The END

HH

Notice how the English word end are three of the four letters of the name of Hashem אנד - from א-ד-נ-י, this is the name associated with the sefira of Malchus - the final sefira - the end! However the missing letter, the YUD, is known in Kabala as the vehicle of bringing everything to the INFINITE - because the Malchus, in one sense is the end - but it is end with a YUD - the Malchus infinitely reflects the Ain Sof (the No Limit - the Infinite Hashem).

Na Nach Nachma Nachman MeUman! 

Vessels

HH

A vessel has walls which shut out the whole world and thus it is able to receive the amount it can hold. HY is Ain Sof - infinite - anything and everything that He desired to be able to seen in Him is going to be just a vessel which HY empowers the walls of this vessel to shut out His infinite presence, so that the vessel can actually show something particular to itself, what it contains. This is true at every level, even the highest height - the main thing to achieve is the shutting out of the Infinite so that one can attain what he is focused on.

In Likutay Moharan (#49), Rabbainu revealed further that a Jewish heart is Ain Sof, and from there on a person must build the constraints. That means a person already has such holiness, even higher than all the greatest tzaddikim ever, except that he is so overwhelmed and swamped that he is lost and unaware and detached, and in all likelihood he will find some tiny - probably bad - idea and latch on to it, and completely derail himself GF from the infinite and imprison himself GF in a vanity - mirage - of this world. By studying the Torah and screaming out to HY, one concentrates his focus and builds the walls of his vessels to shut out - even the immense light and goodness - until he can successfully achieve clear perception of holy concepts B"H.

This is what Rabbainu says in LM Torah 5, that the main thing is Yira - fear - which is the vessel, and even though the Ahava - love - is stronger, the Ahava comes automatically with the Yira. As soon as one has the vessel, the Love is already filling it up.

When a person is to receive a sum of money - a check - he needs a bank account, otherwise the check doesn't mean anything to him.

The currency is da'as (realization of knowledge) and the vessel is fear - Yira. [This is the secret of the revelation in the Ain Sof, the secret of AHYH ashehr AHYH].

If a person doesn't go out to the fields and communicate with HY - he doesn't have the vessel - he has no way of hearing HY. So unless he does some unbelievable act of G-dliness which will merit him to a complete metamorphosis - that HY gives him a transformation of special vessels so that he can even experience and live the Divine in his regular life - he doesn't stand a chance of catching even a ray of light from HY. He simply is not plugged in to the circuit.

A teacher gave out a test. Before starting the test the teacher instructed to turn the test over - with the blank side up, and then let the class proceed - setting a two hour time limit to finish. The teacher never told them to turn the paper back over, but most people do just that, they don't follow the real instructions, and they might answer some or even all of the questions - but they failed miserably.

The Ramchal says that all the yichudim - unifications/kabalistic meditations - must be done in the field - they simply aren't designed to work in a house or settlement. Most people don't pay attention to this - if they go to the field, then how can they proceed with the devotions. But the real devotion is to follow the real instructions.

There's a great deal more to be said, but B"H at least I got all of this down.

Na Nach Nachma Nachman MeUman!

Broken Vessels - Vessels for the Infinite

HH

Shlomo Carlbach used to say that really poor people talk about coming into millions and millions of dollars and huge riches, they can just see it coming, whereas people that have some sort of livelihood have much more modest dreams and aspirations. When a person has a vessel it can only hold what it was designed for, but when a person is broken, he has vessels for the infinite.

In these days of mourning of the holy temple, of the holy tzaddikim, of our own lost holiness which we ourselves should be like the temple, if we can merit to be a little broken hearted, we can merit to vessels of the Infinite. B"H.


Na Nach Nachma Nachman MeUman!

It's not worth peeking

HH

What is so terrible about having an improper thought? Yes, we know it is forbidden, and it causes damage in the supernal world, and that really those worlds are very much the actual reality, and that it will G-d forbid lead from one thing to the next until it really brings one to no good, but even still we say to ourselves, let me be for a bit, a few thoughts, a little pleasure, what's the big deal?

So here's something to consider. G-d is completely above the paradigm of existence, He created existence, however in the existence He created, He also exists, and this existence of His is infinite. Anyone familiar with algebra knows that infinite can remain in a very small value – as a number approaches another in different increments, increasingly getting closer but never reaching. Such are the various classes that G-d created, the worlds of doing, speaking, thinking (asseeya, yetzeerah, breeya) and infinitely more, as the worlds approach G-d Himself, never reaching, but infinitely getting closer, each one in it's own class and restraint. In all of this, the prophet refers to G-d as continuously hiding Himself (Ail misstattair). The direction of the infinite existence of G-d in the whole layout of existence is to the esoteric, the more spiritual and hidden. The Ramchal asserts that the entire study of Kabbala – the study of G-d and how He runs the world, can be summarized as inner and outer (peneemeeyoos and cheetzoaneeyus). Always the inner, which is more spiritual, more refined and hidden, is the soul of the outer body, and completely encompasses it, rules it, and is it's very lifesource. Except for the final world in which man exists, where the body has a certain independence not recognizing its soul. The Torah (even the "revealed Torah") as well must be kept hidden and should not be taught in public places (Moed Kutun 16a). 

All sexual gratification (which the Vilna Goan clearly classifies as a sin between a person and himself, any damage done to another person by this sin is purely collateral) is the body's insurgency over the soul. This is hijacking a person's manifest, from going in the way of G-d, and ever increasingly give strength to the unseen, the soul of yet a more esoteric plane, which by the way is the ultimate eminence of the traits of humility and tznius (modesty), where one hides himself preferring to reach further inwards than to show an outward, superficial exploitation, and all of this is hijacked and reversed by even a small improper thought and desire, which empowers the body, giving it precedence, giving it the dominion to drag and subjugate the direction of the soul to be reduced to an expression of the body (and if a person G-d forbids generates seed wantonly, this is the actual reduction of the ultimate spiritual manifest, to a coarse superficial coarse goal, HY).

The idea I presented above is actually found explicitly in the holy books, particularly in Rabbainu's Likutay Moharan, regarding fasting. Rabbainu reveals that on a day that a person eats, the food goes to his stomach and inners, and from there energy is sent up to the brain, it is the liver that is propelling the brain. When a person fasts, the direction is the opposite, the brain rules over the body (MeLeCh – king, rule – Moach – brain, Lev – heart, Cuvaid – liver, as opposed to the reverse order of CuLaiM – meaning embarrasment/incarceration – locked into the embarrassing control of the body).

The main thing is to sing Na Nach Nachma Nachman MeUman, which is the ultimate direction!

NNNNM!

Ramchal's One infinite vessel

HH
Tonight, yesod she-bi-yisod, is the hilula of the Ramchal (acronym Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto). He brought many souls to Nanach, including myself. When I read his work "daas tevunos" (realizing knowledge of understanding) I was an extremely diligent yeshiva boy very much ingrained in the Yeshiva philosophy, this work made a huge dent in my belief in their system. It was such a huge game changer - I understood distinctly that a person can excel and master the whole Talmud, and not realize the enormous revelation of this holy awesome work. From then on I intensified my search, concentration, and focus on finding out the important things in life. This is in fact what "Torah Lishmu" (Torah for the Sake of the Shechina), as Rashi in two places in the Talmud says explicitly that this is the intent to find the secrets of the Torah. On all of this I would need to go to great lengths to explain, but here is not the place or time.

It's been many many years since I've reread this holy work, and I can not do full justice or take responsibility of accuracy. Arguably the main point of the work is to show how G-d created the world to reveal His unity, as this allows for the manifestation of all the possible levels of non-unity, where as any other attribute only shows a clear expression of it's positive existence but not of it's ineptitude. E.g wisdom manifests itself at many levels, but there is no measure for stupidity, it is just the absence of intellect, whereas G-d's Unity is just the opposite, His unity is infinite and cannot be fathomed, but every type, form, and amount of unity clearly manifests itself, and thus can be used as a handle of showing some level and perception of G-d's unity. as negative vessels, to reveal that there is only The One Infinite. These vessels show that after every possible force, virtue, or anything achieves maximization, it is nothing, there is just G-d. The evil was created to show that as much as it can even look as prevalent, a rock to big for its creator, it can even give such an impression, and this too is nothing, for the reality is the One Infinite G-d. The infinity of G-d can not be shown in itself, it is impossible to show the infinity of 1, so G-d showed every possible venue, and the more realization of how they have no existence outside of G-d, the more realization of the infinity of G-d Himself.

Some people find this hard to understand, and that's reading it from the clear writing of the Ramchal, so don't go hard on yourself if you don't get my one paragraph synopsis written 15 years after reading the original. But it's the best I can give you for now.

The Ramchal himself reveals, and this is something the Baal Shem Tov really drove home, that all of the Kabbala, all the worlds, are in Man. When sitting before G-d, you gotto let G-d take over. Contemplate how all your limbs are inverse vessel (vessels that don't hold things inside of them, but rather like a dot which holds everything around it) screaming the ultimate presence and realization of G-d. If you could do this, you will be one very happy camper, fortunate is your lot in this world which is already the next world.

Na Nach Nachma Nachman MeUman!