Part 4 · Chapter 12

Teacher's hidden depth in short explanations 0:03

וכמו שאינו נעלם ליודע כל הפלפול גם בשעה ששונה לעצמו דרך קצר וכו' and just like for the teacher that knows the whole פלפול that it's not missing to him even when he teaches it in a short way, like when רבי יהודה הנשיא wrote down the משנה for like notes, he saw the whole פלפול there. When רבי יהודה הנשיא looked in the משנה, he saw the whole פלפול of the

גמרא, שנמצא שידיעתו באריכות מקפת בהעלם כל השכלות הקצר. So it comes out that his knowledge of the whole long explanation of the גמרא encompasses in a hidden way the whole revealed short explanation of the משנה. ולא שנסתלק לגמרי כשכחה חס ושלום וכו'. And it's not like it totally went away that he forgot it. No, he knows it, and he sees it in this short explanation. וכמו שמבואר ביאור זה באריכות במקום אחר.

And so so too, that's the way it is for the student, that it's all there, and the student is really getting the full explanation, he just doesn't realize it yet. And when he'll study and he'll think about it and develop his mind, he'll slowly appreciate more and more of what he was taught until he realizes the everything just like the teacher.

So if we look at this this משל, this analogy of the teacher and the student, we see that there's two main things. The main The main theme is that the צמצום, that you need to have the צמצום, but the צמצום is not כפשוטו.

What does that mean? That means that even though the teacher is hiding most of his intellect when he teaches the student, and he's just giving over one little point, but the the the whole understanding is not really missing, didn't really go away.

Both from the teacher's point of view, that the teacher doesn't forget it, and so if you'll ask him, he can explain it to you, and even from the student's point of view.

And within this, there's really two things. One thing is that the teacher didn't forget it, and so if you'll ask him, he'll be able to explain it to you.

And the second thing is that even when the teacher looks at this short explanation, he sees the whole thing there. He sees how that short explanation really explained everything.

And so if you would tell the teacher that short explanation, he would understand the whole thing, you wouldn't even have to explain it to him.

And also for the student there's two things: that really, even though right now the student is only getting one little short explanation, but he's not really missing the rest of it because whatever he's able to understand the teacher is explaining to him. And so as soon as he's ready, he has a question, he wants to know something else, he just asks, and he's able to get it.

So it's really It's there. And not only is it really there in the teacher that he can ask for it, but even in that little explanation that he got from the teacher. Even if the teacher will go away, if he'll study what the teacher told him, he'll be able to get everything, cuz it was really all there.

So from both both from the teacher's side and from the student's side, it's there both in the teacher's mind and in the explanation. The only difference is that the student doesn't appreciate it all yet because the student has a small mind.

But as he'll develop, then he'll, you know, he'll be able to see everything like the teacher. So that's the the first משל, that's the main משל for the צמצום. והאופן משל הב׳,

Soul entering the body must limit its potential 3:53

the second main type of משל. So this is the first type of משל, the first main משל is from a teacher and a student.

The second main משל for the צמצום is מחיות הנפש בגוף, the consciousness of the soul in the body. גם כן עולה על דרך הנ״ל, it also comes to this main, this, you know, similar conclusion, similar point as the previous משל. והוא בהיות שכדי שישתנה מחיות רוחניות שבעצם הנפש לחיות בשר הוצרך להיות בחינת העלם וכיבוץ האור של הנפש בתחילה,

that again, we see, just like with the student the teacher and the student, that in order to explain the deep idea to the student, there has the teacher has to hide the way he understands it with the whole depth, because it's too much for the student, and it's too complex, too it's too broad.

So too Too, the soul, in order for the soul to come into the body, the soul has to hide its full potential,

because the soul can really do a lot more than the body can do. And it could see a lot more than the body could see, and it could understand a lot more than the body can understand, and everything like that.

But now we don't want the soul to, you know, like a person it's like dreaming, so they're seeing all kinds of things, right? Or like a person hallucinates or something. But we don't want, when the soul comes in the body, we want it to, you know, we say, "Hey, you know, easy there. We want you to only see what the eyes see."

Sometimes, you know, you could be sitting like you could be sitting in class or something, and and like the teacher's talking, and then, but instead of like listening to the teacher or even seeing the teacher, you know, your imagination wanders off, and you're you're seeing and hearing a whole 'nother world.

You're in a whole like, you know, different place. So that's that's just going from the eye to the brain. If you go up to the soul, it would be even more than that. It would be even more unlimited. But we don't want that to happen. We want it to be that your soul will keep quiet, and only when light hits your eye, then it will only see what your eyes are seeing.

Or else there's no point in being in the body, right? So in order to do that, in order for the soul to come in to the body, it has to say, okay, I'm going to put aside everything that I can do, and everything I can see and feel and everything, and I'll be quiet, and I'll wait, and only see something when light hits the eye, and only hear something when air hits my ear.

But the soul automatically does that because it wants to come into the body. If a person, a person can sometimes, you know, if they really want to go out of the body a little bit, then it can kind of it it can, you know, go out of it a little bit. But then they won't be able to see and hear.

Illustrations of the soul’s restraint (Rabbi’s ear story) 6:56

Like once, the רבי רש״ב was saying a מאמר, and there were some people making noise in the side room. So he, because his whole body and his whole desire was to to teach חסידות, so automatically, since something that was disturbing him from teaching חסידות, since that noise was disturbing, so he shut off one of his ears, the one that was facing that room, so it wouldn't hear.

And then, but it it was like on it was unconsciously done. Then later, they realized that he couldn't hear out of one of the ears, his ears, and they didn't know what had happened, and they realized it was from that, and then he turned it back on.

Right, so if because there, what he did is that he his soul decided it didn't want to be in the ear anymore, so it left.

Or like a thing of like דביקות or something where like the soul goes up, you know, and like the and it then it's not receptive, it's like seeing things in, you know, higher levels, kind of like a dream. That's like a one step up. Then there's even higher levels, like a נבואה. A נביא totally loses his physical senses when he's getting a נבואה, except for משה, who was able to like stand, like as if you're talking to a regular person, like stand, you know, face to face, or whatever.

But regular נביאים would totally, they were called like they're called like crazy people when they would have a נבואה. They would like totally lose, they would like, you know, fall on the ground, they would totally lose their senses and stuff, they wouldn't be able to see or hear anything around them and be like, you know, because it's the soul was going out of the body a little bit.

So in order for the soul to come into the body, it has to limit itself, and to only be revealed according to the body. לפי שאין ערך ביניהם, because there is no comparison between the two. The body is not a good recept- recipient for the soul. It's a very it's too small for to hold the real light of the soul.

So therefore, the soul has to hide its true potential, at least at first. ועם כל זה, nevertheless, הרי מתפעלת הנפש ממקרי הגוף. The soul is affected by what happens to the body, the soul itself.

It's not just like that that a little ray of the soul is coming into the body, but then the soul remains aloof. A little ray of the soul comes into the body, but the whole soul is attached to it.

אם כן, גם אור הגשמת החיות תתחבר ונקשר אור עצמותו הרוחני. That means that Even though the light of the soul that's coming into the physical life, when a person sees something or feels something, is connected to, and it's tied to the essential light of the soul.

So that means that if if you hit somebody, their soul feels the pain.

And it can and and it'll and or if you like hurt somebody or insult them whatever, it can hurt them all the way to their essence, the core of their being.

Because it's not just, yeah, it's not really their body that's feeling it. It's not just like that there's like a little biological thing going on that like it sends an impulse, but their whole soul feels it.

And also with happiness, when they get happy of something or pleasure from something, the whole soul gets excited and has pleasure from it. כצמיחה גשמית שנקשר בכח הצומח הרוחני וכו׳. Like the physical growth of a plant, that even though like there's just a little plant, but it's connected to the spiritual power of growth.

Like we see, you know, it's like very metaphorical, that if you have like a little, you know, like a tree or or a plant, it just has this thin little stem connected to the ground. So the whole infinite potential of the ground is just now, this is just one little thin you know, it's like one little example of it, one little possibility, you know,

because you see, it's connected to this huge the earth is like this huge massive potential for growth. And here, it's just this little stem is just bringing, you know, siphoning out this a little drop of it. And even the little drop that's coming through this stem is filtered by the by the roots to only take up the parts that you know, that this plant is able to use.

Different plants use different types of nutrients. That's why they like rotate crops and stuff, because certain ones use certain parts of it, and certain ones use the other parts of it.

It's according to the seed and the DNA of the plant, and it's and so it's it's just bringing out one little possible thing of what the earth can bring out.

But if you disconnect it from the source, which is the source of everything, then it won't grow anymore.

So you see that it's connected constantly to the whole source. In the same way, that if the soul whole whole soul would not be in the body, the body wouldn't be able to see and wouldn't be able to hear and wouldn't be able to feel. You need the soul to be there. The person, or else wouldn't be alive.