, the intent of prayer and study is not for pleasure. We are like women who possess nothing and receive Creator’s bounty, whose desire is for God. But there is no king without a people. Through us the kingdom is conducted as we draw His life-flow into all things.

What matters most is God’s pleasure that God takes in the lower beings and in his identification with Israel. God identifies the name “Israel” with Jacob, not with Noah and Abraham and Isaac. God’s high throne rests upon His footstool Jacob on earth. What we do with earthly things in lower rungs forms the throne for God. Israel brings lower rungs near to the root thus drawing divinity into all earthly things. Then the divine throne is whole. Otherwise, damage is done to the throne. Jacob raises the earthly footstool against the evil Yetzer until the messiah comes. But for now, the battle against the Yetzer prevents this. The throne is not whole  because Israel is not restoring the footstool which supports the throne. When future generations disregard God’s service, the Yetzer finds a way to grab hold of them, like the angel who struck Jacob in the hollow of the thigh. Their legs stumble and the footstool slips from its place, the upper root, the Creator who is called place of the world. The conduct of worlds depends on Israel.  In a most striking utterance, God calls Jacob God because he was a perfect person, a chariot for God, not divided from God not even by his physicality. This flowing is God’s greatest pleasure: a person dressed in matter, place in a lowly spot drawing self near to the Creator from that spot bringing all creatures with him and adding strength to God’s retinue.  

Emor*

[Da’at, pleasure, and the image of God]

All Jews are priests, serving God with Da’at awareness, even if at a low level. All Israel must contain the entire Torah, including the sacrifices performed by the priests. All who study sacrifices are as if they offered them.  God creates the human person to do the will of Creator and to give pleasure to Him. Why doesn’t everyone do will of the Creator? Because they lack of Da’at. The divine service  represented by Aaron brings peace to heavenly forces and below. Don’t defile soul with sin, which is called death.  But greater is the transgression for God’s sake than a mitzvah performed not for God’s sake (e.g. violating Shabbat to save a life). The Tzadik is like a priest, raising wandering dead souls who can’t raise themselves by attaching to a mitzvah; these are met mitzvahs (Green: mitzvah corpses). The Tzadik can only raise those who are close to our own soul-root, to close kin-relations, a wife or virgin sister. Beloved are Israel who have been given a precious vessel and still greater love. This is the pleasure  of the life force (ḥiyyut) that ebbs and flows, runs and returns like the divine ḥayyot. Departure makes for an empty vessel without which there would be no vessel to receive new pleasure. “From my flesh I see God” (Job 19:26), like the menstruant who separates from her husband and becomes more beloved of her husband. Or the seven weeks of counting the omer; the seven days of purification and joy; there is no greater pleasure receiving Torah in a union face to face. Fasting and feasting, cleaving to God through mitzvot, feasting on erev Yom Kippur, then fasting, then feasting. The secret of fasting is that the broken heart draws the root of holiness down towards you. The table is an altar, holy sublime life-energy garbed in physical food. Fasting and eating is an offering that adds life-force to the life-force, i.e. to the divine life-force already in you. Repair of the broken connection is effected by Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, Sukkot is the shade of faith protecting Israel. The image of God shines on Israel during the High Holiday season, glorious radiance of Creator’s beauty. All souls of Israel rise up and are joined with the tzadikim raising them up through da’at intentional eating at set holiday times.

Be-Har*

[missing]

Be-Hukkatai*

[man in the image of God in the image of Torah]

The commentary to this parsha builds on the commentary to parshat Emor. The vision of divine eudaemonism basic to Leviticus and the holiness principle rests on a threefold identification. The human person is nestled in the image of God in the image of Torah in the image of man. The 613 mitzvot are divided into 248 positive and 365 negative mitzvot, parallel to the limb and sinews of the human body, respectively. The human being is created in this image of Torah, which is the contraction of God in holy speech and letters. What is the image of God? The image that we are made of is that of Torah, which is called Elohim, referring to tzimtzum, humans are created in the image of Torah, the 248 and 365 positive and negative mitzvot. So that we can attach ourselves to the infinite God. A perfect person is one in whom the human image is one with the spiritual form of Torah, which is the “upper human.” When humans move a limb below, a limb above is aroused. “A man moves about only with the image (Ps. 39:7). A person who moves about with the image, or in the image, a person who is one with image is called a “man.” The person who does not observe a mitzvah is lacking the spiritual limb or sinew.  Faith (in God and in performing the non-rational statutes or ḥukkim) are the legs on which Torah stands, completing the cosmic form, lower and upper.

NUMBERS*

[The commentaries to Numbers are short. But a careful reading suggests that unique to the Me’or Einayim on Numbers is the high spiritual pitch of da’at or spiritual awareness. All Israel, all alien and distracting thoughts, all harsh judgments, all the contractions of God latent in revealed Torah, the Shechinah Herself are all raised by Da’at to their place in the divine root. This is dark Torah drawn to evil, the Evil Inclination, including the perverted expression of sexual love, the nihilating power of religious enthusiasm, and the holy Nothing beyond time. Da’at is the essence of faith in the indwelling place of God marked by the transformative quality of love and compassion]  

Ba’midbar*

[All Israel are counted, raised directly back to their divine root]

God’s banner is the love for all Israel, no soul of which can be missing. The souls of Israel were fallen before Sinai. At Sinai, the venom of the Serpent passed out from them, and then returned when they made the Golden Calf. All Israel need to be raised. God loves Isael and counts them, while supernatural Israel doing God’s will, which is a will beyond time, is beyond counting. It is Israel who makes God into a unique entity. Raising the banners of Israel, raising all the fallen souls to their Root and skipping all the intermediate rungs, is an act of love in the name of God.

Naso*                                                                                                                                       

[Cleaving to God through Torah, which is itself a contraction/tzimtzum of God. The Tzadik returns fallen thoughts and harsh judgments to their root at the Gate of Nothing, where nothing can be in a broken state, returning Shechinah to the level of Nothing  beyond time]

How is it possible to cleave to God who is a burning fire? One cleaves to the infinite God via the medium of Torah, which is itself a contraction of God who dwells within the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet. The fallen and alien thoughts that distract a person in study or prayer are themselves composed of those very letters without which there can be no concentration of thought. “Counting” the heads of Israel refers, in specific, to “raising” the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet. One must put all one’s strength and life-force into the letters of one’s Torah and prayer. The Tzadik is enveloped in sorrow. Harsh judgments originate from the side of Binah. The Tzadik’s da’at-awareness and pure compassion return these judgments to their root in Binah where they are sweetened, transforming them at the gate of Nothing or Ayin. Thisis the 50^th gate of understanding, the non-place of pure compassion where there is no judgment. Why Nothing? Because, according to the Besht, “something that takes up no space cannot be in a broken state.” The same is true of time. That which is beyond time is also free from brokenness. Indeed, the “salvation of YHWH” is in “the blink of an eye.” The Tzadik does not think of himself. The Tzadik saves Shechinah by raising Her to the level of Nothing beyond time. Hillel’s dictum is read this way. “If I (ani) am not (ein) for myself.” The Tzadik unites Shechinah (ani) with Keter who is Ayin, raising Her to the place where there is “not now when,” in the blink of any eye.

B’ha’alotkha*

[Mitzvah and the mystical lamps of the Menorah and a theory of action. Concealed in the revealed body of Torah, the soul of God is the inner part of a mitzvah or action. The divine life-force runs/flows back and forth between God and the human person]

Mitzvah is its own reward through which the Hasid cleaves to God. The essence of God, the soul of God, is concealed in the revealed body of Torah. Moses wanted to see God’s glory, which is the inner vitality of Torah and hidden essence. At Sinai, the poison of Snake passed out from the people and they attained the inner vitality of Torah, the face. In the future, all the world will again be filled with da’at-awareness of God. The inner part of a mitzvah is the life-force or essence. Intention or kavvanah of da’at unites the body of the act and the soul of the act, extending unity throughout the worlds.  Mitzvah is a lamp. Raising yourself by means of the mitzvah gives off the light “facing the menorah,” unifying the Holy One and Shekhinah and uniting all the world. In this gendered schema, the female has no light of her own. Mitzvah is the body is the female portion; the male is the living soul within the mitzvah. The life-force of the light “runs back and forth” (Ezekiel 1:14). In this world, the flow of ecstasy is constantly interrupted. But at the source, the lamps and light are all one and never extinguished. In this world, the letters with their divine animation are not in their proper place. Their place is among the banners, which is the non-place where all is gathered together, which is the blessed Ein Sof.

Shelah*

[On Da’at, Faith, and Free Will. In a scheme of divine immanence dominated by Da’at, there can be no contradiction between divine foreknowledge and human choice because there is no ultimate distinction between that which is divine and that which is human. The Me’or Einayim brings this to bear on the story of the spies sent out to scout the Land of Israel. For the spies, evil is simply evil and impossible to repair]

In classical theism, the radical distinction between God and the created universe, creates a basic conundrum regarding divine foreknowledge and human freedom. In contrast, the mysticism of the Me’or Einayim rests on a fundamental continuity, which resolves the contradiction. God’s foreknowledge sees the end of matters, yet people remain free to choose their own way. In Lurianic Kabbalah, the divine vessels shatter under the impact of the light of the Ein Sof. God builds and destroys worlds. In the process, divine qualities fall into a broken state, a mixture of good and evil. Da’at is one such attribute. But ultimately, the qualities of lower human mind-da’at are rooted in upper Mind-Da’at of God. The faith of the Me’or Einayim is that evil and forbidden sexual relations are nothing less than faatllen contractions of Ḥesed; the evil parts are stripped off as good is selected and raised to its root. God is Da’at from which the minds of all Israel emanate. Choice therefore does not stand in tension with God’s knowing since Da’at itself is the root of human choice. In this light, God’s da’at-knowledge is the choosing in the da’at-awareness of the human person. Conversely, human da’at is the activity of divine Da’at at work within the person. Starting from a place of faith and awe, there are no irreversible outcomes decreed by God. Understood as such, evil represents, not actuality, but the constant possibility of a person doing nothing with the power of one’s own da’at.

In the desert, the people wanted to achieve the great Da’at, the level enjoyed by the intellects of the upper Land of Israel. The spies are sent to tour and scout out the Land, to attain the Da’at level of Moses. But they return with a bad report. The spies represent the people who say that evil is just evil and cannot become a vessel of good. The choice leaves the world to remain in a ruined state. It precludes the act of binding the good in the bad and raising that which is fallen back to God. In this, the spies deny the very possibility of repair. Were it not for sin, Israel would have immediately entered Land of Israel and the messianic era would have commenced. Instead, a separation was made between lower, fallen things and endless divinity. For its part, the Land of Israel is “land of the living” where God’s living presence is concentrated more intensely than in any other place. The Land of Israel is, indeed, a land that consumes its own people. But the spies fail to discern that this excess of death is for the sake of the good. The spies have no faith that the broken fallen things are also before God, that divinity lies in contracted form, even in the broken demonic shells. The Me’or Einayim is sure to add that heretics and deniers will not be raised up. Without faith, they don’t believe in the possibility that one can uplift that which is fallen and instead drag the material world further down into darkness.

Korah*

[no commentary]

Ḥukkat*

[Torah of Moses and Torah of YHWH. The revealed Torah of Moses attaches to inner light or Ayin of the Torah of YHWH which is God]

The Torah of Moses –the aspect of human mind-da’at– is revealed in letters, vowel points, musical notations, and crownlets. In contrast, their inner light is the Torah of YHWH, which is the quality of Nothing, perfect and innocent and beyond reason. God and Torah are one, the Ayin or Nothing of God attached to the revealed Torah. Leaners cleave to that inner light and become a throne for God’s presence flowing through Torah, a “perfect” red cow offered as a flowing source shining within Torah, brilliant color, inconceivably pure light, perfect in innocence. Each letter in a person’s mouth contains the entire Torah. Lacking any letter renders unfit the limb corresponding to it. Love your neighbor has yourself, the holy part within him, like your own self. The perfect Tzadik sees no evil in other people  The souls of the nations derive from the shells, which themselves derive from the wicked and useless speech of Israel. But sin ultimately causes damage to one’s own letter in the Torah, the place from which a person’s soul derives. The Me’or Eynaim invokes the writing of a physical Torah scroll, working the parchment and the rollers of the Torah scroll (“tree of life”) through which one holds onto the letters of Torah. The physical Torah is  a vessel. Holding fast. Not to think about one’s own self is the essence of Ayin on the human plane.

Pinhas*

[The 600,000 souls of Israel, measures of God in contracted form, fallen sexual desire, human da’at cleaving to God and the nullification of harsh judgments. As if unto death, Pinchas is the precursor of the Messiah, representing the future perfection of the people and the self-nihilating power of spiritual passion]

Conduct of all the world has been handed to Israel, their 600,000 souls constituting a complete form or God’s true portion. “I will dwell within them.” “He has set his tent within man.” God’s Shechinah is truly in Israel, inside their hearts (“rock of my heart”) Everyone’s heart must be  a dwelling place for God, which should not be cut off from its source. Israel has the power to unite itself and the world with all its creatures to the upper world, the Ein Sof, from which blessing then flows into the world. Nothing is divided from the Ein Sof. The 10  utterances with which God created the world are the 10 middot or sefirot that manifest the good. God created with 10 measures, God “measured” or limited Himself (as it were) so that human creatures might grasp a bit of God’s unity in a chain of emanations. Malchut (kingdom) is the gateway, manifested in the final heh of the divine Name. Humans are dressed in physical, corporeal form.  God brings divine qualities down into physical form including love of worldly pleasure and fear of physical things. Divine middot descend rung after rung to be present in the lowliest matters, awakened by love in such base places. Da’at-awareness is the recognition that this is sublime love measured out and then transformed back into pleasure of the spirit. Forces of judgment are nullified and disappear as the sublime quality of the love is drawn out of its contracted state. The same is true regarding the attribute of fear. Awareness-da’at is what draws all these middot out of their lesser level.  God “imprints” divine qualities into lowly physical forms. “If a man takes his sister, that is hesed (Lev. 20:17). Love garbed in forbidden sexual acts [e.g. incest] is the fallen fruit of sublime love that eases the path to the love of our blessed Creator. But without awareness-da’at, the thing in which the divine quality is garbed becomes like poison. This relates as well to fear. A sinner is about to sin in a closed room, and fear falls upon him;  it seems like someone is watching, “peering through the windows, peeking through the lattices.” One stumbles in one’s own sin because the love in a person assumes an evil quality. This brings us to Pinhas and the murder of Zimri. The Tzadik rules by fear of God. Even more to the point, the Tzadik rules over God by subduing divine anger. The Priest represents the middah of Ḥesed. In the case of Zimri, the Israelites were grabbing at the divine measure of love and misusing it in a contracted state. The relation between Pinchas and Zimri is, in this sense, dyadic.  Zimri draws love down and lowers it, while Pinchas reestablishes compassion by drawing back God’s anger, sweetening the judgment and restoring peace.  “Behold I send you my prophet Elijah.” When the Messiah comes, the unity comprising all 600,000 souls of Israel will be whole and constant. In each one of Israel, there is a part of the Messiah that belongs to one’s particular soul. Pinchas is Elijah, related to Nadav and Avihu and to the intensity of their worship and cleaving to divine light. Unto death, one becomes a servant of God and speaks words of Torah and prayer with the power of passion and devekut. One decides with one’s mind-da’at,  one’s soul cleaving to these words with such force that the soul might even pass out of one’s body. Alluding to the experience of Nadav and Avihu, the unique quality of unity is called peace because of the wholeness that marks it.

 Mattot*

[The human mouth: Human da’at turns faith to  the inner quality of physical things, the holy and even mundane speech of Israel manifesting the divine spark and power. Faith is da’at, the recognition that  the contraction of God in the material world draws a person to evil for the sake of the  good]

The sin of the nazir: The world is created by word of God with the divine life-force in everything, without which it would vanish from existence. External things lie in a broken state in this lowly world because of the sin of Adam.  The divine spark is the taste that remains within the thing. When one sees something good in the world, it is God, the holy spark garbed within the thing. Waste is expelled in the act of faith, i.e. the turning of mind-da’at inward to reveal the inner nature of things, raising holiness from a broken state. God gives to the human creature His very own divine self, garbing divine speech in gross things like physical food, trade and business. Eating and drinking, even on the part of gentiles, contribute to divine service modulated by blessings. Fasting is also good, but serving in all one’s ways is easier. Against vows forbidding oneself a thing, everything should be treated as something from God’s mouth. The physical table is an altar that atones.

The holy speech of Israel partakes in divine speech and holiness, whereas the speech of the nations is only superficial. Torah puts divine speech into the  mouth, speech being a conduit in world. The Life of Life flows through letters garbed in existing things, Ein Sof through letters of Torah. One guards speech against evil. Be mute, speak Torah. It is divinity itself that opens one’s lips and allows one to speak with the flow of life. Faith is knowledge that the primal word is present even in mundane speech, and that one’s own speech is God’s Shechinah dwelling within five openings of the mouth. God is contacted in the Torah one speaks, relative to one’s  level of da’at. There are no barriers, knowing that the light of the letters with which they were created are concealed in God’s creatures.

Love God with all your heart, soul, and might. Heart, soul, and might correspond to three gifts of wisdom, strength, and wealth. The whole earth is filled with glory of God, to  each at one’s own level and all for the good. God contracts self for you. While good and evil are mixed in everything, everything that happens to a person is for their own good. This confidence is a matter of complete equanimity and absolute faith. When one strays, the boundary of holiness is crushed beneath the shells. Out of this, one can grab hold of the evil in anything and empower evil over good, turning to the material, for it too is made up of good and evil, matter and form in which God is contracted, drawing you to the evil within it. You will not be able to see the good in it, this is the evil urge, which is the essence of gault. [Now] raise your eye upward. Who (Binah) created these! A person’s devotion to the border of holiness subjugates the handmaiden to her mistress, strengthening the good for the service of God, transforming the evil. All emanates from Wisdom, everything as it is and garbs divine glory in that deed, even the wicked one. Elohim is the contraction of God in all things as decreed by His Wisdom.  In the future, the borders of the Land of Israel will expand, the boundaries of the holy within the hearts of Israel, holding on to the goodness in everything, the physical as well as the spiritual, subjecting the servant to the master. Attached to goodness and Life of Life, you become stronger. Hochmah is the undefined potential (koah mah) within that particular thing. Bringing things from that contract shape back to the source. God, Torah, Israel. God’s middot are latent in Torah and Israel. Israel, for its part, is the dwelling place (mishkan) of God.  Israel upholds the divine throne. Everyone of Israel has to manifest middot of compassion and mercy as an active force. Judgment is aroused when a person is not attached to compassion and Torah. Holding fast to Torah transforms a person into a dwelling of God by burning off worldly desire.  But our own generation [the modern world] is dominated by lust for money and improper, worldly desires. People in our generation cease to be merciful to others. One should, instead, return to Torah, become the Mishkan for God and then God becomes your God, concentrated within you, God’s middot active in you, and you will be compassionate with others. Before a human soul is born into the world, an oath is made to be righteous, not wicked, by deeds and words, tying all things to their root.  Everything a person does in the world will restore the soul to the state in which it is created. Do not profane the soul, but bring it into holiness, the primal word of God speaking through your mouth.

DEUTERONOMY*

After the first two parshot, major statements of Hasidic theology, the commentary to the remaining portions of Deuteronomy is fragmentary. In my own reconstruction of the entire commentary to Deuteronomy, I am trying to draw out a consistent picture. Anthroposophy and spiritual hedonism are key to understanding what the Me’or Einayim means by the expansion of da’at. The form of the image is the principle of divine immanence manifest in the human person and in the dark world of human existence. The divine life force enters the human and creates an impression. This is the image of God in the image of “man.” Imprinted with divine qualities, the human person has a spiritual body, which is Torah, a spiritual person. Expanded da’at-awareness brings the person out from the place of judgement and into the World of Pleasure. The presence of the Maker is in the Made. The unity of God-Torah-Israel and the power of the Tzadik are highlighted throughout the commentary to Deuteronomy. The Me’or Einayim is hedonistic; the physical expression of fallen love and the evil Inclination itself must be brought to the serving of God for its own sake, for the sake of God and causing pleasure to the Creator.

Devarim*

[A very important development of the Da’at theme re: expanded da’at-awareness and spiritual hedonism. Suspending judging forces, da’at joins awe/fear to the World of Pleasure/Delight (Binah). God speaks through the human mouth of the Tzadik, gazing at the face of God]

Moses stammers and the world of contracted divine speech. There is no full da’at-awareness or da’at-mind in exile of Egypt to serve God with pleasure and expanded da’at-consciousness. The Exodus from Egypt expands da’at. God is served with trembling and awe, the beginning of wisdom. You are a part of YHWH whose presence dwells in every whole person of Israel. By awakening these states within yourself, da’at draws awe into the World of Pleasure. We see ourselves leaving Egypt; we hear God contracted into and speaking in the human mouth. Through the gate of awe is the faith that God’s voice speaks within you, which widens your da’at and brings you to the World of Pleasure and freedom, which is the world of Binah. All the terrifying judging forces are transformed here. Trembling of awe gives way to the place of exultation as you bind awe by means of da’at to World of Delight, the place where there are no judgments. The Tzadik rules through God, nullifies God’s negative decrees. This is God’s doing. The Tzadik raises the World of Awe to World of Delight, from the small narrow straits of Egypt, the place of judgments. The mouth of God speaks through the Tzadik, who rules through God (see Moed Katan 16b) because the Tzadik is bound to God and not separated from Him. Sin casts da’at into narrow places where we worship God with reduced mind. In contrast, the holiness of Shabbat without limit illumines awareness in every person who wants to come near to the Creator. Shabbat is the overflow of da’at, the World of Delight by means of physical Shabbat pleasures. Da’at lies hidden in the mouth of the King, hidden and secreted within the world. Through da’at speech is raised to spiritual delight with the world, raising speech to spiritual delight. This is to become aware, to know,  that “I am YHWH who makes you holy” (Ex. 31:13). Shabbat flows into everyone, an inheritance without limit. Without Shabbat, Israel would be unable to exist among the nations and the forces of judgment. Shabbat illumines those who are poor in awareness. Torah sweetens the forces of divine judgment in the world, expanding da’at.

A key intertext in this parsha: “I am Binah, I possess gevurah” (Prov. 8:14). Da’at draws human speech up into expanded awareness and the World of Delight, sweetening judgments, etc. Binah is the divine root, the place from which judgments emerge and which is Torah, where sin and suffering are now repaired and sweetened by forces of compassion. Speech and Torah without understanding might come first but point is to fold that into speech and Torah with understanding, namely love and awe for its own sake. The lowest level of study remains simply on the level of speech (Malchut), which is the place of judgment. The Torah study of the wicked causes people to stumble and intensifies bitter judgment. Torah is pharmakon, an elixir of life or a poison if you don’t overcome foreign thoughts and pride, which causes damage above. The Me’or Einayim sides with Rashi and Tosafists against the talmudic dictum that tries to accommodate the study of Torah not for its own sake. The talmudic dictum refers only to students who are whole persons and who want to study for its own sake but who are distracted along the way. We suffer this very bitter exile because we don’t repair negative judgments by bringing them to Binah. People whose study of Torah is corrupt draws down negative judgment and gentile rule and the glory of Israel grows smaller. In this way, Torah is both honey and sting. If Israel’s Torah was right, only the nations would feel the sting. We do not subjugate judging forces to Torah by repairing our personal qualities. Our supplication is not accepted. This is the condition of God’s promise of redemption. People say there is no God of Truth, but faith and awareness would cast aside the shells and curtains, and our prayers would be heard.

Israel before Sinai was sunk in defilement and impurity. Faith takes root by way of miracle and wonder. The journey in the desert through desolate places gives power to overcome those shells and curtains that separate Israel and Written Torah. But Oral Torah was not revealed to all Israel. They cannot penetrate the secrets of Torah until they removed the veil of shells that separated them from Oral Torah. Wandering through the desert and serving God make it possible to defeat shells, break through veils and divisions that divide the multiple faces of Torah from those who study her.  At the end of journey, in the plains of Moab, having crossed all the deserts, Israel had final cast off the shells. Up to this point, Torah is only revealed to Moses because of his high rung. Now Moses can teach Torah to all Israel with the help of Oral Torah, and the people merit to see Torah as it is, no longer hidden. But students today who deceive themselves with regard to interpretations of Torah, because of the judgements and external forces that form into a curtain, they have not begun to see the true face of Torah. One has to sweeten the forces that hide the true face of Torah to merit a true revelation of Torah.

God gives the Land of Israel to Israel. God conducts the world in each generation according to the quality or middah that dominates at that time, reflecting the conduct of those below. The exodus of Israel out of Egypt reflects the quality of Abraham (i.e. with great love and faith in God making God known in world through miracles and wonders). For their part, the returnees from the Babylonian exile manifest the middah of Isaac (only a few came up to Land of Israel and they did so without love of God, but out of fear; they are then subject to Greek and Roman rule). Our own long exile and the coming of our Messiah will manifest the quality of Jacob, with no more judgments, combining life and awe, hesed and gevurah. This long exile prepares for the days of the Messiah. Then the middot will exist in combined and perfect form. The is true regarding Torah. The early generation were face to face with God and saw that face within Torah, revealing hidden secrets like a bride revealing her face only to her bridegroom. This is not the case during our exile. The face of Torah is no longer revealed to those who study it, only its backside, even for the tzadikim, until coming of our messiah, when the face of Torah will be revealed. This will be true seeing, gazing into the face of Torah, which is no longer the case today, when one only hears visions containing elements of judgment and the present of the rear.

Va’Etchanan

[This is a very long parsha-commentary. What can be called the composite monism of this Hasidic world picture starts with the spiritual anthropos, the contraction of that form into the physical plane, and the arousal of a spiriutual impulse via phyuiscal acts of fallen love and the desire for gross worldly things. The main thing is the heart. Prayer is the prayer of supplication and teshuva, turning intentional sin into merit. Prayer is the vitality of speech contracted into the human mouth]

Torah is a spiritual person. The 248 positive mitzvot and the 365 negative mitzvot that comprise Torah are the form of the upper spiritual Adam. These are the spiritual limbs and sinews of the human person, our physical body. Indeed, the entire Torah is the spiritual human (כלל התורה הוא האדם הרוחני). The missing letter of a scroll corresponds to the missing limb of a body. All interconnected. The whole person who cleaves to Torah is a complete form, an entire world (כל האדם הדבוק בהתורה הוא קומה שלימה ועולם מלא). The person, whose root is Torah, has to conduct himself and all their deeds according to Torah. Otherwise, a vital element of spiritual form is missing and damaged. After transgression, need to return to the source. Observing mitzvot in physical world repairs damage and restores the letter of the soul-root to its place in Torah, harmonizing physical and spiritual form so they become one. Only in this perfected state, divine middot (esp. hesed) flow into and are impressed within the person who can use them as one chooses. Even in a sinful context. Because a person of da’at awareness knows the source and directs everything back to the source, including all necessary pleasures and also acts of fallen love in the world, which awaken  pleasure and love in you. “How beautiful and pleasant, the love within delights” (Song of Songs 7:7). The arousal of physical (fallen) pleasure within our nature, including and perhaps especially bad love (sexual transgression), makes it easier to love God. Sometimes God will stop a person from transgressing and causing further harm. The same is true with other middot like fear, worldly lust for silver and gold by which one can acquire all the desires this world has to offer. In this world these are very fallen things, the trap of the Yetzer Ha’ra. Gold and silver are garments upon which human society is conducted, but one steps into what belongs to one’s neighbor. This manifests a contraction of spiritual qualities. A person with da’at does not chase after livelihood day and night. This contraction takes a person further down. All our possessions, clothes, money are a part of our self and form. But when you separate them from their root, you disappear from divine providence. This includes Torah study and prayer degraded by foreign thoughts and the like, said without intention, etc. The main thing is the heart (faith and da’at awareness).

The appearance of Temple seems out of place, but it has to do with the central importance of purification in Hasidic thought. Words of prayer and letters are part of the spiritual body which have been ruined by “heathens,” i.e. the demonic shells (kilppot) and Yetzer Ha’Ra) which have defiled the Temple and destroyed Jersualem.  Step by step, the power of teshuva (the teshuva of fear then the teshuva of love) transforms intentional sins into merits.  Jerusalem represents the supplication of the heart, which sits at the center of the body, like Jerusalem which is the center of world in this spiritual cosmology. The prayer that comes from the human Jerusalem, i.e. the heart, reaches the gate of spiritual Jerusalem. Worldly desire and pleasure and gold and silver are the garb by means of which Israel holds onto the divine Root. In the end, all Israel will need to repent wholly to merit the coming of the Redeemer. Israel will draw near all the sparks of Shekinah, the Adonai who dwells in lower realms, to include by supplication this aspect of Adonai within YHWH, repairing all the sickness and damage and exile that we cause, so as to become a dwelling place for the Creator

In this spiritual cosmology, the human person, i.e. Israel, is a veritable human theomorph, an actual part of God not cut off from the divine Root. The 28 seasons in Ecclesiastes encompass everything that happens in world, for good or ill. One strives to include the left (the abode of the evil inclination) in the right, subjugating forces of gevurah to hesed. We turn all those qualities imprinted within us toward the right, knowing there is no place devoid of God, including physical things, business and trade when pursued for God’s benefit. Don’t draw after the evil garb into which holiness has fallen. Know and join God in all your ways, become a conduit of God. Attaching oneself to the divine Root causes compassion to flow into all things in the world, sweetening negative forces and subsuming them into good. The human heart is the dwelling place of God. A holy one is within you (Hos. 11:9). In prayer, the divine vitality of speech is contracted into the human mouth, God’s speech has its locus in the human mouth even in exile. We cleave to God through the divine speech set in our mouth. The Tzadik rules over God, the tzadik ruling by the fear of God, repairing and sweetening speech, transforming forces of judgment (Moed Qatan 16b comment to 2 Sam 23:3). All this depends on arousal from below by Isael who unifies both the evil and good inclinations and subjugates left to right, making place for the Creator in the world.

The exile of Israel among the nations across entire world is for the gathering of sparks strewn among the nations after the sin of Adam. All this oppression was necessary to redeem these scattered sparks. If the first generation out of Egypt with Moess had entered Land, the suffering of future exiles could have been avoided. The people of this first generation were like children to God, serving out of love, just to bring God pleasure with no thought of reward.. Coming into Land would have required Moses to fall from his prior level of da’at. But God wants Moses at his rung and is critical of the next generation, who were servants who served only for the sake of reward. The spark of the da’at of Moses manifests in all the tzadikim of the future who seek to purify themselves. This aspect of Moses is humility without which there is no da’at. The messiah and the world to come are through Moses reincarnated in every generation.

In this imaginary universe, world-God-human form into a composite monism dominated by an enveloping darkness. God is in heaven and earth. The world contains both light and darkness, included together. But in creating the world, darkness precedes light. Also in the human person, darkness comes first, representing the place of judgment forces. Like a photographic negative, both good and evil are imprinted in us, each of us garbed in matter, which we need to subjugate to the good and join together. God also is present in darkness, in the contracted form as Elohim (judgment). Our da’at is what brings this enveloping darkness back to the root where matter (external matters like the pursuit of a livelihood and physical desire) is subjugated to form. Darkness becomes day, Elohim becomes YHWH. We enter into places of thick contractions in order to awaken unity by way of prayer, the prayers and supplication of Israel. Each person is a world and has to bring about unity in their own root. After the sin of Adam, the divine life-force or hiyyut required physical garb. But in the wilderness, Israel purified the physical self and received the life-force without material garb. Manna was the life energy (hiyyut) from above drawn into the world by the compassion of God.  Only now (presumably after the sin of the Golden Callf) the physical self has become coarse. What’s left today is the power of the imagination, namely memory and picture-thinking. Citing the Zohar, the Me’or Einayim would have the congregation imagine itself as though we were there at the Red Sea when we recite the Song of the Sea. Faith comes after seeing how those great wonders brought Israel to a great purification. We need a splitting of the sea or at least a picturing of it, presumably by way of the imagination. This cannot happen out there in the real world because we are too corporal today. But we can maintain an inner splitting of the sea which prepares us to receive and enjoy bounty garbed in whatever we do to earn our living. This is why we tithe, giving alms others, in faith that everything is given to us by God. The main thing is the faith in God’s providence that God gives life and flowing blessing to all the living.

The Me’or Einayim is preoccupied with evil, the dark side of human existence, which it seeks to refine and perfect by way of the divine da’at in us. Torah is a city of refuge that receives both unintentional and intentional sinners. The mind-da’at of Moses in each and every one of Israel is the power to make distinctions and set good aside from evil, beautifying and sweeting all those qualities impressed with us.  All the separate and contradictory qualities are held together by da’at, the power to conduct mind so as to know good from evil. The giving of Torah to Moses allows one to know what are the goodly ways and commandments, and what is forbidden. There is no fear and love of anything but God, and this is the knowledge leading to true awareness growing in wholeness. Pride is the root of evil and transgression, including pride in study of Torah. True da’at and Torah study are through humility and repair turning evil middot into good.

The “Hear O Israel” reflects upon the power of the Maker in the made (the unity of God, Torah, and Israel) and the unity of God that are at the heart of this composite monism. Israel and Torah are one because the soul of Israel is rooted in Torah, and the intention of the Creator was that Israel and Torah be one with God with no division. Everything that happens in the world is created by God through the power of Torah which is one with God, created for me, as one of Israel. The presence of the Maker is made invisible in the coarsened corporeal deed. Once stripped it of physicality, we bind the made back to its spiritual Maker by means of Torah, mitzvot and teachings; not for a physical purpose or pleasure but to please the Creator. Na’aseh va’Nishma – the we-will-do-and-we-will-hear joins the Maker’s power dwelling in lower world as Shechinah with YHWH, the power which brings all existence into being. The earth is filled with God’s glory, the power of the Maker present through the made as long as Israel in the world acts to unite Adonai [sic] with YHWH. From my flesh I see God (Job 19:26) without garment and with no curtain separating you from this unity. Sinai and messianic age manifests the Na’aseh va’Nishma principle, whereas the sin of the Golden Calf returns Israel to the physical-corporeal realm of garments and curtains with no perfect unity. Israel lost the “we shall do.” But Israel must still listen as best they can from their present rung. While perfect union is impossible in exile, one can come near to this union through garments and curtains. Adonai and YHWH can be bounded only occasionally and by particular individuals who are people of elevation and who are few. In the world to come when the Messiah comes, Adonai and YHWH will finally, constantly, and absolutely be joined with every person.

In the spiritual hedonism of the Me’or Einayim, one loves God with both good and evil intentions, the love of God being found in all fallen things, including eating, drinking, and sex. The I love I have for a material thing, a being, or a body is a fallen love from the World of Love. How much more, then, should I love the Creator, the source of all pleasures. The point is to engage Torah against the evil Yetzer, our broken pleasures, whole, lasting only for a brief moment. Intentional sins are turned into merits (Yoma 86b) God creates the evil Yetzer and the Torah as an elixir. Even sin leads to the command to love YHWH.

The cosmic power of the Tzadik is the power of the heart, the love of God and the power of attachment, blessing and new birth. The Tzadik ties the portion of God within himself to everything through the words and letters by which souls and sparks deeply hidden  in shells were also created. Descent is for the sake of ascent. The Tzadik descends from his rung to the place of those fallen souls in order to raise them up. To serve God, the Tzadik is attached to all creatures and lowly places where the sparks dwell. The Tzadik creates new heavens and a new earth through Torah innovations, making souls out of gentile converts drawn near through the power of speech which is the active force out of which the world is created out of nothing. The love of God is a decision of the whole heart. God wants the heart. Is this perhaps connected to the attraction of the Me’or Einayim to acts of fallen love? Our commentary demands the arousal of intense feeling to attach to God who wants the heart, which rules over all one’s limbs.  

The final word of the commentary to this parsha is the last major word of the entire Me’or Einayim –Tzadik and blessing, descent into world, birthing, rain, resurrection, the birth process reaching all the way down into the physical realm, the birth of a person from a woman. The day of rain is like the day Torah (divinity itself) was given. Blessing is found only in all hidden things,  so the Tzadik trusts God and is sustained and satisfied with favor. He relies on no one for sustenance except God, trusting that which cannot be seen, the Ein Sof, Master of Will, not in an material or sensible cause. The Tzadik is not engaged in business like ordinary people. A source of livelihood visible to the eye diminishes trust in the Master of Will. In the material world, one trusts in that moment what you have and what you can see, limiting trust within limits and which can be measured, whereas perfect trust creates blessing beyond measure.  

[Note, zjb]

[The commentaries that follow are for the most part short and undeveloped. In this reconstruction, my focus is on the human figure (body + image) as the place of divine da’at and spiritual presence]

Eikev*

[No commentary]

Re’eh*

[Seeing/Perception of the evil or good in things depends upon the person and their da’at.]

Seeing/perceiving that all the worlds and everything in them are created through Torah letters, emanating from alef through tav. Tav, the last of the rungs, is the place of choice: you shall live or you shall die (Shabbat 55a).  Tav must be brought back to alef, the cosmic One. Since Adam, the human person manifests a mix of good and evil. Evil within us is drawn toward the evil within the things we see in this world, and then to their goodness. Each person is as they are. One sees good or evil in things depending on their nature. Even in the market and at trade, one can perceive the life-force concentrated in those objects when engaged in buying and selling. But most people turn from God, even amid Torah learning not for the sake of Heaven. Torah study is elixir of life or a deadly poison. The wicked in their lifetime are called dead just as the righteous in death are called “living.” When a [person subsumes the evil withing the good, the same happens above, joining God to YHWH, the name of the Ein Sof, the Alef. Those who chooses evil don’t see the good in things, because they don’t have the da’at-awareness and faith to know that no place is devoid of God. Tithe in order to be “wealthy.” No one dies with their desire half-fulfilled. The truly wealthy person is the one satisfied with their lot and feels no lack. Shechinah dwells in the lower world in the heart and in the speech of the complete Jew who unites Her with the Creator, restoring the part of God in the world and in the human person to cleave to the Ein Sof through study for its own sake.  

Shoftim*

[no commentary]

Ki Teze*

[Repairing thought and danger of stirring forces of judgment. Building a parapet around your roof is an act of repair that creates a protective boundary]

The Torah commands us to build a parapet around one’s roof. Sometimes, people cause distress to someone because of divine judgments garbed below in the people who cause distress. Looking through my enemies down below, a person looks upward, repairing and raising the self to the world of Thought (Binah) where there are no judgments. The roof is the essential part of the house, just as thought is the essential part of the person hovering over them. Building a house, especially outside the Land of Israel, awakens forces of judgment filling up the empty spaces of world. Making the parapet is the act of repair.  

Ki Tavo*

[Dangers: Shabbat is the soul of the world, Danger to the world by not observing Shabbat. Torah requires boundaries of the holy to protect from gentiles who find heresy when they come to study it]

[***] God, Shabbat, and Israel attest to each other. The Creator creates world so that Israel will serve Him in a perfect way, awakening pleasure and passion in the Creator who delights in the lower creatures more than in the hosts of the heavens. Shabbat is intermediate between God and Israel, containing something similar to both. Shabbat is the life-force of the upper worlds as well as this world, the flowing forth of God’s glory contracted into the seventh day in this world. Our Shabbat is contracted garment encasing supernal Shabbat, the name of God. By desecrating Shabbat and not observing, you are killing the world by removing its soul from it. If Israel had only kept 2 Sabbaths, the upper Shabbat and supreme life force, the other, the actual seventh day in this world. They would have been redeemed, drawn very close to their Creator. When observance is incomplete, the redemption is not perfect. By means of Shabbat, you will be immediately be bound to God’s light, God’s great name. Without it, you cannot approach God. When Israel as a whole are attached to the All from which all parts flow, they become one. When separated, God, as it were, has an incomplete name. All this comes about through proper observance o  Shabbat which is the essence of repentance.

Danger regarding Nations of the world who  learn Torah. Gentiles among whom there are garbed holy spark come to convert. But gentiles who do not possess such holy souls find heresies when they come to study Torah, each according to his own desire. Outside the bounds of holiness are lies and shells. Because they stand outside the bounds of the holy, they are unable to see truth.  The Torah has a border called the boundary of the holy. Do not add to or lessen it. Fences added by sages are within the holy boundary and a part of Torah’s form (see Toldot, fourth teaching). These are the hairs that protect the limbs. Additions that extend the bounds of the hoy bring one to lies. Torah was written only for those who possess the aspect of goodness,

Nitzavim*

[Torah and the marketplace, the lowest rung]

Why is there no Torah among merchants? There are two Torahs, written and oral. “Torah is a man” (Numbers 19:14) composed of 248 limbs and 365 sinews. Those who don’t transgress a mitzvah draw that spiritual life-force into the physical limb corresponding to that particular mitzvah. The female principle has nothing on her own and receives form the male. She receives divine flow or shefa from the male, while the conduct of the house is through her. The world of the market and making a living is similar. No place is devoid of God, and there is no place of separation between the two Torahs. The marketplace is the last rung. One holds fast to the Creator and His Torah, after becoming bound to them in learning for its own sake

Va’Yelech*

[Moses at end of his life reaches highest rung, but we are in danger of damaging spiritual form of Torah. Tzadik unites heaven and earth and dwells in a place of Torah]

The Tzadik falls in rung in order to rise from darkness into light. Moses’ rank attains the 49 measures of wisdom that a person can hope to achieve. The 50^th measure is the very essence of godliness in its infinity that lies beyond even the angels’ grasp. Moses falls in rung and rises over the course of his life. Moses in death lay upon the arms of the shekinah. As for us, we need to repair damage in order to make Torah whole again. Torah is unfit when even a single letter is missing, when we cut ourselves off from Torah. Sages are “sofrim” who count to make sure not a single letter is missing. The guaranteed that Torah, the source of life, is complete and bound to God. Moses passed this da’at on to all Israel. The Tzadik is foundation of the world through whom blessing flows into the world uniting heaven and earth, dwelling in a place of Torah.

Ha’azinu*

[Another truncated commentary, the last one of the Me’or Einayim. The life-force and expanded da’at in the world, and the mercy of God in the world]

The divine life-force rushes and “runs back and forth” (Ezekiel 1:14). It rushes into a person and then back to its source. When it returns to the source it leaves a psycho-physical impression in the human person on which basis we recognize and call out to God. As Green notes, this brief teaching touches upon metoposcopy, the art of reading of foreheads. The lines that mark a person’s foreheads are like markers drawn on a wall. Examples include qualities of love, awe, and glory that God has placed within a person for sake of serving the Creator. The person causes these qualities to fall in the service of their own desires. In triumphing over these fallen qualities, one rises from nefesh to ruach. One recognizes God in these impressions, growing into expanded da’at.

Corresponding to the High Holiday season in the synagogue liturgical year, our commentary now concludes with a miscellany on the holidays, starting with Rosh Hashanah. The year is a body. Rosh Hanshna is the head of the year, Passover and Sukkot are the two arms, Shavuot the torso, Hannukah and Purim its two thighs. This is the body of the year. Yom   Kippur is the soul and life-force of the year. What follows is a disjointed miscellany of teachings regarding the festival holidays, especially Sukkot which manifests da’at, comprehension, the revelatory grasp of seeing God, the partnership with God in world-creation, the recognition and awe of God’s greatness. In the final word, which might be an autobiographical fragment, the last word is the transformation and sweetening of judgment into mercy in the world, even for those who do not deserve it, this by sole virtue of one’s relationship with God.

Zot Ha’Bracha

[no commentary]