TheYeshiva.net - Rabbi YY Jacobson

Human Oneness Is Still Not Divine Oneness

Why the Brothers' Sheaves Need to Bow Down to Yosef's Sheave

43 min

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Class Summary:

This class was presented on Monday Parshas Shemos, 16 Teves, 5780, January 13, 2020 at the Ohr Chaim Shul, Monsey, NY

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H
hindi -4 years ago
Maimar today was earth shattering for me. I will soon send u email about it. Thank you, thank you for revealing such truth that change the lenses through which I view the world God and myself. I will never be able go back and live in the world of yesterday after today’s maimar and I thank you for this.
I was crazy about the class today and my husband told me he is not sure he understood.
I told him the difference between him and me is that I grasp it first with my soul and then with my intellect. I surrender myself completely to the maimar and perhaps later it becomes intellectual. By him the opposite. I’ll soon send you an email how I understood it.
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R
Rachele -4 years ago

Rabbi Akiva’s moment of birur sheni was perhaps a moment of such suspension and bitul of self, that every paradigm and aspect of existence also was suspended. The avoidah that is required to reach such a complete surrender, I probably cannot even begin to understand.

From learning the Alte Rebbe’s Torah I’m imagining that probably this kind of avoidah requires of oneself a very deep state of surrender to everything that isn’t absolute emes and doesn’t align with the ultimate truth of Infinity. It’s a process of discarding and stripping away every layer of existence until we remain only with the core of chelek Eloikai Mimahal.

The avoidah that is probably required to reach such a level is not one that I could ever wrap my brain around. With my limited mind, but not soul, this is the kind of journey that I crave to embark on. At my level of understanding it’s a step into a journey towards infinity that has purpose, meaning and value. A journey that allows for a deep loving relationship to develop with God and the Godliness within me. It’s a venture of stepping away from the direction of habits and addictions that have been with us for so long. It’s hiking uphill, against the worldly tide and pull of gravity.

This journey must begin with an honest and deep awareness of the many masks we wear in our life. We must realize how many layers of self deception we carry around day in and day out that weigh us down and make us so weary and jaded. This kind of living is paralyzing us and stopping us from taking steps towards real freedom and transformation. It’s the many masks we take refuge in and hide ourselves behind, fearing or unwilling to face the vicissitudes of life.

It’s often on a subconscious level that we adamantly refuse to let go of the familiar voice that has been with us for so long. We are deaf to the incessant whispered message of our Godly soul to pursue a life of emancipation and reunification with the Infinite. We fight with a primal instinct of desperation and conviction, to hold on to all the limitations and kelipos that living life has imposed on us. We believe that in doing so, we can ensure the protection and the continuous survival of self.

But often those masks and the klipa perspective that we have on life are what keep us stuck and imprisoned and prevent us from reaching our promised land. We stay away from facing truths that might set us free. A freedom to pursue infinity, eternity, transformation and transcendence. Even spirituality can sometimes be a shield and mask that can keeps us blocked from Elokus and stuck in a fragmentation of “holiness”. The journey towards wholeness begins with the awareness of the different masks, klipa and layers we wear and hide behind.

For birur sheni, all definitions of emes, of Elokus, of toiv and ra’a and weltanschaung have to be voided in order to create space for infinite truth. A complete letting go of mind and body, a removing of all human limitation and perception that was acquired through living. Being able to surrender everything and return to the womb as a naked soul only wearing infinity.

It’s like God lowered us down from the heavens and now we have to make the treacherous journey back up into the heavens, but not bring back any earthly experience with us. Every step towards heaven is another layer of klipa that has to be shed and left behind to die. On this journey we do not arrive when we arrive, rather we arrive when we no longer need to arrive. It’s at that point that we become a pure Keli, conduit to receive God’s ultimate, infinite light of truth, love and awe.

Perhaps it’s this kind of suspension and journey of no self that allowed for a flow of love and awe from above to descend into Rabbi Akiva in his last moments of life. Wow, to be able to stand face to face with the Divine, unadulterated truth and incredible light. Perhaps what then descended is a light of God in a language of a love that could have never been humanly comprehensible when not in a state of birur sheni. After all the avoidah of differentiation between emes and sheker that is required for bitul sheni, the person is then gifted from above to understand a new Divine language where there is absolutely no differentiation, fragmentation between what we call good and bad. Touching a world of no longer needing to interpret events as good or bad.

And perhaps it’s in this moment, while the Romans were combing Rabbi Akiva’s flesh that the greatest Divine revelation descended into him. But for us in our limited view and perception, all we could experience in that moment is that the light in the world had just been switched off and darkness descended, making this moment of history one of the darkest moments. At precisely that moment of darkness, a Divine light descended into Rabbi Akiva’s soul.

God’s love language sometimes gets translated into many different languages by human beings and often the alef, ches and daled get separated and one can no longer see Godliness in the worldly events as a unit of Echod. All we can see is a fragmented world.

Throughout history we can describe good times like during the Temple and other times when we had to endure terrible devastations and holocaust that could only be described as very dark times for Klall Yisroel. But in the world of ultimate truth, where God is transparent, His veils are lifted and God appears how He is, without zimzum. Infinity appears as before shviras hakeilim. In this world of absolute truth there is never differentiation in how God’s love is expressed to Klall Yisroel. In a reality where all lenses of perception are lifted and in that reality of ultimate truth, every Godly manifestation descending into the world always expresses unconditional love. Whether it’s revealed through goodness or not, it’s always only a revelation of Echod.

In birur sheini one surrenders to such a degree that one melts into Godliness and becomes one with Him. And even in the darkest moment all Rabbi Akiva saw was Echod. Now at the last moment of Rabbi Akiva’s life, there is no need to interpret the foxes roaming in the Temple in a good way. In this moment Rabbi Akiva can look out at the world from the same lens as God and see that the good and the bad, are both expressed in an equal language of unconditional love and goodness, expressed in one word, Echod.

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M
Moshe -4 years ago
To return to one's source one must be mute
Against all the noise of the world, against all the expressions of who involved in speech, to return to one's source one must be mute. This goes against the grain (no pun intended from the title of the maamer), and the trend. To do so alone or with others requires a MUTINY (pun intended).
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R
Rachel -4 years ago
Wow
Wow!!! Wow!!!

I feel Godly revelation has descended into my soul and heart today!

Maamar today was earth shattering for me. Thank you, thank you for revealing such truth that change the lenses through which I view the world God and myself. I will never be able go back and live in the world of yesterday after today’s maimar and I thank you for this.

I was crazy about the class today.

I grasp it first with my soul and then with my intellect. I try to surrender myself completely to the maamar and perhaps later it becomes intellectual.

In my very narrow limited understanding of such heavenly matters, I realized in the teaching of the maimar that the first birur is a much more predictable journey. I’m in control and I’m climbing the mountain towards Echod and elevating all the nitzutzus from the world. I ( underlining I)can comprehend and I’m surrendering all Yeshes. I’m pursuing the ultimate surrendering and returning to Echod all the nitzutzus.

The second birur, I surrender control of my relationship with God. I no longer initiate.

I have to surrender the avoidah that I do with the existence of I. Without that surrender there might not be space for God’s love and awe to descend to return everything to the ultimate Echod. Because in this stage the I can’t exist, therefore I can’t prepare for this relationship, can’t predict it and must live in complete surrender from all aspects of existence: the deepest surrender of control, predictability, space, time and knowing. I must return as a fetus of God where all those aspects of existence were irrelevant, because I didn’t exist as a separate being from God. Like in pregnancy it’s only the mother that initiates providing and nurture, so here too it’s God that brings down all the love and awe.
It’s not a bitul of self expression to God but rather a bitul that is God’s expression.

We can perhaps bring this down to relationship as well. Only after the first birur can a relationship try to experience the second birur. The second birur is much harder. It’s about surrendering the I to the otherness. The amount of trust and vulnerability needed for that, wow!!!

To be in a relationship without needing to control it, predict it, expect it, pursue it, know it....or love how I want to love... But instead remain open for the mystery and curiosity of the relationship and make space to allow for the other partner to express himself, herself, how he or she needs to express the love that is experienced in the relationship. Oh! That makes for such a deeper, richer and much more meaningful relationship...

You mentioned that every time it’s time for the next stage of autonomy and development there is a need to cleave back to it’s source to find a new level of independence. I’m thinking to myself, wow!!!

Yes that’s how we can continuously re-emerge from the trauma of having to lose our identity and come out intact from that experience. It’s by always reconnecting to the Source that we can re-emerge unscathed and whole. Because it’s the sense of detachment and loneliness during our most challenging and painful ordeals that causes our body and soul to feel trapped in an endless traumatic experience that leaves us feeling broken, scarred and trapped in the past. Perhaps the healing might be to re-experience our trauma but this time in the healing set up that was meant to be, while cleaving, reattaching and reentering into God’s womb.

And perhaps then we will find the strength to re-emerge as new and continuing with the journey of life but now in a different way. Always knowing that during growth spurts we are never abandoned or disconnected from the Source. It’s in those times that we need to deeply reconnect with the Source like a fetus in the womb, that vital connection will allow us to once again re-emerge whole and reach our maximum potential to reach One-ness with One.
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