Dual Deeds and Free Agents

Picking up where we left off in Part Nine, in the realm of generalities there are again two levels: the particular within the general (not to be confused with the general within the particular which we already addressed as the diminishing of the moon and our personal-collective/Jewish history) in addition to the general within the general.

3) Human History

We progress to ever wider spheres of historical context once we learn to view Jewish (or any personal-collective identity) against the backdrop of our collective human history. Lest we think that this level is the most universal, the kabbalists inform us that it still has a degree of particularity to it in that the category only includes what’s human. Suffice it to say that our humanity remains closer to us for the most part than the non-human aspects of Creation.

In the Kabbalah of the Arizal, the root of the World of Chaos and the breaking of the vessels can found within the Torah’s description of a whole line of Edomite kings in Genesis 36:31-39 “These are the kings who reigned in the land of Edom before any king reigned over the children of Israel.” The main point extracted from his reference is that these kings preceded any Jewish king, which the Arizal explains to mean that they represent a still greater framing of our history. They embody the larger upheavals of our collective human history. Each kingdom establishes itself only to be destroyed and supplanted by another.

As a footnote in our meta-historical commentary, these kings might be understood as the underlying pathology that led to so many civilizations wanting to extinguish the Jewish people. The ancient Egyptian, Greek, Roman empires for instance (one would have to recall the most recent Nazi horror as well) have all tried, and yet today are nowhere to be found. The foam and thunder that accompanied all of the turbulence dissipated leaving only the raft that they bore aloft deposited on a new shore.

About each one of these ‘kings’ the Torah testifies that he ruled and then he died with one exception: the eighth king is said to rule but there is no mention of his having ever died. Why the exception? In short, what the Torah is telling us is that in the end, the chaotic destruction of human history will itself be transformed.

The last king whose name is Hadar is said to be the beginning of the World of Rectification. What this means for us is that all of the ideological conflict of human history that has tossed us about will eventually come to an end. The history of many peoples and many nations and the ensuing conflicts between them should ultimately incentivize us to want a lasting peace and cooperation.

The broken vessels, in line with what we explained previously, might be likened to insufficient media coverage. All people want representation. I am more apt to work well with you if I feel like you ‘get’ me, if my concerns and suggestions are taken seriously. The restoration of the vessels happens when we collaborate and band together, when we allow others to participate. The vessels remain in tact because we are willing to share them.

Many of the fantastic changes that are happening in the world today derive from a significant change in media coverage. With over a billion people on Facebook and billions more connected via the internet or cell phone, the countless nameless and placeless masses are becoming real in the minds of people the world over. While it would require an exposition too great for this article, the nature of new media is providing us with unprecedentedly expansive vessels (as are understood in Kabbalah to come from the World of Rectification and are capable of containing the powerful lights which symbolize the intensity of our diverse experiences of the World of Chaos).

When it comes to social-economies of scale, the human sphere is arguably more closely knit than ever before. With more and more experience captured and posted in real time, the daily planet has a clear line of sight straight into my living room. Many of the peoples of the earth, once without any representation, now have substantial entries into the ‘whole earth catalogue.’

Hence, the cut-out of myself is pasted upon the colorful construction paper of my people, which in turn is pinned to the cork board of humanity.

4) Cosmic History

The entire history of the cosmos boils down to a single act on the part of the Creator known as the primordial contraction or tzitzum. The tzimtzum is the first blemish in that it ‘spoils the appearance’ of the Creator. Like a father who would voluntarily go into hiding in order to give his child a semblance of independence, the Divine contraction conceals the infinite light of the Creator so that a finite universe can manifest itself. Moving into stealth mode, Creation as the cloaking device of the Creator produces our consciousness of the natural world and the natural world order. The facticity of the natural world has such a pull on us that we may become seduced by its charade. In order to keep up appearances, it is important that the infinite light not break through the outer veneer of the firmament nor pierce the husk of the earth.

The problem with this particular game of hide and seek is that we may not even realize that we are playing the game. Furthermore, we might start to think that no One is hiding. Blinded by our vision of the universe we entertain the idea that all of this wondrous complexity has always been here or else that it is self-assembled. Creation itself risks atheism. Could it be that we live in a massive machine with no controls or controller? Is everything just a random process?

Cosmic history has been the story of natural diversions. Today the historians of this grandest and most expanded picture of history are the fearless theoreticians of the scientific community. The cosmologists want to galvanize the causal chain of our cosmic history. Ingrained in evolutionary theories, the natural order is protected from all appeals to the supernatural.

Looked upon in this manner, the causal seeking rationalism and reductionism of the human mind interferes with the search for something beyond or behind the natural world. Our native intellect can damage our sense of the infinite and leave us disenchanted with the world. While God bears the responsibility for the appealing character of evolution drained of Divinity, the challenge of cosmic history is for science to grow in its sophistication until the role of the observer in affecting the observed, forces us to reconsider whether or not there is much more than meets the eye. The interference of the act of intellection alters the world that we model in our mind. After a while, even the successes of science come to cast doubt on the reality of the world. Today, we are seeing evidence of this with cosmologists contemplating notions of the entire universe being nothing more than a giant computer simulation or a supermassive holographic projection.

The unfolding of cosmic history has been the trail of bread crumbs that will ultimately lead the sincere cosmologist backstage behind the world in search of its foundations. Eventually, the hiding Creator will be rediscovered there. Once this highest level, which is the general within the general or the most collective dimension of history, (our universal history is the history of our universe), is unmasked as being the work of a hidden God, then all of the other subsets of history can also be reinterpreted.

What we’ve been presented with is a black out of the Divine light. In order to adapt we need to develop night vision. Then we will be able to sense the Divinity that constantly operates as the world and through the world, to see through the illusion of the tzimtzum. Once we do, then God becomes identical with the laws of nature (but not limited to them) and Divine providence turns into a synonym for natural selection. Finally, the human odyssey plays out part of the Divine plan. The same goes for Jewish history and my own personal history.

In Part Eleven we will move on to join each of these four parallel histories to a unique unit of time in the Torah.

http://www.interinclusion.org/inspirations/the-history-of-histories-part-11/

http://www.interinclusion.org/inspirations/the-history-of-histories-part-9/

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