Part 1 · Chapter 13

Understanding the Empty Place (מקום פנוי) Concept 0:00

והנמשל מכל הנ״ל, the נמשל for everything that we said in chapter 12 about the צמצום ורשימו, יובן למעלה בכללות ענין הצמצום הנקרא מקום פנוי, is understood in Godliness about the צמצום that's called the מקום פנוי, the צמצום is called the empty place. What does it mean the empty place? Empty place means something where you could put something.

So the idea of the צמצום of a מקום פנוי is the first צמצום that God allowed for something that appears separate from Him, an outside existence to exist. That's the idea of the מקום פנוי. He made place where you could put our world.

שזהו בבחינת הסתלקות והעלם לעצמותו, כדי שיוכל להיות אחר כך בבחינת השפעת אור כנ״ל. That this idea of this צמצום is that השם hides His essential light in order to be able to later bring it in and reveal it, but we should be able to, it should be able to be in our world. ולא שנסתלק ונסתם לגמרי. Like we said with the teacher, that he just wants to explain in order that the student should understand, he puts aside the whole deep explanation and slowly feeds it to him and so that eventually that the student is able to get everything.

But it's not that it's completely hidden. אלא כמשל הסתלקות והעלם בעצמו הידיעה שכל העומק ואריכות כששונה דרך קיצור כנ״ל.

God's light is not completely hidden, it's like a teacher that when he's explaining it simply, he doesn't forget everything that he knew. The same thing, when God creates the world, He doesn't become, like God created this table, so what happened to God? Look, it's a table. You say, "No, God didn't become a table," right?

Divine Creation Doesn't Diminish God's Essence 1:26

In other words, that God doesn't lose His ability by dealing with our world. אם כן, לפי זה, גם אחר כל ההשתלשלות דאבי״ע שעומד במקום פנוי זה, if so, even after the whole השתלשלות to create the four worlds that stand in this empty place, הרי בבחינת העלם אור העצמות מקיף וסובב לכל השתלשלות עכ״פ, the essence, the עצמות אין סוף, God's essential self-revelation, which means the revelation of God exactly the way He is, is still there.

It's not there, it's still here. It's just that we're not seeing it, it's hidden, but it's it's really In other words, like people say that they want to see God, or they ask, "Can you see God?" The real truth is that you can't not see God. It's impossible for you not to see God. Wherever you look, whatever, not not only about seeing, whatever you experience, you're experiencing the עצמות אין סוף, you're experiencing the essence of God.

Just you don't appreciate what you're seeing. It's really there. וכמו שהיה אור העצמות קודם הצמצום ממלא את כל החלל וריקן המקום פנוי הזה, כמו שכתוב בעץ חיים, and just like the light of God's essence, the revelation of God, in other words, before the צמצום filled this place, השם hid the light to make it look like our world, כך גם אחר הצמצום, so too after the צמצום, הרי ישנו לאור העצמות כמו שהוא בבחינת אין סוף ממש.

So God's light is still completely infinite, there's still a completely infinite revelation of God exactly the way He is. רק שלמטה נגלה לגבי שפע ומקבל, just that we're not seeing In other words, God still knows that He can do everything and He knows everything that He could do. Just because He chose to make this one world doesn't mean that He can't make another world, doesn't mean He couldn't make Just because He is using these 10 ספירות doesn't mean that He couldn't use another 10 ספירות or another 30 ספירות or things that we have no idea that aren't even ספירות.

Infinite Sefirot and Unlimited Creative Potential 3:09

Right? Really there's אין סוף ספירות and אין סוף worlds and אין סוף everything, and God still has that ability and He still knows everything that He could do. That's still all revealed to Him. Just that He only revealed to us one of those possibilities that He can do. רק שלמטה נגלה למטה לגבי שפע ומקבל, אבל לגבי עצמותו אין שינוי בזה כלל. But God still sees everything else, and there's no change to Him.

וכמו משל היודע כל האריכות ולהשיב לשואלו מיד, גם בשעה ששונה לתלמידו בקיצור וכולי. Like somebody that knows the whole פלפול of the גמרא, and even when he's explaining it simply in short, if you ask him a question, he'll right away tell you the whole thing. So too, like if we would דאווען, God could right away reveal to us whatever it is we needed revealed. If He would want to, He could show you

everything. ומה שכתוב ישת חשך סתרו, and this that it says, this is תהלים קפיטל י״ט, that השם makes darkness His concealment, וכמאמר רז״ל, like it says in the גמרא, ברישא חשוכא והדר נהורא, as, why do the goats run ahead of the lambs? The goats are usually black and lambs are usually white. Says, because that's the way the world works, that at the beginning there's darkness and afterwards there's light.

Why Darkness Precedes Light in the World 4:32

Why does evil start out on the top? That's the the real question. Why does evil start out on the top and only afterwards is there good? So that's the way השם made the world. At first, He made a צמצום, there's darkness, and only afterwards does He reveal the light. Because the whole point of our world is to It's like a puzzle, that you hide it and it looks like it's impossible, and then you think in a new different way and you pull out the answer.

The same thing, like our world, really Everything around us is really revelation of God, but it looks to us like it's completely hidden and we have to pull it out. היינו לגבי למטה. This darkness is only for us, but not to God. God still sees the answer to the puzzle, the solution to the problem. שנמשך רק בבחינת רשימו שנשאר אחר ההעלם כנ"ל.

That for us we only get the light out of the רשימו, which is darkness, and we have to pull out the light. וזהו אתה קדוש ושמך, אור העצמות קדוש ומובדל.

This is what it means that You are holy and Your name is holy. In other words, that God His essence stays above the whole השתלשלות and isn't affected by it, and even His name, even His light, stays holy and removed, and it's not affected by the צמצום, that it's still revealed, it's still existent in its full, original state to God. Right now we're saying from God's point of view, the צמצום is not כפשוטו from God's point of view.

ואתה הוא קודם שנברא העולם, yeah, that You are He before He created the world, and You are He after He created the world. The idea of אתה הוא, ואתה second person, right, that means when somebody's here you say 'you', and הוא, he, is third person.

The Dual Meaning of אתה הוא and הוא 6:01

You are He. In other words, that אתה is the revelation, and הוא is the concealment. So we're saying that the revelation of Your essence is the same as before, before the צמצום and after the צמצום. In other words, that before the צמצום, when there was this revelation of infinite light, just like that is revelation of God's essence, so too now, when God created the world, the revelation that we see is also a revelation of God's essence.

It's also אתה הוא אחר שנברא העולם. כמו שכתוב אני הוי' לא שניתי. I am God, I do not change. וכולי. In other words, that the revelation, the אני, the אני also represents like the idea of מלכות, like so the revelation of God doesn't change. That even though we see it now as being different, but that's still revelation of God's essence. It's still the same revelation of Him.

משום, why, why is it the same? דמה שמגלה עמוקות מני חשך, this that God reveals deep things from the darkness, והעלם, and the concealment, זה אחר כך בהארת הקו. Out from this רשימו, out from this concealment, God reveals the השתלשלות to us in the קו, הוא דווקא מאותו אור העצמות שלפני הצמצום.

That revelation is really the original light from before the צמצום, like the גמרא that we pulled out from the משנה. The גמרא that we reconstitute from the משנה is the same גמרא that they had. And whatever they forgot, the משנה was set up so that they could reconstitute whatever they forgot. But it's the original שכל. So it didn't change, just cuz now we're pulling it out from the משנה, but it's still the same גמרא.

So too, even though we're only perceiving God through this world, but when we look into the world and we find godliness in it, we're getting the same revelation of godliness that there was before the צמצום. ואמנם לא נקרא אור העצמות שמקיף השתלשלות שמקומו פנוי וכולי, כמו מקיף לפנימי.

But nevertheless, even though the light that comes out in our השתלשלות is coming from the revelation of God, but we don't say that that, the light of God's essence, is like a מקיף for the השתלשלות in a way of מקיף לפנימי. We don't say that it's In other words, the idea of a מקיף לפנימי we'll explain later, that's like a person that wants something specifically, a person that wants ice cream.

So that desire is a general desire that includes all the particular things you're going to have to do to get what they want. But it already relates specifically to a certain goal, so it's already somewhat defined by that goal. Or like a light bulb, a light bulb is specifically meant to give off light, so it's built specially to be able to be something that will give off light, or like a movie camera is specifically built, the lens is built to be transparent, it's built for a specific purpose.

Where here it's different. This is like it's not a מקיף on a פנימי, is like, we'll explain later, that's like a person's taste. Even though a person's taste affects everything that they do, so when they're getting their ice cream they'll pick a certain flavor according to their taste, and it affects the everything of what kind of cone they'll want and everything, or if they're building a house, exactly how they'll want everything down to the bathroom drapes, but it doesn't relate to any one detail more than any other detail, it relates to anything they'll do.

External vs Internal Encompassment (מקיף פנימי) Explained 9:15

So it's מקיף it, it surrounds it, and it's the real cause, but it doesn't relate directly to it.

Generally, like a person's house is like a מקיף on a פנימי, it's מקיף on them. It's built specifically to be their house, and they direct it, created it, control it.

The sky is like a מקיף that's not on a פנימי. I mean, in a way it is on a פנימי because it's but relatively it doesn't really directly relate to you. Just if it's going to rain, it's going to rain. On a פנימי?

מקיף on a פנימי is connected to something that's separate already from the person, but it's already defined by that. The מקיף that's not on a פנימי, which is what we're talking about, in other words, that God can reveal Himself in anything, so it doesn't relate specifically to our world.

It's just that God, if He's going to make in our world, is also revealed in our world. You understand what I'm saying? It's not the light before צמצום is not God's ability to make this world.

It's a revelation of God exactly who He is, included in the way, it's the thing of a היולי, that since a היולי, it could also come out with our world, and therefore our world expresses it, but it's a one-way thing. You can't define God by our world because it's not a מקיף on a פנימי. But yet, our world is an expression of God because it's מקיף on our world, because God's light is מקיף on our world.