Thread by @kilovh

For #threadapalooza @threadapalooza 2022, I offer 💯 tweets on Divine Unity as understood in the teachings of Jewish mysticism.

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@threadapalooza Chassidic teaching, in general, has been beautifully summarized as the two instructions R'Yisroel Baal Shem Tov (d. 1760) received as a child from his dying father: fear no one except G-d alone and love every Jew with your whole heart. /2

Half of Jewish mysticism is concerned with the latter. This thread is concerned with the former. /3

In truth, as the Alter Rebbe writes in the 32nd chapter of Tanya, these two teachings are really one teaching. To properly accept the Chassidic notion of the Divine Unity is to properly accept the Chassidic notion of love of one's fellow Jew. /4

To admit Chassidic philosophy is to admit Chassidic worship.

And so, if one is more interested in practical matters and has little time for theology, think of this thread as a highly rigorous introduction to what it means to love one's fellow as oneself. /5

There's a difference between faith/knowledge in G-d, and Divine Unity. The former is about G-d's existence and "nature" - particularly, in Chassidic teaching, the recognition that G-d transcends all wisdom and worlds. /6

It is implicit in knowledge/faith in G-d that there is only one G-d. It is implicit in Judaism's ban on idolatry that all (other) beings exist to G-d in the relationship of creation to Creator and have no causative powers of their own apart from those actively bestowed by G-d. /7

Divine Unity, then, would seem to mean more than that there are no other G-ds. /8

Instead, as explained in Tanya and across many Chassidic discourses, Divine Unity means there is nothing other than G-d.

That is, all realities and perspectives are ultimately one within G-dliness, such that the act of creation has not altered the status quo ante. /9

(Of course, talking about "ante" and time in general in the context of creation and the creation of time is a very tricky subject, and the language of this thread will be relaxed and somewhat imprecise, as you should be when having fun.) /10

One might say that Knowledge/Faith is (among other things) the recognition that without G-d, there is no universe. Divine unity is the recognition that WITH G-d, there is no universe.

/11

What does this mean? The following short, basic précis is based on the discourse Tannu Rabbanan 5643 (1882), by Rabbi Shalom Ber of Lubavitch, the Rebbe Rashab. Which happens to be a Chanukah discourse.

This thread may take a few days to finish.

/12

As we said, creation hasn't altered the status quo ante. This means that all realities are actually Divine Realities. Now, I say these words, and I perceive you mishearing them. Chassidic teachings mean this in a simple way, and we are trained by philosophy to be un-simple.

/13

Any decent philosopher could tell you that all realities are the reality of G-d, for the simple reason that "reality" or "existence" ultimately means G-d per se.

/14

You can't escape the truth because the truth is all there is. And so, trivially, reality is all that has ever been real. "There is nothing other than G-d."

/15

But if G-d is Existence per se or Pure Act or Reality, then He is needed to explain the universe's existence - that's it. Aristotle famously didn't even believe G-d created, but merely that he gave form to eternal matter.

/16

Maimonides disagrees for various reasons and says G-d is the Creator, but without truly altering the Aristotelian description of the mysterious, inert, and, ultimately, distant First Existence.

/17

The Kuntz or "trick" of a MYSTIC, rather than a PHILOSOPHER, saying G-d hasn't changed, is that the mystic knows G-d to be very close. In fact, the mystic's G-d is much more like what the Torah simply describes.

/18

G-d creates the universe actively using active verbs. He listens to prayers and enters history. He focuses His attention on the righteous and wicked at their times. He loves. He is, in short, very personal. As the Koran says, "Closer to [us] than [our] jugular vein."

/19

Of course, reintroducing an actually biblical (and, in another argument for its veracity, deeply intuitive to children) notion of a genuinely personal G-d raises all of the questions the philosophers depersonalized G-d to escape.

/20

Can G-d be a personal G-d who, as a "person" or self, knows me and loves me and whom I serve and cling to with all closeness, and also be the utterly transcendent and infinite Creator of all things? Can the G-d of the Torah remain utterly unchanged and unchanging?

/21

The Chassidic Masters not only posit that this is the case, but that it is, to a large extent, within the realm of human comprehension. And in passing, they elevate the soul, the Torah, the commandments, and all of Judaism, with a higher sort of G-d...

(TBC in a bit)

/22

The problem of the Divine Unity can be broken into three parts, based on the verse "G-d said "Let there be light," and there was light."

In the act of speech, there are: 1) the speaker; 2) the speech or externalized self-expression; 3) the (at least implicit) listener.

/23

All reality APART from the Divine status-quo ante--that is, all things other than G-d Alone --is brought to be in this "act of Divine speech."

And so, if we are to understand how G-d has not changed from the Status Quo ante, we must do so from these three vantage points.

/24

G-d Himself, the Speaker, is the easiest to account for - we've said that Maimonides and even Aristotle did it already.

As the Being-Beyond-Being, for whom "existence" is too earthly a description, G-d is inherently utterly alone, no matter how crowded the cosmos gets.

/25

It's easy to understand G-d's absolute and categorical solitude: G-d Himself is utterly uncaused and self-justifying.

Everything else--absolutely everything else--is at the very least caused by G-d, and so utterly existentially different from Him.

/26

Infinite universes and even the Infinite Light of G-d, His Presence, fail to "move the needle" of G-d's transcendent solitude. From His perspective, nothing else ever rises to the level of existence. The status quo ante is, it would seem, guaranteed...

/27

...except that G-d decides to speak. Now of course, G-d is utterly transcendent of His own speech, in the way just explained, and it isn't even important or separate as an end or desired goal, as may become clear.

But still:

/28

Even if G-d looking at His speech sees "nothing" as it were, because His speech is not Him, it would seem undeniable that the very act of speaking brings about a second vantage point, that of the act of creation. And before, there was only G-d's vantage point.

/29

G-d seeing this new paradigm as nothing, is insufficient for Divine Unity - because the new paradigm is a NEW paradigm with its own relationship to G-d. And, eventually, with something called "creation."

/30

Of course, generally speaking, the creation first arises in the "speech" of G-d. "Light" is mentioned in G-d's words and is then created.

And the "speech," of course, relates to G-d not as its identity (it is not G-d) but as its source, the one expressing it.

/31

Speech is also the general paradigm of Divine involvement; it is the chosen process (G-d mysteriously chooses to use a process) through which He relates to defined creations. "Let there be light" is a different statement than "Let there be a firmament."

/32

What's worse, this speech is by definition a manifestation of the Divine (for if not, what does it manifest?) -- no matter how insignificant His own speech is to G-d per se, it is also simultaneously an expression of His (apparently changing, limited, diverse) intent.

/33

So, in sum, G-d brings about a new paradigm, an "act of creation," and this new paradigm is nothing other than the process whereby G-d gets involved in the changing, the finite, and ultimately, the created. How does this new paradigm constitute no change?

/34

To answer this question, we require a deeper appreciation of G-d's infinitude, which comes from the Kabbalah.

Philosophically, the infinitude of G-d is Being, and is contrasted with non-being.

/35

e.g. A frog is "G-dly" inasmuch as it exists, and fails to be G-d by the many ways it fails to exist.

G-d is purely actual. The limitations of the frog arise from the limitations of its matter and its potentialities.

Or: That being closest to non-being is least like G-d.

/36

The Kabbalah, by contrast, does not define G-d as pure actuality or full being or what have you, but as something greater.

As such, the "being" of G-d is not the opposite of non-being as understood within the universe/creation.

/37

On the contrary, what we consider being & non-being, or infinitude & finitude, are *equally Divine*.

Or as the holy works describe, "Just as He has power in the infinite, He has power in the finite," and one who denies His power in the finite limits His True Infinitude.

/38

Thus, finite manifestations of the Divine are equally G-dly as infinite manifestations of the Divine.

If G-d says, "let there be a frog," if He aims to bring forth a green amphibian rather than a grey mammal, He expresses nothing but G-dliness.

/39

As the principle is stated in Jewish Law, "a self cannot conceal itself." That "new paradigm" allegedly different from the "old paradigm" of G-d's undefined infinitude is actually not "new."

G-d's infinitude embraces all finitude.

/40

Or: The apparently "new thing" that is now "not G-d," this new paradigm or level of reality, is like the shell of the tortoise.

When the tortoise retreats within its own shell, the tortoise isn't really "hiding," because it's impossible to hide behind oneself.

/41

Thus, Kabbalistically, the Infinite Presence of G-d is fixed, and cannot, BY DEFINITION, be removed or lacking in a place or context.

/42

All places and contexts, all lacks and limitations, are just the Infinite Light of G-d.

"You can't run from the truth because even the lie is part of 'the truth is all there is.'"

(This is something like what is meant by the "Non-Literal Tzimtzum," by the way.)

/43

In other words:

The G-dliness of any given paradigm, view, or being is always 100%. All that changes is the "slider" that determines what portion of that G-dliness is finitude or Divine self-concealment and what portion is infintude and Divine self-expression.

/44

And so, if the status quo ante is G-d alone, and the act of saying "Let there be light" changes the sum manifestation of G-dliness not at all, there is a profound Divine Unity permeating the act of creation - nothing has truly changed.

/45

From G-d's perspective, then, there is His Infinitude prior or transcendent of the act of creation. And the act of Creation is literally a continued extension of His Infinitude without change.

/46

From the perspective of that Divine Act, it is no more innovated or new than the Divine Infinitude itself, for it is nothing other than that Divine Infinitude.

There is no "external" in which the "externalized Divine self-expression" can be externalized.

/47

The only perspective left, from which it seems something has changed and we do not exist eternally within the infinitude of G-d...is ours.

The creation is created.

This seems quite new.

How could it be nothing has changed?

/48

"Let there be a frog" may be folded into the eternal Divine infinitude. But at first, there was no actual physical frog. And now, there is.

And the frog's perspective is NOT G-d's perspective.

IT sees the process as culminating definitively in its own innovation.

/49

It seems you CAN escape the truth...in the physical universe.

What was once the reality of G-d and His Own Infinitude is now a reality shared with SOMETHING ELSE.

No?

(TBC)

/50

To understand the nature of the physical universe and its absolute brute-factitude, the way it seems to "just exist" per se without grounding, it pays to consider a different verse: "In the beginning, G-d created the heaven and the earth."

/51

The verb of creation implies, in a vital Jewish tradition, bringing forth "something from nothing." This sets it apart from, and even in opposition to, the verses where G-d speaks things into being.

/52

The two are opposed because to speak things into being implies that there is a process of some sort to produce the creation, as we have discussed. Creation ex nihilo means creation without process or with a non-process process.

/53

It is only creation "ex nihilo" or something from nothing that results in a creation truly disjoint from G-d, that is, each creation is not only finite but perceives itself to be independent, to exist "just because."

/54

The "givenness" of a frog -- the fact that a philosopher discovers G-d as the ground for the frog's existence but accepts the frog's existence axiomatically -- is counterintuitive given the existence of G-d.

/55

IOW: In truth, all things that exist do so by dint of G-d, with existence itself some kind of Divine expression or creation, yet we creations appear to be "locked out" of this truth.

/56

Our own existence appears to be an inescapable given, the starting point of all thought. When in fact, it is not a given at all. This existential dissonance is the core of being a creation.

/57

The creation, simply by existing, introduces a proper "other perspective" to reality. On the other hand, the Divine PROCESS of creation conveys the dependency of all things on G-d.

/58

A process, generally speaking, brings out the potential of raw materials (e.g. the process of cooking).

/59

But if the "statement of G-d"--a mixture of Divine self-revelation and -occlusion--that is "let there be light" is the raw material of light, how does light become a metaphysical or even physical given?

/60

How does the raw material of mere expression become "someone else?" How does a creation process in which G-d is the only possible actor result in beings who can see themselves as actors?

/61

It is as possible as first-person subjective consciousness arising from matter - that is, it's impossible.

0 + 0 does not produce 1.

G-d must do the impossible to create, and we call this impossible act creation ex nihilo.

/62

Creation ex nihilo could be called "the actualizing of a non-potential." It could be called "creation at a distance." It could also be understood as causality from a SINGLE source.

/63

In our rational reality, there is no creation ex nihilo, because all effects derive from a combination of causes.

This is easier to demonstrate in time, because existences were once potentials actualized at a particular time by something else that was already actual.

/64

For example, a piece of clay was made into a dreidel. The clay always contains a particular inherent potential to become a dreidel in the way, say, water or justice or the smell of lilacs does not.

/65

But that potential is only actualized in time by a craftsman, and only the craftsman makes the clay into a dreidel, not a menorah.

Further, the craftsman with no clay can't make a dreidel.

It's only their coming together that produces the effect.

/66

As we said before, there IS no potential in the manifestation of the Divine for a truly separate creation.

And so, when "let there be light" becomes light, when an act of expression becomes a being, it is innovated by G-d from no potential at all.

/67

Since, rationally, there is no principle of giving what one entirely lacks--"from nothing, nothing comes"--and such a concept is anti-philosophical in the way dividing by zero is anti-math, it may not surprise us to learn that creation ex nihilo has unusual consequences.

/68

Consider our clay dreidel. Long after the sculptor is gone, the dreidel remains. Why is this? Because the block of clay already existed; all the sculptor does is actualize its potential to take the form of a dreidel.

/69

In other words, its existence is just the continuation of the existence of its material or constitutive ingredient, the clay.

Once the sculptor has contributed, the effect - the produced object - persists.

/70

But in creation ex nihilo, where the BEING is brought forth ONLY from G-d, there is no prior constitutive ingredient.

1 has been brought forth from 0, as it were.

And therefore, without the CONSTANT contribution of the "sculptor," it would revert to nothingness.

/71

The famous metaphor is the throwing of a rock upward into the air. Consider: Rocks don't fly. If you look out your third-story window and see a rock fly past, you know that something outside the rock has made it so.

/72

You also know that once that outside energy is depleted by gravity, the rock will fall back to the earth, unable once more to fly. But consider its "flight" while it's in the air:

The rock has no potential to fly. This flight has been imposed on it externally.

/73

But this means that even as it flies, it is inaccurate to call it a "flying rock." The rock isn't flying; flight has been forced upon it from some outside source. The moment that imposition depletes is the moment the rock starts to fall.

/74

There is no such thing as a "flying rock." There is only a rock that is being made to fly.

/75

The existence of beings apart from G-d is created ex nihilo; that is, it is imposed by G-d on nothingness. This means that even as beings exist, it is inaccurate to call them "existing beings." Nothingness has no potential to be a being.

/76

Beings don't exist separate from G-d; existence has been imposed upon them. There is no such thing as an existing being. There is only being that is being made to exist.

Therefore, the moment that imposition depletes is the moment existence reverts to absolute nothingness.

/77

In fact, creation ex nihilo results in even more of a "nothing" than the metaphor of the flying rock implies. In the metaphor of the rock, the rock's flight is said to be "nothing other" than the power of the arm that imposes flight.

/78

However, in the metaphor, the power of the arm departs the arm and is given to the rock, and the rock's flight takes place with the rock and not with the arm.

In creation ex nihilo, there isn't a "place" for the power imposing being to occur.

/79

The new perspective beyond this power is the very thing the power is creating. Thus, this "compulsion to be" takes place WITHIN ITS OWN SOURCE.

The famous Chassidic metaphor for this more profound understanding of the creation's nullity is "the ray of the sun in the sun."

/80

The light of the sun is a metaphor for creation ex nihilo because the sun, considered simply (this is not actually true in reality), is the simple, single source for its own light.

/81

That is, the relationship of the sun's light to the sun is that of something created ex nihilo to the nothingness that is its source.

If we pretend the sun is the simple, single source of sunlight, then the light of the sun must exist within the sun itself.

/82

There is nowhere else for the light to come from, and it cannot exist as some kind of potential in the sun because the sun is its ONLY source and what would activate the potential?

/83

But how does light exist in the sun? It cannot; there is only room for the sun in the sun. Thus, the light CAN ONLY come from the sun, yet in the sun CAN ONLY not exist.

/84

This captures something of how creation ex nihilo works. The created something can only exist within its own source, the Divine Power that creates it. But a Divine Power is a Divine Power, not a created being.

/85

Thus, a created being is nothing at all apart from the Divine Power that creates it. It cannot even be genuinely conceived as separate from the Power than creates it.

/86

A frog minus the Divine speech that forces a frog to be a being is non-being. The frog, therefore, is ENTIRELY the divine speech forcing it to be, without remainder.

/87

In other words, the non-process of creation ex nihilo never actually results in anything. Stable effects presume stable causative constituents. But this effect is being imposed on non-being, which has no potential to become being.

/88

Before G-d creates, there is no potential for its existence. After G-d creates, nothing results. There is no being apart from the Divine act that is imposing being. This is actually the true nature of worldly being.

/89

In truth, there is no way to consider the creation apart from its G-dly source. There is nothing other than the G-dly source to consider.

That we CAN consider a frog apart from its Divine source is a function of the Divine self-occlusion.

/90

In truth, there is nothing about a frog that exceeds its Divine source one iota.

And the Divine self-occlusion which allows one to see a creation and not see the Divine Power that is creating it...is also the true Infinitude of G-d, as we said earlier.

/91

And the Divine self-occlusion, which allows one to see a creation and not see the Divine Power that is creating it...is also the true Infinitude of G-d, as we said earlier.

/92

Therefore, the third of the perspectives, that of the NEW, CREATED, being, is not what it seems. The Divine status quo ante, the Divine Unity, is maintained because being is naught but the Divine power constantly maintaining it.

/93

In sum: Consider the frog. WHAT a frog is, its qualities and essence and nature, are configurations of Divine expression/occlusion.

THAT a frog is, its seperate being from G-d, is nothingness plus the Divine Power that imposes being on nothingness.

/94

The frog is nothing but G-dliness. Even WITH G-d, there is no universe.

/95

Creation changes nothing. On the one hand, G-d remains utterly alone. On the other, all realities are Divine realities. G-d enters into and is closer to every reality than it is to itself. And yet none of this is anything more than G-d Himself.

/96

The Chassidic teachings thus maintain a Divine Unity in which "everything is G-dliness and G-dliness is everything" and "there is nothing other than Him."

/97

There is no contradiction between the transcendent Creator G-d and the personal G-d of mysticism.

/98

We should all be blessed to use these chapter headings and simple summations to work toward deeper contemplation and comprehension of there being no place devoid of G-d.

/99

Thanks for your patience today with all these tweets! /100