Part 3 · Chapter 25

The 13 Attributes of Mercy and the Beard Metaphor 0:05

וכך הוא טעם מעלות ענין שורש י"ג מדות הרחמים. This is also the reason why the י"ג מדות הרחמים are so great, שנקראים בשם י"ג תיקוני דיקנא וכו', and they're called the 13 tufts of the beard.

So what's so special about the י"ג מדות הרחמים, and why why do they call it the beard? שיוצאים ממותרי מוחא סתימאה וכו'. The idea of the beard is that it comes out like from the leftovers of the of the brain, that it's just like a leftover thing, like a little bit of an extra thing coming out.

But nevertheless, the fact that it's coming out to such a low thing shows that its source is very high. And that's the idea that the fact that the י"ג מדות הרחמים are specifically when we sin, and it דווקא relates to very low things, but השם connects to like those low things, that shows that the source is really higher than the תורה. Because the fact that השם is able to forgive us when we do these low things and make like our עבירות into מצוות even, that shows that we have a connection that's higher than the תורה, that we have an essential connection that that's higher than a reason, that's higher than a שכל.

Divine Passage Over the Face: Reaching the עצם 1:13

וכמו שכתוב, like it says, ויעבור ה' על פניו ויקרא ה' ה', that when it when it says the י"ג מדות הרחמים, it says השם passed over His face, meaning He went past the פנימיות, past the the שכל and everything to the עצם, and He said, השם השם, and then He said the י"ג מדות הרחמים, שהוא למעלה ממוחא סתימאה שנקרא טעם וחכמה כמוסה דהרצון הנעלם,

which this means that it reaches all the way up to the עצם, which is higher than the מוחא סתימאה with the the source of the intellect, which is like the reason, the hidden reason and and the חכמה that's in the רצון, which is like the the געשמאק, the pleasure you get out of it, but this is higher for the עצם connection to it.

So this is the idea that השם has like a בחירה in the אידן, which is higher than a reason and and everything that that's just there's a level where it's just connected to השם because He chose it, and that's higher than the intellect.

And so it can come out that even something which, according to intellect, doesn't make sense, it will so come out there. And that's like idea that even a person that, according to תורה, sinned, so you say, oh, so according to that, you shouldn't you shouldn't be connected to השם, השם says, no, we'll forgive him anyway, and we'll connect him anyway. שנקרא גם כן שכל הנעלם מכל רעיון, this is also called the שכל which is hidden from all thought, אי הפלאות חכמה, or the wonders of חכמה, which that's all the the way that the the source of the שכל in the כתר, and this is higher than that.

Hidden Intellect (שכל) and Receiving from the מזל 2:25

ולפי זה, based on this, כשאמר דאור אבא ינק במזלא וכו', when it says that the light of חכמה receives, it sucks from the מזל, הרי זה למעלה ממוחא סתימאה עצמה. So we don't just mean there that that it receives from, it's true that it receives from the liquid a little bit drips in, so it's receiving from מוחא סתימאה, from the source of the חכמה, the חכמה of כתר.

But not only does it receive from the source of the חכמה in the כתר, it even receives from the עצם of the כתר, which is higher than that, because that's what forces it to come down, so it's really receiving from the עצם. ולזה אמר, and this is why it says, הכל תלוי במזל, everything depends on a מזל, אפילו ספר תורה בהיכל, even a ספר תורה in the היכל, שהוא בחינת יחוד אבא ואמא למטה, which this is the idea of the union of the אבא ואמא of חכמה ובינה below, your understanding, in other words, נקודה דחכמה בהיכל דבינה, which that's the point of חכמה in the היכל of בינה, that even the understanding of the תורה is according to the מזל.

ועיין דיש כאן עוד. And this is the idea that really the source of the שכל is in the עצם, which is higher, and according to that עצם, that's what decides what's going to make sense.

So even the way that the חכמה is going to come out is according to this עצם. And that's the idea that really that the מצוות are really from השם's רצון, which is higher than any reason, and השם's connection to the to connection to the אידן is just from השם's עצם, which is higher than a reason. And the only reason the תורה makes sense, because השם said that it should be that way, like should make sense that way.

But when you reveal the source of it in the מזל, then you reveal the level where it could come out anyway. So this is one of the things that חסידות does, it reveals the עצם of the שכל, and that's why in חסידות you have the the same thing explained in many opposite ways even, and then you show how they all connect. Because when you reveal the source in the עצם, it's not it's, you know, it it it takes what normally in שכל would be like ridiculous, would be like stupid, reading it in an opposite way, which sounds ridiculous, or reading it in two opposite ways and showing how they connect, but it does that, because that's really the עצם of the שכל, it's much higher שכל.

שזהו ספר וספר. This is ספר and סיפור. The the תורה is the ספר, and And the בינה is the סיפור, and both of them are according to the סופר, which is the one that makes the שכל, which is the עצם.

שניכר ספר תורה בהיכל, that's called a ספר תורה in the היכל, כידוע. So at this level is where the שכל's according to the עצם and the בחירה, and so the שכל can be made however you want.

And השם decides what's going to make sense, and because He decided it should make sense, that's why it makes sense. And it comes all the way down that השם decided that the תורה ומצות should be a certain way, and that is now the nature of the world. And if you would actually go and do a scientific study in the world, you would come to the conclusion that that's the best thing, על פי שכל, to do things according to תורה.

Why Math Makes Sense: One Plus One Is Two 5:43

But nevertheless, that's only because השם chose that it should be that way. Right, yeah, math only makes sense because God said it should make sense. Because God made the world that one plus one is two, that's why it makes sense that one plus one is two. If God would have made the world that one plus one is three, then it would make sense one plus one is three, because He made your fingers that way.

It's hard for a person to imagine otherwise because they don't live in a in a world, they live in this world, so they don't know anything else.

But even like in this world, like what we explained, what we explained about the source of math, of the idea of like one plus one is two. What's the source of that? We explained how that the source of that is an אחד.

So it's only because השם made the idea of אחד that you have the idea of math, that it makes sense to us that you should group things that are separate together and make them into like a unit. So like if I have three apples in my bowl, I'll say one apple, two apple, three apple, oh, I have three. The fact that it makes sense for me to count them together is only because השם made in the world this idea of seeing separate things as being part of this higher unity.

But if God would have made the world only with like קדמוני, then we would say, what do you mean? We would just have this like existential, you know, view of the world. We'd say the apple is an apple. It doesn't, just because it's near another apple doesn't make it two apples. There's one apple, and there's one apple.

One plus one equals one plus one. That's what it equals. It doesn't equal two. No, you wouldn't think of it as two, you'd think of it as one and one. And then when you have three, you have one and one and one. You don't have three.

What's the idea of making them into like this unit of three, that they lose their identity, they lose their individuality, they're just a number. They're just a one and a one and then now they're just two. Like how, what's the idea of doing that? That the whole idea of doing that is only because our minds work that we make generalities, and we see things that are similar as being like just another one of the same thing.

But they're really not. They're really, each one is its own unique thing. You know, in a way, it doesn't make sense to count them and say, "Oh, one plus one is two."

No, they don't have anything to do with each other. This is one, and this is one. What do you mean you have, "I have ten?"

I have ten, you know, that means that like they're all the same thing. Like the idea, there's a whole thing even like there's philosophies that say this, that you can't really, there is no existence of like a generality to say like "apples".

There doesn't exist the idea of apples, like this general thing. There's only individual apples, each one is a different apple. And that's the idea, is that that if you look at it on the level of קדמוני, each one is individual and unique, and it has no connection to some generality. There doesn't exist, in actuality, there is no general thing of apples. There only exists particular separate things.

The idea of a generality is like a thing of אחד. And but השם made the world in such a way that we should have, our minds should work that way. That we should make generalities and see like a unity that's not a physical like thing that's there, but it's like this mental or spiritual thing that unites things that are similar, even though they're really separate and unique.

So because השם made us that way, that's why we we can count. Otherwise, we wouldn't be able to count.