Part 3 · Chapter 17

Hidden Desire and Pleasure Introduced 0:05

שהוא בהעלם הרצון ותענוג לעצמו עדיין. This is still the hidden רצון and pleasure which is for

yourself. רק שחושב להיות הדבר ככה בפועל הגילוי, just that you want that you should now be revealed and you still really want yourself. In other words, you don't really want the house, you really want that you should feel a certain way.

Just that now you want it to actually happen, that you want to actually make yourself feel that way, not just that you have it in your רצון מוחלט, that you enjoy things a certain way. רצון מוחלט just means that, yeah, in theory I like things that way, but right now I'm not into, I'm not interested, you know.

Say, what's your favorite flavor of ice cream? What's your favorite, you know, song? What's your favorite style of music? That doesn't mean that you're in the mood of listening to it right now or eating it right now.

It's just like in theory, yeah, okay, that's what, you know. So it's like, let's say they're going to interview God and say, "Well, God, if you were going to make a world, how would you like it, you know, or would you like being king of a universe?"

And He says, "Yeah, you know, I would really love being king of a universe, and I would want it to be like this and like that." You know, God was sitting around daydreaming about what it'd be like, but He didn't actually want to do it. You know, He wasn't, right then He was busy then, you know, playing with His train set.

It's not כבוד? Playing chess? Oh, well. Why God has to be like this sophisticated guy? He could be playing a little kid, why not? He was, that's not כבוד in this השתלשלות because He's the king, but then He was doing a different השתלשלות.

In this השתלשלות, so God decided to reveal Himself in big things, like, you know, being a מכובד way like a king, but you know, in another השתלשלות He could do little things.

See, that's the best thing, like God doesn't have any parents to tell Him what to do. They can't tell Him not to play with the trains, you know, it's not כבוד, you know. Right. כמו להיות גילוי הרצון ותענוג להאציל עשר ספירות כולם, that there should be a revealed רצון and תענוג to bring out the ten

Revealed Desire to Activate the Ten Sefirot 2:10

ספירות. So yeah. So wait, so this is the, ולכן נקרא עתיקא סתימאה, that's why it's called the hidden תענוג, בבחינת העלם לגילוי על כל פנים,

that it's already, סתימא means that it's just like covered, but you know it's really there, it's really able to be revealed and it's meant to be revealed. מה שאין כן רישא דקו, but the beginning of the קו, נקרא סתימא דכל סתימין, it's called totally hidden, דגם מחשבה דא"ק לא תפיסא בה כו', that even the מחשבה of א"ק cannot תפיס it, whilst עתיקא סתימאה is when the תענוג is already מתלבש or מלובש in the מחשבה of א"ק.

That's what it means. סתימא always means when it's in the מחשבה of רצון, not the מחשבה of שכל, the מחשבה of רצון. And when it's in the מחשבה of רצון, that's always called סתימא, which is like when you do association, that like, like for example, like when you learn a language, before you're actually thinking, just that you know that this idea is associated with that sound, that's like a סתימא thing.

דלהיות הרצון ותענוג לברא כו', yeah, so that it's still hidden, it's just that He thought that He wants to actually have it, to have the revealed רצון and תענוג for the ספירות of אצילות and the revealed רצון and תענוג for בריאה and for יצירה and עשיה also. ועתיקא קדישא הוא התענוג שבחכמה.

עתיקא קדישא – The Sacred Pleasure in Wisdom 3:43

עתיקא קדישא though is the תענוג that in the חכמה already, that you have a תענוג in a particular that it's that's coming already in a particular form. והוא בחינת עתיק יומין ואריך אנפין באצילות,

that the תענוג and the רצון of אצילות, שהרצון ותענוג בא בגילוי, that's already a revealed רצון. That in other words that the original רצון, where you say call it like עתיקא דעתיקין,

that is the inner תענוג of yourself. But then that becomes, once it goes through א"ק, it becomes associated with a certain form, and then the תענוג you get that it should be דווקא into this form, because you know that will, you know, once you chose it or whatever, that it's going to reveal you, that is like the תענוג and the רצון of אצילות, which is called עתיקא קדישא, that it's קדוש, but it's already connected.

כמו שיתבאר הכל דרך פרט, like we'll explain everything in detail, we'll explain everything, right? והנה בבחינת עשר ספירות דעיגולים,

Recap of the Initial Revealed Desires 4:55

so what did we explain so far? So far we explained that the רצון, even even the רצון קדום we said is like the first גילוי after the קו, but it's still like a it's still a hidden thing, it's still only for yourself. The עיגולים that that come out until you get to יושר וכו' are still all for yourself, and you didn't think about the world yet. You just think, all all it means that you are thinking about that you want that you should come out into the world.

You know, and and but it's so it's it's ready to come out because you already know that you have want a certain to reveal a certain thing and you want it to be in the world, but you didn't yet figure out what that means. So that's what we So it's still hidden, right? So it's like it's like the רצון for a home before it becomes a רצון for a house.

So you don't want like a building yet, you just want to feel at home. So it's still hidden as far as that you don't know what that means yet, you know. Sometimes people have like these desires and they don't know what what it is, like and this is a lot of times happens with people, especially like Jewish people, that they have this, but even גוים also, they have this inner thing they don't they don't feel that they're using their potential, they they feel like their life is empty, they feel they're missing something, they don't know what it is.

They know how they want to feel, they want to feel fulfilled, they want to feel, but they don't know what will give it to them, because it's still בהעלם. The רצון is still בהעלם, but they know what they want really. And so it this until they figure out what it is they want, they they can it can motivate them to try all kinds of weird things. And this is like, you know, so this is very בגלוי by people of a certain age, and then they think like with the teenagers think, oh, that they want to be a successful business person or they want to get married and have a house, and then when that doesn't do it, then they have a midlife crisis.

Midlife Crisis and the Search for Fulfillment 6:37

And then they think, oh, maybe I should have got that hot rod, you know, that red convertible that I always wanted, instead of being responsible and saving all my money for a house, I should have got that red hot rod. So then they go buy the red hot rod and drive around and dress like a teenager and like act stupid, you know.

And then, I don't know, what do they do after that? Then they get like Eastern religions or something like that. And yeah, if they're lucky, they find Rabbi Markel's website, and then life becomes good again.

No, cuz says even by by any person, even if they don't, even if somebody's not Jewish, the inner desire of a person is to just as far as being a person is that they want to know God. They want to know the truth in general things, especially Godliness. A Jew is unique that not only does he want to know God, but he wants to have connection that's higher than שכל, like have מסירות נפש for God.

But the thing of being a person is that you want to know Godliness. So everybody wants to learn חסידות.

They want חסידות, yeah. Everybody wants חסידות, you know?

And they try all kinds of different things that like give them, you know, little tastes of the dripping of the this liquid into their brain, you know. But it's not the same as the pure stuff. You know, it's like a person that's used to having like pure like government, you know, grade drugs and then he gets like cheap, you know, stuff that's like laced with rat poison, you know.

It's just not the same, you know? I don't know. I never tried either one, so I don't know the difference. But it sounds like it's pretty bad, you know. Anyway, ולעיל הרצון והתענוג לברוא, ועתיקא קדישא, we did that, right? והנה בבחינת עשר ספירות דעיגולים זו... then we explained, yeah, that... then we explained the זוהר לשונות.

That was all the parentheses. Now, והנה בבחינת עשר ספירות דעיגולים זו תחת זו, the ten ספירות of עיגולים, one under the other, הוא כידוע, is

Concentric Circles Metaphor for Causes and Effects 9:06

what does it mean that they're like ten spheres, like a circle inside of a circle? What does that mean? הוא כידוע שכל עילה מקיפת לעלול, that every cause surrounds its effect. ועלול הוא לא ישיג לעילה שלו.

And the effect does not grasp, it doesn't reach its cause. Doesn't reach its source, right? Its cause. כי אם בריחוק מקום, it only in a very far away ממנו, very far from it. כאשר יהיה אופן בתוך אופן, like a wheel inside of a wheel.

That's what, that's the משל. The משל of a wheel inside of a wheel is that there's really the inner source, the real thing that you want,

like we said like with the house, there's your inner desire, and then there's like the lower thing that comes out from it, the way that you're going to get it, but that will never really fully give you the thing that you want, that really stays higher.

The quote's talking about Ezekiel's vision of the divine chariot,

and he said that the אופנים angels look like a wheel inside of a wheel with a thousand eyes on them, or eyes all over, you know.

That's what they look like. So that's the quote, but you know, like concentric circles. That's what we mean. That the that the משל is concentric circles. A wheel inside of a wheel or a circle inside of a circle.

Yeah, yeah, that's what concentric circles means. A big circle, inside of it's a smaller circle, and they're all around the same center point, just they're bigger and bigger, like ripples in a pond.

Right. Except that here it's coming from the outside going in.

First there's the outer circle and then comes the inner one and the inner one and the inner one. Right, it's not like when you drop a pebble in a pond, it starts from the middle and goes out.

But even there, the truth is that even there, it starts from the middle, but the biggest one goes out first and then inside of it come smaller and smaller ones. So even there it's like that. It's, so right, the first this first one starts off and it gets bigger and it gets bigger and bigger, and while it's getting bigger, inside of it comes smaller and smaller ones.

And they keep all getting bigger, right? It keeps filling up with more and more. And the truth is that that's the way that the השתלשלות of the עיגולים go in the רמ״ק's השתלשלות, where he's talking about from the רשימו, because then it starts from the middle and it comes out like that. But we're talking about the אריז״ל's השתלשלות, once it's already set up, and then the light is just going through it.

So it comes from the top of the circle and goes in. Right, so that's the משל, a circle inside of a

Understanding the Fully Revealed Desire 12:04

circle. ויובן זה מהרצון הבא בגילוי גמור, we're going to understand this from the revealed רצון, which is which the now the

משל he is going to give now is what he explains about the רצונות of of אצילות in like כ״ף and כ״ף אל״ף and stuff.