|
Yesod of the
World of Chaos According to this explanation, the twenty-third of Elul is the
sixth day of the week of chaos that preceded the creation of the world, and therefore
corresponds to yesod of the World of Chaos. (The seven days of the
World of Chaos correspond to the sefirot as follws: da’at, chesed,
gevurah, tiferet, netzach-hod [in the primordial world
these two sefirot appear as one], yesod, malchut.) It is
the same day that one week later will be Rosh Hashanah, the day that
man, with his power to rectify, will eventually be created. The name of the king relating to the sefirah of yesod is
“Shaul from Rechovot Hanahar.” The first king of Israel, King
Saul who reigned before King David, also had that name, however the original
King Saul was not a Jewish king at all. He was an Edomite king and he came
from a very mystical place called Rechovot Hanahar, “the Wide River.”
In Kabbalah and Hassidism, this idiom symbolizes paradise. Saul is the king
who reigned on the twenty-third of Elul and died on that very same day
because he and his philosophy collapsed. His kingdom, like the other kingdoms
of chaos, cannot last. Shaul comes from the root “sha’al,” which means
to ask, or request. But the very
same root in Hebrew also means the abyss, the grave or the pit as in the
expressions “sheol,” “sheol tachtit.” The word to ask in
Hebrew, “sha’al,” however, is often used to refer to desire or
passion, as in the verse in Ecclesiastes “col asher sha’alu einai,”
which means “all that my eyes desired.” Thus, the root “sha’al,” does
not only mean to ask a philosophical or intellectual question, rather it is
often used to refer to a very base drive, or desire, of the soul. That passion
itself is “shaul” or “sheol.” In particular, this term relates
to sexual desire, the basis of all passions and drives which the soul
desires. Following this base drive, whether consciously or unconsciously,
eventually leads a person into a deep abyss. The abyss, or the grave, is also sometimes an idiom used by our
sages for the impure womb. There are psychological theories today that
believe that sexual desire originates in the womb. There is a longing to
return to the prenatal state, a passion for that grave, for that womb. Our
sages similarly express this by the fact that another synonym for the grave,
“kever,” is also used to depict the womb. This is the motivation of the Jihad suicide bombers. Their religion
promises them the ultimate fulfillment of all their physical desires. They
desire to return to the grave, believing it to be the ultimate paradise,
where the fulfillment of all of their desires will be as readily available as
they were in the womb. According to Kabbalah, therefore, this day represents the ultimate
energy and the ultimate subconscious desire of pegam ha’brit, the day
that corresponds to the sefirah of the unrectified yesod of the
primordial World of Chaos. [However, it is not only the motivation behind the
radical Islamic terror onslaught, but the objects at which they strike that
are related to the character of this day.] To summarize: the Rashash writes that each of the seven days from the
eighteenth of Elul until the twenty-fourth of Elul, have an
important intention, relating to the rectification of each one of the seven
primordial kings of the World of Chaos. The sixth king, Shaul, alludes to
descending into the grave, with his belief that the “wide river” of the womb
is the ultimate paradise. This however, is a perverted image of paradise and
the rectification of this day must include the correction of this perversion. Copyright ©2003 Torah Science
Foundation - All Rights
Reserved |
|
|||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||
