House Of Levi, Beit HaBechirah

כ"ח טבת תשס"ט
Grael 29

These are the heads of their fathers' houses (the sons of Reuben, the first born of Israel) ... Shemot 6:14 (contains feminine phrasing - 'beit')
אֵלֶּה, רָאשֵׁי בֵית-אֲבֹתָם

Last night I dreamt.

I remember arriving to a tunnel-like gathering place for 'different ones'. The tunnel was like those under cities and road overpasses and such. We had gathered there of our own volition - in other words, we hadn't been driven there by fear or anything. We were there because we chose to be there among one another - like gypsies we were.

Some of our group were dancing, some talking, some just hanging out. As a new arrival, I was looking for someone. For some reason, I asked "are there any Druids here?" I was looking for a Druid among us.

Suddenly, I was standing in the shallows of the sea. The head of a man was brought up to just under the surface of the seawater to me by fishermen. I sensed that the man to whom this head belonged was part of my own soul and the Druid of my inquiry.

I didn't let the fishermen bring the man's head up out of the water completely - I had them return it to the safety of the deeper seawater before it had been exposed to air. For some reason, I felt that this was critical to resurrecting him. Then, sort of like in the movie Titanic, I entered into the depths of the sea and joined him. This too, was critical to our resurrection.

These are the heads of the fathers' houses of the Levites (according to their families) ... Shemot 6:25 (contains masculine phrasing - 'levi'im')
אֵלֶּה, רָאשֵׁי אֲבוֹת הַלְוִיִּם

Coarse Grained Histories

כ"ח באדר תשס"ז

In response to Greg's post over at Presence, Quantum Indeterminacy Does Not Equal Free Will:

Natural probabilities may or may not be "indeterminant", but free will can craft the weight (mass) of any given probability, influencing its improbable but very real outcome.

One can create "crafted probabilities" over natural probabilities. Just as "mass" and the ability to make free will choices among a range of probabilities influence outcome, another quantum concept which figures into the process is called "coarse grained histories". True free will can operate through these processes to influence the outcome of any given "natural" probability.

I know this, even if I am neither a mathematician nor a physicist. For example, in my dreams this morning, I dreamt of two potential outcomes, i.e., two alternative realities as they exist prior to manifestation. As a human being with free will, I can choose which alternative reality will manifest by the mere act of choosing (and reiterating that choice throughout the layers of reality). My reiterated choice gives weight (mass) to one probability over the other, despite that the natural probability may prefer an outcome opposite my choice. The "mass" I give an improbable reality by consciously choosing it will make it manifest against the natural one because my choice will "fall into" reality before the other one by virtue of its "weight", canceling out the natural one.

"Weight" is added to a premanifest probability by pouring one's will into a choice at the level of binah. The "higher" the binah (and will), the greater the weight which can be added to any given alternate reality, influencing it into manifestation over any other.

There are many nuances to this dynamic, but the basic idea comes through, I think.

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Bechirah Chofshit, Unspellbound

I dreamt.

A witch was carrying me like a mother bird [1] in her arms, flying through the air, taking me someplace. She was trying to lull me to sleep with the peacefulness of the flight. But, I only pretended to fall asleep as she carried me to some mysterious place - to see where she was taking me and to see what her intention was.

When she thought I was asleep, she entered a big mansion of a house [2] and deposited me on a bed in an upstairs bedroom. It was daylight outside. She was going to steal a drop of my blood [3] via a finger pinprick while I slept unaware (she thought)! Like hell! I thought.

I stopped pretending to be asleep and asked her what she was doing. "Oh," she said, discombobulated by my sudden wakefulness, "I just want a little drop of blood," she faltered. "For tests," she lied. I knew what she was really thinking. She thought that by getting a drop of my blood, she could bind [4], control and put spells on me.

"No," I said, "I'm not going to give you a drop of blood."

She dropped her friendly facade and told me to get out of the house since I wouldn't give her any of my blood. She didn't think I'd make it back safely to civilization, as she had astrally flown me through the air to the magical place. Walking, the monsters outside on the house grounds would get me, she thought with unfounded certainty.

Ha! I made it back. And the only creature who dared approach me as I walked back to civilization fled from me when I made a snarling face at it.

There's a Jewitch on the loose! was the news I heard flying through town, when the witch realized I hadn't been "taken care of" by the estate's guard monsters.

I woke up.

Footnotes:

[1] Tzaftzaf צפצף can be interpreted to mean "chirp like a bird" and in the context of meditation, has been likened to the forbidden practice of necromancy (Meditation & The Bible, R' Aryeh Kaplan) . In other words, through "repetition" of some sound or action, the witch sought to cast a sleep spell. צפצף is also related to prophetic vision and tzofeh צופה, meaning "seer". The midrash and Talmud speak of a person near death whose soul "presses" (tzaftzaf) to leave the body and ascend. Redemption is also written to "break forth" (tzaftzaf, Shir Hashirim Rabbah on 6:10).

[2] Pharaoh comes from the word per-aä, which literally means the big house, i.e. the palace.

[3] The witch in this dream, who initially acted "motherly" but ended up wanting to steal a drop of blood, represents the epitome of galut (spiritual exile). R' Yitzchak Ginsburgh teaches: "The blood relates to the sefirah of binah, the mother-principle--'the mother gives her child the red [the blood].' The final and most extended exile, that exile referred to by the prophet as 'the sick exile is the exile of Edom', from the word 'red' (adom) and 'blood' (dam)." In other words, a true "mother" gives her blood to her children, she does not take blood from them.

[4] She was trying to bind my lifeforce to her will through a drop of blood. This may be one reason why Torah law forbids tatoos.

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Origin Of Evil

יוצר אור ובורא חשך, עשה שלום ובורה רע; אני יהוה, עשה כל-אלה
Form light and create darkness, make peace and create evil; I Hashem, do all these.
Yishayahu 45:7

This verse makes it clear that evil cannot exist independent of human beings, endowed with free will, and made in the image of the Divine. Human beings are responsible for all evil.

The word used for "I', in this verse is ani אני - the same word a human being uses to say "I". Consequently, evil is only created within the context of an "I"; that is, a human being. Further, evil does not exist except within the context of an "I", who as a human being made in the image of the Divine, misuses his or her free will (bechirah chofshit בחירה חופשית) as an agent of the Divine.

Supporting the idea that misuse of human free will constitutes the origin of evil is also the fact that the word used for "I" in this verse is ani אני in contradistinction to another word for "I" which could have been used, anochi אנכי. Anochi contains the letter kaf כ, symbolic of keter and the soul power ratzon, will. Ani lacks the כ, and thus, lacks "the sign" indicating an ability to properly exercise free will (which the presence of the letter would suggest as it does for anochi).

Taking all this together, I propose that evil was not created to give humankind the ability to make freewill choices. On the contrary, I think that evil was and is still created in direct consequence to the failure of humankind to exercise freewill properly.

The existence of evil is not required for freewill to exist. On the other hand, the existence of freewill is required for evil to exist.

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Beit HaBechirah

Today, on an old livejournal post Soul Of A Bat Kohen, a comment was left by "r from Jers.", writing in part:

Something I learned recently, before we come to this world we have NO FREE CHOICE. Free choice is a garment called tzelem given to the neshama. The INTERESTING part is that after this world we WEAR the tzelem & it basically testifies our accomplishments in this world. Also, nefesh is PHYSICAL, ruach is EMOTION & neshama is INTELLECT. WE are our RUACH which means we have to have the "right" emotions about the "right" things (as directed by our neshamoth/INTELLECT). Therefore, INTELLECTUALLY discover Truth, THEN get excited about it. We are our RUACH (NOT our neshama) & THAT is wear our growth must occur.

There are two points I need to make with respect to this kind of thinking:

1. In my case, what "r from Jers." writes about free choice is not true. I did indeed have free choice before coming into this world, and had to be convinced that coming into the world was the right thing to do and that the objective purpose for doing so could be accomplished. Then I agreed to be born.

2. I am neither my ruach nor my neshamah - both of them are garments "I" wear.

Though I disagree with the commenter on these points, I still appreciate the comment. Such disagreements are the stuff achieving clarity is made of.

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Mocha Stima'ah & Pulchan Of The Firstborn

I've learned a new thing today. There are two "kinds" of Temple service. One is called avodah, עבודה (which I already knew). The other is called pulchan, פולחן.

Avodah is from the shoresh¹ עבד and implies work subject to another's will. Pulchan, on the other hand, from the shoresh¹ פלח, implies separating and dividing.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see the significance.

Avodah is the service one renders where one's will is yet to be rectified and brought into full alignment with the Divine Will. Consequently, avodah is the service done by one whose consciousness is primarily centered upon rectifying the middot.

Pulchan is the service one renders when one's will is fully aligned with the Divine Will. At this level, where consciousness is centered within the mochin (capable of insight, differentiation and rationality) and integrated into the Divine Will, one can truly be said to have free-will (bechirah chofshit). At this "point of Will" (mocha stima'ah), one can make true free-will choices between alternative realities. This is not true for someone centrally operating within the middot, both "below" Binah (rational understanding) and where one's will may be highly influenced by powerful emotive forces.

Moreover, pulchan is service which distinguishes, separates and divides "all potential realities", bringing true free-will choices between those potential realities into certain reality. Avodah works with a reality that already exists.

Footnote:

¹ Etymological Dictionary Of Biblical Hebrew, R' Matityahu Clark

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Yetzer Temimut

dedicated to all the children of the world ...

As Torah tradition teaches, an individual is not born with a yetzer hatov (commonly called the inclination for good, and positive), only with a yetzer hara (commonly called the inclination for evil, and negative). More precisely and essentially however, we know that the yetzer hara is not evil. Rather, it is a neutral drive to live. This is very good. If this is very good, what is the merely good of the yetzer hatov? What it is, is incomplete. Let me explain, speaking from my experience and Torah study.

The yetzer hatov and the yetzer hara are both broken fragments of a united yetzer. How do I know this? I know it because I was born to remember, and remember I have faithfully done. Reiterating, as the Torah teaches us, we are not born with a yetzer hatov, we are born with only one yetzer, presumably the yetzer hara. (We only acquire a yetzer hatov around the age of 12 or 13.) In contradistinction to the idea that we are born with a yetzer hara "only", my experience suggests that the one yetzer we are born with is the yetzer temimut - a complete yetzer. Niddah 30b suggests that, kept in purity, the yetzer temimut is not taken from us, and consequently, we won't forget from whence we came (see below on the name Menashe). If we fail to keep the yetzer temimut in purity as the trials of life assail us, it will split into two - the yetzer hara (Menashe) and the yetzer hatov (Ephraim) - and the memory of where we came from will be hidden among the shadows cast within the soul by this catastrophe. (Interestingly, the one command (mitzvah) to "choose life", in my experience has two components - "go and remember".)

Kept in purity, the yetzer temimut is a neutral drive that "chooses life" to fulfill completely G-D's command to "choose life", as I did when entering physical existence concurrent with the secondary commands to "go and remember". Importantly, fulfilling this mitzvah (command) in a complete fashion IN PURITY is NOT positive. It is neutral. At the instinctual level, it neutrally "chooses life", fulfilling the divine will by doing so. The expression of its instinctual choice (life) is fit (kosher) and only seems negative or positive. In truth, it is neither negative nor positive - it is fit to balance the situation at hand in service of the divine will. The yetzer temimut, therefore, is an instinctual drive which remembers for life in a manner acceptable to Hashem, whether the intellect of the person understands the basis for his or her choices or not. The basic instinct of such a person is naturally driven to fulfill the divine will, even at the expense of its own desires. Active free-will choices against the divine will are footsteps upon the path which splits the one complete yetzer into two.

The "split" of the yetzer temimut is finalized around the age of bar or bat mitzvah, when one receives his or her yetzer hatov, according to tradition. What this really means - that one gets his or her yetzer hatov - is that the yetzer temimut has now devolved completely into 2 yetzers, which up until that time, the split may have been only partial. The split of these 2 yetzers is reflected in the split of Yosef's blessing, separating into his sons, the evil Menashe and the fruitful Ephraim. Let's look at the names of Yosef's sons.

Menashe - one who causes to forget. Yes, forgetting is a consequence of not keeping the yetzer temimut pure and intact. Forgetting augments the impure drive for life and causes one to seek gratification. Ephraim, fruitful as in be frutiful and multiply. Essentially, the drive to be fruitful is a drive toward reunification and wholeness. So, while one is made to forget, one is also given the power to fix the split and to reunify the yetzers. Baruch Hashem. And this is why the split yetzers battle - one seeks gratification (a lower reunification), while the other seeks completion (a higher reunification).

So, we can see that they key to choosing life is the yetzer temimut. The yetzer temimut seeks neither gratification nor completion, it seeks to do the divine will.

How is all this of importance considering that most people don't remember where they came from, evidencing a split yetzer? It is relevant to the children of this world, those still small enough to remember and those yet unborn. Most of us raise children on the assumption that they have only a yetzer hara (a selfish drive for gratification). But, my experience tells me that this is not true. Children, particularly small children, merely are choosing life in service to the divine directive within them. We, as parents, need to recognize the truth and not work so hard to "control" the yetzer hara, because the truth is, small children don't have a yetzer hara. They have a yetzer temimut. And we, as parents, need to figure out how to preserve it even as we provide a broken knowledge of good and evil with which our children must come to terms.

May it be Hashem's will that we learn how to accomplish this speedily, and in our day.

descriptions of pre-incarnate consciousness from my webpage
A Mystery Of Consciousness
First Beit
Primordial Desire
HaTorah Emet

and into physical reality
Steadfast

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