Enlightenment vs. Concealment & the Major Classes of Creation

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