Deciphering the Real World
Having jetlag is like living in another dimension. I could swear that over the last week I saw rainbow trails in the air, as I turned my head this way and that. Often, my feet were behind me and reacted to my mind’s sluggish commands as if slung from a rubber-band-gun with all the sound effects reverberating in slow motion. I tried to work the day I returned from my emotion-filled flat-line adventure, only to find that it was like swimming under water fully dressed and wearing rubber galoshes. I know you have all experienced this—other dimensional feeling—whether from jetlag or other sorted endeavors; it reminded me of my youth, while exploring the cosmos from the confines of the straitjacket of physicality. It also reminds me of a few amazing occasions when I learned something about the Universe, while walking with a distant hazy view of the hills of Judea and Samaria, listening to Rabbi Ipod (R.I.P. Steve Jobs) and feeling like my feet were floating on a cushion of spiritual levity.
When I was young, I knew everything and I could honestly live forever, safe in that knowledge. Today, I can assure you that I have spent a good deal of time learning that I know nothing of the true nature of reality. You know how it goes, ‘the more you know, the less you know, and the more you want to know?’ Yeah… ignorance ‘is’ bliss, no matter how dumb you end up…
Seeing as this blog entry is the last of my year long flirt with tying in the weekly parsha, I feel a need to cover some of the knowledge that I have gained, leading me to the understanding that I know absolutely nothing in ever increasing amounts as I move through my life. Let’s try and cover some ground as quickly as possible and since you read (all of) the blog entries from the past year, you should have no problem keeping up. I broke it all down to 7 basic sections (because I like the number 7):
# 1. We don’t really exist. (1)
# 2. Quantum physics with a spattering of Rashi and Ramban, perfectly explain the six days of creation as written in Genesis, for the scientifically inclined mind. (2)
# 3. Finite reality, which doesn’t really exist, is a two dimensional reality in which each dimension contains its own sub-dimensions of a combination (or lack thereof) of space and time. (3)
# 4. We already possess the ‘original’ plan that God used to create Finite Reality; we just don’t necessarily know how to read it. (4)
# 5. Deciphering the plan is only the beginning; the ‘real’ in reality is ‘building’ Finite Reality, which is tough and confusing, because Finite Reality doesn’t really exist. (5)
# 6. In a world that doesn’t exist, the EGO and its cohorts rule (if you let them). (6)
# 7. Death is an inevitable part of Finite Reality, but since Finite Reality doesn’t exist, it cannot be and ‘is-not’ the end, which is the subject of today’s blog entry.
In this week’s parsha, V'Zot HaBracha (Deuteronomy 33-34), Moses knows he is going to die. This is not the same as wondering if and when you are going to die, but actually knowing it, as if God Himself told you so. Psychologically, we all ‘know’ that we are going to die ‘someday,’ but choose to bury that knowledge if we can get away with it. If a deadline (excuse the pun), however, is presented to us, it just seems to hit home all the more so. For instance, when my dad was given his death sentence from brain cancer, he started to try and change his life. I don’t think he was very pleased with the way he had lived it. Visiting his (very soon to be rectified) unmarked grave recently has brought back some of those memories, memories of his abrupt decline in physicality and rapid incline in spirituality at the end of his life. By the time he was ‘days before crossing over,’ he literally had one foot in each half of Finite Reality, the Physical World and the Spiritual World.
In our parsha of the week, Moses delivers a speech in his last words to the Israelites and bids his farewell with glorious blessings. Moses, knows that he is going to die and he is not afraid. This entire episode is meant to serve as an example for us all. Sure Moses had a direct relationship with the Creator, but if you think about it, we all do as well. We may be riding the pond ripples as opposed to a tsunami, but we can still feel the truth when we approach it. If we quiet our minds, we know! My dad, for instance, towards the end, was full of spiritual light. If you really concentrated, you could see his aura glow and he seemed almost to float off his sick-bed. His physical true-self was letting go, his Nephesh was starting to detach from the world. That was easy to see, but his spiritual self, his Neshama, was also letting go, which took a little more effort to notice. (7)
While visiting my mom last week on the other side of the planet, I wondered if she too was starting to let go. She’s a strong woman (well, parts of her personality are anyways) and at least said that she wanted to live, but she seemed so tired… Her mind appeared to be continually dreaming. When I looked at her while she slept, I felt that she was already flying beyond my (supposed) knowledge of this side of Finite Reality and into the next. She had surgery last week and now she is unable to speak. She isn’t moving either. I had the nurse hold the phone to her ear and spoke some encouraging words to her, but I don’t know if she heard them or not. Since I cannot see or hear her, I imagine her just like I saw my dad, with one foot in each side of Finite Reality. I hope and pray that her physical self pulls back from the spiritual side and attempts to put two feet on the physical ground, but time will tell.
The place between the Physical World and the Spiritual World is so hard to understand. In the Physical World there are consequences to our actions. In the Spiritual World there are no actions, only the consequences that we accumulated and carried over from the Physical World. Yom Kippur is around the corner and this is a day that we ride that line, between the Physical World and the Spiritual World. We starve our bodies of physical sustenance and fill our souls with a spiritual feast, the opposite, mostly, of what we do for 364 days a year.
Even though I wasn’t always accepted as a Jew in the world, this time of the year has always been a heavy time for me. I was born during this time. My little brother was also born during this time. My dad died during this time. My brother and his son were shot at while standing in their living room in California by a crazed hoodlum during this time. I converted to Judaism during this time. And now, my mom is in the hospital, riding that same line right now, during this time. This time is the place between the Physical World and the Spiritual World for Moses in our parsha of the week and this time also separates the last parsha in the Torah from the first parsha, Genesis, the beginning of Creation.
Let's go a little further. By adding an Infinite dimension to the Finite by tying the end of the Torah (also known as the Chumash or Pentateuch) (V'Zot HaBracha – Deuteronomy 33-34) together with the beginning (Bereishit – Genesis 1:1-6:8), we learn that the level we can reach on the Day of Yom Kippur is comparable to the level that Adam and Eve attained, prior to mucking up Finite Reality by eating from the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden. Yom Kippur is a day to balance the levels between the physical and the spiritual, the two halves of Finite Reality. According to Nachmanides, this is also the same level that we reach in the Messianic era. In this era, we will no longer have the option to follow the Yetzer Hara (Evil Inclination) and it will become an automatic instinct to follow the will of God. Free choice in moral and ethical matters will be automatically removed and we will all ‘know’ the true reality.
Yeah, I gotta shore up these ideas a little with gematria: The numerical value of the word Ha-Satan (The Satan or Evil Inclination) is 364. As you know, this number is one day short of the 365 days that we have in a solar year. This is how we know that on one day a year, on Yom Kippur, Satan does not prosecute us and therefore, we are bereft of the pitfalls of ethical and moral murkiness. As a matter of fact, the Midrash tells us that on Yom Kippur, the Satan actually defends us. The spiritual plane becomes on par with the physical plane, once again, though our efforts to create that perfect balance within Finite Reality, or more to the point, bringing into being the Garden of Eden, if only for a day…
Thanks to all the loyal Brave New Land followers for sticking with me over the past year, while I continued to learn how much I already don’t know!
Refua Shelemah to my mom,
Shana Tova,
Have an easy fast this Yom Kippur,
Gamar Chatima Tova,
And Shabbat Shalom!!
Notes:
1. Because we live in a finite world (everything with an end or edges including atomic particles and the entire Universe both in time and in space), it is impossible to deduce that at some point reality stops, as this would mean the end of our ability to perceive existence. The only way to explain our perceived existence is by becoming aware of the Infinite, something without borders, an Original Being or Ain Sof. And, because an Infinite Being can only be understood by finite beings from a finite perspective, i.e., everything, everyplace, and all the time, we (as in finite beings) don’t really have any reality to exist within. Yet, when we look around, we see something that, without a doubt, appears to exist; we must then assume that whatever this dimension is, it cannot be real in the true sense of reality. Therefore, if we perceive our own existence, it is only immaterial to the reality of the Universe that we believe we perceive and thus, un-real. In other words, we don’t really exist.
2. Time is an element of the Finite World; therefore, as the Universe expands from its central region, time is also being stretched. If we position ourselves at the center of the Universe and watch it expand away from us, we can mathematically formulate an exact calculation for the time dilation that occurred from the time of the Big Bang (or what the 12th Century Torah scholar Ramban wrote, “The entire Universe was once contained in a space no larger than a mustard seed,”) to our current state of time and space within the perceived Universe. With these calculations, we can ‘extremely’ accurately account for 6 days of creation, or simply put, a ‘day’ before the Sun (Sol) even exists, has nothing to do with the spin of the Earth. For more on this topic, refer to ‘Genesis and the Big Bang’ or ‘The Science of God’ by noted MIT Physicist, Dr. Gerald Schroeder.
3. Finite Reality is made up of two dimensions, the physical and the spiritual. Each is bound by its own finite rules. The physical world is made up of time and space, where the spiritual world is bound only to time. Each dimension, both the physical and the spiritual, have shared characteristics, such as waves; however, the physical dimension also contains particles. Light is a good example of this phenomenon, as in the physical world, light is both a wave ‘and’ a particle. In the spiritual realm it is only a wave, transmitting data through the cycling and recycling ‘conceptually’ upward spiral of time, without the baggage of space.
4. A Torah scroll is written with black ink on white parchment, but there is a rule that every letter must be completely surrounded by the parchment. This makes the white parchment an integral part of the Torah itself and incredibly enough, the white space around the letters is ‘actually’ considered a higher form of Torah then the letters themselves. The white space is analogous to the white fire of Mount Sinai, a hidden Torah that cannot be read in the normal way. This is why we already have the plan for the Universe, as God looked into the ‘Torah’ in order to create the Universe, but because the Torah is both the written and what the writing is on, it is impossible to understand the true depth of Torah, or the Universe, by reading only the black letters.
5. Building Finite Reality is based upon the principle of connecting the dots. Each construct in our Physical World connects to the next, via edges and sides that have physical and spiritual attributes. The way we effect change in this reality is by being active in the physical world, while not abandoning the spiritual. Larootz in Hebrew means To Run. The Physical World that we exist in is called Ha-Aretz or The-Land (The-Earth). The word ‘Aretz’ is based on the same root as the word for ‘Run’ and that is how we know that this world is the world of action. Shamayim in Hebrew means Heaven or the Spirit World. Its root is Sham (There). It is also the word for ‘Name’ as in “The Name (Ha-Shem),” referring to the unpronounceable Tetragrammaton. The point being that in order to build Finite Reality, we need to ‘Run’ to ‘There,’ ‘Run’ to ‘Hashem.’ This is broken down like this for a reason. You see, we are now in a world where we ‘can’ do something. When we pass over to the Spirit World, we have to let the cards lay where they landed. Ultimately this same principle applies to the Next World or Olam Haba as well. Once we are there, we are as close to the Creator, the One, the only Reality that there ever was, is, and will be, as we are ‘ever’ going to get.
6. The Ego tries, always, to make this non-existent world, Finite Reality, the real world. If we follow the Ego, we will exist ‘only’ in Finite Reality and cease to exist within the Infinite or the ‘ONE.’ To understand how the Ego rules in a reality that doesn’t exist, we need to break down the entire structure of the spiritual realm and understand how ‘we’ fit into this part of Finite Reality. This is a very complex endeavor, but one that I have explained somewhat within the bowels of this blog, so I will just leave it with these 15 main elements that, if you are truly seeking spiritual oneness or ultimate enlightenment, you should already be aware of: a. Gan Eden = The Garden of Eden or Complete World of Perfection b. Olam Ha Neshimote = The Spirit World c. Kachote = Forces that govern the Spirit World and the Physical World d. Malachim = Angels or agents that carry out tasks in the Spiritual and Physical Worlds e. Adam Ha Rishon = The Proto Adam, made of both Man and Woman f. Eze Kedegdo = The “Helper Against” or Chava (Eve), meaning Love g. Yetzer Ha Tov and Yetzer Ha Ra = Ego or lack thereof h. Nefesh = Our Animal Soul from the dust of the Earth i. Neshama = Our Human or Heavenly Soul that was blown into us by Hashem j. Ruach = Our Free Will or Soul / Spirit that chooses between the Nefesh and Neshama via the Ego or lack thereof k. Olam HaZe = The World of Action where our Ruach can operate l. Gehenom = Purgatory or the Cosmic Washing Machine that cleans our Neshama / Nefesh of the mistakes made by our Ruach when we pass over to the Spirit World / Sheol m. Sheol = The Abode of the Dead (also known as Hell or Lake of Fire) where our Nefesh (Animal Soul) goes to wait until Olam Haba is manifest n. Mashiach = Human Being that is the Savior in the World of Action to usher in Olam Haba o. Olam Haba = The Next World or the world that will be
7. Click here for link to the blog entry entitled, “My Dad and the Beit Din”
 |
Space and Time: Finite Reality is Born into Non-existence...
|
When I was young, I knew everything and I could honestly live forever, safe in that knowledge. Today, I can assure you that I have spent a good deal of time learning that I know nothing of the true nature of reality. You know how it goes, ‘the more you know, the less you know, and the more you want to know?’ Yeah… ignorance ‘is’ bliss, no matter how dumb you end up…
Seeing as this blog entry is the last of my year long flirt with tying in the weekly parsha, I feel a need to cover some of the knowledge that I have gained, leading me to the understanding that I know absolutely nothing in ever increasing amounts as I move through my life. Let’s try and cover some ground as quickly as possible and since you read (all of) the blog entries from the past year, you should have no problem keeping up. I broke it all down to 7 basic sections (because I like the number 7):
# 1. We don’t really exist. (1)
# 2. Quantum physics with a spattering of Rashi and Ramban, perfectly explain the six days of creation as written in Genesis, for the scientifically inclined mind. (2)
# 3. Finite reality, which doesn’t really exist, is a two dimensional reality in which each dimension contains its own sub-dimensions of a combination (or lack thereof) of space and time. (3)
# 4. We already possess the ‘original’ plan that God used to create Finite Reality; we just don’t necessarily know how to read it. (4)
# 5. Deciphering the plan is only the beginning; the ‘real’ in reality is ‘building’ Finite Reality, which is tough and confusing, because Finite Reality doesn’t really exist. (5)
# 6. In a world that doesn’t exist, the EGO and its cohorts rule (if you let them). (6)
# 7. Death is an inevitable part of Finite Reality, but since Finite Reality doesn’t exist, it cannot be and ‘is-not’ the end, which is the subject of today’s blog entry.
In this week’s parsha, V'Zot HaBracha (Deuteronomy 33-34), Moses knows he is going to die. This is not the same as wondering if and when you are going to die, but actually knowing it, as if God Himself told you so. Psychologically, we all ‘know’ that we are going to die ‘someday,’ but choose to bury that knowledge if we can get away with it. If a deadline (excuse the pun), however, is presented to us, it just seems to hit home all the more so. For instance, when my dad was given his death sentence from brain cancer, he started to try and change his life. I don’t think he was very pleased with the way he had lived it. Visiting his (very soon to be rectified) unmarked grave recently has brought back some of those memories, memories of his abrupt decline in physicality and rapid incline in spirituality at the end of his life. By the time he was ‘days before crossing over,’ he literally had one foot in each half of Finite Reality, the Physical World and the Spiritual World.
In our parsha of the week, Moses delivers a speech in his last words to the Israelites and bids his farewell with glorious blessings. Moses, knows that he is going to die and he is not afraid. This entire episode is meant to serve as an example for us all. Sure Moses had a direct relationship with the Creator, but if you think about it, we all do as well. We may be riding the pond ripples as opposed to a tsunami, but we can still feel the truth when we approach it. If we quiet our minds, we know! My dad, for instance, towards the end, was full of spiritual light. If you really concentrated, you could see his aura glow and he seemed almost to float off his sick-bed. His physical true-self was letting go, his Nephesh was starting to detach from the world. That was easy to see, but his spiritual self, his Neshama, was also letting go, which took a little more effort to notice. (7)
While visiting my mom last week on the other side of the planet, I wondered if she too was starting to let go. She’s a strong woman (well, parts of her personality are anyways) and at least said that she wanted to live, but she seemed so tired… Her mind appeared to be continually dreaming. When I looked at her while she slept, I felt that she was already flying beyond my (supposed) knowledge of this side of Finite Reality and into the next. She had surgery last week and now she is unable to speak. She isn’t moving either. I had the nurse hold the phone to her ear and spoke some encouraging words to her, but I don’t know if she heard them or not. Since I cannot see or hear her, I imagine her just like I saw my dad, with one foot in each side of Finite Reality. I hope and pray that her physical self pulls back from the spiritual side and attempts to put two feet on the physical ground, but time will tell.
The place between the Physical World and the Spiritual World is so hard to understand. In the Physical World there are consequences to our actions. In the Spiritual World there are no actions, only the consequences that we accumulated and carried over from the Physical World. Yom Kippur is around the corner and this is a day that we ride that line, between the Physical World and the Spiritual World. We starve our bodies of physical sustenance and fill our souls with a spiritual feast, the opposite, mostly, of what we do for 364 days a year.
Even though I wasn’t always accepted as a Jew in the world, this time of the year has always been a heavy time for me. I was born during this time. My little brother was also born during this time. My dad died during this time. My brother and his son were shot at while standing in their living room in California by a crazed hoodlum during this time. I converted to Judaism during this time. And now, my mom is in the hospital, riding that same line right now, during this time. This time is the place between the Physical World and the Spiritual World for Moses in our parsha of the week and this time also separates the last parsha in the Torah from the first parsha, Genesis, the beginning of Creation.
Let's go a little further. By adding an Infinite dimension to the Finite by tying the end of the Torah (also known as the Chumash or Pentateuch) (V'Zot HaBracha – Deuteronomy 33-34) together with the beginning (Bereishit – Genesis 1:1-6:8), we learn that the level we can reach on the Day of Yom Kippur is comparable to the level that Adam and Eve attained, prior to mucking up Finite Reality by eating from the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden. Yom Kippur is a day to balance the levels between the physical and the spiritual, the two halves of Finite Reality. According to Nachmanides, this is also the same level that we reach in the Messianic era. In this era, we will no longer have the option to follow the Yetzer Hara (Evil Inclination) and it will become an automatic instinct to follow the will of God. Free choice in moral and ethical matters will be automatically removed and we will all ‘know’ the true reality.
Yeah, I gotta shore up these ideas a little with gematria: The numerical value of the word Ha-Satan (The Satan or Evil Inclination) is 364. As you know, this number is one day short of the 365 days that we have in a solar year. This is how we know that on one day a year, on Yom Kippur, Satan does not prosecute us and therefore, we are bereft of the pitfalls of ethical and moral murkiness. As a matter of fact, the Midrash tells us that on Yom Kippur, the Satan actually defends us. The spiritual plane becomes on par with the physical plane, once again, though our efforts to create that perfect balance within Finite Reality, or more to the point, bringing into being the Garden of Eden, if only for a day…
Thanks to all the loyal Brave New Land followers for sticking with me over the past year, while I continued to learn how much I already don’t know!
Refua Shelemah to my mom,
Shana Tova,
Have an easy fast this Yom Kippur,
Gamar Chatima Tova,
And Shabbat Shalom!!
Notes:
1. Because we live in a finite world (everything with an end or edges including atomic particles and the entire Universe both in time and in space), it is impossible to deduce that at some point reality stops, as this would mean the end of our ability to perceive existence. The only way to explain our perceived existence is by becoming aware of the Infinite, something without borders, an Original Being or Ain Sof. And, because an Infinite Being can only be understood by finite beings from a finite perspective, i.e., everything, everyplace, and all the time, we (as in finite beings) don’t really have any reality to exist within. Yet, when we look around, we see something that, without a doubt, appears to exist; we must then assume that whatever this dimension is, it cannot be real in the true sense of reality. Therefore, if we perceive our own existence, it is only immaterial to the reality of the Universe that we believe we perceive and thus, un-real. In other words, we don’t really exist.
2. Time is an element of the Finite World; therefore, as the Universe expands from its central region, time is also being stretched. If we position ourselves at the center of the Universe and watch it expand away from us, we can mathematically formulate an exact calculation for the time dilation that occurred from the time of the Big Bang (or what the 12th Century Torah scholar Ramban wrote, “The entire Universe was once contained in a space no larger than a mustard seed,”) to our current state of time and space within the perceived Universe. With these calculations, we can ‘extremely’ accurately account for 6 days of creation, or simply put, a ‘day’ before the Sun (Sol) even exists, has nothing to do with the spin of the Earth. For more on this topic, refer to ‘Genesis and the Big Bang’ or ‘The Science of God’ by noted MIT Physicist, Dr. Gerald Schroeder.
3. Finite Reality is made up of two dimensions, the physical and the spiritual. Each is bound by its own finite rules. The physical world is made up of time and space, where the spiritual world is bound only to time. Each dimension, both the physical and the spiritual, have shared characteristics, such as waves; however, the physical dimension also contains particles. Light is a good example of this phenomenon, as in the physical world, light is both a wave ‘and’ a particle. In the spiritual realm it is only a wave, transmitting data through the cycling and recycling ‘conceptually’ upward spiral of time, without the baggage of space.
4. A Torah scroll is written with black ink on white parchment, but there is a rule that every letter must be completely surrounded by the parchment. This makes the white parchment an integral part of the Torah itself and incredibly enough, the white space around the letters is ‘actually’ considered a higher form of Torah then the letters themselves. The white space is analogous to the white fire of Mount Sinai, a hidden Torah that cannot be read in the normal way. This is why we already have the plan for the Universe, as God looked into the ‘Torah’ in order to create the Universe, but because the Torah is both the written and what the writing is on, it is impossible to understand the true depth of Torah, or the Universe, by reading only the black letters.
5. Building Finite Reality is based upon the principle of connecting the dots. Each construct in our Physical World connects to the next, via edges and sides that have physical and spiritual attributes. The way we effect change in this reality is by being active in the physical world, while not abandoning the spiritual. Larootz in Hebrew means To Run. The Physical World that we exist in is called Ha-Aretz or The-Land (The-Earth). The word ‘Aretz’ is based on the same root as the word for ‘Run’ and that is how we know that this world is the world of action. Shamayim in Hebrew means Heaven or the Spirit World. Its root is Sham (There). It is also the word for ‘Name’ as in “The Name (Ha-Shem),” referring to the unpronounceable Tetragrammaton. The point being that in order to build Finite Reality, we need to ‘Run’ to ‘There,’ ‘Run’ to ‘Hashem.’ This is broken down like this for a reason. You see, we are now in a world where we ‘can’ do something. When we pass over to the Spirit World, we have to let the cards lay where they landed. Ultimately this same principle applies to the Next World or Olam Haba as well. Once we are there, we are as close to the Creator, the One, the only Reality that there ever was, is, and will be, as we are ‘ever’ going to get.
6. The Ego tries, always, to make this non-existent world, Finite Reality, the real world. If we follow the Ego, we will exist ‘only’ in Finite Reality and cease to exist within the Infinite or the ‘ONE.’ To understand how the Ego rules in a reality that doesn’t exist, we need to break down the entire structure of the spiritual realm and understand how ‘we’ fit into this part of Finite Reality. This is a very complex endeavor, but one that I have explained somewhat within the bowels of this blog, so I will just leave it with these 15 main elements that, if you are truly seeking spiritual oneness or ultimate enlightenment, you should already be aware of: a. Gan Eden = The Garden of Eden or Complete World of Perfection b. Olam Ha Neshimote = The Spirit World c. Kachote = Forces that govern the Spirit World and the Physical World d. Malachim = Angels or agents that carry out tasks in the Spiritual and Physical Worlds e. Adam Ha Rishon = The Proto Adam, made of both Man and Woman f. Eze Kedegdo = The “Helper Against” or Chava (Eve), meaning Love g. Yetzer Ha Tov and Yetzer Ha Ra = Ego or lack thereof h. Nefesh = Our Animal Soul from the dust of the Earth i. Neshama = Our Human or Heavenly Soul that was blown into us by Hashem j. Ruach = Our Free Will or Soul / Spirit that chooses between the Nefesh and Neshama via the Ego or lack thereof k. Olam HaZe = The World of Action where our Ruach can operate l. Gehenom = Purgatory or the Cosmic Washing Machine that cleans our Neshama / Nefesh of the mistakes made by our Ruach when we pass over to the Spirit World / Sheol m. Sheol = The Abode of the Dead (also known as Hell or Lake of Fire) where our Nefesh (Animal Soul) goes to wait until Olam Haba is manifest n. Mashiach = Human Being that is the Savior in the World of Action to usher in Olam Haba o. Olam Haba = The Next World or the world that will be
7. Click here for link to the blog entry entitled, “My Dad and the Beit Din”
