How Can Mortals Understand HaShem? A Kabbalistic answer

Goal One, whereas people are finite and limited in their ability to know anything, and even the greatest thinkers are changing their minds frequently and need help from other thinkers, how can humans being know HaShem? What is it about HaShem that people really know? Meaning, if the mind of HaShem is unknown to humans because it is heavenly and we are completely ignorant about heaven, how can we then relate to HaShem? How can we pray to Him if we don’t understand Him?

First of all, Goal One. How can we pray to HaShem if He is in heaven and we don’t understand anything about heaven with worldly finite minds?

The Torah begins “In the beginning of ___, HaShem created the heaven and the earth.” It does not say “the first thing in creation was the creation of heaven and earth.” It says “In the beginning of ___” meaning, it does not say in the beginning of what. Thus, the Torah begins with a statement that has no understanding.

But keep in mind that heaven is not a dimension open to people. And here the creation was about heaven as it was about earth. But in the beginning of creation means the beginning of heaven as well as earth. But people cannot understand heaven and so how can they understand in the beginning of what heaven was created?

We are not able to understand in the beginning of what heaven was created. So it is left unsaid. But that itself is crucial for us to understand. Yes, there is a heaven, and yes, we don’t understand it, and yes, G‑d wants us to know that there is a hidden heaven and that it is hidden from us, but we must know that it is there, and that HaShem is there, and that we have a role to play in heaven even if we don’t know what it is or what heaven is. But HaShem gave us a Torah, and although much of life is hidden from us, when we devote ourselves to learning Torah and studying under great rabbis, much becomes revealed to us.

In fact, the missing phrase in “in the beginning of__” has a meaning precisely what I just said. We cannot with our finite minds know HaShem or heaven, but if we study Torah properly. the lights of heaven percolate into our system, each person according to his efforts and piety. Each of us has the potential to understand things that are beyond us, through Torah and piety and fear of HaShem.

There is a famous story from the tsadik Reb Shlomo Schwadron, about the Second World War, which, when it broke out, and the Germans invaded Poland, led to terror and killing. A Jew fled Poland and came to Israel, because he realized that in Poland only death awaited the Jews. But if he came to Israel, perhaps somehow he could find a way to save his wife and children.

He came to Israel and remembered a tradition that one who prays forty days at the Kosel can merit miracles. He went for forty days to the Kosel, crying bitterly that HaShem save his wife and children. On the fortieth day, he noticed a man praying. He realized that this man was not an ordinary person, but a great saint. Perhaps, he thought, this person can tell me about my family. He went to the person and asked him to please tell him how his family is. The man was befuddled and simply ran away. he Polish Jew ran after him, but the man ran home quickly and shut the door after him. The Polish man rapped on the door, and he heard inside somebody running. It was that same person who now opened the door and said, “Now I have the obligation of honoring a guest. Please, come in, and let me get something for you.” He brought out some food and was quite friendly. The Polish man said that he wanted to know about his wife and children. How are they? Is there a way to save them from the fiends?

The man suddenly grew somber, put his head down and thought a bit, and then asked, “If I tell you, will it remain a secret?” “Yes,” said the man. The man asked, “Do you live in a house on the corner with two floors?” “Yes.” “The Germans are inside the house, but they are not bothering anyone. Your family will be safe and sound and come to Israel.” And so it was.

This is also the idea in “In the beginning of____” You and I don’t know what that missing phrase is, but that holy man did know. And each Jew has the potential to increase his piety and holiness and achieve wonderful knowledge through the Torah and light of heaven.

It was known that the holy rabbi Rav Yeshayeh Karelitz, the Chazon Ish, would regularly be consulted by very sick people, and he told them very often things completely opposite from the doctors. He once told somebody who asked him that the key to saving a person’s life was a doctor so and so, and the Chazon Ish added, that this doctor did not have to do anything for the sick person, but he had to be at the hospital during the surgery. For some reason, the doctor was unwilling to be the doctor to perform the surgery, and another doctor did it. But the person got better. The doctor then asked somebody, “Okay, your rabbi was able to determine that if I would come the person would get better, something that was not at all obvious to me. But how did he know that I should watch the surgery if I did nothing?” The answer: The rabbi wanted it that way. He knows why, I don’t.  As I recall the story the time came when this doctor himself came to the Chazon Ish and asked him why it was important for him to come if he did nothing. I don’t recall the answer. But it is known that the Chazon Ish, although a rabbi in a small farming village which eventually became a large city, was constantly besieged by people who needed this or that miracle immediately, and he always helped out. He actually was part of a group of relatives who were saints who did make miracles regularly. The great saint Reb Chaim Kanievsky is part of that family, and Rav Shach was also a participant in making miracles. Greatness in piety and greatness in Torah go a long way.

This first passage begins with the heaven and the earth, two opposite dimensions. Angels are in heaven and people are in this world. People in this world are removed from HaShem as He is in heaven. But HaShem created people who in a way are holier to Him even more than angels. For this reason, the angels cry out in pain: Why are pious people close to G‑d and the angels outside of that level?

HaShem created angels who sing His glory and fulfill His will. People, on the other hand, are not angels, far from it. This world is filled with evil. Even good people are usually not perfect. As the woman in the Song of Songs said, “I have been made black as the ancient dead.” But the creation was essentially for humans who have evil inclinations and do sins, and they are required to live their lives with their pain and evil thoughts and deeds, and to do penitence, and then they will be forgiven. That penitence is light from darkness, and a very high light, the true purpose of Creation.

“From the darkness you will see the light.” But only from the darkness. The angels are heavenly and very close to HaShem, but they cry out that people are closer to HaShem than they are. Only light from darkness is the true holiness. Angels naturally perfect are remote from that. But people with their remoteness from heaven who repent their evil ways and seek light from darkness, can find it. And when their light arrives, it is the true purpose of creation. The prime purpose of Creation was people who sinned, and almost everybody sins, do sincere Teshuva. (Avoda Zora 4b)

People saddled with darkness and evil thoughts have a hard time finding light, and surely have a hard time discovering what the first passage of the Torah teaches, “In the beginning of ____ HaShem created the heaven and the earth.” Struggling to find that light is the purpose of life. Struggling to battle the evil inclination is higher than sitting in heaven and singing to HaShem, because light from darkness is the greatest light.

The Kabbalists says that when HaShem sent the soul of Adam from heaven into the world, He even then realized that the world would be filled with challenge, darkness, and yes, evil, and yes, pure evil. He wanted Adam to taste this evil even in the highest dimensions as he sailed down into the Garden of Eden. HaShem always knew that evil would be a great part of the world, as challenge, as the force that people would conquer to merit the highest light and portions in heaven greater than the angels who have no evil temptations. For this, HaShem had prepared in heaven a male and a female set of angels whose job it would be to bring evil when HaShem wanted them to do it. That job began with the sailing of Adam into the Garden of Eden. It continued when the angel of heaven whose job was to tempt men tormented Adam on the way down into this world, and her husband terrorized Adam’s wife Eve until she ate from the forbidden fruit and got the first humans expelled from the Garden of Eden. But we are going too fast.

The work of the angel whose job it was to torment men and seduce them began her work, as we explained, higher than this world, as Adam’s soul was coming down from heaven to the Garden of Eden. Her husband terrorized Eve who ate from the Forbidden Fruit and got Adam and her expelled from the Garden of Eden. But after the period when the angel of evil she arrived in this world, she was sitting with her husband in heaven, during the marriage of Adam and Eve. The marriage of Adam and Eve was a Kabbalistic affair. They stared at each other and began to count the letters of the Alpha Beth, the alphabet. Each letter mentioned and studied brought great powers to the marriage. Soon the angels in heaven, almost all of them, were watching this, and then, as the letters went higher and higher, they all came down to watch up close.

The only angels left were those whose job was to bring evil to the world. They looked around and saw that they were all alone. This did not appeal to them. After all, they were created for a purpose. Sitting there while the angels watched the wedding was not their job. So they went down into the world. This time, it was the wife, an extraordinary beauty, who did her job. All she did was to walk near Adam as he was staring at Eve, who was also a great beauty, but she was not an angel, and Adam did notice the angel. That second, all of the angels disappeared. The wedding was over. The angel had done her job very well. Adam and Eve separated, unlike what we would anticipate for people who actually marry. In the case of Adam and Eve, there was only one woman in the world for Adam, and he should have accepted her and mollified her for his noticing the angel, but he was so bitter that he decided to have nothing to do with Eve who had dealt with the snake and got both Adam and Eve banished from the Garden of Eden. For years, he lived alone. And when he slept, the angel of evil came to him and tempted him to give birth to forces of evil or demons. That angel really did a bang-up job. I think she should have asked for a bonus!

Adam’s misery continued for a long time. One day, he met Kain, the murderer of his brother Hevel. Kain didn’t appear to be a broken murderer. Adam asked why not and he said, “I repented and HaShem accepted it. He gave me a power to be saved from those who want to kill me.” When Adam heard that HaShem accepts penitence, he realized that that applied to him. The first step, he realized, was to make peace with his wife and establish a true marriage, based not on perfection but on the penitence that both of them had to make for what they had done to each other rather than struggling with the destruction of the angel of evil that ruined the marriage. Adam went to Eve and declared, “You are the mother of all life.” Now Adam and Eve were reconciled and the angel didn’t get a bonus for that.

One day Adam was talking to HaShem and asked how many years he would live. HaShem said, One thousand years. HaShem then told him about various people including King David. Adam asked how many years David would live. HaShem replied, a few hours. Adam said, “I give him seventy years of my life.” HaShem accepted that.

It is interesting to know that the gemora asks how it is possible that the most holy people, King David and the Jews at Sinai sinned terribly. David said,, “My heart is still inside of me” meaning it has no evil inclination. Tthe Jews at Sinai who died when HaShem spoke to them, and the angels brought them back to life with great crowns, sinned by worshipping the Golden Calf and King David took Basheva from her husband a grave sin. The gemora explains that these people were not designed to sin, were far from it. But HaShem wanted to prove that the holiest people, those farthest from sin, can do the worse sins. Once people realized that even the holiest people can sin and HaShem accepts their penitence, anyone can repent, and indeed, the most important thing is not light or darkness, but penitence. King David did a lot of crying after the sin of Bas Sheva, which he did after HaShem warned him to anticipate divine testing that he would be forced to sin. David realized when he saw Bas Sheva that this was what HaShem meant. He realized also that if he controlled himself he would insult HaShem, and so he did the sin. For that he had to do a lot of crying and penitence. But that crying and penitence was what HaShem wanted, not the sin.

I want here to confess that my rebbe in the beginning of his sefer The Gates of the Kabbala quotes, as is his wont, the Vilna Gaon and other greats of Kabbala, to explain why HaShem created the world and how people can know HaShem when we can’t know Him. I don’t want to quote the exact words of these greats because I learned the hard way, after studying teachings of many gates of great kabbalists, that they didn’t necessarily want to reveal everything they said to people like me. I had to work very hard until I was able to follow their thinking, at least, to some degree.

Against my better inclinations, I suppose I should just say a few words of quote from words of these Kabbalists my rebbe quoted, although I fear it would just make some people like me confused. But to understand the true confusion here, let me say that the Kabbala takes literally the fact that this world is not only different than heaven, but people in this world with their very limited finite knowledge, are not only unable to know heaven and certainly HaShem, but even those forces that HaShem created specifically to bring light to people, contains sections that it not only is forbidden to describe them, but it is forbidden to even say that they exist!

Yes, HaShem created, for the benefit of people, Ten Sefirose, or worlds. The highest world is KESER or crown, and it is only a Sefira designed to bring light to people. But we may not say that it exists! The second sefira underneath KESER is CHOCHMO. We may say that it exists, but it is a heavenly body that imparts nothing of significance to mortals other than the fact that it exists, something forbidden for KESER.

CHOCHMO has a wife, BINA, the third Sefira down from the top. BINA is never separated from CHOCHMO, she has no fear from him, and they are never separated. Both of them were created simultaneously. But he is above the barrier to heaven and she is facing down into the bottom seven which are much closer to human understanding. CHOCHMO is terrified of KESER.

While we are at it, let us mention one fast fact. The bottom Sefira is a woman, MALCHUSE. Into her go the evil of this world, and she suffers terribly. She is the woman in the Song of Songs who cries out, “They have blackened me as the blackest in the world.” That sounds pretty terrible. But this is Kabbala. Rabbi Moshe Chaim Lutsato in Adir BaMorom says that MALCHUSE, meaning monarchy, has a good friend. It is a Sefira. And it is KESER. And guess what? Again, we are talking about the great Kabbalists. Just listen and don’t faint. KESER and MALCHSUE are one! KESER comes down to MALCHUSE and MALCHUSE rises, not up to KESER alone, but past KESER, into the heavenly realm where no humans may think what is happening there. Yes, MONARCHY and KESER are one, which is not the whole truth. The whole truth is that MALCHUSE goes farther into heaven than KESER. If you are not dizzy now, I can’t help you.

While you hopefully are dizzy, let me throw out some more dizziness, just quotes from my rebbe and the great Kabbalists such as the Vilna Gaon. HaShem wanted people to know Him, but that is impossible. How can mortals know heaven and how can they know HaShem? So HaShem created a force that enables people in this world to know HaShem enough to pray to Him and worship Him. Its name is צורת מרכבת אדם העליון in English the Form of the Chariot of the Senior Man. If you are not totally confused, allow me to help you. There is a passage in Ezekiel about his vision of a heavenly throne and the form of a man was upon it. Now, this passage was presented to all readers, the throne and the man. I don’t think it was a real man, of course, and I surely don’t believe it was HaShem chas vishalom. But could it have been the Chariot of the Senior Man, created by HaShem to reveal His light to mortals, perhaps when they study Torah properly? If you are dizzy, what difference does it make?