|
|
Primordial Worlds and
The Cosmological Roots of Mitzvot
Joel David Bakst ©2003
The Talmud (Sanhedrin 97A) teaches a fundamental principal that is a virtual backbone for developing a Kabbalist’s understanding of the mitzvot. “The world is to exist for six thousand years; 2,000 of Tohu, 2,000 years of Torah and 2,000 years of Mashiach (Messiah). And when did the 2000 years of Torah begin? From the time of ‘the souls that they made in Charan’” (Genesis 12:5). This verse refers to the individuals that Abraham and Sara converted to a unified experience of all existence (monotheism) some 4,000 years ago and thus of Judaism. According to tradition the cosmological tikkun of the world and the planting of the seeds of the Jewish Nation began precisely when the world was 2,000 years old, from the initiation of Avraham’s mission at the age of 52.
What is the significance of these three periods of time? By superimposing the three sections of the human figure – the head, the torso and the legs -- upon the six millennia of time a useful correspondence can be observed. The “head of time” – the first 2,000 years -- was completed with the mission of Avraham and Sara. Now the spiritual history of the world was entering into the “torso of time” – the second 2,000 year period. At the end of this second 2,000 years the Mishnah – the codex and summation of the Oral Torah from Sinai -- was completed, closing that period of time. Presently in the timeline of creation we are near the bottom of the third and final 2,000-year period corresponding to the “feet of time”.
The simple explanation of the three designations the sages use to refer to these periods is this: The first 2000 years are called Tohu meaning chaos or void. This was the state of the world until Avraham began teaching Torah at 52 years old and methodically began the tikkun for the chait (the sin of the eating from the Tree of Knowledge) of Adam. During this period the world was essentially void (tohu) of the process of restoration.
During the second 2000 years Avraham begins to plant the seeds of the Jewish People and near the middle of this epoch Moshe gives the Torah at Mt. Sinai. Traditionally the Torah is the blueprint and code for the implementation and acceleration of the cosmic tikkun. During this epoch Torah continued to flourish until some 200 years after the destruction of the Second Temple, which concluded this period in the year 4,000 after creation.
The last 2000 years (currently with some 240 years to go until the year 6,000) is referred to as the epoch of Mashiach because it concludes with the arrival of Mashiach, the resurrected Adam. Additionally, its entire two millennia are pregnant with messianic sparks having the potential to accelerate the redemption of our fallen reality and actually usher it in before its due time (hence the different unsuccessful messianic end times that have come and past).
But here is the question. Why do the sages refer to the first 2,000 years with the uncommon term of “tohu”? There are many other words in Hebrew that could have been used to designate a vacuous or nonproductive period of time. Furthermore, although the word tohu can refer to chaos and void this is not its primary meaning. Rather, there is an esoteric teaching concealed in the choice of the word tohu. Although almost unknown this teaching is a fundamental concept of Judaism. This teaching will also enable us to begin to unravel the greatest mystery of mankind – why the world is plagued with so much destruction and death? Where is the “very good” of “And behold He saw all that he made and it was very good”? (Genesis 1:31) Why does the world look the way it does? For now, however, the answer will reveal the ultimate cosmological raison d'être for the mitzvot.
The sages are very deliberate when transmitting formulae such as this one and it is fundamental that no rabbinical statement can be completely divorced from its literal meaning. Tohu, as anyone who has studied Lurianic Kabbalah knows, has a very concise meaning and it is this meaning of tohu that is being used here. Tohu is the name of the universe or dimension of reality that preceded the present dimension of the creation of Genesis (Maaseh Beresheet). This is the literal meaning of the Torah’s opening verses, “In the Beginning…And the ground (i.e., the fragments of the previous world) was Tohu… ”. It is upon the residual “ground” of this primordial universe that Genesis is built.
More accurately stated the creation story of Genesis is being reconstructed. This cosmological reconstruction is also known as tehiyat hamateem – resurrection of the dead – a spiritual concept that applies to more than just dead human bodies. This current dimension or world was reconstructed and resurrected out of a prior reality that served as a precursor to the “new” creation. This famous biblical verse depicting the Tohu is actually a formula containing the genetic-like code to a detailed calculus of how the preexistent universe interfaces with our present reality. The details of the Tohu are extremely complex and constitute a separate field of study in Lurianic Kabbalah that is generally reserved only for elite disciples. In fact, till the time of the Arizal 400 years ago even its mere mention in public – let alone the detailed study of the Tohu -- was forbidden.
Initiation into the teachings of the Tohu is shocking to human sensibilities. Its mappings and details are among the most secret possessions of the Jewish people. It turns our entire concept of creation and the purpose of life on its head as well as upside down and inside out. One of the oldest books of the Kabbalah, Sefer HaBahir, asks the rhetorical question, ‘Why is it called Tohu? Because it traumatizes (m’taheh, from the root of tohu) humanity” (Sefer Ha’Bahir #2). The repercussions of the Tohu are traumatizing. Yet, the Tohu is the key to understanding Judaism. Without it there can be no real understanding of life and particularly the Jewish experience, period. Without the hard truth of the Tohu mitzvot will remain simply social conventions and “good deeds”.
The World of Tohu is also known as the 974 Primordial Generations. Rashi (Genesis 1:1), quoting the midrash, commenting on the first verse in the Torah, alludes to their aborted birth. “In the beginning it arose in the Divine thought to create the [prior] world with the attribute of din (implosive divine energy known as the gevurot), but He saw that it would be too unstable, and therefore generated the attribute of compassion (expansive divine energy, rachamim – the balance between the right-side of chesed and the left-side of din-gevura) and integrated it with the din”. Because there was too much din-gevura, a process of cosmological catharsis rebalanced the situation and the 974 Primordial Generations aborted in a cosmic nuclear-like implosion of unimaginable proportions and the excess dinim were expelled.
The process of the Tohu is also referred by the Sages of Israel as both The Breaking of Vessels and The Death of the Primordial Kings. This phenomenon would appear to be a chaotic tragedy. The very opposite, however, is true. Rabbi Abahu said “The Holy One created worlds (each “world” being a “vessel” or a “King”) and destroyed them, created worlds and destroyed them as it is written, ‘He made everything beautiful in its time’ (Kohelet 3:11)” The Death of the Primordial Edomite Kings is alluded to in the Talmud, Midrash and Zohar. The details are encoded in a very inconspicuous section in the Torah. 'And these are the kings that reigned in the land of Edom…” (Genesis 36:31-40). This passage is a codex and digest of the most fundamental doctrine of the Kabbalah, namely how our present reality has been formed out of worlds preexistent to the universe of Genesis.
The Land of Edom is also known as the World of Tohu. In the Tohu each sefirotic vessel (even primordial reality is made out of sefirot) undergoes a breakage and this process is also known as the Breaking of the Vessels (Shevirat haKelim). Because each Sefira is a Kingdom onto itself, each “king” is said to reign in an infinite flash and then “dies”. The collapse of these vessels (the seven lower sefirot) is the Death of the Primordial Kings. This then is the true meaning of the term Tohu – the state of reality before Genesis.
Now, if the term Tohu refers to primordial reality before Geneisis, why have the sages who are very specific with their expressions used this term to describe the first 2,000 years after Genesis? The mind-boggling answer is that the creation process after Genesis became distorted as well and it was Tohu all over again. But this was not a metaphoric Tohu. It was literally part of the same Tohu replicating itself over again. This is what the world knows as the Fall of Man. But in the Kabbalah what actually “fell” is another story.
The Breaking of the Primordial Vessels parallels the death of a human being. When the vessel of the soul – the body -- breaks and dies most of the contents of the vessel – the soul -- immediately returns to its source. The fragments of the vessel – the dead body -- descend into lower levels taking with it some of the sparks of the light of the soul. These soul particles, after their purification in the ground, will then be extricated, reconstructed and resurrected in the Resuscitation of the Dead (Techiyat HaMateem). Prior to Genesis the cosmic vessels containing the divine light broke, the majority of their light – their souls -- ascended and their pieces scattered and fell into lower dimensions. But the next stage was for their retrieval and resuscitation into a new creation, a new universe. This follows the principle that the antidote is always created before the disorder.
Immediately following the “Breaking,” with the opening verses of the book of Genesis, the seven days of creation are none other than the reconstitution of the Broken Vessels and resurrection of the Primordial Kings. The entire six days of Genesis was literally the resurrection of the dead. The culmination of the restoration, however, was to take place through one final phase. Adam, together with the radiance of the incoming Shabbat, was intended to complete the process. This is what is written (Genesis 2:15) “And G-d placed the man in the Garden of Eden to work it and to guard it.” “To work it” is to redeem, convert and elevate the fallen sparks of the Tohu. “To guard it” is to prevent the spiritual “fallout” left over from the Tohu from contaminating the process of tikkun. “To work it” is the essence of all the positive mitzvoth. “To guard it” is the essence of all the negative mitzvoth.
But just as Adam and Eve were performing their mitzvot of reconstruction and adding the final touch of perfection they miscalculated (literal meaning of the Hebrew word for “sin”) slipped and fell, taking all of reality with them, this time a second step away from the reunification of creation. Adam literally recapitulated the phenomenon of the Tohu. Therefore were they instructed, "On the day that you eat from it you will surely die" (Genesis 2-1 7). The essence of this death is the very same death of the Primordial Kings and destruction of the Tohu.
When Adam brought death into the world in affect he caused the resurrecting and ascending seven sefirotic days of Genesis to be plunged back into chaos – literally back into the primordial Tohu. More than just another implosion he caused the “New World” to collide with the Old World. "On the day that you eat from it you will surely die” was a cosmological collision of dimensions and an existential death sentence of our entire universe that stagers the mind. Adam’s death was an inter-dimensional, multi-universal catastrophe of unimaginable consequences.
The one question we should be afraid to ask now is where are we now? The answer to this question will explain the cosmological purpose of mitzvot. The world is to exist for six thousand years; 2,000 of Tohu, 2,000 years of Torah and 2,000 years of Mashiach. This reference to the Tohu is the primordial Tohu that our present universe, the universe of tikkun also known as Genesis has partially collapsed back into. The sages refer to the giving of the Torah at Sinai in the same terms and concepts as the creation process itself. This is not just metaphorical. The revelation of the light of the Torah is literally the same light of the Genesis creation process, resurrecting the sparks of fallen light from the Tohu. Torah is tikkun, literally the cosmic map for the tikkun of the Tohu post Genesis. The mitzvot are the cosmological tools to implement this tikkun at its root level – in the Tohu.
According to the model of 6,000 years divided into three 2,000-year periods does this mean that the Tohu ended when the period of Torah began? A quick look at history tells us otherwise. Although Moshe and his generation, the Generation of Knowledge (dor de’ah) as they are known could have brought about the final tikkun this did not occur. Due to the sin of the Golden Calf (another grave miscalculation) the state of Tohu has continued. Furthermore, the period of Mashiach has not yet brought us into the Great Shabbat – the Shabbat that Adam himself never yet fully attained. Doesn’t this contradict the model? The difficulty can be resolved by not viewing the periods as separate from each other but rather that the Tohu extends the entire six millennia with the periods of Torah and Mashiach being added onto the underlying ground of the Tohu.  Our entire world is in a state of chaos -- nothing new there. Everyone knows that the world is full of chaos and confusion. But what the sages are revealing is that the chaos we experience in the world and in its history is more than a metaphor. It is the mind bending cosmological chaos of the actual Tohu. The harsh and dreadful truth is that our universe -- “from the horns of the ram to the eggs of lice”, from the heights of the heavens to the depths of the earth, from billions of behemoth stars to the super sub atomic particles – is literally in the clutches of the Tohu.
This is the universe of the Tohu that existed prior to the universe of Genesis. Because of the power of divinity that Adam embodied his miscalculation with the Tree of Knowledge literally collapsed the newly resurrected creation back into the primordial universe of the Tohu. Consequently, all phenomena of history – millennium-to-millennium, minute to minute -- are following patterns etched into the dark underbelly of the Tohu. Particularly this applies to the mystery of suffering in general and specifically to the holocaust of much of the Jewish experience.
An understanding of the Tohu truly is the backbone for all Torah knowledge as well as developing a Kabbalist’s understanding of the mitzvot. The reason the world looks and feels the way it does is because we are in the vortex of worlds—Tohu and Tikkun – in collision. Additionally these dimensions are in collusion because they have interfaced and integrated with each other. We are now embedded and encased within the original Tohu.
Stranger than the strangest science fiction the light of Genesis is bizarrely mixed with the “darkness” of the Tohu. The Good of “And He saw and it was good” has collided and colluded with the evil residue and cosmic fallout from the 974 Primordial Generations and produced a mutated reality. Torah and the mitzvoth are the renewal of the cosmic tikkun of the Tohu. Mashiach is the culmination of the process, the fruition of thousands of years of Jewish practice of the mitzvot. This is the Divine service of the Nation of Israel. Every positive commandment of the Torah is sifting the fallen, trapped light from out of the cosmic darkness of the Tohu. Every act of restraint from transgressing a negative commandment is restraining the darkness from spreading. In fact, there is no action, speech or thought, no matter how insignificant and momentary it may appear to be that is not an actual part of this Divine process.
Within our present plane of reality, across the span of the six millennia of world history, cosmic tikkun for the Tohu is evolving and accelerating. The next stages of reality, the Era of the Messiah and those following it, will only be ushered in when every last nucleus of Divinity is distilled and every last world is reset in its place. “And G-d placed him in the Garden of Eden to work it and to guard it.” (Genesis 2:15) The Sages have taught that “to work it” are the positive Mitzvot, and “to guard it” are the negative Mitzvos.
The tikkun for Adam’s additional tohu is the long and painful global process of gathering in every last spark of the body of the original Adam before the advent of the Messiah, the resurrected Adam. This is why the concept of Tehiyat HaMateem – the resurrection of the dead is fundamental to being Jewish and understanding Torah. It is not an “extra” belief or a “luxury” idea that one can choose to accept or reject. It is the essence of Jewish existence and the real Name of the Game. Resurrection from the Tohu lies at the core of each mitzvah. Collectively the soul of the world has ascended while its body has descended to decay in the grave and slowly become purified. The true body, however, will be resurrected from the dead and not only the world but also the entire universe will shed its external form – the external shells of the Tohu – and reveal its true self, the original light of Genesis. After the six days of Genesis will be redeemed and resurrected from the Tohu then we will begin where Adam left off and enter the 7th day, the 7th millennium – the World to Come, the Great Shabbat, the original – and now fully realized – Genesis. The Creation of the World is now only beginning.
|