Saturday, June 17, 2006

The Locked Room & Guf Kadosh

The purpose of creation and of our being in it is to integrate the worlds of tohu and tikun into a third order of existence much greater than either tohu or tikun of itself.
R' Adin Steinsaltz, In The Beginning, Discourses On Chasidic Thought



Two dreams. Second one.

For some unknown reason, I and another "unknown mystery woman" (resha d'ayin) were locked in a room by the greater community, yet somehow I also locked us in it. I was upset about it, yet not. I couldn't get out of the locked room, yet I was the one locking its door. It's a paradox.

Then I saw dangerous otherworldly creatures on their way with the intent to harm people. They tried to get me and the mystery woman locked in the room, but I completed (nukvah d'ze'ir anpin) locking the door just as one of the malicious creatures discovered that we were in the room and reached its skinny deathly-whitish arm toward the door.

The other woman and I were now safely locked in the (ע) empty room. There was nothing in the room, but we two (Leah and Rachel).

I somehow saw what the otherworldly creatures were doing outside of our safe room to the people outside without protection. The were tying humans down and "extracting" new otherworldly creatures from a place in the right groin area (where netzach interfaces with yesod) from each of them. The unprotected humans outside had been used as hosts to grow new dangerous otherworldly creatures. The extractions of new alien creatures were not safe surgical extractions. The extractions were violent; the new creature was torn out of the human like the human was just an animal. The ripping extractions remind me now that I am awake of the Noahide law not to tear the limb off a living animal -> the creatures were ripping "new otherworldly creatures" out of the humans' bodies like they were ripping limbs off living animals.

I woke up after I saw what the otherworldly creatures were doing to the unprotected humans outside my locked room.

In addition to the sixth Noahide law, the dream also reminds me of the ritual of pidyon haben - the positive mitzvah to redeem the firstborn (son/child, see benot) issue of an Israelite mother during the exodus from Mitzrayim. However, the requirement of pidyon haben only applies to children born vaginally. A child born either surgically by Caesarean section (C-section) or of a bat kohen or bat levite is exempt from "needing" to be redeemed in the manner of the positive mitzvah of pidyon haben. Taking this together, the child of a Israelite mother who is:

1. born surgically
2. of a levite
3. of a kohen

are children of the "same category" - where that category specifically exempts sons from a positive mitzvah. Positive mitzvot are limbs (in the Israelite reckoning, while the limb mitzvah is a negative mitzvah in the Noahide reckoning; i.e., where the universal and particular covenants are unified)!

Significantly, my firstborn son (Jeremy, ירמיהו) was born surgically by C-section due to a breech fetal position at birth. My firstborn by vaginal birth was my second child, my daughter (Amy, עמי). My second son (Michael, מיכאל), born following my daughter, doesn't require pidyon haben. Truth is stranger than fiction, so the saying goes. I have 3 children, just like there are 3 sub-categories within the category of exempt sons of Israelite women.

Igros Kodesh of the Rebbe, Vol. 2, p. 162:

Pidyon HaBen has no relevance at all to Kohanim and Levi'im, and "Our G-d is a Kohen" (Sanhedrin 39a); see Likkutei Shoshanim by R. Shamshan of Ostropolia, discussing when He is regarded as a Kohen Gadol, and when as an ordinary Kohen. But this does not contradict what I have written above (i.e., that Pidyon HaBen is in exchange for G-d's redeeming the firstborn of Israel); the fact that there is no Pidyon HaBen for a Kohen or Levi with five sela'im indicates the reverse, i.e., that five sela'im is not sufficient as an exchange for G-d's redeeming them in Egypt, for [in addition to redeeming them] their persons were also consecrated thereby.

on pidyon habat/benot, the bat kohen, and the daughter of a bat kohen:

ע describes the structure of the content of poem of ה doublet kavim1:
55 syllables, 5 pesukim and 10 kavim

Footnote:

1 The shoresh of sela'im is סלא which implies assigning some weighted value to something essentially priceless. The shoresh of kavim is קוה which is the same root from which the word mikveh is derived. קוה is also קו plus ה letters, לאתתא. In other words, קול אתתא represents and purifies like the pure waters of the mikveh.

R' Yitzchak Ginsburgh writes:
This level of healing (chayah) is analogous to the law that an impure (sick) body of water instantly becomes purified when brought to "kiss" the waters of a pure mikveh. In the same way, when the soul touches--"kisses"--the pure waters of the Torah, it "blends" into the living waters, thereby receiving sufficient life force to heal the body.

Nevertheless, in the above saying of the sages--"if one's head aches..."--the term "aches" (in Hebrew, chash) is used (rather than a stronger word for physical illness), implying that the ailment referred to here is not one that has mortally impaired one of the vital, inner organs, but rather an "ache" alone of one of the body's limbs (or all of them--“if one's whole body aches...").

Continuing the analogy of the pure waters of the mikveh, the light of the Torah blinds the eyes of the impure "shells" (kelipot) responsible for the ailment. The negative influence of the "shells" disappears and the body recovers. However, when the vital, inner limbs of the body have been mortally impaired, the "kiss" of the light of the Torah is not sufficient to miraculously heal them.
Taking all this together, the dream and its interpretation, we can see that those responsible to be tools for healing others must themselves be healed at a level greater than those they heal. Consequently, 5 sela'im are insufficient for the Israelite born of trauma, a levite or a kohen (i.e., those charged to "bless" Israel and the nations).

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