Part 1 · Chapter 23

Introducing Keter: The Bridge Between Emanator and Emanations 0:03

So now we're going to begin chapter 23, פרק כ״ג. Here we're going to begin explaining the idea of כתר, the idea of רצון and תענוג, and how כתר is an intermediary between the levels before it, between the מאציל, the emanator, the source of the light, and the נאצלים, the emanations, the lights, what's, you know, the lights of אצילות.

והנה בפרטיות בבחינת הכתר, איך שהוא בבחינת ממוצע, ויש בו מבחינת האחרונה שבמאציל, and now in detail, we mentioned the idea of כתר before in general, but now to explain the details of כתר.

What are the details of understanding כתר? How it is an intermediary and how it contains both the end of the מאציל, the end of the the luminary, the source of the light, והוא בפנימיות שבו, and this aspect that it is the end of the the lowest level of the the emanator, that is the inner aspect of the כתר.

On the other hand, והוא שורש וראש לנאצלים בחיצוניות שבו, on the other hand, the כתר is also the root and the head, the beginning of the נאצלים, of the emanations, of the lights, it's already the first of the ספירות that leave the מאציל, and that is the חיצוניות שבו, that's the external part of the כתר. So to explain these two aspects of כתר and how it's able to be this intermediary between the מאציל and the נאצלים, וכמו שכתוב בעץ חיים, and like it says in עץ חיים, in עץ חיים it explains this about the כתר, how it's an intermediary.

The Three Heads of Atik Yomin: Separation Explained 1:48

וגם היות ידוע שבבחינת ג׳ רישין דעתיק יומין מובדל ומרומם ובלתי מלובש בנאצלים, as explained in עץ חיים and it's also known, it's common knowledge that the ג׳ רישין of עתיק יומין, that the three heads, meaning the כתר, חכמה and בינה of עתיק, of עתיק יומין, which is the פנימיות of כתר, are separate and they're removed and they are they remain above, and they are not enclothed in the נאצלים, they do not descend into the נאצלים, וזהו המתנשא מימות עולם, and this is what it means, this is what it says in in the פסוק, that God is transcends, he is above, raised above the days of the world, meaning the ימות עולם means the the מידות of אצילות, so the the מידות of עתיק already relates to the idea of what goes on in the world, but the ג׳ רישין of עתיק are above that.

Why It’s Called Atik Yomin: Meaning of ‘Ancient’ 2:50

ולכן נקרא עתיק יומין, and that's why it is called עתיק יומין, which עתיק means, they usually translate עתיק יומין as the ancient of days, עתיק can mean old, can mean ancient, it can also mean removed, and it can also mean to copy, it can mean three things.

So the idea that it is removed from the days of the world, it means it's removed from the מידות, מלשון המעתיק הרים וכולי, like somebody that says the one that uproots mountains, שנעתק מימות עולם וכולי, that he's removed from the days of the world. הנה כל זה ידוע. So all this is known, so it's common knowledge that the פנימיות of כתר is removed from the days of the world and that's the end of the מאציל, and the חיצוניות of כתר relates to the world and that's the שורש and the ראש of the נאצלים.

So as usual, the מיטעלער רבי, he first begins a new topic by quoting sources about it and just saying the like the basic kabbalistic terms of that level, and then he gives the משלים and explanations for that level. So here he's quoting what the sources from עץ חיים about this level, and now he adds a question almost: ויש להבין, we have to understand, בזה דרך פרט, we have to understand this in a detailed way, והיות, שעתיק יומין ואריך אנפין נחשב לאחד, because on the one hand we see that עתיק יומין and אריך אנפין are considered one level, they're considered כתר is considered one level, ואף שבכללות נחשב בחינת עתיק יומין סוף עולם האין סוף ובחינת אריך אנפין הוא שורש וראש לנאצלים, כמו שכתוב בעץ חיים, but in general we consider עתיק יומין to be the end of the world of the אין סוף, the end of the world of the infinite, and we consider אריך אנפין to be the root and the head, the beginning, for the נאצלים, for the the limited worlds, like it says in עץ חיים.

Is Keter One Level or Two? Exploring the Paradox 3:53

So we have to understand how is it one level, or is it two levels, obviously it's both, we have to understand how this relationship is. On the one hand we say that כתר is one level, and on the other hand we say that there's these two aspects to it. And these two aspects are עתיק and אריך אנפין, but we're saying on the on the one hand we're saying that really they're one level, it's not really two different things.

אריך אנפין and עתיק יומין are really the same thing. But on the other hand, we say that they're that they're distinct, that one is that that when we call it עתיק יומין that's then it's like removed, and when we call it אריך אנפין then it's enclothed in the worlds.

Pleasure and Desire as the Metaphor for Keter 5:21

So we have to understand what this means. Now the מגיד will begin giving a משל to explain this idea. וביאור הדברים ידוע, and the explanation of these matters is known, שזהו בחינת התענוג והרצון, that the משל for this is pleasure and desire. The משל for עתיק יומין is pleasure, and the משל for אריך אנפין is desire. ולהיות שאנו רואים שבכל רצון יש תענוג, ולולי התענוג לא היה רצון לדבר כלל, and being that we see that every desire has a pleasure in it, has a pleasure behind it, and if it wasn't for that pleasure, then you wouldn't want it at all.

The whole reason that you want it is because you'll enjoy it when you get it. כמו הרצון לעושר וכבוד, for example the desire for riches, or the desire for honor, for glory, לולי שיש בו תענוג, if it wouldn't be that there was a pleasure, if it wasn't pleasurable, if it wasn't fun to be rich and it wasn't pleasurable to be honored, לא היה רוצה בזה כלל, you wouldn't want it at all.

If it was only a nuisance to have a lot of money and have to have a complicated tax form, then people wouldn't want they wouldn't want to be rich.

And if it was if it was only a pain to be famous and have people taking pictures of you all the time and wanting your signature and stuff, if it wasn't a pleasure behind it, people wouldn't want it.

אם כן התענוג הוא בחינת פנימיות הרצון, if so, that means that the pleasure is the inner thing of the רצון. That means the real thing that's behind the רצון is pleasure. לכאורה, seemingly. Because seemingly the the motivation, the cause of the desire, what's what's giving rise to this desire is the fact that you can get pleasure from it. So seemingly the main thing is the pleasure, and then the desire is just an expression of that pleasure, it's an outcome of the pleasure.

So the pleasure is like the inner cause, so it's called like the פנימיות. So first there's the pleasure, the fact that he enjoys being rich, and then comes the desire to be rich, in order to get that pleasure. And first comes the fact that he enjoys honor, and then comes the desire for honor.

So that's the way it seems, but it's not that simple. Why? ואנו רואים להיפך גם כן, but however, we also see the opposite, שאם אין רצון אין תענוג. We see that if a person does not have a desire for something, he will not enjoy it. שהרי דבר שלא ירצה בו לא יתענג ממנו, if a person doesn't want something, he will not have a he will not delight in it, he won't he won't enjoy it, כלל, at all.

שאם אין רצון אין תענוג, we see that if there's no desire, there's no pleasure. How do we see that? שהרי דבר שלא ירצה בו, לא יתענג ממנו כלל.

We see that something that a person doesn't want, he will not enjoy at all. אם כן הרצון פנימיות התענוג. If so, that means that the desire is the inner thing of the תענוג, that what determines whether you enjoy something or not is whether you wanted it or not. How do we see this?

We see that something that's normally considered a pleasurable thing, if a person doesn't want it, they won't enjoy it. Like for example in הלכה there's a thing that if somebody stuffs food down somebody's throat and he doesn't want to eat it, and the person forces him to eat it, that he won't doesn't enjoy it.

And the same thing in other situations where somebody is forced to do something, they don't enjoy the thing. Well, there's a the reason that that's relevant in הלכה is because certain things it's it's only there's only a problem of getting like הנאה from something, but if somebody has something stuffed down their throat, there's no הנאה, they don't get they don't enjoy it. Like you see this with with like a kid that's banging banging with pots and pans, that the whole reason that he enjoys the the it's really noise, it's not like it's not like music, it's not a nice sound, but the one that's making the noise enjoys it, and everybody else hates it, because the one that's making it, he wants to make the noise, so since he wants it, so he enjoys it, but everybody else doesn't want it, so they hate it.

Now, something that's like music, there you see like the opposite, that it's like inherently pleasurable, but even there, like if somebody doesn't want to listen to it, then they won't they won't enjoy it. If somebody's not in the mood to listen to music, even if it's like their favorite CD.

But if like right now what they want quiet, there it's it's painful to them, they what they won't enjoy it. Or even if they just decide, even if they just decide they want to listen to it, they also won't enjoy it. Even if it's not like if they're, you could say, cuz you could say they're in a mood where it's painful to them, so it's really they don't they don't want it because they don't enjoy it.

But let's say somebody becomes פרום, and so he doesn't want to listen to non-Jewish music anymore, and then it's playing, and somebody like puts it on in a room. So you see a lot of times with this kind of a situation that he'll be disturbed from the fact that the music is on, because he doesn't want to listen to it. But there's nothing that really happened that he's that he stopped liking it, but yet he won't enjoy it.

So this is the opposite. And seemingly it's that that's the way it is: when you decide to when you just you want something, you you decide you want it, so then you enjoy it. ואנו רואים, and on the other hand, we see something So So we said on the one hand we see that the pleasure is the פנימיות, on the other hand we see that רצון is the פנימיות, and now he's saying ואנו רואים that we see שזה בלא זה אינו מתקיים, that you cannot have one without the other.

כי אין הרצון קיים בלא תענוג, ואין התענוג קיים בלא רצון, that really you must say that they're interdependent, that you can't have either one without the other one. You can't have a desire without a pleasure, and you can't have a pleasure without a desire.

So you can't really say that one is the פנימיות and that it stands alone, that the other one is only coming from it, because neither one can exist without the other one.

They're always in coexistence. They're always interdependent. ולפי זה, based on this, מוכרח לומר ששניהם מהות אחת, מהות אחת. We must say that they are really one entity. מאחר שמציאות חיבורם יחד דווקא יתקיים וכו׳, because they they can only exist when you have them both together. If they were really a separate thing, if desire and pleasure were really a separate thing, then you could have one without the other.

But the fact that it's impossible to have one without the other shows you that really they're they're really one thing. And you'll never have an example where you'll have one without the other. There always is maybe one is dominant, but you always really have them together.

The reason that the that this is because the desire and the pleasure are really two sides of the same coin. That's That's what we're explaining here. Well, basically the idea is that רצון and תענוג are both they what what they really mean is that you're connecting yourself to something outside of yourself. You're connecting yourself to something. When you connect yourself to something, so it's either revealed as desire or as pleasure.

Desire, Pleasure, and the Hidden Third Head (RadelA) 12:35

If it's not something If it's something that you connect yourself to, but you don't really have yet, or it's not revealed totally yet, so then it's a רצון that you're going towards it, and then when you get it, then you get the pleasure. But the whole reason you get the pleasure is because you want it, and the whole reason you want it is because you're going to get the pleasure from it, because really they're really coming from a from a third, higher thing which is really the what connects them, that you that the you, the fact that you connect yourself to it.

So like with the kid banging on the pots and pans, the reason that he enjoys it is because he wants it, meaning that he put himself into it. Since he he decided to do it, so he's connecting himself to this sound, so now it sounds nice to him. It sounds beautiful, cuz it's his sound.

And on the other hand, sometimes when you don't see that desire so clearly, you see mainly the the pleasure, the idea that a person takes pleasure in something is that he feels that he connects to it, that he associates with himself in it. He says, "Ah," you know, "that that kind of that reminds him of himself somehow." And so he enjoys it.

And that's why he wants it, because that means that he the fact that he sees a connection of to of himself in this thing, that means that he's going to want to go after it.

And this inner thing that connects the two of them, which is the association of himself to it, that's what we're going to mention later, this is the idea of the third the third head, that there's עתיק and there's אריך, and then there's רדל״א.

רדל״א means רישא דלא יתיידע, the head that's not known. That's the the פנימיות of עתיק, it's the פנימיות of כתר, the inner the most פנימיות part of כתר, which is where you connect yourself to it.