Earth First and Central

HH

Imagine being suspended in the atmosphere 1000 meters high. Pretty frightening. Good thing that we have the solid earth under our feet. The reality however is that we are the earth. It isn’t like we just happened or managed to secure ourselves on earth. Perhaps the whole superficial perspective of the heliocentricity is due to the faulty premise that first there was space and then then formations of matter therein. The reality is that first there was earth, and everything from great to small was derived from the earth (this is a dictum in the Medrash often cited in the Kabbala – הכל היה מן העפר אפילו גלגל חמה), and we know that man is a microcosm of the universe, which means that wherever man stands he is the earth, suspended in the reality (“hypostasis”) just as securely as earth.

  

With this understanding we can explain the commandment of not to have foreign gods – which HY set for the gentile nations (Deuteronomy 4:19), to mean that a Jew is forbidden to see himself existing as some arbitrary floating dot in space, where all types of others things also meander, roam, or orbit. A Jew must be geocentric, knowing that the whole world was created for him (see Likutay Moharan Torah-teaching 5), and revolves, operates, and functions completely in synchronization to him. Every person according to the level of humility – likening to the earth – pivots themselves closer to the truth of this reality. The tzadik is the quintessence of this (Likutay Moharan 70), and is the root of all the souls.

There is definitely a perspective that HY created to see the world as if it was created in space together with all types of other forces and formations. That is a superficial perspective which HY set for the nations to be occupied with, but a Jew must not let himself get stuck there. That is like getting stuck with the physics of Newton and refusing to acknowledge and understand quantum physics, just much much worse. [See the beginning of Daas Tevunos 2, where the Ramchal reveals that HY made the world this way, that there is the true reality of the Torah, and there is a superficial facade masking it].

This is what it says in (Deuteronomy 31:17), “Because my G-d is not inside of me I have been beset with all this evil.” That is when one loses the true perspective that he is the world and G-d is shining into him, he falls into the hands of all the multivariable forces and formations competing in the superficial ecosystem of the universe.

It is also possible to understand with this the first two of the Ten Commandments which we heard directly from HY. The first commandment, “I am Hashem… Who took you out of the land of Egypt,” Egypt in Hebrew is mitzra-yim, borders and constraints, because as long a person retains this outlook that he exists in space together with other things, then he is living under the domination of limitations. The second commandment says, “You should not have foreign gods….” this was explained above, that as long a person sees himself as a creation in space he will be subject to the vying entities in his universe.

Na Nach Nachma Nachman MayUman!