Part 6 · Chapter 12

Introducing רשימו after צמצום 0:00

explained the צמצום. Now we're going to explain the רשימו that's left over. So, for the צמצום we gave two main משלים. We said, like a teacher that is teaching a deep idea to children, so he has to put aside in his mind the way he understands it and just leave simple explanation, like the משנה to the גמרא.

And we said that both from a teacher's point of view, the teacher doesn't forget the idea, and as far as explanation, he sees the whole depth in the explanation. And even the student receives the whole depth of the idea with and and the whole length and width of it in the explanation, he just doesn't appreciate what he's seeing. That's the main משל. And we said also משל for the soul coming into the body, that even though that we see that the essence of the soul is connected to the body, therefore the person is affected by what happens to his body, nevertheless, if the body part of the body is injured, it doesn't detract from the soul.

So now we're going to explain the רשימו. ואמנם להבין בחינת הרשימו, however, in order to understand the רשימו, now רשימו literally means an impression.

Like, just the simple meaning of the word is like, you know, like in those detective movies where the guy has a pad of paper and he writes a phone number on it, rips it off, and the guy comes and rubs pencil over it and sees what, right? That means an impression. That means the original piece of paper is gone, but there's an impression left. People think רשימו means like a residue.

It doesn't mean a residue. Means that the original thing is completely gone, but you can figure out what was there from something from an impression that's left. Or like a footprint, or like fingerprint is kind of like a residue, but let's say, but things like that.

That's the idea of a רשימו, an impression. שעניינו מורה בחינת הסתלקות בהעלם, that it, the idea of a רשימו, of an impression, implies that everything was removed to be hidden, ולא נשאר מהכל רק רושם כו׳, and nothing is left, just an impression, but none of the original light is left. הוא מובן יותר מעניין משל אחר, so the רשימו is better understood by different משל than we said until now.

Till now we gave like five משלים for the צמצום, now we're going to give five for the רשימו. כמו הרושם שעושה האומן, for example, a blueprint, right?

Blueprint analogy for רשימו 2:18

שיוכל לעשות הבנין בקיצור קו זה שבראשם שכל כללות דרך המעשה בקיצור רושם זה. You're able to take the blueprint, and you're able to build the whole thing. Let's say you're building a skyscraper, you can take this blueprint, and just follow it, and you can build the whole thing, or a whole house you can build it out of this blueprint. And the same thing for like any craftsman that's making, like, first they make a design, like if they're making like, let's say, a new ארון קודש, like out of woodwork.

So, first they draw it to figure out where they're going to put everything, and then they make it. Or even like in a silversmiths, when they're making like קידוש cups, they first draw out the design, and they... So that, but here it's not talking about just a drawing of it, that would be different. Here he's talking about a blueprint is specifically just like a few lines and symbols and marks, and it's to a normal person they wouldn't understand necessarily what it's saying, but if you know how to read a blueprint, you'll be able to build the entire thing out of it.

Not necessarily exactly a blueprint, but it's that he makes just certain marks, like it's a shorthand notation that they would they use to mark the dimensions. Right,

so the first משל is a craftsman's notes, which is a blueprint. There's no actual instructions of how to make the building or whatever it is he's making, and there's no like through actual picture of the things. There's no manifest explanation there at all. You would have to know how to do it. So, to a normal person, that's what we're going to say in a second, that the משנה still relates to what the גמרא spoke about.

In other words, that the the גמרא was talking about somebody owns a cow and somebody else has a cow, and the cow gores the other cow. So what you pay? Who has to pay who? What if it was the first time, second time, third time, right? What if it was in the sun? What All these different things. The משנה is also talking about that. It just has much less about it.

If you, anybody reads the משנה, somebody learns משניות, they will have a general knowledge of Jewish law, and they'll be somewhat familiar with the ideas in the הלכה. Maybe they won't know the whole thing, they won't understand it well. They won't maybe appreciate the real depth of what was going on, why he chose these cases not in other cases, but they understand what's going on. The משנה, even without explanation, you get the basic idea of what the גמרא was talking about.

A person looks at a blueprint, in a blueprint, if you don't get somebody to explain it to you, you're not going to understand. So there the שכל was completely hidden. The intellect, the idea of how to build this thing, is completely hidden. It's there, but it's completely hidden. או כמו האותיות לזכרון אינן נקרא אותיות Or like somebody that makes like a sign to help him remember, like ties a string around his finger.

Mnemonic and string‑finger analogy 5:00

So the string has nothing to do with what you're actually trying to remember. So a person's going to look at it, and they're not going to know, it's not going to be like you're going to look at it and study it and you're going to figure out what the person had wanted to remember. שאין האות ענין שייך לעצם הענין,

the sign has nothing to do with the actual thing you're trying to remember, רק לזכרון בעלמא, it's just to help you remember. כמאמר, like it says in the גמרא, עשה לך ציונים, you should make mnemonics for yourself, כולי. So, like a mnemonic, like Roy G. Biv, you know? Roy G. Biv for the colors of the rainbow, so nobody's going to like look at that and figure out what it is, even though it's there, it's hinted there.

In a way, it's more than the string on the finger because there is something that represents everything there. Or like the one for the planets, my, what is it, "My very eager mother just served us nine juicy- served us nine juicy pickles."

So like these kind of things, if you would just hear the mnemonic, you'd have no idea what it's actually talking about, but once you know, then it helps you remember. וזהו בחינת העלם יותר מקיצור ההלכה ששונה וכולל בה הכל, this is more of a concealment of the intellect than the teacher that summarizes the law, like in the משנה, that he includes everything in a very short way.

שעל כל פנים שייך ענין הקיצור לאריכות, because there, the short explanation, like we said, of the משנה, for example, still relates directly to the long explanation. You see the relevance.

So this is the first two משלים. ויש עוד אופן ברשימו זו, there's another type of משל for the רשימו, שהוא מורה ענין הצמצום וההעלם הרבה יותר, which reveals a much deeper type of a concealment within the רשימו, a different aspect of the רשימו. והוא כמו הזורק אבן, this is like somebody that throws a stone. שכח המוליך אותה נבדל מהעצם, that the force that's carrying the stone is severed from him.

Stone‑throwing illustration of hidden force 6:42

So like like let's say in class, a kid throws a paper airplane or a spitball or something, and then he goes like this, everybody's sitting like that, so you don't know who did it, right? So, why don't you know who did it? Because once he throws it, the force that he puts into it is severed from him, and he can go back to rest and doesn't have to move his arm, he can just go back to doing something else, like be sitting there looking in his book, and you're not going to be able to see the connection between the thing and who did it.

So, both that in the object that was thrown you don't see the connection to the person anymore, and the person also, he can rest, so they're separate. ועם כל זה כל כח התנועה מלובש בו בהעלם, but nevertheless, even though you don't see the connection anymore between the person and the stone or whatever it was he threw, but his his entire power of movement is in there, that's what's moving it.

For example, it's his strength that's moving it, and also his desire, and really, his whole essence is there, and that's why he's responsible for what happens. If somebody throws a stone, and it damages property or if it kills somebody, he could actually be killed, right? So, that means that his soul is held accountable, his whole essence is responsible for what's going on with this stone. אך שהוא בריחוק ונבדל ביותר מכחו העצמי שבידו,

but the force that's in the stone is very distant and it's completely separate from the force of his hand. מה שאין כן כח התנועה עצמה שמניע בעצמו איזה גשם שמלובש בגילוי בהגשם ביותר, כנ״ל.

On the other hand, if somebody actually holds something and moves it, so if you're actually holding it, then you see the connection between the person's power of movement and the thing that he's moving, right? It's much more manifest. Then the idea of when you throw something is that then you put some energy into it, which is in a way of a רשימו, you just leave like an an impression of your force in it, and then you can go back to rest and it just carries it.

And this is the similar thing with all of these, like with the blueprint, you know, the the engineer, architect puts how to build, instructions how to build the building into the blueprint, and then he can walk away. He can give it to somebody else and they can build it. If they know how to read a blueprint, the guy can die, nobody cares, they can build it. That idea is really there in all the משלים.

ויש בחינת העלם יותר גם מזה, and there's a משל that shows an even, really, the רשימו has even more of a concealment than this, which we see from a different משל, שדומה לענין הרושם לזכרון הנ״ל, this משל is similar to the משל of the mnemonic. והוא כמו הרומז בידו לאיזה שכל עמוק ביותר, this is like a person that hints with a hand motion to a very deep idea, right?

Hand‑motion hint to deep intellect 9:11

Like this. See this? Right? So that's a

there's a whole philosophy, right? The whole hippie philosophy is represented by these two fingers, but it's just a hand movement, or like or like when the רבי would would go like this, right?

So there was like a whole thing that was understood there of like not being נפעל, you know, like going against everything and doing whatever you have to do with determination. But you say, "Well, what's that?" It's just a motion. שנבדל תנועה גשמית מהשכל הרוחני, that

the physical movement is totally detached from the idea. In other words, a person once took his, their, their intellect and expressed it and connected it to this idea, this motion. Once that was done, nobody has to think anymore to like connect, put content into this motion. It's already been like thrown. Right?

Nobody's like creatively coming up with this peace sign. ועם כל זה מבין השכל מתוכו וכו׳. Nevertheless, even though it's just a motion, it's just a hand movement, you'd say, "What does that do with intellect?" So what's a guy waving fingers in my face? But nevertheless, a person understands the intellect within it if you know what it represents. ויתר מזה, and even more than this, העלם אור השכל בתנועת האצבע בכתיבתו עולה יותר.

Writing fingers as concealed intellect 10:43

When you're writing something, so like when you can be writing the the deepest ideas, but what it comes out in your hand you're just moving your fingers like this. The advantage of this משל is that it's even more hidden because even you and even somebody else is looking, they don't see the intellect in the motions of your fingers to write. The only way that you see it is because then it comes out again on the paper.

When it comes on the paper, then you see, oh, there was a שכל. So, it just go passes through. כמו שנתבאר במקום אחר באריכות, and really you can put like all these משלים together and really like this book is the משל.

So like the מיטעלער רבי took this deep idea, he took God, whole thing of השתלשלות and everything how God creates the world and everything, and he made it real short, just 80 pages and simple, right, with all these little משלים and things. Then he wrote it down, and then he threw it. And went from Russia to America, and it went into the future also, 200 years in the future, and landed here, and now we're learning it.

Even though it's like, in a way, detached from him that he just did it and we don't see the מיטעלער רבי walking around anymore, but nevertheless, we say that this is his book and he's responsible. And that's why in the beginning he writes that I should be forgiven for any mistakes cuz he's responsible. If we the way we understand from his book, he's responsible. It's like he's sitting behind the book and teaching it to us.

כמו שנתבאר במקום אחר באריכות, explained elsewhere at length, והא כל אלו לסגנון אחד אופן הנ״ל, but all of these משלים of the רשימו are really the same general point. שבחינת העצמות נשאר בהעלם, that the essence remains hidden, that the original light is gone, is hidden completely. וכל ברשימו נקודה זו כולו וכו׳, but yet it is even though it's hidden, it's all included within this רשימו or this point.

And so really it's all there even though on the one hand it's completely hidden, you don't see it at all, but yet it's all there cuz you see that you can pull it all out.

Summary of multiple משלים and their purpose 12:43

Now really, he gives five משלים and they're not or he gives six משלים. They're not really for the same thing. They never use the same משל for the same thing.

The the reason why he's giving all these משלים, like there's a מאמר in עטרת the Rebbe explains the Rebbe Rashab explains why, and this letter of the Rebbe about it.

Main idea is that it keeps keeps, you know, being more hidden. If you want to look up exactly what, you can see the מאמר. But just this last משל, though, like all the the first משלים are showing like how hidden the idea of the how the רשימו is hidden, and the two main points that. One point is that the idea is completely hidden, the שכל is completely hidden, and yet you can pull it out.

And the other idea is that it becomes separate. Becomes like something that's far away. So there's two things: that it becomes detached from the essence, so you don't see the connection, and also that it is שינוי המהות, it changes and it doesn't look like an intellect anymore. Looks like just like a motion, or just like a sign, remember something, like a mnemonic, you don't see the intellect there, or even a blueprint, it just looks like a few little squiggles and notes.

You don't see the instructions for building a building. And and also that it can be thrown, that the original person can leave and and it's completely like self-sufficient, so to speak.

This last משל of the writing, I I think that that משל is an introduction to the idea of the of the קו. That just like at the end of י״ג, he gives the משל of the growth, which seems to be an introduction for the relationship between the צמצום to the light before the צמצום, so here the question we're going to ask in chapter 14 is how can you pull the light out of the רשימו?

How can it come out if it's a complete completely hidden there like a point, how can you pull it out? So in this משל of the writing, you see that it like the intellect get becomes completely hidden more and more until it become it's like a point in the person's fingers moving that there's no revelation of intellect at all, but then when it comes on the paper, it becomes revealed again.

And we'll discuss how that works later.