As you heard, tonight's class is on Kabbalah. I thought maybe tonight would be the last class, because I was pretty sure that after you hear tonight's class, you're not going to want to come back again. So, but turned out that tonight is not the last one for the season. But nevertheless, you still might not want to come back, because I don't know if I'll be able to explain myself and try to give over what idea I'm trying to give over. What I will try to do today is just pick one topic which is explained in Kabbalah, which is in the philosophy of Kabbalah, and try to explain it in the best of my to the best of my ability. Because as I explained last time, Kabbalah is not like people think some kind of way of doing tricks and, you know, creating a golem and things like that, that's what Kabbalah is. As I explained last time, from the understanding, the philosophy of Kabbalah, if a person is a great tzadik and he knows how to use it, then you're able to do things which you shouldn't do anyway, but there are things which could come at the result of this philosophy. But this is not really what Kabbalah is all about. Kabbalah is a philosophy, it's a whole subject of understanding which is the understanding of the secrets of the Torah and the understanding the secrets of the creation. Which means the spiritual secrets of creation, not the physical secrets of creation. And as I explained last time, just like physically we know, we see that there are certain secrets that are hidden in creation that for many, many years people didn't know about, and that's why it was considered it's a secret, no one knew about it, nevertheless when the time came, people figured it out, so too there are spiritual secrets in the creation. And that's what Kabbalah is: the understanding of the secrets of creation. Just to use a physical example of a secret in creation, for instance, just the the power of electricity, which is not a miracle, it's just a power within the nature, and nevertheless for many, many years it was a secret, no one knew about it. And then they figured it out. Then there are certain secrets even which are not just details, but secrets of the essential existence of the creation, which is, for instance, that everything is made up of atoms, which for many, many years people didn't know about, even though this is the essence of the whole makeup of creation. But nevertheless these were considered secrets, no one knew about it. So too there are spiritual secrets within the creation, and this is what Kabbalah is about. This is part of Kabbalah, as I mentioned last time, there are the two parts: there is the secrets of the Torah and secrets of the creation. All both of them are included in this title מעשה מרכבה. No, I'm sorry, they're included in the title פרדס. The two halves are מעשה מרכבה are the secrets of the תורה, the מעשה בראשית are the secrets of the creation. Together it's called פרדס, as the Rambam explains in the beginning of his ספר Rambam. But anyway what I will do now is take one of the subjects which are explained in Kabbalah as far as being the secret of creation. Now the secret of creation is the essence of the creation. What is really the creation? What is the essence of all beings? That's really what we're going to discuss. And we all know that the essence of all beings, which is the source of all beings, and not only the source, but the essence of all beings, is Hashem, is God Himself. That is He is the essence of everything. He is the source of everything, which automatically is the essence of everything. So, basically the secret of creation is that in truth the whole creation is only a certain formation of God's will, because essentially there is nothing but God, and He is the essence of creation. And therefore we say that everything comes from Him. Using the terms of the Rambam, he says in the beginning of Rambam that there is this first being, וממנו נמצאו כל הנמצאים, and from this first being, from this first true being, all beings came to be. So therefore He is in truth the essence of all beings, because if they all came from Him, He is the source of everything, so essentially He is the essence of all beings. When we say all beings, we mean all physical beings, all spiritual beings, all of being as a whole. Existence as a whole, the essence of existence is only one thing, and that is Hashem, and that is God. The only question is, and this is what Kabbalah deals with a lot, is how is it possible that from one God, and I mentioned this question last time, how is it possible that from one God who is bli gvul, infinite, unlimited, how is it possible that from one from one unity, which is the one God who is unlimited, should turn into different things which are limited? The creation is basically under the rulership of time and space, and these are limitations. Everything is included in these two: time and space, and those are limitations. So how is it possible that from something which is unlimited, infinite, essentially infinite, should turn into something that's limited, and we say he is the essence of the limited when he himself is unlimited? How can it come from him? And this is where Kabbalah comes to explain the secret, let's call it, of creation, how it's possible that from the true unlimited being, which in Kabbalah is referred to as עצמות אין סוף, which is the essence of the unlimited, how can from that turn into be created? We use the term creation, but it means from there it should turn into eventually into a creation which is made up of limited beings. First of all, there are many beings, which is a contradiction to unity, to one, and those many beings are all limited. It's all מוגבל. They're all limited. Now, how is it possible that from bli gvul, from the unlimited, the true unlimited being, should turn into something limited, and many different things, which in itself is a limit? The fact that you have many itself is a limit. And that's what Kabbalah deals with, with that question.

And to answer that question, we'll have to go into a different subject, a Kabbalistic subject, and I'll try to bring it out as simple as possible. The Sefer HaPardes, the Pardes was a a book, sefer written by one of the great masters of Kabbalah, was written by the Ramak. Ramak is an abbreviation for Rabbeinu Moshe Cordovero. He was one of the greatest masters in Kabbalah. He actually happened to be the teacher in Kabbalah of the Arizal, of the famous Arizal, Rabbeinu Yitzchak Luria. Now, we know that the greatest Mekubal of all was Rabbeinu Yitzchak Luria, but nevertheless, he had a teacher too, and his teacher was the Ramak. The Ramak was a great man and he was a great Mekubal, a great Tzaddik, so righteous. As a matter of fact, at his Levayah, his funeral, the Arizal, who was his student, said a Hesped, a eulogy, and what he said in his eulogy, it's printed, he said that he doesn't see any reason why the Ramak passed away. Usually we know only a person that has any form or type of sin is able to pass away. The Gemara says, אין מיתה בלא חטא, there is no death without a certain sin, and this person, he says, was so great that I don't think he did any little tiny sin at all. So the only reason he said I feel that he passed away is because of the חטא עץ הדעת, the sin that Adam Harishon, the first human being, and his wife Chava, that they ate from the tree, and that brought death to the world, and that's why he died, for no other reason. That's how great this Ramak was. So the Ramak in the Pardes writes like this. He says, כל בחינות יובחנו בג׳ בחינות. Everything is set up in three parts. And he refers to these three parts in a very simple way: ראש, תוך, and סוף, the top, the middle, and the end. The beginning, the middle, and the end. And he tries to explain that the only way it's possible that from an unlimited being it should eventually go through a השתלשלות, we call it, an order of events, sequence of event, and turn into limited things if it goes through these three stages, the three stages of ראש, תוך, and סוף, the top, the beginning, and the end. Other places in Kabbalah, we refer to these three levels, I'm going to try to explain it soon, just to bring you the points. Other places in Kabbalah, these three levels are referred to with three different names: אור, מים, and רקיע. אור is light, מים is water, רקיע, the heavens. In other places in Kabbalah, and that's where we will get to understand the meaning, these three levels are referred to as נקודה, קו, and שטח. נקודה is the point, קו is the line, שטח is the space. And it explains the meaning of these three stages, and then we are able to understand the formation, how things are formed. But only after it goes through the form, the level of Tzimtzum. Which means there has to be first a Tzimtzum, a contraction of the light of Hashem, but after that contraction, in order for something to be created, let's use these terms, something from nothing, because when we talk about the creation, the level of Hashem, of God, is is nothing of the form of what creation is. So when we want to refer to creation that is a Yesh, a something, to create Yesh me'ayin, something from nothing, there has to be the Tzimtzum, which is the contraction of the light. But afterwards, it has to go through these three stages of, let's call it, ריש תוך סוף, אור מים רקיע, or the easiest way to understand it is by using the terms נקודה, קו, and שטח. נקודה is the point, קו is the line, שטח is the space. And the explanation is that in order to make from nothing to something, the first level that will happen is the level called נקודה. נקודה is a point. A point, a נקודה which has no התפשטות, which has no extension, or there might be a better word. Who knows a better word for התפשטות? The literal word is spreading out, but there must be some better term for it. Yeah, no expansion, but that doesn't really give out the meaning of the word. A dot, in other subjects we also learn about this type of thing. The dot, the real dot is something that takes up no space, because the moment it takes up space, then it's not really a dot, then it's a שטח, then it's a space. A dot, in truth, is only a theoretical thing. It's a point that, the way Chassidus uses the term, taken from Kabbalah, is it's the point שאין אחריו אלא אפס, that the next step is nothing. Because any type of dot that there is a step that could be smaller than that, that means that this dot takes up space, because you could break it into two. So the real, real dot is something that you cannot grasp. It's not tangible. It's something that you cannot see, because the moment it's visible, you could see it, or you could grasp it, obviously, it has certain dimensions. And the whole idea of a נקודה is that it has no dimensions. In other words, it's not a being yet. On the other hand, it is already, it left already the stage of not being anything. That is the first level, the middle the level that comes from, so to speak, nothing to something, so the first level has to be a level which is a combination of both. It is something and nothing at the same time. And that is expressed in the terms these are spiritual things, but we have to use physical terms, expressed in the term a נקודה. A נקודה, which is the idea of already not being nothing, and that's why we call it a נקודה. A נקודה is something, but it's a type of something which is not really a something yet. The term that's used in Kabbalah for this is יצא מכלל אינו ולכלל ישנו לא בא. It left the level of not, but it did not enter the level of yes. It's, like I said, I don't know if I'm able to explain it. It's in certain מאמרים it's referred to as ס'איז נישט פאראן און ס'איז נישט נישט פאראן. נישט פאראן means it's not here, it's not existing. But it's not not existing either. Usually, two negatives make a positive. So if you say, if it's not not here, that means that it is here. And here we're saying, no, it left the level of not being here, but it did not enter the level of being here yet. And that's expressed in the level called נקודה. That means it's a נקודה, which means it's the beginning of מציאות, the beginning of existence, but a type of existence which is not tangible, has no dimensions yet whatsoever. And therefore, it has no limit yet. The dimensions are the thing that makes up the limit of everything. When we say this is limited to this and this size, the dimensions are what make it the limit. This is something that has no dimensions, has no length, no depth, no width. It's something that we could only talk about in theory. But in theory, there has to be such a level which is the beginning of מציאות, of existence, is a level which is, if you want to call it, the potential of existence. But that potential itself already is a level which is something, which means not really something, it's already not nothing. That's the first level, which is called נקודה. Then from that נקודה, the next level is called קו. קו is a line. When we talk about a line, the line we're talking about here now is not a line that has any width. It's a line that's stretching out this נקודה, this dot, this point. This theoretical point point, which has no length and no width and no depth, when this נקודה will get a length, that means that that theoretical נקודה has one dimension. But it's still not a מציאות, it's still not a being yet, because since it has no width and no depth, and therefore this is still not considered a space, because it's only a theoretical line, so to speak. A theoretical line, the way the נקודה is stretched out in one dimension. And then you have the שטח, which is after this קו, after this line, gets a dimension of width. So now it has already length and width. This is space. This is considered a מציאות, this is a being. This is something already that you could see. When that נקודה, when this theoretical dot gets length and width, that's when it becomes a מציאות, it becomes a space, as small as it is, but it is a space. And space is already מוגבל, is limited. And this is how you transfer from the unlimited to the limited. It comes out like this: that we have four levels here. We have the being the way it is all the way before anything, that's a being which is a complete different category than that other being that we're trying to develop here. That being is an unlimited being, so it is not limited at all. So when we look at it from the limited perspective, it's not there. From the limited perspective, this is not a being. When we're talking about the type of being we're discussing here, that is as if it's not there. And when you want to transfer from that level to a level of a being which is a real מציאות, a real something, it has to go through these three stages. First, it forms into the potential dot, so to speak, that dot which is the beginning of מציאות, of being. Then it goes into the level of the קו, of the line, and then from there it goes into the level of the שטח, and that is already a being. That's why Kabbalah says we refer to it with the words, with the word אור, מים, רקיע: light, water, and רקיע, and the heaven. By the way, the abbreviation of these three is אמר, easy to remember, Amar means he said, alef, mem, reish. Alef is or, light, mem is mayim, water, and reish is רקיע. And it says that the meaning is, light is something that's not tangible at all. Water already is something that's a being, it's more tangible, but nevertheless, being that it's not stiff, so then it could move here, it could move there, so it has a certain being, but still not a real limited being. While רקיע is it says is frozen water, when the water becomes ice, then that becomes a real מציאות, a real being, a real tangible being with its complete limitations. And those are the three things that the Pardes talks about when he says that in order to have a creation which is a being, a real מציאות the way we have it, it has to go through ראש, תוך, and סוף. ראש is the beginning. The beginning is that level which we call the נקודה, and then it goes through the middle level, the תוך, which is the level called קו, and then the third level, which is the level called שטח.

Being that every human being is, so to speak, a mirror image of what goes on in the higher worlds, we find, Kabbalah tells us that we find the same three levels within every single person. I don't know if this fits to what psychology says or not, but I'm just going to repeat what it says in Kabbalah and explain in Chassidut, that the same three stages take place for every single koach, attribute, ability that a human being has. For instance, a person who has the ability of seeing, let's use that sense, sight. Where does that koach of seeing come from? From the person's nefesh, from the person's soul. When we say the person's soul, the soul is the life force of the person. Now the life force of the person, the nefesh, is the makor, is the source, is the root to all the kochot. It's to seeing and hearing and understanding, and to love and fear, and all the different attributes and different things a person has. But the way it's all within that source, within that nefesh, they are not at all in the same form or shape as it is when it comes out into the level called כחות הגלויים, the revealed level. In other words, in the soul itself, there is no such thing as love, there is no such thing as seeing, there are no such things as any of the feelings that we have in the form the way we have it. And what has to happen? It all starts off from there, that's for sure. Because all these different attributes have no other source where they come from. Where does sight come from? From the eyes? The physical eye is the source of sight? The physical eye is the keli, the vessel in which the ability of seeing is put into. But where does that ability to see come from? It comes from the life of the person. Person is alive, so he has a life, and that life gives off the ability of seeing or hearing or understanding, chochmah, binah, daat, wisdom, understanding, knowledge, feeling, all the different things we have. But the way it's all within the nefesh, it's in no form or shape similar to the way it comes out. There is no actual sight in the source, in the nefesh itself. And from the nefesh, till it actually comes out into the eyes, it has to go through, we call a סדר השתלשלות, it has to go a sequence of events and it has to evolve from one level to the other, so it should come from a level which is basically unlimited in comparison to the way it comes out when it becomes a specific koach, a specific attribute. So it's unlimited, and what we're trying to accomplish here is take from this unlimited nefesh and have from there come out a limited, specific attribute which we call sight, or the attribute of hearing, or the attribute of chochmah, of understanding, or feeling. So in order for that to happen, it has to go through a סדר השתלשלות. And what happens is it says, yes, it is it does evolve. First it turns into the level which we call, like we said before, the נקודה, and then it goes into the level of the קו and the שטח in that specific koach, till finally it comes down into the level where it is already a specific, limited koach, which, whichever one we're talking about, that specific koach. So it also has to go through these three levels. There are other terms in Kabbalah and in Chassidut for these three for these three levels. The first one is called המשכה נעלמת. Like I said, I'm going to use these Kabbalistic terms, but I'll try to explain as much as I can. המשכה נעלמת. המשכה, the word המשכה in Hebrew means when you bring out from one place to the other, you're mamshich, you bring. The word נעלם means hidden. When you bring something from one place to the other, the whole idea is that you're revealing it, you're bringing it out from one place and you're bringing it here, now it's here. So if you're bringing it here, then obviously it's not hidden. These two words seem to be a contradiction. המשכה and נעלמת is a contradiction. המשכה means bringing it, and נעלמת means you didn't bring it here. But the idea is, we're talking here about the first stage where you have a combination of both, of the yes and the no at the same time. It's not here, but it's not not here either. So that's the first potential level of changing over from a level of being unlimited and unspecific to start off to be specific. So the specific attribute that we're dealing with here starts off by being in the level of המשכה נעלמת. And it's here and not here at the same time. To use an example physically, there is no such example that we could imagine of something being here and not here at the same time. The only example we could use, which is not actually an, not a realistic thing, but the term we find that there could be a person let's say who is a רואה ואינו נראה, a person who sees and is not seen. Gemara tells us certain stories of צדיקים that made themselves invisible, and they were, they could see and they were not able to be seen. They were there, so here we have a person who's there, but at the same time, he's not there, he's invisible and he doesn't take up any space. That's one of the example I gave last time also, example of the flint stone, which is the source of fire, but nevertheless, the way it's in the flint stone, it's not really, really fire, not in any form or shape of fire at all. The best proof is that you could soak it in water for no matter how long, when you take it out, you could use it again. If it would be in any form or shape fire, it would be extinguished. So it is the source of fire, but nevertheless it's not a form of fire. Well, this is one of the examples given. But generally speaking, what we're talking about here is, if it's there and not there, which is hard for us to understand how that's possible, but that's the idea of a nekudah. A nekudah means it's already the beginning of something, but at the same time it's not there. After you have this level called המשכה נעלמת, which is a level from the first level coming from the nefesh, from the nefesh itself, which includes all source, the source of all attributes in a form which is unlimited, the first level of its limitation to the each specific koach is the המשכה נעלמת. Then comes, he says, the Kabbalah says, the התעוררות כללי, which is the general awakening. It's already an awakening to that specific thing, which means it's already more in that level, but it's still very general. And then comes the level which we call התעוררות פרטי, the specific awakening. And that means that then already it gets developed into that specific koach of what we want. And then it goes into the keli, into the vessel of the brain, or the eye, or the hand, or the ears, or whatever it is, and turns into that specific koach. Now, that is clear, that every koach, every attribute has to come from the nefesh. There's no other way. There is no other source for it. That is also 100% clear that the nefesh itself is not broken up into 10 or 15 attributes that a person has. We can't say the nefesh is sight and hearing and thinking, that's not what the nefesh is. The nefesh is a being of life which includes it all, that's the source of all, but is definitely not specifically in any form or shape of any of these kochot. So we must say by the nefesh that the nefesh, on one hand, is definitely the source of every single koach. On the other hand, the nefesh is definitely unlimited, בלי גבול. But how do these two things fit? If it's definitely unlimited, how can the limited koach, the limited attribute come from the nefesh? And the answer is that it has to go through these stages, and then it's possible from the nefesh for it to turn into this specific koach.

And the same is concerning the creation. Hashem, who is unlimited, so in that case, first, in order to start off the creation, there had to be what we call the tzimtzum, as I explained last time, which is the contraction of the light in order to make it possible that there should be, as Kabbalah says, it says in Otzrot Chaim and in Etz Chaim, which is written by the Arizal, in order for the possibility for the beginning of the formation of the world. Because as long as there's a אור אין סוף, as long as the light of Hashem, the infinite light of Hashem shines, there's no possibility to even start off. So there had to be that first צמצום. But even after that first צמצום, then there had to go through these three stages in order for it to get formed into any form of a מציאות. And the three stages are, wait a minute, the three stages are, and we'll go through here the, basically, the map of the סדר השתלשלות as the Kabbalah explains of the way the evolvement of the different light of Hashem is till finally it turned into this world. So it says like this, and I mentioned them in short last time: right after the צמצום, Hashem shined His light, which is that light is called the קו, the קו וחוט. And then the first level after that is called א\"ק, which is אדם קדמון. Then you have the level called עקודים. Then you have the level called נקודים, which is אצילות. Let's follow the words and then I'll try to explain it. Then, after אצילות, you have the three worlds called עולם הבריאה, עולם היצירה, עולם העשיה, and these are all spiritual. And from there, the next step is עולם העשיה הגשמי, this physical world, which is called עשיה גשמי. What comes out here is that we break it up into two. You have till after אצילות we have one stage, and it says that till after the world of אצילות, it's still within the framework of Godliness, and then from בריאה down, it's already in the framework of creation, even though it's in the spiritual sense, but that's in the framework of creation. And if you notice that in each of these two parts there are three stages. The first part has the three stages א\"ק, עקודים, and נקודים, which נקודים is אצילות, and the second part also has the three stages, which is בריאה, יצירה, and עשיה. And the reason that has these three stages, because these three stages are the three levels we were talking about before: the נקודה, the קו, and the שטח, or the אור, מים, רקיע, or the ראש, תוך, סוף. א\"ק, the level called א\"ק, which is an abbreviation, אלף קוף is an abbreviation of אדם קדמון, it says that's a level where the whole creation starting from there and on all the way to the bottom is all included into one נקודה. The expression in Kabbalah is that אדם קדמון is a level where you're סוקר כולם בסקירה אחת. It's all with one with one glance, it's all included. That means that this is that first level of the נקודה of the creation. We said before that נקודה is the beginning of what's going to turn into the שטח, into the space later. But that's the point yet where it has no space, and it even has no line, it's still the potential form, is the beginning of the יש of that being. In which way is the beginning of the יש of the being? The fact that it's not not anymore. But that already is the beginning of יש. And that is what Adam Kadmon is. Adam Kadmon is the level in which everything is included. Then the next level, which we call עקודים, but the word עקודים it says means that already there it started forming into 10 ספירות. We know that in אצילות you have the 10 ספירות: חכמה, בינה, דעת, חסד, גבורה, תפארת, נצח, הוד, יסוד, מלכות, 10 attributes of Hashem. And these 10 attributes of Hashem are already a beginning of creation, they are a spiritual creation. So it says that already in עקודים, to use the term of Kabbalah, עקודים is the level where you have עשר ספירות עקודים בכלי אחד, 10 ספירות all together in one vessel. The level of Adam Kadmon is when you don't have the 10 ספירות yet, even though it's the potential, it's the source of the 10 ספירות. עקודים is already where you have 10 ספירות, but it's all included in one. So that's already, we refer to it as 10 ספירות, it's like the קו, which already is an extension, an expansion of this dot, but it's still not in the domain, in the dimensions the way they are later. נקודים, the word נקודים is נקודות, נקודות, a lot of dots, but it doesn't mean that one dot. It's already when you have the 10 ספירות in 10 separate כלים, which means already here you have the שטח. Then we have to transfer from the level of Godliness into the level of the more creative creation, and then we go through again the same three stages. And that, those are the three levels of בריאה, יצירה and עשיה. The word בריאה, the Ramban in Chumash on the פסוק בראשית ברא אלקים, in the beginning God created, the word creation is ברא. And the Ramban says that the word ברא refers to the first potential level, potential of creation. And that level of potential the way the Ramban puts it, he says it's not potential that we use the word בכח, because usually when you use the word potential, it is already a being, a being of potential, but it's something already, a complete something. Here it's a potential that he couldn't find any other word in Hebrew, but a Greek word, using the word היולי. היולי means the potential potential form, which is nothing yet. The only reason we say it's potential, because it's not nothing. It's not something either, but the fact that it already went out of the level of nothing already is the first potential. That's what עולם הבריאה is. It's a level where the creation is not there yet, but it's the first level of creation in that form. The word יצירה, which is the next world, we call it the עולם היצירה, the word יצירה comes from the word צורה, shape. It's starting to shape up already. That means that it's already coming out of the level of potential and is becoming into a certain shape, but not finished yet, that's why it's only יצירה. עשיה, the word עשיה means to make, to do. That's a level already where it is done, there is already a being, and still a spiritual being, but a being already which is something other, kivayachol, so to speak, other than Godliness that was there before. From there already the next step was the creation of this physical world. So it comes out that the whole way of creation starting from the beginning goes through three stages. Everything has to go through these three stages, three stages in order for it to go from the level of unlimited to the level of being a limited finite being, it has to go through these three stages. And that's the level of סדר השתלשלות.

And the same way, it works backwards, too. When a yid, when a Jew wants to elevate himself to get closer to God, so he also have to work himself back through these stages. The first thing a yid has to realize, a Jew in his mind has to realize and bring himself to get the feeling how in truth the level we are in is the lowest level, there is a level higher than we. And that level is a spiritual עשיה. And then if a person is a bigger tzadik, who'll be able to come to realize with his own understanding that that level of עשיה is already a real formation of creation, but that's, so the source of that level is a level of יצירה. And there will be some people who would get to feel close to Hashem in the form of the level of יצירה, and you can have a tzadik who'll get close to Hashem the level feeling the way it's in the level of בריאה. It's not only that you have these different worlds thinking that they're someplace over there. A yid could have the feeling in his heart of closeness to Hashem similar to the way it's in these levels. We always talk about different tzadikim who were in different levels. There was a tzadik, his neshama was a neshama of אצילות. Then you have a tzadik his neshama was a neshama of בריאה, and some a neshama of יצירה. What it means is that he felt close to Hashem in the same level as that world, עולם היצירה, whatever that world is, in which he reached. Moshe Rabbeinu, it says, was a neshama of אצילות, which means Moshe Rabbeinu was able to feel to, in his mind and in his heart, to bring himself up to understand the real meaning of what אצילות is and therefore he really really lived in that level. That's how close he was to God. Now, these are the real mekubalim. When we talk about Kabbalah, we say they're mekubalim. What's a mekubal? People think a mekubal is somebody who studied a lot of this philosophy. True, but that's not enough. You have to live what you understand, then you're a mekubal. These tzadikim actually lived the levels that they reached. So when you have a mekubal who we say he reached, in his mind, the level of בריאה, that means that he, in his mind and in his heart, was close to Hashem, similar to the stage of עולם הבריאה, which is pretty far high up compared to where we are. They actually live, and every yid is able to live through these levels. This reminds me just of the famous story of the Mezritcher Maggid. Mezritcher Maggid, when he used to daven, he used to daven with all the כוונות of Ari z"l. All the, the כוונות, the deep thoughts and intentions of the Ari z"l, the great mekubal, put into the davenen, that we have to realize this brachah means that we're reaching this level, and this brachah means we're reaching this level. He had a friend who he grew up together with, who was also a great scholar, but that friend became a moved away and lived in a different city, and the Mezritcher Maggid became the famous big Mezritcher Maggid. Once, this friend decided to visit him, came to him, you can imagine the simchah, how joyful it was to see his friend who he didn't see for many years. And his friend saw that the Mezritcher Maggid was davenening for hours upon hours upon hours. So he asked him later, when they were talking, \"How come you daven so long?\" And he said to him, \"You know, I imagine when you daven you have all these כוונות of the Ari z"l in your mind, and that's why it takes you so long.\" But he says to him, \"Believe me, I also daven with the כוונות of Ari z"l, and it doesn't take me that long. May take you 5 hours, it takes me an hour and I go through all the כוונות.\" He didn't answer him anything. In the course of the conversation, he started asking him what he does, so he told him he has a store, but he makes sure that his wife is the one who stands in the store to bring the parnasah. He sits and learns all day. But 1 month a year he spends in getting the merchandise. He has to go to a city, Leipzig, and there he gets the merchandise. He asks him, \"How long does it take you?\" \"Takes me about a month,\" he says. \"Because I travel there, and I spend my time there, and I get the right merchandise, and I come back, it takes me about a month. Then I come back, so I spend a month wasting time from learning, but because of that, a whole year, for the other 11 months, I'm able to sit and learn.\" So the Mezritcher Maggid says to him, \"I don't understand you. Why do you have to waste a whole month? I have an idea for you. Sit down and meditate, and start thinking. Now, I'm entering the train, the train is going, and then it has the first stop, then,\" you think all this in your mind, \"and there is a second stop, third stop, fourth stop, finally you get to the stop Leipzig and then finally you come there and think through the whole thing, and then you come to the marketplace, and you get this merchandise, and tomorrow you get this merchandise, and think how long do you think it would take you to think through everything until you're finally in your mind get home?\" \"Ah it's taken If I want to go through all the details in my mind,\" he says, \"about 5 hours.\" So he says, \"Why don't you do that instead of going away for a month? Think in your mind for 5 hours and you'll do the same thing.\" So he says to him, \"I don't understand you.\" He says, \"What's wrong?\" \"Well, I need the merchandise.\" So the Mezritcher Maggid says to him, \"Same thing here. We both think the כוונות of the Ari z"l. Difference between me and you is you just go through it in your mind. I'm actually there. I actually get the merchandise. And that takes much longer.\" And that's what tzaddik it takes the merchandise, he thinks and thinks, and really reaches the level in davenen of עולם העשיה הרוחנית, the spiritual level of עשיה. And then he goes further, and you reach עולם היצירה הרוחנית. Actually, in Zohar, which is the source of all Kabbalah, it speaks about davenen, and it says that davenen is like a ladder. Just like a ladder has, that usually, in those days at least, had 4 steps, there are 4 steps in davenen, and the different levels in davenen are going through the different worlds. If you ever open a siddur which has the כוונות of Kabbalah around the siddur, you'll see that different parts of davenen have different titles. The first part of davenen is called תפלת העשיה, the second one is called תפלת היצירה, the third one is תפלת הבריאה. Shemoneh Esrei, you come to the עמידה of the Shemoneh Esrei, it's called תפלת האצילות. Because the whole idea of davenen is going step to step, meaning that you in your mind you think this כוונות of this world, but it means that you should actually actually feel, and every person according to his level, that you're reaching this level of whatever that world represents. That's why, even though most people, many people have a custom that if you come to shul and it's late, and the minyan is already holding by Shemoneh Esrei, so what you do is you skip everything else, and you go to Shemoneh Esrei, and then when you're finished, then you make up, you're mitpallel. But anybody who has any connection to Kabbalah and to Chassidut will know that this cannot be done, and it should not be done, and we're very much against it. And the reason is very simple: Since these are steps, imagine you run in and you're jumping to אצילות, and then you jump back to יצירה, then you jump back to עשייה, then you go to בריאה, makes no sense. You can't just jump around. Why? Because this is a whole, this is a whole seder, order of things the way you go from level to level. But the idea is that we're working ourselves up when Hashem worked the way down. He created the world by going through these stages, meaning first there was this formation in the potential level of מציאות, of being, which is other than Hashem, separating himself from Hashem. Then there is more מציאות, more being, which is worse, which is lower. Then finally it turned into שטח. What we have to do is do the opposite. We have to work ourselves back. Like it says, that Hashem created, I'll tell you, start with the Gemara. The Gemara says, גדולים מעשי צדיקים ממעשה שמים וארץ. The actions of the tzadikim, that means of all Jews actually, because they're all tzadikim, is greater than the actions of Hashem when He created the heavens and earth. And the Gemara, it brings a pasuk. But Kabbalah says, you know why? Because Hashem created yesh me'ayin, something from nothing. What He wants us to do is to reverse it back, to make that something back into that nothing. That means we have to work ourselves back. We have to start thinking that really, really, even though it seems like we are a real מציאות, but the source is that middle level. And then when you get to understand it and it's very clear in one's mind how really, really this is the source, then we go a step further: that the real source is that potential level. And we have this further you come to understand that the real source is the unlimited level, which really, this is what we are, hidden within us. And that's the secret of creation. And that's the secret of what a person is supposed to think about when you daven, and בכלל when you serve Hashem, to elevate yourself back through these stages, through these levels, till we come and we recognize the truth of Hashem. And that's when we say Hashem shines within us. And this is what a real mekubal is. A real mekubal is not a person who could play tricks, make a golem or do some tricks, or a mekubal is somebody who just studied Kabbalah. Studying is, you know, you have people who study and they know it, but you have to actually, in Yiddish we say, אפלייגן a zach, it should be clear in our mind, the truth, that this is it, and that's the way a person would be close to Hashem according to way it's explained in Kabbalah. Now, like I said, I'm sure that, I don't know how this came across, but whichever way it was, I hope next time will be better. Yes? רשימו? רשימו is not נקודה? No, רשימו after the tzimtzum, what's נקודה then? Before... Okay, let me just tell you. What? No, I'll explain. The same three levels you have with, before the tzimtzum itself. What? Before the tzimtzum itself you also have the three levels. You could, in every level that you have... I'm not talking before the tzimtzum, there's a רשימו אחר הצמצום. But the רשימו that's אחר הצמצום, after the tzimtzum, came from before the tzimtzum. עצמיות הרשימו לא נגע בהם הצמצום. The Arizal says that in the, I mean this is pure Kabbalah, that in the רשימו, the tzimtzum didn't affect. So you have the רשימו before, and the רשימו before is the כח הגבול שבאין סוף. That we found in... It's the כח הגבול שבאין סוף, and that כח הגבול שבאין סוף is already within לפני הצמצום, it's already the already that the שטח. That's already שטח. That's like the שטח of the לפני הצמצום. I've always learned this in the מאמר ויהי ביום כלות, the famous long מאמר, להבין ענין הצמצום, yeah, and I've learned it a few times, not recently unfortunately, but there it's very clear that the יסוד, at least from the Chassidic point of view, that the רשימו is the the only thing that was left over after the tzimtzum, and from there... Exactly so. So that's the שטח of לפני הצמצום that was transformed into אחר הצמצום, because what's what's called שטח in the higher level becomes the נקודה in the lower level. I don't argue that, I know that, but רשימו, from the רשימו comes the קו. The קו goes through the רשימו. Goes through the... It's different words, goes through the רשימו. Okay, yes. Okay. The example that you gave, it goes from a point, a zero dimension, to one, two dimensions in a plane, what about a third dimension, what about a fourth dimension, and... It's in the world, it must have a corresponding... Well, these are all details. Generally, it's a, or an אורך, length, and then any other, all the other dimensions, עומק and רוחב, the depth and the width, it's all details in the שטח. What about time? Time and space are together. Time also, time, time is measured by space, and therefore the time is a שטח. Actually, sometimes in Kabbalah the term is used שטח הזמן, the space of time, because it is a space, but it's not a space, a physical space, but it is a space, a theoretical space, but it's on the level of space already. And that's why the way we measure time is by space, how long it takes to go from this space to that space. The truth is space is measured by time also. How do you, what makes a space? The fact that it takes you time to get from here to there. But that's all שטח. Isn't time always as a rule higher than space? Okay, the truth is within, within זמן ומקום itself, time and space, it does say space, time is, time is, no, no, in רוחניות time is always, is considered higher. They're both מחודשים, it says. זמן ומקום, both are, time and space are both creation. But in that