The Derech Hashem Series
Shiur / Class #65
Enlightenment vs. Concealment & the Major Classes of Creation
Given
Saturday, July 15, 2017
Given by
Rabbi Mendel Kessin
Synopsis is not necesarrily in Rabbi Kessin's own words
What is the source of good and evil?
The flow of divine energy
- Good & evil are dependant on ha’orah and hester
- Hashem always sends out a consistent amount of ha’orah. Our actions and intent determine how receptive we are to it and to what degree we are blocked from it.
- In this way Hashem acts like a shadow
- Each Jew is are assigned to a specific area where he is to enable the ha’orah to be received, thus being mesaken that area.
- When hester is caused, the Satan and his minions fill the void and cause destruction.
- The tragedy of Tisha B’Av is not just that we caused a major hester, but that we enabled the destructive forces to have more power to destroy.
- The bais hamikdash was a place where there was no blockage
General classifications of entities in creation
- The 2 major classifications are the physical and the spiritual
- Hashem is neither physical nor spiritual. He Himself transcends both.
- What He actually is us unknowable to us. We can only know Him as he manifests in creation and what His acts are within it.
- The 7 elements of the physical realm
- Space
- Time
- Matter
- Energy
- Life
- Consciousness
- Motion
- No one really knows what these actually are
- We don’t really know what the elements of the spiritual realm are
Life on other planets
- The search for life on other planets is driven by the desire for an excuse not to have the responsibility that comes with belief in Hashem.
- Even if intelligent life is found, it wouldn’t be a contradiction to torah.
- The fact that life started there at all should lead to belief in Hashem.
- The brilliance that compels the belief in a creator is the complexity of creation as opposed to the design alone.
Glossary
- Ha’orah – Enlightenment / Divine energy shining on something
- Hester – Concealment
- Mesaken – Fix
- Tisha B’Av – Jewish day of mourning for the tragedies that befell Jewery throughout history, primarily focusing on the destruction of both temples.
- Bais Hamikdosh – The holy temple