Kabbalah and Philosophy

Lesson 6

The carving of the soul

• Is there a connection between corporality and spirituality?
• Is what we don't grasp called spiritual?
• Matter changes phases
• The force behind matter - is it spiritual or corporeal?

"All spiritual is comprehended by us to be a force which is abstracted from the body" which has no connection with the body "and therefore it has no corporeal image." Not as clothed in anything and certainly not by itself. "But because of that, it is distinguished in itself, and completely separated from the corporeal. So how could it even come in contact with anything corporal, and needless to say create anything corporal, since there is no link through which it could come in contact with the corporal."

What is he saying? He is saying that there is no connection between spirituality and corporality, and that it is impossible for spirituality to be grasped or clothed in corporality.

So if there is no connection between spirituality and corporality, how is it still possible that spirituality gives birth to the corporal, supervises it and activates it? What is going on here?

Is there still some link between them, or is there is none?

"And if so then how could anything corporal even appear, and needless to say that something corporal be born by itself, since it has no correlation through which it could come in contact with the corporal."

The question is how does spirituality give birth and existence to corporality and activate it.

The acid foundation

He wants to explain to us what the connection is between corporality and spirituality, that connection through which we aspire to reach spirituality from corporality. Supposing that there is a connection, how can we get there through it?

"But indeed, that force" which is called spirituality, without clothing in the corporal, in matter, "is in itself distinguished as real matter, no less than all other corporal substances that are in the corporal world." It should not be forgotten, that the "force" itself is also a substance, indeed not with respect to our sense, but it is still the same substance. How do we work with the forces of our world? Forces of gravity, magnetic forces, and different fields that we work with the same way, he says that there is no difference, whether it is in force or in matter. He gives us an example:

"And even though it has no concrete image that can be grasped by the human senses" meaning that I can not grasp it's form, sense it, or feel it in my senses "it does not reduce the value of the substance which is the "force" when it is in the form of force, which I can not grasp.

"If you take a bottle of Oxygen, which is a building block of most substances in the world, still, when it is separated by itself from any other substance, the bottle will appear to be completely empty with nothing that can be perceived in it - since it is completely untouchable, and invisible to the eye." Although we have no comprehension of Oxygen, it still exists.

"And if we remove the cap from the bottle and smell it, we will not find any smell there" we do not grasp it with the sense of smell either. "And if we would taste it we would not find any taste in it. And if we place it on a scale it will not weigh more than the empty bottle." Which has no real value for us, "and the same is with Nitrogen, which has no taste, smell or weight.

But if we combine the two elements together," Hydrogen and Oxygen, "immediately they will turn into liquid," water, "and observe that water is already good for drinking, since it has taste and weight." See how Baal Hasulam gradually explains for us, he wrote this article in the thirties, 1927-1928.

"And if we place the water into a bucket of raw cement - immediately the water will mix into the cement and become solid matter as the cement itself."
It turns out that the elements of Oxygen and Hydrogen, which themselves can not be gasped in any concrete way - turn to become a solid body.

"So according to that, how can we determine and say about the forces acting in nature that they are not tangible substance, all because it is not organized according to the recognition of the senses, while we clearly see that most of the tangible substances in reality were initially made from the element of Oxygen, which the human senses are not able to perceive or grasp." He is explaining things to us in the way they used to explain them maybe a hundred years ago, but the truth is that today we already understand these concepts; we have plenty of examples of substances changing state from solid to liquid to gas and even plasma.

What is he trying to say? That the fact that our senses do not grasp does not indicate anything. There are things in the world that we do not grasp with the senses that have as much realness as those that we do grasp. Those things may switch between one and the other, meaning that what we do not perceive now we may be able to perceive tomorrow with our senses. There are even invisible things that we do not perceive now with our senses, that we will grasp in some form, to the extent that we would develop or add some additional sensitivity or a new sense.

"And not only that, but even the concrete reality, the solid and the liquid, which are certainly perceivable in our tangible world, can turn into air and vapors at a certain degree of heat - as well as the gaseous may turn into solids at a certain degree of coldness." Meaning, everything is dynamic toward us. So we should not even pay attention to the measurements of our senses. It is not according to our senses that we should determine the state of matter, whether it is corporal or spiritual, because within our senses everything may shift from being perceivable to not perceivable.

"And therefore it should be inquired, how can there be a giver of something which he doesn't have", is it possible that something exists which doesn't have some kind of root? "Since we have clearly seen that all tangible perceptions derive from the elements which themselves are not tangible, and are not existing substances by themselves." "Existing by them selves" means that we can point them out. "And so, all of the invariable images that we know, by which we define the substances, are not invariable or existing at all out of their own properties, but they just loose form or attain form due to the influence of different causes such as heat or cold." Let's relate to all things in our surrounding or environment in an easier way. Let's not determine if what happens around us exists or if a certain form exists, because anything can change its external shape toward us, go back to its original form, and again take some other external shape. It doesn't indicate that it exists or that it doesn't.

"But the core of the tangible substances is the "force" in them, but as long as those forces have not been revealed to us ( like the chemical elements), it is possible that they will be revealed to us at some time, even like all of the chemical elements that were revealed to us only recently."

He is saying that even the forces that are supposedly behind matter will be revealed at some time by science. He does not determine that we can only reveal those forces with screens, returning light and so on. Look what he writes: "that will be revealed to us at some time, even by them selves." This means in a form which is pure from any material clothing. So what will be revealed will be called "spiritual"? No, it will not be called spiritual, it will also be corporal, it is the force that exists behind the matter.

When we say "force" do we mean the will to receive?

In "force" which we are talking about, do we mean desire to receive and desire to bestow, or natural forces that are behind matter that compose the matter through all of their combinations?

Something which is close to me is solid, further away is liquid, further is gases, even further is plasma, until eventually it exists only in potential. Then there are more forces, for example from plasma and on it is energy, then exist perhaps only their properties. These are all corporal forces, but we perceive them in such a way or another. The will to receive which is in the matter is also a force, the power of will. Your question is, whether it is possible that the same desire to receive will be revealed as existing on its own, inside of matter, by some research of man, or can only a Kabbalist discover that desire to receive which is in matter?

The force is equal in the spiritual and the corporal

"In one word, all of those names which are given to the material images are completely fictional, meaning that they come out of the tangible recognition within our five senses - since they are not constant or self-existing." It is clear that what we recognize in our five senses is only apparent to us. "From the other side, any definition that we give the force, while denying from it the ways of the material, is also fictional, but as long as science has not developed to its final form we need to consider only the tangible reality". This means that we are still not able to determine anything, until we develop science to a state where we will really determine where those things are: the force, the matter, and in what way they connect. "And so everything that we see and sense as some tangible action, we have to understand what activates it. This is also substance just as the action is, and in any case has some common relationship with it, otherwise it wouldn't cause it." There is no spiritual that enters into the corporeal and activates it. Those forces that act and activate matter can be discovered with certainty with our human science.

"It is necessary to know that all of this misconception of differentiating the acting force from the action," that both of them are corporeal and can be attained and understood, "is rooted in the formative philosophy, which insisted to prove the issue of the spiritual action upon the corporeal act" which is corporal and not spiritual at all. Philosophy began to relate to those actions which matter goes through some kind of spiritual force. There is no spirituality in it. "And from that they arrived at erroneous assumptions, which the Kabbalah has no need for." This is because Kabbalah uses and deals only with pure forces which have no connection to the corporal. What activates the corporal and is connected to the corporal, is corporal. It could appear as solid, liquid, air, plasma, electrical power, gravity. It doesn't matter what forces, they are all still corporal forces, and the spiritual has no connection with them. Meaning that this thing that we have not yet attained which activates matter hasn't been revealed because our science has not developed to that level. But in a hundred or two hundred years from now we will reach the point where we will see how all the forces act and activate matter. Then we will know. We have no problem with it, but spirituality remains entirely out of this, it does not belong in the corporal field at all.

So where is there a connection?

There is no connection at all between corporality and spirituality.

You may want to ask this question: Since we know that according to the thought of creation the entire reality has to achieve adhesion with the Creator, does matter achieve adhesion as well? Do forces that activate matter achieve adhesion? Do the actions that the matter goes through reach equivalence with the Creator?

This is not even discussed. All we can discover through our wisdom (even within a few hundred years), do not belong to spirituality and are not discussed when it is said that it is necessary to come to equality of form with the Creator. The electrons can keep turning the way they do, and those humans who are like beasts may behave like beasts. Only the spiritual part is discussed, which has to go through correction. The body will remain the body, and what we perceive in reality with the five senses will remain that way. We will reveal a little more, we will discover entirely how all the laws of nature behave, but so what? In that we will not touch spirituality at all, spirituality is at a completely different level. To reach it we do not need all of this development and human science, but we need to cross into that place which is called spiritual, and from there deal with spirituality. There is no connection between the spiritual zone and the corporeal zone.

So what directs us now?

So what directs us now if not spirituality?

Who directs us?

Who is directing us, who is the boss? That is the question.

Is there a chance that we will get to such a state where we will discover the soul with our vision or one of those senses?

Will we ever be able to discover through biological, physiological, or any type of research a part called 'soul'? No. Because these are not forces that activate the body, or even exist in the body or are linked to it. From the body we will never be able to get to what is called the 'soul'. We may be able to reach a state in which like now, we want something - we want to know what we exist for. Yet even with respect to that question there is still another question of whether it relates to our body. Initially it seems to us that we are asking about our body - how do I exist? What activates me? What will be my destiny? Why is it happening to me? But the more I deal with this question, the more it becomes disconnected from this life, belonging more and more to spirituality. It is already being asked about something which is outside of this life, which doesn't belong to me, and I stop caring about this life and what happens here in the process. I already desire to know a different reality, where I would have some existence which is disconnected from this world and all of the processes that occur here. As if there is someone who activates us here, and 'there' is an entirely different place. It is about that "there" that I am asking.

Gradually, through the study of the books that talk about that spiritual place, I get away from this corporality, and little by little begin to ask about "there", because there I want to feel my self, I want to feel that 'there' exists my "I". And so gradually we become more abstracted from the matter and more belonging to the spirit.