Part 2 · Chapter 14

Understanding צמצום and Hidden Light 0:02

So as far as the צמצום, seemingly it's not a problem to have a גילוי that come afterwards. אבל מאחר שנקודה זו מורה העדר התפשטות לגמרי למטה, but since this point is in a way that it totally doesn't spread out to below, it's made in such a totally it's all stuffed into a point, לכאורה זהו דעביד ליה כצמצום גמור ואמיתי, seemingly, this is a complete and true צמצום, והעלם והסתר דבלתי יבוא האור למטה, that the light is being concealed and covered over so that it should not come below, not that it's being given over to below, but it's being hidden from them.

Right? Like let's say you'd put something in code. So you took the intellect and you hid it in a way where it's all there, but nobody's ever going to get it.

So let's say instead of making a blueprint, cuz we said it really it's it's shorter than a blueprint, the רשימו is so short it's like he just puts it in one dot. So they're not going to be able to figure out how to make the building from one dot. In his mind that reminds him from everything, you know, like a string around your finger, just to remind you, but to somebody else, they don't see the שכל there.

How are they going to figure it out? Or like a mnemonic, you know, like what is what's the thing, my very eager mother served us nine juicy pickles, or something like that?

Right? So like you're never going to figure out that's a mnemonic to remember the order of the planets if you're not told, because it's it's put in a way that's too short. You you don't see the connection. There's no way you're ever going to see the connection.

And that's not even like a total point yet. And then it could be even shorter, like Roy G. Biv for like the colors of the rainbow, the orders of the colors of the rainbow. That's even shorter.

And then it gets so short that like it's just like one point, so you're never going to figure it out.

Rishimu: All Present Yet Practically Absent 1:41

Right, exactly. רשימו has two aspects. On the one hand, everything's there. That's the point that we explained the last few chapters. The whole point of the last few chapters is that the רשימו has everything in it, and that the way of the צמצום is not a צמצום כפשוטו, but rather the צמצום is putting everything there, so that the רשימו has everything in it. And yet, it's hidden completely.

So as far as the first thing, it's not a problem, because everything's there. But as far as the second aspect, it's all hidden, so I don't Even though it's all there, but it's not Practically, for me, it's not there. I don't care if it's there, you know? Let's say we're going to make a language, and instead of making like a word, you know, like in some languages they have a word for for one thing that in another language could be like a few words.

So let's say we'll make a word that that word will mean the entire all of the Shakespearean plays. That one word, you know, will mean the whole thing.

So you know, you're never going to figure it out. You know, so somebody like knows, you just write that word. That's what it's like. It's like, you know, the teacher walks into class, and he gets up and he writes "math" on the board, and he walks out. And he says, "That word has it all in it. Everything that you're going to learn in this class, and, you know, when you graduate this class go to next class, for all of your years in school when you're learning about this subject, it's all included in this one word.

Learn it well and you'll know everything you have to know cuz it's all included in this word." And then he just walks out, and that leaves them there. They're never going to figure it all anything out. It's true that it has it all in there, but it's put down to one point so there's no ways for them to get it out. It's hidden.

So that seems like it's a צמצום כפשוטו still, like, so it's okay, so it's the צמצום in a way was not total because he wasn't like hiding the light, he was just contracting it and stuffing it into this thing, but as far as we're concerned, he's intentionally hiding it from us, because he's making it so short that we're never going to figure it out. You know, it's like sometimes like two people, they don't want other people to understand, you know, like sometimes parents talk to each other in a different language so their kids won't understand.

So they're saying everything, but they're saying it, but for the kids, it's like they're not saying it. Or the same thing like if two scientists would say stuff in jargon that normal people won't understand, so they're saying everything, but to other regular people it's totally hidden, cuz it's being put in a way that they don't know.

The Zohar Written as Hidden Blueprint 3:53

Or actually like it says about the זוהר, the רבי חיים ויטאל writes in his introduction to עץ חיים, that the זוהר, the wisdom of the זוהר was really supposed to be hidden.

It wasn't allowed to be revealed then. So then he asked, "So why was he allowed to write it?" He said only right before משיח comes is he's allowed to it's allowed to be revealed. So why'd he write it? He said because he wrote it in such a way that it's so hidden that it's as if it wasn't written.

Right? And if you notice, if you open up the זוהר and try to read it, even if you get commentaries and stuff like that, it's so hidden that it's as if he didn't write it, until now. Now we're starting to open it up, and this is what he says. So then he says, "So if that's the case, why did he write it? What's the point?", right? So he answers the reason that he wrote it, the whole this is what he says, the whole reason that the זוהר was written is because right before משיח comes, they will learn how to open up these wisdoms and they'll be able to be aware what it means.

And so it was written really for them. And so now we're at that time. We're at the time we're able to start opening up and pulling it out. And so all the קבלה and all these secrets of the תורה and חסידות is all really really written for us. ואם כן, if so, that it's totally in a way of a point, איך יומשך מנקודה זו היפוכו ממש, the קו is the opposite of this, that קו means a revelation and התפשטות.

How does the קו come out from the רשימו? והיפוכו ממש שהוא בחינת המשכה והתפשטות דקו וכולי. How can the המשכה והתפשטות דקו come out from the רשימו? Seems like the רשימו is a complete צמצום for the קו, and it's not letting anything out. Even though it's all there, but it's not letting it out. It seems like it's just like a black hole, just sucks everything in, you know, are you going to say, "Oh, we'll go with a spaceship, and we'll pull out some stuff," and then they just get sucked in, you know, and everything just gets sucked into it.

And they kept trying to get it out, and the more they try to get out, the more they just get sucked in. That's like the power of the רשימו, is like the power of צמצום, you know, it's infinite, the infinite power of גבורה, to be able to take everything and condense it all into one point. Even more than a black hole, because a black hole has some size.

Like if you take our whole our whole solar system, make it into a black hole, it would be the size of a bowling ball. You know, that's already, it's pretty big size. I mean, compared to what it was, it's very small, cuz like Earth is huge, and the Sun is even way bigger, and like, you know, but it'll be like the size of a bowling ball. But God can make an infinitely small point, and He can make everything, you know, an infinitely small point.

And that's all physically, we're talking also even much more than the physical, the whole physical world is like nothing, you know. The whole physical world is just made from angel poop, you know.

God can take the whole אין סוף and put it into one point, smash it in so tight that you're never going to get it out. So how do we get it out?

אך הנה ידוע, it's known, now we're going to tell you the answer a little bit, like the introduction to the answer, שבאמת, the truth is, הנקודה והקו אינם ב' הפכים, that a point and a line are not two opposites.

Point vs Line: Not Opposites 6:34

Right? The רשימו and the קו are not two opposites. Why? שהרי הקו נמשך מן הנקודה, מחיבור נקודות יחד נעשה קו וכולי. How do you make a line?

The way you make a line is you take a point, then you take another point and you put it next to it, and then you take another point and put it next to that, and you keep putting point after point next to each other, and voila, they make a line. That's how you make a line, right?

Ever learned geometry? Line is defined as a series of points. So, like for example, the teacher that walks in, and he writes on the board, "math." If he just stopped there, it's true, if he would have stopped there, they would never figure it out, right?

But then he breaks up that point into a bunch of points. And he writes after it, he writes arithmetic, algebra, geometry, trigonometry, calculus, other stuff, you know, advanced, more advanced stuff. And then he takes each of those, and so he broke it up now into more points, right? So they still don't know what anything is, but it's a bunch of points. But now they they already see that there's more than one part to math.

Then he goes to arithmetic and he breaks it up into more points, and he breaks it up into addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. And then he breaks that up into more. He breaks it up into addition of whole numbers, addition of fractions, decimals, you know, negatives, and he keeps breaking it up more and more. Then he says, "Okay, so now today we're going to just focus on one of these little sub-points.

We're going to focus on addition of whole numbers within arithmetic, within math." And then he takes the addition of whole numbers, and he breaks it up into a bunch of points, cuz he has it as one point, and he breaks it up into a bunch of points. He has 1 1 2, 2 2 4, 4 4 8, and then he breaks it up into a bunch of examples.

Each each example is one point within the general point of addition of whole numbers, right? And those are all just this, you know, the simple numbers. And then he does 1 2 3, and he shows them all the different points, and eventually, what happens is, even though it's true in a way that he's just still giving them points, eventually they get enough points where they can connect the dots and like, you know, like read between the lines, you know, and then they're able to see the whole picture and they they חאפ what you're trying to say, right?

Words as Points, Connecting the Dots 9:10

And the same thing with words. Each word is a point. So how can you ever make a person understand from speaking to them or from a book? Cuz each word individually, if you just take it alone, is a total point, and you don't see any intellect there. It's just it's like the word math, how are you supposed to know what it means?

It's true that it's a point. But if you have a context by having a few points, so your mind reads between the lines, and it connects the dots, and it makes a line out of it. Cuz you really really you can't make a line out of points. Now, this is, you know, in parentheses, if you are not familiar with a little bit geometry and stuff, just ignore this.

Cuz really a point has no dimensions. It's it's zero-dimensional, it's it's infinitely small. So no matter how many you put next to each other, it's still going to be zero. It's never going to become a line. A line, you could though say that it's like made out of points, even though it's not really made out of points, really like a higher thing, but like you can kind of use points to describe it, but you have to have this thing of like filling in in the gaps, you know?

So that's the same way that that in a way, when you make a whole bunch of words together, so then it's able to carry an idea. If you just have one word, if your whole language was one word, it wouldn't work because it's you know, it wouldn't express enough. But when you have a bunch of words, then when you have a whole bunch of points, then you're able to do it.

Right, because what happens is that when you see the point, you don't know what to make of it. You don't know, is it up, is it down, you don't know what it is, because it's it's just this point floating in nothing. You have no context to understand it in. So you don't know, you have no clues. You know like if you take a printed picture, at least certain styles of printing, the whole thing is made out of dots.

And yet, from far away, your mind doesn't see dots, it just sees a whole picture. It turns into a continuum, because it's enough for you to connect the dots in your mind, and you fill it in, and you start to see what is going on. So that's like how that even though it's it's revealed in a way of points, that it's able to come out a line.

But that's like a little more, you know, advanced and whatever, and that's that there's really like there's the two things and they come together. But okay, end of parenthesis. The basic idea is that if you take a bunch of points, put them together, it makes a line. That's like the way it works. If you take like a pen and you make point after point, it will make a line.

That's the way it works. You know, we're not getting into like ultimate definitions of points right now, unless you want to, then you can read the parenthesis.