Monday, July 23, 2007
MORE QUOTES FROM RABBI ADIN STEINSALTZ
Taken from the book OPENING THE TANYA: DISCOVERING THE MORAL & MYSTICAL TEACHINGS OF A CLASSIC WORK OF KABBALAH:
- The Torah has numerous modes of interpretation; a single word or phrase will have many meanings, all true, for it was meant by its divine author to be read from various angles and in various contexts. (p. 53)
- The basis of all that the TANYA will say is that every Jew possesses two souls. (p. 56)
- Thus, we say that the soul enclothes itself in the blood of the human being. It hides itself in the blood and manifests itself in the blood, providing the body with the spiritual force of life and vitality, and hiding behind the body's obscuring veil of corporeality. The blood is the medium through which the animal soul--the spiritual force that supplies the body with physical life--manifests itself. (p. 60-61)
- But even in the animal, biological sense, the Jewish soul is a species unto itself. Just as living things are a unique genre in creation, and the human being is a unique species of animal, so is the Jew a unique species of human... (p. 64-65)
- The second soul of the Jew is a part of God above, literally. As it is written, "And He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life," "And You breathed it into me"... (p. 70)
- ChaBaD (acrostic of chokhmah, binah, daat) (p. 103)
- In mathematical terms, the function of this dimension of binah (its depth) is comparable to squaring the circle... (p. 110)
- In Hebrew, the word daat (commonly translated as "knowledge") implies a relation and connection such as between a man and his wife, as in the verse "And Adam knew (yada) his wife Eve"... (p. 115) [Is this concept sexual? - ct]
-Daat, as we said, is the soul's connection to a subject, the part of the mind that decides "This relates to me," "This is important to me." A person makes this connection by "fixing his mind," by focusing on a certain truth and meditating upon it until it becomes an integral fixture of his soul. This fixing of the mind must be constant; for if one diverts one's mind, there is no longer any daat, and the matter is no longer fixed in his soul. This diversion of the mind does not mean that the person's understanding of the matter has disappeared but that the mind is no longer birth to any emotions in the soul. (p. 117) [Chaos magicians have various techniques for accomplishing this, some dangerous enough to kill - ct]
- "Better is one hour of repentance and good deeds in this world than the whole life of the World to Come." (p. 120)
