Part 5 · Chapter 27

Human Body as Metaphor for Kelim of Atzilut 0:06

Now we're going to tell you all about the human body because that's the משל for the כלים of אצילות. The כלים of אצילות is what is called like the body, the גופא דמלכא. So we're going to talk all about all different aspects of the body and how they work and whatever, and get into all this physiology.

דכולהו כלילן בכלים דז״א is the general idea of the כלים of ז״א, of זעיר אנפין, שנקרא גופא דמלכא which is called the body of the King, right? That these are the vessels of the 10 ספירות, right? And each vessel has nine, and each one has ראשי תיבות, and then there's the 10, the five חסדים. So you have רמ״ח אברים. That's the idea. And like we said, like that these are the idea of the names.

Well, we'll talk about the נמשל next פרק. But this is the general idea, this is the general משל. וגם לבושין תקינת לון דמינהון פרחין נשמתין וכולי.

So too, השם made לבושים for Himself. He made garments, which the משל for that is like the garments that we wear. Like a shirt and pants and a hat.

So like it says in that there are two main משלים in in קבלה, one is of the body, the soul and the body. So like the worlds before אצילות are like the soul, אצילות is like the body, and then בריאה, יצירה, עשיה are like the clothes. Like the hat is בריאה, where you wear the clothes for the head, and then יצירה is like the clothes for the body, like a shirt and coat, and עשיה is like the, you know, pants and shoes and everything for like the the clothes for the lower part of the body.

That's one משל, right? It also says like the idea of מחשבה, דיבור ומעשה, which is what it says here. A little bit more, you know, less of a מגושם משל, which also like if you in like recently in תניא, right at the end of the last אגרת we were doing, the אלטר רבי talks about that really in order to understand these things properly, you have to know how to take the things of the אריז״ל and take them away from their גשמיות, you know, like their metaphoric connotations and like You know what I mean?

They're They're like written in like a very physical way, and you have to know like figure to figure out the נמשל.

So now, yeah, let's So let's talk about the כלים. כמו שנתבאר, like we explained, we're explaining the idea of the כלים and the לבושים and everything, which שהם לבושין דמחשבה וכולי.

So these לבושים, the משל for that is like מחשבה, דיבור ומעשה. כמו שנתבאר הכל, we'll explain all of this. ואמנם, however, הנה ענין אור וכלי דרך כלל, now we're going to explain the idea of the light and vessel in general. אף גם שיש בו הרבה אופנים שונים מאד, although there are many different types of lights and vessels and ways that they work and

Light and Vessel (Or Veyechi) Overview 2:37

whatever, אך כללותו הוא דרך אור וחיות הרוחני של ראיה רוחנית כשמתלבש וממוזג בהגשמה בכלי חומר העין. The general משל for it is like the consciousness, the the the spiritual power of consciousness of sight, of vision, you know, yeah, the soul's power to see, right? Which then is enclothed and it's into the eye, into the physical matter of the eye. If the matter of the eye is ממוזג, it's it's like mixed, it's composed in like a certain It's put together in a way that it's able to see, like it's clear and it has these little nerves that are receptive to light, you know, with chemical reactions that happen and the cones and the rods and the retina, you know, and all the stuff.

And so the the the the eye becomes a physical tool, it's a that that's able to be a tool for seeing. That's So that's the idea that is that the eye is the כלי, it's the vessel or the tool for the soul's power of sight. Because the consciousness is not a physical thing, the actual consciousness of the sights and the perceptions are not physical at all, they're spiritual.

Eye: Vessel for Spiritual Sight 3:59

There's no physical existence of red and blue and all these kind of things. Those are psychophysical, like we talked about it before, right? So those are the light and the חיות, right? חיות means like consciousness.

And then the the eye is the vessel בבחינת ראיה גשמית, physical sight. So they have biological physical sight, and they can explain to you how the light hits the the lens and it inverts the image and projects it on the back of the eye through this clear liquid stuff, and then there's the the retina has all these, how do you say, this nerve with a bunch of these things, cones and rods, which are receptive to different brightnesses of light and then and different colors and then, you know what I mean?

And that's why like your eye only has a certain resolution, because there's only like 288 sensors per, like, millimeter or something, and so you only you can only see so with a certain amount of definition.

And so there's like, you know, certain physical limitations to the way it works. שיש בזה ב' דברים. So here there are two components, there's two aspects to this eye soul thing going on here.

When the eye when in other words when your power of sight goes into your physical eye, two things are happening. הא', the first thing is שינוי המהות מרוחניות לגשמיות. It's now changing its nature from a spiritual consciousness to a biological process, physical biological process that can be measured and described by scientists and doctors and they'll explain to you how it works, that there's like these chemicals that are sensitive to light and they trigger, you know, different, you know what I mean?

There's a whole thing how it works. They only they only tell half the story. Of course they only tell half the story. Sometimes they try to make it like that's the whole story, you know, the physical They try to make it like that explains everything, but it really doesn't explain how why you see blue. They can explain to you that like blue triggers this chemical reaction and yellow triggers that chemical reaction, you know what I mean?

And like it, you know, it's a thing that your eye has, you know, like receptive to these different pigments and whatever and, you know, there's a thing to it. But why in the end you see blue as blue is not a physical thing. There's no way they can explain biologically or anything scientifically why it should look like it does.

That is totally coming from your soul. But yeah, they tell you half the story. It says a physical thing שהראייה גשמי גיט תפיסה בגשם that physical sight can see physical things, right?

And it's and it's actually something that's measurable within physical means. Yeah, it's both ways. גיט תפיסה בגשם, that means the whole process, the whole the whole thing of both how it's seeing and what it's seeing and everything can relate to is is a physical in the physical world. So now you can see like cups and bowls and trees and clouds and stuff like that. And you can, you know, say exactly what's going on.

מה שאין כן ברוחניות אור הראייה, on the other hand, it's not so with the spiritual power of sight. The the the the concept that your soul has consciousness does not allow it to see physical things without the eye. It's just aware of itself. וכן אור וכח השכל הרוחני,

Brain as Vessel for Intellectual Power 7:51

so too with all the other powers of the soul. Like, for example, the power of intellect. The power of intellect הממוזג בגשם כלי המוח, which goes into the vessel of the brain. The brain is set up to be able to think, it's like a computer. It has, you know, just like a computer can think, because it it it the, you know, so the it's set up in a way that it has all of these different nerves and that electrical electrochemical impulses can follow all different types of patterns, and each pattern will, you know, is able to represent like a different thing.

And so depending on which or the way you order those patterns, it can represent all different types of thoughts. And then it has certain chemical things that will like be released by certain patterns or or or and that like are stored up that will trigger certain patterns, and that's how like memory works, and that's how like things are associated. There's all these, you know, things of how your brain works.

It's a very complicated vessel that's a good vessel for thinking, right, physically. But the actual consciousness of the thinking, the actual understanding is not in the brain. It's in your soul, right, and that's why no matter how good of a computer they make, it will never have consciousness.

עד שנקרא התחכמות, until you can actually call it like what we know as thinking, like or not or or, you

know, intellectualizing, coming up with ideas. That process of like insight and understanding, which we call התחכמות,

is study, learning is really the the way that it works in the physical brain. That because of the way the brain works, just like with the sight, that that it has to be the light goes into your eye and it triggers this thing, and then you see, you know what I mean, there's a certain like way that it works, so too your brain works in a certain way, that you have to, you know, get certain stimulus, and then like you analyze it and make patterns and associations.

There's like a whole thing what we the way that it works. And that's what we, when we say like he's studying or thinking or we we right away associate with that. וכח כח התנועה and the power of movement, בתנועת הגשם. And similarly with the power of movement, your soul has the power,

Movement: Soul's Power in Physical Motion 10:00

you know, this like idea of like movement spiritually, but then when it comes out physically in your body, it you know, it depends on the way your that the human body is built that it can only move in certain ways and has a certain range of motion, and, you know, like for example, we don't have we're not built the same way as flies. So flies can fly and they can, you know, cling to walls and stuff.

We can't do that. And like we can't like turn our head around backwards and we, you know, stuff like that. So it becomes limited to our limbs, but it becomes physical. But now we can it's a physical thing. Now we can make a physical movement. The soul doesn't can't move physically. It's not a it's a spiritual concept of movement, meaning that it it's connects itself to something.

That's the idea of movement spiritually, that the soul can like choose to connect itself to whatever it wants and like direct its like, you know, consciousness to that thing or whatever. Yeah, sure.

You could fly with a human soul. Why not? Why can't you fly with a human soul?

We don't have the same soul as flies, we have a human soul, but as far as the power of movement, we have we're the same.

Yeah, souls don't have That's why that's the whole thing. It brings in חסידות that that חסידות the idea of a גלגול. Why is the idea of a גלגול painful?

Transmigration and Soul-Body Compatibility 11:30

Because the human soul can't express itself in the body of something other than a human cuz it can't think and it can't use its creative abilities and its emotions can't be expressed properly, so it feels like trapped.

No. No. The the fly does not have the power of thinking like a person does. In its soul, it doesn't. And there and its vessel is not is is corresponds to it. The vessel fits it.

The human body is made to be a fitting vessel for the human soul. A fly's body is not. You could stick a human soul in the fly's body and it would work, but it would be very annoying.

You know what I mean? Cuz it's not made It's not a proper vessel for it. It's not a It's like if you're trying to, you know, use a butter knife as a screwdriver, like you could do it, but it's frustrating.

You know, the tool doesn't give you the ability. In other words, if you the soul is what actually has the ability. The the the the tools are the the vessel, the body, is just what lets it express it, but if it doesn't have a certain ability, the that's what it will help to have that vessel. There's no the power of movement is not really different for flying than it is for walking, but the power of like human intellect is a certain has is is has a certain type of a power that that flies don't have.

The idea of like creative, you know, introspection and philosophical inquiry, whatever, they don't have that in their soul. They would be a really smart fly if you had a human brain.

Yeah, it would be a really smart fly, but it wouldn't be like a person.

Well, then and that's a question of what soul it is. In other words, one that's the thing of א״ק, אדם קדמון. Once it goes through אדם קדמון, the soul itself gets a certain form.

So it becomes like a human soul or a fly's soul or, you know what I mean? So it's not able to go into any body.

Yeah, before that, it's the same. Yeah, then every soul is the same on that level. נשמת כל חי, you know?

That's the idea of this נשמת כל חי, like the soul of everything.