Teachings of the Arizal - Part 1 (21:30)

[Music] the author of K David begins to summarize for us the teachings of the arizal with the following words in the beginning of everything there was the infinite light of the an and we also learn that the an was p a word will soon Define in its proper context additionally we are told that in the beginning that is to say there was nothing devoid of the infinite presence of the an and as we are about to learn and experience together in these few words the result teaches us some of the most fundamental principles about the nature of the creator the very first principle that will clarify is that before everything not only before the creation of our physical world but even before the creation of all the spiritual worlds as well and even before the creation of the very first set of T known as the 10 aminations before all of that there was only one thing and one existence this exclusive existence is what the capitalist call the ins or the light of the ins and of course we are speaking of the infinite existence of the Creator as inof means infinite and the very first thing that we need to clarify regarding the term ins is that in truth ins isn't really one of the names of the Creator what is it then the term inso means Infinity in as much this term is used by the cabalists whenever they refer to the Creator in terms of his infinite existence nevertheless it is only by way of reference that they use the term ins but not as one of his holy names however let it be known that when the cabalists do speak of the Creator's Infinity they may actually be referring to more than one aspect of his Infinity of course the first and most often mentioned aspect of the Creator's Infinity is the fact that his existence is truly infinite as we know that he always existed in the past still currently exists in the present and always will exist in the future if so then we can surely say that the existence of the Creator could be called a necessary existence as pointed out by the ramal in the beginning of his book D hasem since after all the Creator must always exist and that of course is a function of Infinity but that's only the first reason the second reason for which the Creator is called inself encompasses another aspect of the Creator's Infinity an aspect which isn't very well known to the Torah World At Large and as we're about to learn this aspect of his Infinity is conveyed by the Aral in the word p simply put the word p could be translated as simple or straightforward but that is a far cry from what theel intended to convey to us when use this term with regards to the infinite Creator in order to understand the reel's intention in calling the Creator bhut we'll have to pause for a while and clarify this matter in depth and if you ask me understanding this concept is one of the deepest and one of the hardest secrets to properly grasp why so because this concept defines a fine fine difference between the Creator on the one hand and all of his Creations on the other hand even the most spiritual worlds and all their sefirot where am I going with this my goal is to bring to your attention that all the Creations beginning with the most physical Creations that we find in our physical world and all the way to the holy names which are also Creations as we'll eventually learn as well as all the Safir that make up the spiritual worlds all of them have a beginning and an end as only the creator has no beginning and no end and if you'll insist on asking me so what's so difficult to understand I'll clarify that I wasn't implying that it is difficult to believe that the Creator is infinite as even the Gentile philosophers have come to to the conclusion that there must certainly be a primordial existence that preceded everything else who always was and always will be but the point that I actually wanted to bring to your attention is just how difficult it is for our limited human brain to understand the nature of this infinite existence additionally I wanted to stress to you just how removed from our feeble human mind is that understanding of how and where all the eventual Creations were before they were actually created when the only thing that existed was the infinite Creator and although at the end of the day human beings are truly restricted in their mental ability to grasp exactly how and where all the eventual Creations were before they were actually created nevertheless the result sums up everything that human beings can actually understand understand regarding the relationship between the infinite Creator and all the future Creations in one single word p this is why we were taught that in the beginning of everything the light of the ins was p and in my humble opinion I believe that we can simplify the results intention in telling us that the ins isoot with the following Parable let us take this box for example which as we see contains many objects that would later on come out of it and of course the comparison is to the infinite creator that all the Creations would eventually come out of during their eventual creation be it all the holy names or all the worlds and all the Safir that make up those worlds now I'll ask you the following question does the fact that all of the Creations must have certainly come out of the Creator necessitate us to say that all of these creations were deposited inside of the Creator so to speak the way all of these objects are deposited in our allegorical box until the time came for each and every single one of them to come out during their creation if so that would insinuate that inside the Creator there are actually as many internal subdivisions as the number of Creations that would eventually come out of him but if that's the case then we would end up with the understanding that the Creator was actually comprised of all these parts until he eventually unloaded them I.E until he so to speak gave birth to them if so then that certainly isn't what you would call P but rather MAV and complex so what is called pasut and how does the result want us to understand the Creator's existence in relation to all the Creations before they were created ated in order to begin understanding all of the above we'll continue with our artistic Liberty and refer back to the parable of the Box believe it or not this box is actually supposed to simulate the nature of the creator that all the Creations must have certainly come out of after all where else could all these creations have come from if not from this box which as we said so to speak represents the Creator and of course it is needless to say that the Creator surely is not a box nor does he have any other shapes or Dimensions however all of the cabalistic secrets in the zor and the writings of the arizal are expressed by means of a parable and therefore we also continue that tradition by offering Parables of our own as we progress together in our learning having clarified that we'll now take a peak into to our box with the eye of our mind and so to speak examine its contents and what do we see nothing but the Creator himself yes this is a taste of what theel termed pasut in other words with the help of this diagram we should be able to appreciate that the Creator really has no subdivisions whatsoever and not only that but when we take to heart that we are actually speaking about the Creator even before the Creations came out of him we should be able to appreciate that all of these future Creations were not really inside of the Creator were they at least not the way we would expect him to be since after all they must have all come out of him if so that begs the obvious question where were they then since all of the future Creations are nowhere to be seen in our illustration we must therefore conclude that they were not actually inside the Ansa at least not the way we would expect it to be and why is that because by definition the Creator does not contain anything else since after all he is p and as we learned before the a is definitely not since after all he is not made out of any parts not even the Creations that would later on come out of him in summary the point I'm trying to make here is that this is yet another form of infinity namely since the nature of infinity is to stretch out to anywhere and everywhere therefore that leaves no room whatsoever for anything else to exist within this ever stretching Infinity therefore although we know that all the Creations must have certainly come out of the creator nevertheless we cannot really say that they were contained within the infinite Creator before he created them can we in summary then the nature of a p existence is to be non-compartmentalized allowing no room for any subdivisions whatsoever within its infinite existence and that is exactly what the Ral wanted to impress upon us that in the very beginning the infinite creator was one unified existence to the point that even all his future Creations were completely one and with the p existence of the in and by now you should all be able to see with the eye of your mind how this feature of the anof is also a form of infinity Since By definition anything which is not P but rather MAV certainly cannot be infinite and in my opinion we can offer yet another Parable to help us understand even better the P nature of the in after all it cannot be a coincidence that the cabalists chose to refer to the infinite Creator as light as or and certainly it goes without saying that a physical sunlight that illuminates our physical world is definitely a physical light and not a spiritual light and especially since the scientists have recently discovered that the physical light isn't merely waves of energy but is also made up of tiny physical particles nevertheless the cabalists have chosen to refer to the Creator as a light for the simple reason that our light is the least physical of all the physical things that we find in our physical world and based on that comparison the cabalists wanted to impress upon us that the spiritual Creator is also as removed as could be from our physical world and when we look inside the writings of the Rak we find several more reasons offered to explain why the cabalists chose to use the parable of our physical light in order to describe the infinite Creator and since it is obviously the custom of the cabalists to use light as their favorite Parable for the inso we'll also take the Liberty to add yet another explanation of our own as to why the Creator is referred to as light what aspect of light am I referring to I'd like to bring to your attention that the physical white light that we are accustomed to seeing every day of Our Lives actually has a feature that is somewhat similar to the P nature of the creator in what way because upon first impression the natural physical light appears to be one coherent unified light without any subdivisions whatsoever and although surely when we split the natural white light by using a prism or by rainwater to give the rainbow effect we definitely see how in truth the natural white light isn't as p as we thought it was before we split it into its many colorful components nevertheless until the white light was actually split it surely appeared to us as one coherent unified light without any subdivisions whatsoever in short the natural physical white light certainly seems to be P at least upon first impression if so we now understand even better why the cabalists chose to use light as their main Parable in order to convey the nature of the infinite Creator namely that just like the natural light seems to be p and non- divisible so to the Creator must certainly be p and non-divisible and now that we've clarified the ARA's intention in the term P we should be able to appreciate that although certainly all of the Creations both physical and spiritual Creations must have come out of the creator nevertheless before their creation they were not contained or boxed inside the Creator the way for example an embryo is contained or boxed inside his mother's womb or the way a small fish is swallowed up inside the Inns of a bigger fish if so where were all of the Creations before they were finally created in truth before their creation all of the future Creations were still one and with the infinite Creator as it would definitely be incorrect to look at them as if they were deposited so to speak somewhere inside the infinite Creator and why is that because if we would dare suggest that the future Creations were actually somewhere inside of the creator that would certainly imply that the Creator is an infinite since after all according to this suggestion he has an area inside of him that isn't actually him but rather of his future Creations if so with that we would in fact be suggesting that his existence does not stretch out infinitely therefore the arizal immediately negates any such misconceptions by clarifying that in the beginning of everything the light of the in was p and after clarifying that there was absolutely nothing inside of the Creator before the Creations were created by Him we continue to learn that that there was nothing devoid of his infinite existence in other words he was everywhere and that shouldn't really surprise us since we already learned that in the beginning there was only one single existence without any exceptions whatsoever that is the existence of the infinite creator if so we can say that Not only was the creator everywhere but he was also everything in other [Music] words and this is why the capitalists refer to the Creator as aof which literally means no end or No Boundaries as after all the Creator's existence truly has no boundaries whatsoever if so it is only natural to induce that his infinite existence must necessarily be everywhere which of course means that there was nothing devoid of the Creator's existence and if you've been paying careful attention to everything we've been learning here we seem to be saying an incredible K and insight which seems to contradict a very famous adage about the very first Act of Creation as we must have all learned before it is commonly understood that the very first Act of Creation was yes literally something from nothing so what's the seeming contradiction the famous adage something from nothing would indicate that in the very beginning there was absolutely nothing until the Act of Creation gave birth to the first something but wait a minute did we not just learn that in the very beginning there was actually something namely the existence of the infinite Creator who the cabalists call the inso surely the Creator should be considered as something shouldn't he and since that's obviously the case that begs the obvious question where did the first nothing come from and when in the near future we'll surely address both of these questions however even before we do so you should already be able to appreciate the point I was hoping to raise that in the very beginning of everything there definitely was something if so why do we find the phrase something from nothing in relation to the very first Act of Creation we should know that the phrase something from nothing yes is actually referring only to the creation of the physical matter in which as we'll learn is actually the very last World to be created indeed regarding the physical matter we can surely say that its creation was literally something from nothing since before the physical matter was created it surely did not exist therefore its creation truly was something from nothing but that wasn't the very first Act of Creation that we are currently speaking [Music] of [Music] [Applause] [Music]