Part 1 · Chapter 12

Understanding the First צמצום 0:03

ומעתה יש להבין ביאור ענין הצמצום הראשון. And now, now, we have to understand the idea of this first צמצום. We're going to give a משל now for this first צמצום. ובחינת הרשימו שנשאר וכולי, as well as the רשימו that is left, the impression that's left after this first צמצום. Now really, this צמצום is not the first צמצום. This is there there are צמצומים before this. There's a צמצום between אחד and קדמון, and between יחיד and אחד, and between עצם and יחיד, and there's even a צמצום to get to the whole idea of עצם and גילויים.

So the whole even before the idea of עצמות, there's a צמצום from God Himself to get to the idea of עצמות even. So, all of these צמצומים that happened be- before this, though are not called the first צמצום because they don't relate directly to our השתלשלות.

And this one is called the first צמצום because it is the first main צמצום that relates to our

השתלשלות. הגם שידוע ליודעים, even though that is known to people that are familiar with קבלה and חסידות, הרי יש בזה פרטים רבים, so even though everybody knows about the צמצום and רשימו, nevertheless there's many details to the צמצום and the רשימו. It's not as simple as people think, "Ah, the light was there and then He took it out, and now there was an empty place." It's not that simple.

Complexity Beyond Simple Light Analogy 1:31

וצריך להעמיק הדעת בהם ביותר. Also, first of all it's it's very complex, and second of all, you have to really cultivate a deep sensitivity for these for the these ideas.

That's the idea of להעמיק הדעת, to have a very deep feeling and and and, like, recognition for these ideas. That you should really be sensitive to it, you should really feel it, not just understand it intellectually.

So, for those two reasons, you have to really study them and really think about them and try to, you know, really get it. כי זה הוא עיקר היחוד האמיתי בעצמות אין סוף, because this, getting this a proper understanding and and and really feeling the idea of the צמצום and רשימו, that is the main thing, the main requisite for a true unifi- unification with עצמות אין סוף. To really connect everything in the world and yourself to see how it's all a revelation of God, yeah, to see it all as as part of עצמות אין סוף, in order The main thing of that is to realize איך דכולא קמיה כלא חשיב, how everything is like nothing to Him.

Realizing Everything Is Nothing to God 2:52

How everything else is really nothing. It's really just coming from His, like, It really is just God and He's revealing Himself, and the way that this whole world looks like it's here is because He hides, like, everything that He is except for this little thing, and this is just like so like a little nothing. And

another idea of כולי קמיה כלא חשיב is that that you have to realize that everything that's in השתלשלות is less than what's before. And it's less to the point where it's like infinitesimal, that it's like nothing. So that means that anything you're going to have in this world, you're going to say, "Ah, look at this. I have this great, yummy, triple chocolate fudge cake. It's so good.

Mmm. Yeah." Say, "No, that's that's like nothing." The the good taste and the געשמאק and the chocolate, God has infinite fudge chocolate cake, not just triple fudge chocolate cake, you know. And it's even more and more. And all the pleasure in it and everything is really just The pleasure is really coming from like a little ניצוץ, a little, really, from the revelation of God that's in it, and that's just like a little revelation of it, of Him.

If you would get the full revelation, it would be so pleasurable that that that that the soul would leave the body. At least right now, without proper lenses and stuff. So really, when you look at anything, like you look at a table, what really it is, that God is hiding everything that He can do except for this table.

So it's really a big And and that's like nothing. Just being to make a table, that's like nothing compared to what He could really do.

Explaining כולי קמיה כלא חשיב in נגלה 4:47

Now by the way, there's also the explanation of this what it means כולי קמיה כלא חשיב in נגלה, if you look in like עין יעקב, it's just a little interesting side, that there There it says that what what does it mean כלא?

So it says לא, it doesn't say כלא, it's a כ-לא. What is לא? לא is the name of the stuff that comes out from the sun, that it says that like there's like this dust that the sun makes from like scraping against its orbit or something.

That's why like during the day you can't sound you can't hear things from as far away, cuz like there's this like background buzz from the sound of this לא stuff.

So you know, that's interesting. That's like cuz it's like the like the משל of like the light, that everything in the world is considered like, you know, like light, like light from the sun,

that it's not its whole it doesn't really have its own מציאות, its whole מציאות is, even at the level where you see it as its own מציאות, like is the like the photons that come out from the sun, its whole מציאות is just to reveal whatever that is coming from the essence, to be like a light. So even at the level where you see it as like its own thing, it's first of all it's like, you know, like photons, like the most like ethereal substance, or like the most like intangible, spiritual substance, they're like the closest, you know, like the most the least physical of the physical things, and also their whole existence is just like to reveal like a spiritual thing, to reveal a light.

Comparing כולי קמיה כלא חשיב and אין עוד מלבדו 6:30

But that's the same idea. That's the way it is in נגלה, and this is the way we're explaining in חסידות, that also that even though, because there's two things: there's כולי קמיה כלא חשיב, and then there's אין עוד מלבדו, that there is nothing else. So כולי קמיה כלא חשיב says the world is a מציאות, but it's just that it's like nothing. And אין עוד מלבדו says that there is no world.

And it's not really a contradiction because like here we're saying that the world is still part of the revelation of God Himself. So it is a מציאות, cuz it's God, you know, made it as a revelation of Himself. It's ממש a מציאות, it's a revelation of Him.

Just that you should realize that the revelation that you see in the השתלשלות is just like a little token example, and it's like nothing compared to the real if you would appreciate the full revelation of God.

Okay, so now גם בבחינת כללות כל השתלשלות דהקו וכולי, that even the whole totality of the השתלשלות of the קו, our whole world with all of the spiritual worlds, with heaven, yeah, גן עדן, the lower גן עדן, the upper גן עדן, and even higher than that, in אצילות, even higher in א''ק, and even like everything that's going to like the revelations of משיח and all of these things are all like nothing, right?

And you say, "What do you mean? Even like משיח is like nothing? The whole thing we want is משיח!" Say, "Yeah, but even when משיח comes, the thing that we want is not really like the external things of משיח that like, you know, that we're going to have peace and tranquility and prosperity, and even not if that we don't want, really, and even the revelations of godliness of like ממלא כל עלמין and סובב כל עלמין, and that's not what we want either.

We want that when משיח comes, then we're going to see God Himself." And this is what we say like in שבת that אין ערוך לך ה' אלקינו בעולם הזה ואין זולתך מלכנו לחיי העולם הבא אפס בלתך גואלנו לימות המשיח ואין דומה לך מושיענו לתחיית המתים,

that in this world, and in גן עדן, and in the time of משיח, and in עולם הבא, it's still it's all worthless without God, right? אפס בלתך, it's nothing without You.

So when a person realizes this, that everything that he sees in the world is only even the greatest spiritual revelations are only like a little token, symbolic thing, and it's just like really as an external thing, and the point of it is for you to realize what's behind it, to see the עצמות ומהות which is behind it, the revelation of God, and not to see it as its own thing.

So when a person realizes that, then they're not going to want the the טפל, they're not going to want the secondary external thing, they're going to want the real thing behind it.

You know? Cuz you know what otherwise what it's like? It's like if a guy gives you a check. The real thing you want is not the check. You want that it should be backed, you want the money in the bank.

You know? Or even a dollar bill, like even if somebody gives you like, you know, money, like the actual bills themselves are worth something, just like the paper and the the artwork on them and whatever, but you don't want that. You want the fact that it's backed by a promise of more, much more than what it's actually worth, you know, than what the actual like paper is worth, like the check, the actual how much the actual check is worth.

So like even if a big guy would sign a check, so just his signature is worth something, but that's not really what you want. You want if he writes you out like a million dollar check, you want the money.

So that's like when a person looks at the world and he realizes, you know, it's just like a it's like a check. And the main thing is to cash it. The main thing is you want what's in the bank.

And this is just like a symbolic thing of giving it over to you. So then you're not going to want the the world as its as its own thing, because you say that's like nothing.

So God gave us a check for infinite stuff, and we should, you know, cash it.