End Chapter 38 and Chapter 39 · Part 8 Chapters 34 to End

Okay, go ahead. Right, and that is where all the snow that's outside here came from.

The Hierarchy of מציאות יש and Upper Letters 0:17

Right. Or the weather that you have over there.

And everything, the the walls around you, the ground under your feet, the fact that the earth is pulling you down and you're not flying off into the air,

everything. That's how it was משתלשל into מציאות יש. Otherwise, if there was no מציאות יש of letters upstairs, how could there be a מציאות יש down here? And that's the whole thing that we're saying about the מציאות יש, that upstairs, it's not abstract, it's a מציאות יש. Because the letters upstairs are bigger than the letters downstairs. In other words, one letter upstairs, like like the letter י of the שם י-ק-ו-ק of השתלשלות, meaning חכמה of אצילות, or the י of אצילות, includes in it all of these worlds from one letter.

Right. That means it's a big מציאות יש, it's a bigger מציאות.

Same like the rich guy and the poor guy. Right. In other words, the the rich guy also has $10. It's not that he doesn't have $10. So, the י upstairs includes all of these things, so imagine what's going on.

This whole world came out of there, so what are you going to say, that there's less מציאות up there? Just the opposite. There's tons, there's more מציאות up there.

And that's why when you go all the way back up, that's called the יש האמיתי, that's a real something. That's the absolute something. Absolute, right. That's absolute something.

Absolute פשוטה. So, if there was no מציאות to this thing, and that's the whole thing, also like you see in the in the letters of מחשבה that come out of the מדה.

And this basically the רבי says in תניא, also, that you see that the מחשבה that comes out is like nothing compared to the actual מדה.

All these הרהורים, the nervousness in the הרהורים is nothing compared to the actual nervousness that he feels. Right. And that's nothing compared to how it is in his brain.

Because in his brain, there's all the reasons for it, also. And that's nothing compared to how it is in the רצון, because the whole thing comes in the רצון. In the רצון, it's not just his job, it's a whole bunch of things: his wife, the swimming pool,

Right. sending his kids to college, all kinds of stuff.

It gets bigger and bigger as you go up.

Not only that, another thing is the fact that just because something is abstract doesn't mean it's less than something that's concrete. Right. Like like we see nowadays with like things like software and stuff.

Like we see this this super rich guy,

what's his name, Bill Gates, Right. that all of this money came out of an an abstraction. Oodles and oodles of money came out of an abstraction.

Whereas, a guy that sells tomatoes, physical tomatoes, huh? What abstraction did it come out of? Abstract ideas that he had. Okay, every invention before it is produced Okay, but even when it's even once it's produced, it's software. It's letters. It's not like an actual physical thing. It's not like a tomato. Right. Or like a song, like like like you have the Beatles. It's intellectual property. The Beatles made zillions of money out of a out of songs, which is just even you say, "Well, it's a sound."

Yeah, okay, it's a sound, but I got tomatoes. No, but the software is like intellectual property, it's really it's thought. It's more abstract than tomatoes, isn't it? It's more abstract than tomatoes, it's maybe even more abstract than the song. It's more abstract than a song also. And I'm not even talking the software once it was written, I'm talking the original idea, the ניצוץ, the idea before the the flash of חכמה.

That's where it came from. החכמה תחיה בעליה, all this money is coming out of a חכמה. Right. So you see all of this money is coming out of a חכמה, and out of tomatoes is not coming so much money. Not only that, you there's some people make a lot of money on tomatoes, but you got to have a lot of tomatoes to come up with the same amount of money like one spark of חכמה.

Right. You know, like people have like 20 supermarkets. But some people have 20 supermarkets, they still don't have money like Bill Gates. Right. You know, or like the Beatles.

But what did the Beatles have? They have what? Uh, 50 songs, 100 songs, altogether. How many songs do they have already? Maybe 100. 100 songs. If if that much. 100 songs. If that much. Or like or like Elvis, how many songs did he have already? 100 songs.

The guy's dead already for how many years and they're still making money on it. Right. You know? And there's some guys that have like, you know, several supermarkets or whole big stores like May Company, I don't think has the same kind of money like the Beatles.

Right. You know, from a few songs. And money is money. Yeah. That's a solid, solid thing. And even the money, you see that the money is even the money is being kept really just in abstract software bank accounts. But where is this money, actually? It's an idea. The money. Even though even when you have the cash in your hand, it's really the It's an idea. It's not even gold anymore.

It's a piece of paper that that has an idea written on it. Right. So that you see that an idea can be money. Like always, the guy says, "I got $100 million in bank accounts." Where where is it?

Money as Pure Idea and Electronic Abstraction 7:16

It's all electronics. Right. It doesn't exist. It's ideas, it's it's it's it's theoretical numbers. Right. You know? So, in our days, you can ממש see that just because something is abstract doesn't mean that it's less than a concrete thing. Just the opposite, you see that a an abstract idea the main thing is, how much money can you make with it, right? You know, like uh like what the what the פריערדיקער רבי said that how crass and how crass and מגושם the Americans are, you see from what they say, what's he worth?

Right. When they say, what's he worth, they don't say, oh, this guy, oh, he's worth really something, he's a big תלמיד חכם. He's a צדיק, he's a he's a פרוש, he's a this, or that, no. How much What's he worth? Oh, he's worth $100 million. Right. Okay, but you see that even this $100 million is an abstraction.

It's not And And And even the fact that that it could be in buildings and stuff, but it doesn't have to be in buildings. It can be an abstract property. Right. You know? So, and it's still It's a something. You see it's a something. Look at this guy. He He can He can take Like Bill Gates. I mean, if he wants, he can buy buildings with it.

Right. You know, physical buildings. Right. You know, and horses, and you know, whatever he wants. It's a something. He can buy the tomatoes. He can buy tomatoes, right. He can buy a lot of tomatoes with it. טוב ונמצא על ידי אותיות יש בחינת השתלשלות עילה ועלול מעצם הנפש עד סוף מעשה. השרש האותיות הוא בעצם הנפש ממש. ממש בעצם הנפש. And upstairs the נמשל is בעצמות. ומכל מקום יובן גם בשרש ומחצב האותיות בעצם הנפש, שנתהווה עם עצם אור הנפש כאחד, is ממש one thing.

It is עצם אור הנפש. כמו שנתהווה בחי כח התנועה עמו. When a חי is מתהווה, the כח התנועה התנועה, it's not like a separate thing that is added on, it's מתהווה עמו. ולכך האי גוונא ודאי לא מבין, means it's it's ממש one thing. It's not that the אייבערשטער's full of letters, it's the same thing.

והנמשל מכל זה הרי מובן, it's the letters of כביכול. ממילא, the אותיות שבטהירו עילאה שנאמר גליף גליפו וכולו, it's with letters, גליף גליפו, היינו בחינת אותיות העצמיים דמחשבה ודיבור שבעצמות אור אין סוף, כמו על דרך משל אותיות הקבועים בעצם הנפש יחידה וכולו, וג' מדרגות הנ"ל, in these three levels, to picture what you want, and the letters mixed up, and the letters fixed up according to what you want, ואותיות הללו משתלשלים ממהות למהות, they go down from one מהות to another, כמו מרצון הפשוט שעלה במחשבה אנא אמלוך, שלפני הצמצום, עד גם ברצון ושכל ומידות דא"ק, ועתיק, ואריך אנפין, ואו"א, וזו"ן דאצילות, הכל נמשך ויורד מזה לזה דרך עילה ועלול, בשינוי מהות למהות, על ידי בחינת האותיות של כל מהות, שהוא בחינת גילוי היש שלו במציאות כנ"ל, עד בחינת סוף מעשה דמלכות דאצילות, שהיא בחינת אותיות דמעשה דמלכות דאצילות, עד מלכות דמלכות דעשיה, like what we said before, till this world, שורש התהוות עולם העשיה שלנו, כמו שיתבאר בסוף הקונטרס, like this will be explained later, שנכלל הכל במה שנאמר כל אשר חפץ ה' בעצמותו ממש עשה בפועל ממש למטה הנה הועמדנו.

Right. Okay, you can turn the tape off now. Go ahead. He started asking this question, now we're in ל"ח, he started asking this question in ל"ח, why the כלים, why the אותיות are sometimes called לבושים and sometimes they're called כלים. ומעתה יובן דרך כלל במה שהאותיות נקראים כלים וגם נקראים לבושים, כי לכאורה בחינת הכלי נחשב מן העצם, גם שהוא המגביל להעצם, כמו אותיות הקבועים תמיד בעצם הנפש שמתאחדים עם העצם, על דרך דוגמא מאותיות החקוקים בציור ובגליפת אותיות החותם, כך ברוחניות האותיות דנפש כמו גילוי עצם החי, הכח, כח התנועה, או כגילוי חיות המתפשט מעצם החי שקבוע כח זה בהעלם עצמו, בהעלם בעצמו.

Why Letters Are Called כלים and לבושים 11:46

וכמו שאנו רואים באותיות השכל הכלולים בעצם כח השכל, these are all כלים, שמיד שיצא להאיר את הסברא מכח המשכיל שלו, יצאו עמו האותיות שבהם. In other words, the minute the סברא comes out of the of the כח המשכיל, it comes out with letters. ועל ידי אופן מציאות ישותו בדבר מה, sorry, ועל ידם אופן, ועל ידם אופן מציאות ישותו בדבר מה, and through the letters is the way that this שכל that comes out has an existence of a something in a way of what it is.

In other words, the idea, what makes the idea this idea, is its letters. And these letters are כלים. והוא אותיות כל השכלה לכל מי שימציאנה, and this is the letters of any השכלה no matter who discovers it. והראיה מב' בני אדם בהשכלתם שכל וסברא אחת, זה ימציאנה באותיות וצירופים כאלה, וזה ימציאנה בגילוי באופנים אחרים וצירופים אחרים, that two people who will explain the same thing, one will bring it out in in one set of letters, and one will bring it out in another set of letters.

וכפירוש וכפירושי המפרשים התלמוד שמסבירים שכל וסברא אחת, כפירוש רש"י ופירוש התוספות והרא"ש והר"ן וכיוצא בזה, בלשונות מיוחדים, והכל עולה לענין ומכוון אחד, even though like you say, what do you mean, sometimes they disagree, but he's not talking where they disagree, he's, in some places they ממש agree and they tell you exactly the same thing, and yet each one says in a totally different way, רק שכל אחד מפרש באותיות שכל שלו וכולו כמו שמבואר במקום אחר, כי בהוולד גוף השכל יולדו עמו אותיות שלו שנראה בהם בבחינת יש, when the גוף of an השכלה is born its letters are born with it, and through these letters, it's come it's it it is seen into it's what it is, its somethingness.

ואף על פי שמטארו ומגבילו, even though these letters

describe it and limit it, define it, מכל מקום, נחשב עם העצם. Nonetheless, they're really part of the עצם of the שכל itself.

וכן אותיות הרצון ואותיות המדות. Same thing with the letters of the רצון is part of the עצם of the רצון. The כלים. ואותיות המדות, כמו אהבה בלב שנתגלה בבחינת אותיות שלה, that it's it's revealed in its letters, שהוא בחינת אופן גילוי במציאות בכמה אופנים שונים, that this is how it is revealed in revelation in several different ways.

כמו שכל אחד שנתגלה בצירופים שונים, in the same way, like one שכל that is revealed in varied צירופים. וזהו הנקרא בחינת כלים, שהוא בחינת היש, ומתאר ומגבילו, ונחשב עם העצם. כמו כמו כל כל בחינת כלים דעשר ספירות. And this is in the body, is called organs. So, the כלים is considered like organs, and the לבושים is clothing.

So, the organs is is is part of the עצם, and the לבושים are not.

כמו כל בחינת כלים דעשר ספירות, כלי האור דחכמה וכלי האור דחסד, ונתבאר לעיל, שהוא בחינת היש והתואר שלה, this is the somethingness and the description of this ספירה as its letters, כלו כידוע.

וכמו שמבואר באות ו' ח', שמהתעבות האור נעשה כלי, that the כלי comes from the thickening up of the light. וגם שורש הכלים קודם לאורות. Not only that, but the source of the the the the the root of the כלים preceded the lights.

Like we said, that the letters preceded even the רצון הפשוט. That in that even in order to for the light to come out, there had to be the ציור and the the the the description and definition of what it is.

שנקרא חומר הפשוט כלו, that is called the simple חומר of the עצמות.

וכמובן מעיל, באותיות שבעצם הנפש קדם לשורש התהוות אור עצם הרצון ותענוג כולו, that the letters in עצם הנפש preceded the actual light of the עצם הרצון ותענוג. They're really preceding it. So, that's the ענין of the fact that the the the the it's called כלים, and that it's called like organs, really,

which which people usually think of כלים, that כלים means like vessels.

And really, really it's not so much like a vessel. A vessel means like a pot.

A pot is not really part of the עצם. It's a לבוש, really, even though it holds it in, you know, but it's it's it's still really it's not really part of the עצם, it's not It it it's it's not the real thing that that makes it into what it is, like soup.

Letters as Organs vs Vessels: The Soup Analogy 18:56

It just holds it. It it it it encloses it, really. The real ענין of a כלי is an organ, like the eye, like you said before, you know. Right. And that's part of the עצם of the ראיה. Right. In other words, if you take away the pot, you still have soup. It's just spilled all over the place, but the עצם of the soup is still soup, even though it's on the floor.

Right. And not only that, it's perfectly edible. A dog will come and lick it right up. He doesn't care if it's on the floor, you know. The only reason you care it's on the floor is because you're worried that it's that it's dirty. Right. You know, but a dog will come and lick it right off the floor, and and it's perfectly edible, it's soup. It's still soup, the the fact that you took away the כלי did not take away its what it is.

It's still the same It's still the same thing of what it was before.

But the אותיות of the שכל, without the אותיות of the שכל, if you lose the אותיות of the שכל, you can't think the שכל at all. The שכל is lost.

The same thing, without the כלי of the eye, even though the light of the eye is still there, you can't see. And not only that, really the light also has כלים.

So that even though the כלים come from this עביות האורות, but really there's there's the כלי that preceded the whole thing altogether. Right. And that's what made it what it is. That's the חומר הפשוט that the lights are made out of, even the original light. That's the ענין of כלים.

אך עם כל זה, גם זה אמת, שהאותיות נקראים גם כן בשם לבושים. הנה, בחינת הלבוש הוא דבר נבדל מעצמו לגמרי, it's really a totally different thing, רק שבא ומתלבש עצמו. כמו שהגוף מתלבש בלבוש זה, ונבדל מעצמו, ומכסה ומעלימו. כך האותיות של השכל, אחרי שהוויתם במציאותם, הרי העצם של השכל מתלבש ומתעלם בהם, שלא נגלה רק בחינת אותיות של השכל, שהוא אופן ישותו כו', only the way it is.

כאילו אין דבר חוץ מאופן זה, as if there's no other way. Has to be דווקא in this way, it can't be in another way. ובאמת עצם אור השכל הזה איננו מוגבל באופן כזה דווקא. It's not really דווקא in this way. כי כמו לבוש שיחליף, ויתלבש באופני צירופים שונים אחרים לגמרי.

It can take off this whole לבוש, and will be מתלבש in a whole different צירופים, the same שכל. וכולם אינם מגיעים בעצם מהותו כלל, רק שבהם מתלבש ומתגלה.

And really the צירופים don't really get to the עצם מהות of the שכל, it's only that in these צירופים it is מתלבש, and that's how it's revealed.

על דרך הנ״ל באופן גילוי של שכל וסברא אחת בלשונות המפורשים כו', and this is ממש the same משל what he used before to show that it's כלים, he's using the same משל to show it's לבושים. That that's why two different people, when they tell you the same שכל, they tell you in two different ways.

If it was ממש the עצם of the שכל, then everybody would have to say it exactly the same way. Wouldn't have to be in different ways. Right. וכך הוא באותיות הרצון.

And same thing with אותיות הרצון. שהרי רצון אחד פשוט מתלבש בכמה מיני גילוי גילויי אופנים שונים, ואינו רק רצון אחד, it's really just one רצון. וכמו דבלבוש יתלבש הגוף, the same like the body will enclose itself in a לבוש, כך הרצון בא באופן גילויו להחליף תמיד. The the רצון comes in a way of a לבוש, and it always changes it, the מחשבה keeps changing.

וכמו שאנו רואים באותיות המחשבה המלבישים המדות של אהבה שבלב, שכבר בא באופן אותיות הגילוי שלה בלב, הנה בבוא המחשבה, הרי מתלבשת שם במחשבה זו, כגוף שמתלבש בלבוש נפרד ממש.

You see that it's מתלבש in this מחשבה, and he keeps thinking different thoughts every second. Right. Like like when we said the guy's sitting and worrying, he's not just sitting and repeating the same thing over and over like a mantra: "Oh I'm worried, oh yeah I'm worried, oh yeah I'm worried." He doesn't think like that. He thinks, like, "Oh so what's the guy going to say? I wonder what I'm going to say?

Maybe he'll say this?" Really it's all the same מדה is מתלבש in all of these different מחשבות. Right. And you see that it's ממש puts it on and takes it off, and puts it on and takes it off.

שעל זה אמר: "כלבוש תחליפם" ממש. You'll change them like a לבוש. שהרי לבוש המחשבה אינו עומד אפילו רגע. The לבוש of מחשבה doesn't stand even for one second.

שתמיד פושט ולובש, ופושט ולובש, ממחשבה למחשבה. It doesn't keep with one מחשבה like like the worry, just just think over and over, "I'm worried, I'm worried." It goes into a whole bunch of different מחשבות. Every second it goes from one מחשבה to another מחשבה.

וכך גם אור השכל הבא בלבוש אותיות המחשבה ממש, פושט ולובש מחשבה ממחשבה כו'. Also when you're thinking a שכל, like when you're thinking something over an actual שכל, you don't just sit and think exactly the words like even in this book, you don't just sit and think the words of the book over and over again like memorization.

Right. So, it means that it's פושט ולובש, so it's not part of it. Right. So, but that's the התלבשות, but מה שאין כן בחינת גילוי אותיות השכל בעצם הנ"ל, but the real עצם of the שכל that comes out of the thing, so the עצם השכל is not like that, though, really. Right. שנחשבים לעצם, רק שנראים כמו לבושי אותיות המחשבה ממש, but it looks like the same like לבוש, it's hard to tell the difference, אחרית הוותם במציאות נבדל מעצם השכל כולו כנ"ל.

And and so so what is he exactly saying here? So, the the thing is like this: for instance, on שער היחוד, שער היחוד is a book, Right. that's made out of letters. So, are the letters כלים or לבושים? Which ones are they? You say, "Well, if you look at the letters that are in front of you, the written letters, you have to say that they're לבושים." Right.

Because they can be separated out. You can take a scissors and cut the book up into little pieces, and you can separate it. And yet, if you separate them and put it into a different צירוף, it's not שער היחוד anymore. Like like for instance in a ספר תורה, the the letters on a ספר תורה scroll, are they are they לבושים or כלים? Well, they're really לבושים, because if you want, you can take an eraser and erase one or change one.

However, if you change one letter, if you write it if you take a ספר תורה and you change one letter, you erase it, or write one extra letter, or take one letter and change it for another letter, it's not a ספר תורה anymore. Right. Not a ספר תורה anymore.

Why? Because now the the the לבושים are not the same like the כלים. Right. You know. So, the thing of a לבוש and the same like a כלי, the same thing that a כלי is like an organ and a לבוש is like a a clothing.

Distinguishing כלי (Tools) from לבוש (Clothing) in Texts 27:21

So that a clothing, if you try to wear a pants on your torso or a shirt on your bottom, it won't fit.

The whole thing of a לבוש, it has to be the right size. It has to fit exactly according to

the body. Not only that, one of the things about a לבוש is when you move the body, when you move your arm, your sleeve also moves.

Right. So, like if you put somebody in a headlock,

what's touching him is the לבוש really, your sleeve. Your arm doesn't touch him, you know. So, so the the לבוש, if it's not according to the כלי, it's not it's not the same thing anymore. So, so, so again, but so but what's the לבוש and what's the כלים? So, that's what it says, that when who was it that burned the ספר תורה, that said the letters flew up into the air?

Hold on, I need to flip the tape.

Yeah.