Chasidut su Salmi 22:78
Likutei Halakhot
And each and every year we must work at this rectification on Rosh Hashanah, for that is the day they were created and when they should have made this rectification, but instead the did the opposite. That is why our service on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur is related to this rectification, as brought in the Kabbalistic texts. Therefore, the essence of the rectification of Rosh Hashanah is to work at restoring everything to order, repenting for all of one's sins, which are caused by disorder, by haughtiness, completely surrendering oneself to G-d in order to elevate the entire world that was created at this time of year; in other words, restoring disorder back into order. This is the aspect of 'sleep' on Rosh Hashanah, as mentioned in the Kabbalistic texts, "G-d cast a slumber" (Pri Etz Chaim, Rosh Hashanah, 2, 4). Sleep represents surrender. Order and disorder correspond to Chochmah and Malchut, Adam and Eve, and 'Eve' must be submissive to 'Adam', knowing that the entire world which seems to be ruled by Malchut, by Eve, all comes from G-d alone, "for Kingship is G-d's" (Ps. 22:29) and everything in existence and all life on earth is absolutely nothing before Him. It is a great mitzvah to know and declare this knowledge. It is the main source of sustenance for man and for all the worlds, and is what brings everything back into order. But when disorder, represented by judgments, is empowered, which is on Rosh Hashanah, when the world, corresponding to disorder, was created, and on which Adam and Eve sinned, thus empowering disorder, we must at this time completely surrender ourselves into sleep. In other words, we must completely relinquish and abandon our intellect, as if we have no knowledge at all, but rather declare G-d as King with utmost faith and simplicity, without any sophistication. This is our main work on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, on which we are completely involved in revealing His kingship without any sophistication. On these Days of Awe, we completely set aside our knowledge and surrender ourselves, devoting ourselves to prayers, beseeching, song and praise from Psalms and other types of requests and liturgy. All this represents sincerity and simplicity without any sophistication, for that is how we reveal G-d Kingship. This is the meaning of the 'sleep' on Rosh Hashanah as mentioned in the Kabbalistic texts. It is explained there that this 'sleep' is the disappearance of the Supernal Mind from the Zeir Anpin, and then Mind and sustenance are drawn directly into the Malchut from Binah, the Supernal Mother, rather than through the Zeir Anpin, and then, through the shofar, new Mind is drawn after this 'sleep'. After the arousal from this 'sleep', the Malchut is severed, etc. The 'sleep' represents the disappearance of the Mind; it is intentionally removed so that disorder, haughtiness, the main blemish of the mind, as mentioned in the Kabbalistic texts, will not become attached to it. Therefore, Ga'Avah, גַּאֲוָה (haughtiness) is numerically equivalent to Yah (15), which represents the Mind. The main blemish of haughtiness is in saying, 'I shall rule' and the main sustenance of the Malchut is from wisdom, as in, 'Wisdom sustains life', as Rabbeinu z"l explains in the lesson. The Malchut must be elevated to its source, as in, "The Kingship will be G-d's" (Ovadiah 1:21), to know that all the worlds and everything in them, which correspond to Malchut, were all created and are solely guided by G-d's Kingship, which rules over all. Therefore we must completely surrender ourselves to G-d and to be nothing in our own eyes, as in "we are מ"ה" (Ex. 15:7) , for sustenance comes mainly from מ"ה, as in, 'מ"ה us our life'. But when one is haughty and says 'I shall rule' and seeks to draw 'kingship' to himself, this is because in his haughtiness, he believes that he has already achieved some intelligence, that he is a scholar, a kabbalist, a tzaddik, and deserves some status of power. He thus desires to overturn order and take the Malchut for himself, as if he has power and knowledge to sustain the Malchut which is sustained mainly by wisdom, to draw wisdom into disorder and to empower disorder over order. It is certainly possible to draw kingship to oneself other than by means of wisdom, which sustains the Malchut. Therefore, this haughty person who says 'I shall rule' blemishes wisdom in wanting to draw the mind into the kingship of evil, which is haughtiness. Therefore, as long as disorder is not yet ameliorated, that is, at the beginning of Rosh Hashanah, one must completely relinquish and set aside one's mind so that disorder, judgments, will not be able to attach itself to it. And during this complete surrender, corresponding to 'sleep', in that we do not use any wisdom at all, we then rise above human wisdom, for sincerity, simplicity and faith rise above the Mind and Wisdom, as we have explained elsewhere. Then we are able to declare G-d as King with all sincerity and without any sophistication. This corresponds to drawing the Mind and sustenance into the Malchut, bypassing the Zeir Anpin, as known. Now we reveal G-d's Kingship without any wisdom at all, but solely by means of surrender, when we are submerged into Binah, the Supernal Mother, which comprises the upper three Sefirot, from where His Kingship is revealed. Then, through the shofar, new mind is drawn and we are aroused from sleep, for by means of the sleep and the surrender, we are then able to receive great intellect, and the Malchut is severed and becomes a complete partzuf/structure on its own. For when we attain holy intellect, G-d's Kingship is revealed with complete knowledge to all, for the drawing of the mind is only for the purpose of revealing His Kingship, to know and declare that He is the Creator. Then, disorder is ameliorated and absorbed into order, as in, 'Wherever there is masculine, the feminine is not mentioned' for she surrenders to him. When the mind is in its perfect state of holiness, we need not be afraid of disorder, since we know that everything is solely from G-d, when all disorder completely disappears. Therefore, arousal from sleep is mainly by means of the sound of the shofar, for sound corresponds to Mah, the Divine Name representing order, as stated in the Tikunei Zohar, "YHVH is in sound an speech is in man". These correspond to order and disorder, for sound arouses intention, which is in the mind. This is the meaning of what our Sages said, "Blowing the shofar is wisdom and not a creative act" (Rosh Hashanah 29b). The sound of the shofar corresponds to wisdom, to Mah, to sound that arises the intention of the mind. Sound itself cannot be grasped. One cannot understand a person by his voice alone, for sound corresponds to Mah, to the power of wisdom by itself. With the shofar we evoke only sound, which corresponds to Mah, to order, so as to empower order. Then, with sound, we build speech, which is prayer, represented by the prayers we recite on Rosh Hashanah after the shofar blowing.
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Kedushat Levi
This is a good opportunity to explain the question of Eliezer, Avraham’s foremost servant, and the answer he received from Avraham. Prior to the battle against the mightiest kings of the Orient and Occident undertaken in order to rescue Avraham’s nephew Lot from captivity, the sages quote Eliezer as having been asked how he killed the soldiers of all these kings. He told the questioners that Avraham told him to take clods of earth and to throw them in their direction. If he would do this, the earth clods would turn into arrows. [While the story in Bereshit rabbah 43,3 is similar, the common feature is that earth would turn into either swords or arrows. Ed.]
The question we must ask is why this miracle had to be performed by means of clods of earth. Why could some other vehicle in nature not have served G’d for the same purpose? We hope to explain this by referring to how David conquered the nations against whom he went to war.
Let us remember that when David found himself in need of vanquishing his enemies, he himself was attached closely to the attribute known as אין, [the eyn sof, essence of G’d. Ed.] He was conscious of the fact that all parts of his life, including his body, i.e. the ability of the living to move at will, were a part of Divinity. [Compare Tikkuney Hazohar Tikkun 1) This means that there is no single spot in the universe that is not permeated by some aspect of Divinity. In fact, if one were to find any part of the universe devoid of a spark of Divinity, such a part would be totally devoid of “Life.” be it human, animal vegetable or even the kind of life with which inert bodies such as the planets are equipped. Ed.] The author refers to his commentary on Deuteronomy 32,39 on the words כי אני אני הוא, “that I, I am He,” where G’d makes the point that neither man nor any of the various categories of angels, such as שרפים, חיות, אופנים are able to say of themselves that אני הוא, “it is I,” when speaking to one another.
The word אני, when used by a person, suggests that he is a person of substance, [in the sense of a physical presence, an independent personality, Ed.] In other words, by using that word when referring to himself, the speaker invites the person whom he addresses to regard him as someone of substance, of importance.
When we consider such a statement and reflect upon it, we realize that such a person wishes to convey to those opposite him that his very existence, חיות, his being alive, is something that he is in control of. What greater lie could he possibly convey than this false impression, seeing that not only does he not control other people’s lives, but he is not even in control of the next minute of his own life! Seeing that his own life is in the hands of his Creator, how could he arrogate to himself the right to speak of himself in terms of being an אני? We now understand why Moses quoted G’d in Deuteronomy 32,39 as saying ראו עתה כי אני אני הוא ואין אלוקים עמדי, “See then that I, I am He; there is no god beside Me.” What G’d is saying there is nothing other than that no-one but He is entitled to refer to himself as אני “I.” If a human being were (mistakenly) to describe himself as אני, he would in fact credit a “nothing” with such a grandiose title.
When we described this word as alluding to the Divine attribute of אין, the absolute disembodied essence of G’d, we also refer indirectly to the essentially disembodied nature of our real self, i.e. our immortal soul. The soul is immortal precisely because it can function without our bodies. This very fact is testimony to the fact that it is part of the Creator Himself, as He is the only Existence in the universe that functions without a body.
When we now consider the statement of our sages in Avot 6,12 [last Mishnah, Ed.] that everything the Creator created He created only for the sake of His greater glory, it is easy to understand that when one or more of His creatures no longer contribute to the purpose for which he or they have been given “life,” they have forfeited their claim to existence and deserve to die. Considering this basic truth, when David had to secure victory over his various enemies, he first had to “garb” himself with this attribute אין i.e. [אני, spelled in a manner that avoided that he really compared himself to his Creator. Ed.] When he would be confronted by uncircumcised pagans, he therefore felt entitled to put an end to their lives.
When Avraham confronted the four kings, symbolizing the anti-god from all four corners of the globe, who had taken Lot, who also shared that attribute, captive, he acted on behalf of G’d [although he had not consulted Him. Ed.]
When Avraham confronted the four kings, symbolizing the anti-god from all four corners of the globe, who had taken Lot, who also shared that attribute, captive, he acted on behalf of G’d [although he had not consulted Him. Ed.]
[This editor is troubled by the fact that at that time Avraham himself had not been circumcised, had not even been told that circumcision was an essential part of becoming Jewish. I am also troubled by the fact that Lot’s eventual escape from Sodom is not credited to his merit, but to G’d’s “pity” (Genesis 19,16. Ed.]
It is well known that the attribute אין also occurs in connection with Moses, at the time when he and Aaron were the victims of the Israelites’ complaints for their suffering from thirst. (Exodus 16,7) They replied with the words: ונחמו מה, “and what do we amount to?” [The reader will notice that Moses and Aaron spelled the word אנחנו without the letter א signifying the pronoun “I.” We also find David referring to himself in such derogatory fashion when he said: ואנכי תולעה “and all that I amount to is worms.” (Psalms 22,7) Avraham referred to himself as dust and ashes when he said: אנכי עפר ואפר. (Genesis 18,27) This is what the sages in the Midrash had in mind when they spoke about Avraham killing the mightiest armies in the world at that time by means of “earth, or dust.” By allying oneself with the Divine attribute of אין, Avraham was able to turn these pagans back into the raw-material they had been made of, i.e.עפר, as when G’d had said to Adam after his sin in Genesis 3,19, עפר אתה ואל עפר אתה תשוב, “you are dust and to dust you will have to return.” Seeing that Avraham was aware of his entire “life” being dependent on the אין סוף, “never ending (nor beginning) Creator,” so that the essential part of what he perceived as his “life” was bound up with this source of eternal life, he could function as the messenger that would terminate useless lives, lives that had not and would not contribute to the glory of the Creator on earth.Ed.]
The question we must ask is why this miracle had to be performed by means of clods of earth. Why could some other vehicle in nature not have served G’d for the same purpose? We hope to explain this by referring to how David conquered the nations against whom he went to war.
Let us remember that when David found himself in need of vanquishing his enemies, he himself was attached closely to the attribute known as אין, [the eyn sof, essence of G’d. Ed.] He was conscious of the fact that all parts of his life, including his body, i.e. the ability of the living to move at will, were a part of Divinity. [Compare Tikkuney Hazohar Tikkun 1) This means that there is no single spot in the universe that is not permeated by some aspect of Divinity. In fact, if one were to find any part of the universe devoid of a spark of Divinity, such a part would be totally devoid of “Life.” be it human, animal vegetable or even the kind of life with which inert bodies such as the planets are equipped. Ed.] The author refers to his commentary on Deuteronomy 32,39 on the words כי אני אני הוא, “that I, I am He,” where G’d makes the point that neither man nor any of the various categories of angels, such as שרפים, חיות, אופנים are able to say of themselves that אני הוא, “it is I,” when speaking to one another.
The word אני, when used by a person, suggests that he is a person of substance, [in the sense of a physical presence, an independent personality, Ed.] In other words, by using that word when referring to himself, the speaker invites the person whom he addresses to regard him as someone of substance, of importance.
When we consider such a statement and reflect upon it, we realize that such a person wishes to convey to those opposite him that his very existence, חיות, his being alive, is something that he is in control of. What greater lie could he possibly convey than this false impression, seeing that not only does he not control other people’s lives, but he is not even in control of the next minute of his own life! Seeing that his own life is in the hands of his Creator, how could he arrogate to himself the right to speak of himself in terms of being an אני? We now understand why Moses quoted G’d in Deuteronomy 32,39 as saying ראו עתה כי אני אני הוא ואין אלוקים עמדי, “See then that I, I am He; there is no god beside Me.” What G’d is saying there is nothing other than that no-one but He is entitled to refer to himself as אני “I.” If a human being were (mistakenly) to describe himself as אני, he would in fact credit a “nothing” with such a grandiose title.
When we described this word as alluding to the Divine attribute of אין, the absolute disembodied essence of G’d, we also refer indirectly to the essentially disembodied nature of our real self, i.e. our immortal soul. The soul is immortal precisely because it can function without our bodies. This very fact is testimony to the fact that it is part of the Creator Himself, as He is the only Existence in the universe that functions without a body.
When we now consider the statement of our sages in Avot 6,12 [last Mishnah, Ed.] that everything the Creator created He created only for the sake of His greater glory, it is easy to understand that when one or more of His creatures no longer contribute to the purpose for which he or they have been given “life,” they have forfeited their claim to existence and deserve to die. Considering this basic truth, when David had to secure victory over his various enemies, he first had to “garb” himself with this attribute אין i.e. [אני, spelled in a manner that avoided that he really compared himself to his Creator. Ed.] When he would be confronted by uncircumcised pagans, he therefore felt entitled to put an end to their lives.
When Avraham confronted the four kings, symbolizing the anti-god from all four corners of the globe, who had taken Lot, who also shared that attribute, captive, he acted on behalf of G’d [although he had not consulted Him. Ed.]
When Avraham confronted the four kings, symbolizing the anti-god from all four corners of the globe, who had taken Lot, who also shared that attribute, captive, he acted on behalf of G’d [although he had not consulted Him. Ed.]
[This editor is troubled by the fact that at that time Avraham himself had not been circumcised, had not even been told that circumcision was an essential part of becoming Jewish. I am also troubled by the fact that Lot’s eventual escape from Sodom is not credited to his merit, but to G’d’s “pity” (Genesis 19,16. Ed.]
It is well known that the attribute אין also occurs in connection with Moses, at the time when he and Aaron were the victims of the Israelites’ complaints for their suffering from thirst. (Exodus 16,7) They replied with the words: ונחמו מה, “and what do we amount to?” [The reader will notice that Moses and Aaron spelled the word אנחנו without the letter א signifying the pronoun “I.” We also find David referring to himself in such derogatory fashion when he said: ואנכי תולעה “and all that I amount to is worms.” (Psalms 22,7) Avraham referred to himself as dust and ashes when he said: אנכי עפר ואפר. (Genesis 18,27) This is what the sages in the Midrash had in mind when they spoke about Avraham killing the mightiest armies in the world at that time by means of “earth, or dust.” By allying oneself with the Divine attribute of אין, Avraham was able to turn these pagans back into the raw-material they had been made of, i.e.עפר, as when G’d had said to Adam after his sin in Genesis 3,19, עפר אתה ואל עפר אתה תשוב, “you are dust and to dust you will have to return.” Seeing that Avraham was aware of his entire “life” being dependent on the אין סוף, “never ending (nor beginning) Creator,” so that the essential part of what he perceived as his “life” was bound up with this source of eternal life, he could function as the messenger that would terminate useless lives, lives that had not and would not contribute to the glory of the Creator on earth.Ed.]
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Flames of Faith
Malchus literally means “kingship.” The ideal Jewish king is an individual who personifies nullification of self. He feels that he is merely a vehicle for the revelation of God’s kingship. He turns his authority over to Heaven, feeling, “Whatever I accomplish, it is God who is truly doing the act.” The honor of God is his paramount concern. King David is the seventh shepherd of the Jewish people, and he embodied this concept, that is why he said of himself, Ve-anochi tola’as ve-lo ish, “I am a worm not a man” (Ps. 22:7).397See also Chullin 89a. The Talmud teaches that God loves Israel for when he gives its leaders, such as Abraham, Moses, Aaron, and David, greatness they humble themselves more. King David’s rule is compared to the moon,398Rema on Orach Chaim 428:2. for the moon merely reflects the light of the sun. King David felt that he was a mere reflection of Divine power with no innate right to honor or power.399The Stitchiner Rebbe explained that malchus is an externalization, a ray off of the sun. Malchus is associated with the mouth, for through the mouth and my speech I reveal myself. What I reveal, though, is a fraction of my essence— the depths of my being. Relative to who I really am what I say is meaningless. The physical world is a manifestation of malchus for it is a mere ray from the Divine, relative to His infinite Light, we would vanish. A true king is someone who has fully internalized the fact that he is a mere ray from the Almighty, he demands no honor for himself and is entirely subservient and nullified before the Almighty. The kelippah of malchus takes itself too seriously. Secular kings feel that that they deserve regard and respect for they are truly special individuals with enormous worth. The root of their error is that they look at rays while ignoring the source. See further Da’as Tefillah pgs. 321-384.
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