Kabbalah, Evolution and Intelligent Design

BS"D

Chanukah, 5766 - The Israeli Center, Jerusalem

Lecture 4

Transcript of seminar by Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburgh Shlita

 

Let's begin with a few points of clarification of things that we've said. Yesterday we made a point that in the world of Asiyah, speculation and empirical science are not just different things but they conflict with one another. If you are trying to do empirical science you shouldn't engage in pure speculation. That's the point that the Rebbe makes in his famous letter regarding Torah and science. We said that if a person rises to a higher plane, like to the world of Yetzirah, for instance, then the speculation itself becomes non-speculative; it itself becomes empirical. It means that you don't just fantasize (as do people that even call themselves scientists in this evolutionary biology), but things that otherwise would be considered to be non-empirical become empirical in the world of Yetzirah. So this point has to be… it’s very important to explain it a little bit better and to give an example also.

First of all, in relation to what we have been speaking about before in our previous session this evening - that Adam Kadmon is the program of the Universe, of all of Creation - so that is expressed very very beautifully in a term that Chazal use often and all of the commentaries use the term. That olam, the world, is referred to as adam gadol, as a “great man,” the whole universe, whereas man is referred to as olam katan, as a “miniature universe.” So no phrase, no idiom, could encapsulate so well this thought that ultimately, man is the universe, meaning that the universe at large is adam gadol, and man in small, is olam katan, as in these phrases that are straight from Chazal.

Quoting the Malbim once more, he says (and this is a point that we mentioned before also, I'll just explain it a little bit better) he says that more than any other creature, man possesses within himself - in his little body - Elokim. There's a very famous vort of the Maggid of Mezeritch: once he looked at the Alter Rebbe asleep and he stood in wonder and he said “A zoy grois Gott in a ze kleiner kerper…” “Such a big God in such a small body,” so the truth is that G-d permeates all of reality and a person that lives up to his tzelem Elokim, to the image of G-d in which he was created, reflects – in other words remember that we said that the tzelem Elokim is actually or chozer, reflected light - he reflects Godliness from within his body.

So the way that the Malbim explains is that the special thing that man possesses that no other creature possesses is free choice. Since we are now identifying free choice with positive mutations and that positive mutations come with wishful thinking, with aspiration and desire, so this is unique to man because of the very fact that we said before, that man is the pinnacle of the evolutionary ladder of progress. The principle of free choice becomes concentrated within his psyche.

Before the appearance of the Jewish People on the map of history, all human beings, even after the fall of Adam, had their level of free choice because at that point they were the epitome of the evolutionary climb upwards and before that, the primite forms and so forth and so on.

Malbim says that in truth the ultimate tzelem Elokim is only in man as the Torah says "vayivra Elokim et ha'adam b'tzalmo b'tzelem Elokim bara oto, zachar un'keiva bara otam" and that is reflected in his free choice because now consciously, no other creature possesses free choice and can consciously change the course of hashgacha pratit. The free choice is synchronized by the hashgacha pratit which we call the abstract principle of natural selection.

Since man is an olam katan - he’s the whole universe in miniature - and the olam is adam gadol - the whole universe is one great man - that adam gadol is this program of Adam Kadmon within all of the worlds. In that case, what is free choice in terms of the universe at large? In other words since the universe has Elokim throughout it, (Elokim is gematria hateva). Man has Elokim concentrated within himself. Each one reflects the other. Man is to the world as the world is to man, each one as a whole possesses Elokim as his inner soul. So if the total appearance of Elokim within man is free choice, what is that same corresponding reality within the world at large? So Malbim says that within the world at large, it is what the Torah and what we experience as a “miracle,” things that defy nature. A miracle is G-d choosing (miracles are always for the good) to do something that transcends the normal order of things, the normal order of nature. A miracle is G-d's expression of free choice, that, “even though I set the rules, I set the rules for Myself, I set My own boundaries, yet I nonetheless possess the free choice to break those boundaries if I see so fit in order to bring about tachlit hakavannah, the purpose of  My creation”. The Malbim explains that a miracle is the expression of G-d's free choice and that is the tzelem Elokim within the universe at large and in man, who is a small universe, that is simply his ability to choose freely. The difference of course he explains, or he tries to explain, is that G-d's miracles are certainly always for the good whereas man can choose either for the good or for the bad.

Alright, so now let's get back to this idea of speculation versus empirical knowledge. One modern commentary (who’s also a scientist actually; a religious scientist) writes something which I believe is very correct (meaning: it’s a very good interpretation), ayin panim laTorah, one of the seventy true interpretations of the reading of the fourth day of Creation that reads “The fourth day of Creation G-d created the heavenly bodies, the sun and the moon and the stars.",  and it says that "G-d made the shnei ham'orot hagedolim, the two great heavenly bodies". Then it goes on to say, "Et hamaor hagadol l'memshelet hayom v'et hamaor hakatan l'memshelet halayla, the great luminary to rule over day and the small luminary to rule over night". So the question is obvious, one phrase after another, the first phrase calls them the “two great luminaries” and then immediately they become “the great luminary for day and the small luminary for the night.”

We all know what the sages say about this, they say that really in the beginning they were created equal but G-d diminished the moon, “lechi vemaati et atsmech.” Why? Because the moon said that “We can't have two equal kings ruling with one crown." So G-d said “okay, if that’s the case, go and diminish yourself”. And there is a whole long sugiya in the Gemarah and the very deepest book in all of Chassidic tradition is called Shnei Hamaorot from Rav Isaac of Homil, a whole book just to explain that midrash of Chazal, of the whole dialogue between G-d and the moon in this process of diminishing the moon.

There is something very very amazing about the sun and the moon physically; this is one of those things which are called ‘accidental coincidence.’

[There are so many of these phenomena in nature, that without accidental coincidence the world would never be here in the first place; it would be impossible for life to exist upon earth and so on. There are hundreds of these. This is the base of a principle which is used by believing scientists, the ‘anthropic principle,’ which is a principle that we see throughout the universe that things just happened, once more, for the sake of being able to create man, so that man could exist. That is called the ‘anthropic principle.’ It is a debatable principle because some believe in it and some don't believe in it, but it's very very clearly evidenced that there's just so many 'accidents' of nature, that without these hundreds of accidents (and the chances for each accident is one in a billion) that without all of these hundreds of accidents, life would never exist and man couldn't exist. That's one of the leading 'proofs', we'll call it, that the world was created to reach man. So if there is anything in science that supports what we said before in our previous words, that man is the program of  the universe, so that's exactly this concept which is now being used which they call the anthropic principle. In addition to all these accidental occurrences without which it would be impossible to exist and live, there are also things which are just so beautifully…  which “by accident” they came out so perfect that really its part of this intelligent design, one of which are the sizes of the sun and the moon.]

The scientists call it apparent size versus true size. The true size is the objective, physical size. Objectively the diameter of the sun is 400 times bigger than the diameter of the moon. But remarkably, for no understandable reason, the sun is exactly 400 times further away from the earth than is the moon. Because of this chance, that the sun is 400 times bigger that the moon but its also 400 times exactly further away from the earth than is the moon, that produces a phenomenon that the apparent size of both is exactly the same. Even the number is remarkable (this the person doesn't say, this is the gematria): the width in the sky of both the sun and the moon is exactly 0.53 degrees. The whole cycle is 360 degrees. How much space in our vision is the disc of the sun, and how much is the disc of the moon? So both of them are exactly equal to a very fine point. Both of them are 0.53 of a degree in the sky. [the gematria here is that the word chama, sun equals 53 – the Rav explains this later]

This phenomenon becomes special and unique in a total solar eclipse. Without this phenomenon scientists would not know too much about solar radiation because in a total solar eclipse the disc of the moon exactly covers the disc of the sun, producing the effect of the eclipse. All of that light that comes out, from that science learns a lot; even the general theory of relativity learns a lot and is actually proven by the phenomenon of a total solar eclipse. But why does that phenomenon exist? It exists because the apparent size of the sun and the moon are exactly equal. That's amazing!

Even though the “true size,” (for us its not so clear what is true and what is not true; what is more true and what is less true), but the “true size” is that the sun is 400 times bigger in its diameter - but its 400 times further away. This itself is a beautiful allusion why the epitome of the alef bet reaches 400, the letter tav, that the letter tav is the ratio between the sizes of the sun and the moon, the two heavenly bodies, and it's also the ratio of the distances to the earth, to our planet earth. What's even more amazing - the fact that the sky is based upon a cycle of 360 degrees - that’s a Torah concept so we can use those numbers - the fact the exact apparent size is 0.53 of a degree. In the future, it says, v'haya or halevanah keor hachamah. When the miut halevanah, the diminishing of the moon will be rectified (and that also has to do with the total rectification of the feminine persona in reality), then the light of the moon will become exactly as the light of the sun.

Reb Isaac, once more, explains that that doesn't mean that the moon will be an independent shining star. It's still going to receive its light from the sun, but it will reflect it even better, just as strong, just as brilliant, and much better light, than that light that we envision directly from the sun. How much does the word chamah, in this verse, equal? It says that the light of the moon will be like the light of the sun. The word chamah equals 53. That’s, once more, that’s, 0.53 - that’s the exact apparent size of both of them. ‘In the future’ means that we will reach the level of the world of Yetzirah, not as our present level of Asiyah. The Arizal says that in the world of Yetzirah the two Heavenly bodies are called chamah, levanah. In the world of Beriah, they are called shemesh, yareiach. There are three pairs of names in the Torah for the sun and the moon. Shemesh, yareiach is the sun and the moon in the world of Beriah. Chamah, levanah is the sun and the moon in the world of Yetzirah and cheres and sahar are the terms for the sun and the moon in the world of Asiyah. In any event, the future talks about the sun and the moon in the world of Yetzirah because it refers to them as chamah and levanah. Meaning that the levanah will become like the sun and the allusion is that the truer reality will be, that of their apparent sizes - which is the moon becoming like the sun, because the sun is 53. This is a support, an allusion, based upon this beautiful gematria. We have this number 53 and also the factor, the ratio 400.

The point we are trying to get across is that usually what we call ‘apparent reality’ is subjective reality and what the scientist call ‘true reality’ is objective reality. It's just like what goes around what, whether the sun goes around the earth or the earth goes around the sun.

What is speculation - especially for a scientist? Empirical means that he can prove something, speculation is anything that you can't prove objectively. Meaning, no matter how hard you’re trying to get through the shell of appearance you are still trapped within your own subjective. Then it's just speculation. Once more, all speculation begins with my subjective sensory experience. There is experience, but I'm not sure. Every scientist will tell you that what meets your eye at first glance is not the true reality. From the Renaissance on, that has been the greatest principle of science: don't believe in direct sensation. You have to penetrate much deeper and prove things, what's really going on. Speculation is that there are not vessels, there are not tools to be able to judge what exactly is happening objectively, so you are still basing yourself to a certain extent on a certain amount of subjectivity, then it's speculative.

In the world of Asiyah that doesn't go. But in the world of Yetzirah, that does go. Because in the world of the Yetzirah it's not true what the scientists will say that you cannot rely upon your subjective experience. Why will the scientists say that miracles are not objective, are not empirical? Because the scientists will tell you that every miracle that you mention, you say, “I say that I had a miracle,” bedidi hada uvdah, the scientists will say to you “I don't believe that. That's your imagination, that's your subjective experience. It means nothing for me. It means nothing.” You can't convey it to somebody else. It means nothing. Either you believe it or you don't believe it. It’s not scientific.

Once more quoting Reb Isaac of Homil, he says that very often we find a machloket, a controversy, amongst the commentaries in regard to metziut, to some reality. In general it says that we can't have a machloket because either it is like this or like that, nonetheless we do find it often. One of the examples he brings is that it says that after Sarah passed away, Yitzchak went and brought another wife for his father, Abraham, and her name was Keturah. Chazal say that Keturah is actually Hagar, who was dismissed, but Yitzchak went and he brought her back to Avraham. So that’s Midrash, there's no Scriptural proof or indication for that at all. That's why the Ibn Ezra will say (and he’s the greatest literal commentary on the Torah), will say, “no, Keturah was a different woman.” So it is call a machloket in metziut, if you believe the midrash of Chazal so Keturah is the same woman, she's Hagar. Not that you don't believe it. I believe that Chazal are talking at a higher, some more spiritual level. Once more, Chazal are talking about apparent reality, but I am talking about true reality. In true reality Keturah is a different woman, she is not the same woman. At some other level of reality she is. What is it that Reb Isaac of Homil says? (Just what we now said is exactly the case) That, things happen simultaneously at different planes of reality. Just like we said yesterday that in the world of Yetzirah fifteen years are concentrated in one second, the same is true of souls, people. Souls split. You can have twins: in the world of Asiyah they can be two different people but in the world of Yetzirah they are still the same person. Just like we said about Adam before, that Adam himself was created as an androgynous, two people together- but then it split. Just like a cell, also, a cell is one then it splits into two, and both are true.

So once more Reb Isaac says that in the world of Yetzirah Chazal and perush Rashi is the truth, that Ketura and Hagar are the same person, in the world of Asiyah- he doesn't say definitely, it could be, because even though for sure Ibn Ezra,… he’s not Chazal, he is not one of the Sages, but lets say that Ibn Ezra is also true, he's true in the world of Asiyah, down below, that they split into two different people, in the world of Yetzirah, in the higher world, they are the same person like Chazal and Rashi agree.

This is all to explain that apparent reality, which in this world is the basis of speculation and is not legitimately scientific, is “interesting,” and for a scientist its “very interesting,” that the apparent size of the sun and the moon are exactly the same but you can’t say that they have the same size. Its just like a cute, interesting point. The fact that it just happened by accident, that also doesn't bother him because everything is just one big world of chaos.

This is a very important point to get across. Science is all about order, it’s all about laws, but since deep down everything is arbitrary and like here more pronounced than in any other science, in this science which is called evolutionary biology, everything takes place randomly or even in physics there are different schools of physics, of quantum mechanics, but one of the schools is purely statistics, which is also chaos - which is why Einstein didn't like quantum mechanics, because he had this deep feeling that, deep down its olam hatohu, its the science of the world of chaos. He wanted more order. There are laws, but there is an uncertainty principle, the laws are limited. He wanted more order, more tikkun. In a higher world, apparent reality and true reality become equally true and become joined, mated together, and that’s why in the world of Yetzirah (what we said yesterday) there isn't this problem, as is in the lower world of Asiyah, between what’s called empirical and non-empirical because non-empirical itself, nobody just dreams up something, its all based upon apparent reality and if you can trust that apparent reality it’s real. Once more, let’s think about it, maybe the sun really is the same size as the moon, maybe they are both big. How? Like this modern interpretation, what does he say? It says when the Torah says that G-d made the two great luminaries that phrase is referring to the apparent sizes, that they’re both great, they’re both the same size. Then immediately the Torah continues to say et hamaor hagadol l'memshelet hayom v'et hamaor hakatan l'memshelet halayla. So according to this interpretation both are true at the same time. The first phrase, ‘the two great luminaries,’ refers to the apparent sizes, and the following phrase refers to what in this world is called, in the world of Asiyah, are their real sizes, the actual sizes. So they are both the same. They don't contradict one another at all, its just they are talking about two different viewpoints, two different perspectives on the sun and the moon.

So again, to abstract this, Chazal say that this is a fall, that this is a miut, a diminishing process. How can we abstract that? That from the psyche of man, to move from the apparent sizes to the ‘true sizes’ is the diminishing of the psyche. The human psyche, in experiencing nature, is the moon. To see the two as being the same size is before the fall, before the diminishing of the psyche, and to believe and to know that that’s the true reality and that’s what is going to return in the future: vehayah or halevanah keor hachamah. To then know that objectively, that’s not the case, objectively the sun is 400 times bigger than the moon - that's a fall, that itself is the diminishing of the moon, that change of perspective, that's a diminishing. Again, this is saying a very strong and important statement, because its saying that subjective reality is way higher than objective reality.

What does it mean for something to be higher or lower? In Torah and Chassidut to be higher or lower means to be closer to G-d and to be further from G-d, just like we were talking about before that everything, that two basic concepts of all reality are how close you are, how far away you are.

Why did G-d create the world with the apparent reality that the earth is in the middle and the sun is revolving around the earth? There is something about that apparent experience of reality that brings you naturally closer to G-d. Its just that as soon as you've fallen - its like the Alter Rebbe says in Tanya - as soon as you've become objective, too smart, so that apparent reality just totally, takes you totally away from G-d. It’s just a fantasy. Once more, it’s wrong. It arouses even sfekot (doubts). The state that you were in, when you were innocent, that same state brought you closer to G-d, meaning that it was a higher reality. Now that all of a sudden you know that the sun is really much bigger than the moon, not what you see in the sky, so when going back to that state first you laugh at that “innocent mistake” that you made. If somebody continues to think like that, you’ll say that he’s really far away from where its at, from the truth. Or it may even arouse doubts in faith if he bases his faith upon that. Then, what becomes real, and well founded, well-anchored is just the objective reality. That’s what science is all about. That’s why science is a type of force of which it says in Ecclesiastes, in Koheles: ruach habeheimah yoredet l’matah l’aretz [the animal spirit descends down to the earth]. That it has a basic animalistic anchor to bring one down, to bring the psyche down into objectivity, into pure objectivity which is empirical, what they will agree to be empirical, which is provable in the laboratory and so forth and so on. But, once more - kalkelateinu hi takanateinu - Hashem saw that this is going to happen and that this is for the good because He wanted the world of Asiyah to be rectified. If we would have remained up there in the world of Yetzirah where they both are the same size we would never have rectified this lower world, and G-d wants this world to be His dira batachtonim, His dwelling place below. In the future this world itself will return to its original place in the world of Yetzirah and then or halevana keor hachamah.

So this was a clarification of two things. First a clarification of that very important point made yesterday of speculation vs. empirical science and also, we now explained much better the concept of Adam Kadmon as being the program of the universe. We have said two things. First of all we said that Chazal call this, or refer to this with the phrases olam katan, that man is an olam katan and the world is adam gadol and that even in science now there is the anthropic principle that things just happen for the sake of making the existence of man possible.

(Alright, so now after this we are going to continue with some very beautiful midrashim. Maybe since it’s already late I'll try to say it, most of it ba'al peh.)

As we said before when G-d created man there's something special, that it says "na'ase adam" "Let us make man". In no other creation does G-d peak in the plural, but if we notice it’s not just that G-d is speaking in the plural, He's speaking in the first person. Usually the question is just asked what is the meaning of na'ase, what is the ‘us’, ‘let us’, who's the ‘us’ here, but the truth is the question of who's the ‘us’ is secondary. The first question is, in no other saying, G-d created the world with 10 sayings, the other sayings were in the third person. Tadshei haaretz…yikavu hamayim… totzei aretz …y’hi or…yshritzu hamayim… all in the third person. This saying is in the first person. Now, that's question number one. But the first person can either be singular or plural. In other words, if the verse would have said e’eseh adom, “I will make a man”, that would also arouse the same question, why does G-d say ‘I will make the man’ in the first person He didn't use that phraseology before? but then question number two becomes not only is He speaking in the first person but He is speaking in the plural form, na’aseh adam, let us…. So actually some of the commentaries say that the plural is very often lashon kavod, that a person speaks about himself in the plural. So that actually eliminates the second question altogether that interpretation, and the plurality is no question at all. These are some of the literal commentaries, that there’s no problem with the plurality, because you speak in the first person in the plural form. That’s the way they get around the second question, but this first question, they don't relate to the first question.

The first question is the essential question, why is He saying it in the first person in the first place? Now the truth is that both are, both are questionable. When G-d is speaking in the first person so it means that even though He is speaking here to someone else in the first person, but the first person also applies, especially in the story of creation that we don't think of other things as here, as dialoging w/ G-d. So to say anything in the first person is talking to yourself.

How does the Malbim know that "Yehi or" is Yetzirah and not Beriyah, when G-d says "Let there be light", that it’s something from something and not something from nothing? He knows because, he says like this: that any communication, this has to do w/ the essence of man, man is communication is m’daber man is called the speaker, that any communication is between two. So if G-d says let there be light He must be talking to some source of light and he brings support to this thought that Chazal say on the continuation of the verse “Vayehi or”, “and there was light”, or shekvar haya. It means that G-d spoke to the hidden light and said 'you, hidden light, now appear'. That’s a Yetzirah process, and he says that speaking must be like that, any speaking is to something, just that the Torah relates to it in the third “let there be light”, when Beriyah is ex-nihilo, so there couldn't be any speaking. The paradox of that is that Chazal say that Bereishis bara is bereishit nami maamar hu, but its also one of the ten, there are two opinions as to whether Bereishit is one of the ten sayings or whether its not one of the ten sayings. According to the opinion of Chazal that it is one of the ten sayings even so it’s not like any of the other ten sayings because it doesn't say that Hashem spoke. It’s called maamar satum, a concealed saying, all the others are called revealed sayings. Let’s ask another question just to build up our momentum here.

We said that vegetation, yesterday we explained that the olam hatzomeiach is contained within the mineral world in the… in respect to creation ex-nihilo. The vegetable world, kingdom also has reproduction. And the fact that it, life, one of the basic defining properties of life is reproduction. If it’s asexual, it is sometimes called replication rather than reproduction. But even replication is also referred to as reproduction. This is one of the most essential, maybe the most essential defining properties of life, of all life forms.

The vegetables also have also sexual reproduction and the Torah makes a point, that that's the definition of a vegetable is mazria zera, species that, there are species and there are seed. What is the difference between the vegetables and the animals? That are created on, first the animals are created, the sea and the marine animals and the birds are created on the fifth day and then the other animals on the sixth day, so the difference is, is that on the ,for the animals G-d blesses them. He says pru urevu. He speaks to them. He speaks directly to them pru urevu, be fruitful and multiply, and then to man once more He speaks 'be fruitful and multiply'. The ‘be fruitful and multiply’ for the fish and the birds continues. There's not a new pru urevu, a new saying of pru uervu to the animals before man but then there's another pru urevu for man.

What about the vegetables? Why didn't G-d say to the vegetables also pru urevu? This is also the difference between the vegetable kingdom and the animal kingdom. I mean, He said that they reproduce, but He didn't bless them to reproduce. So you could say that maybe they don't need a blessing because they don't eat one another up like fish do, they swallow up one another so they need to be blessed. That's one opinion, but there's a much deeper reason.

The deeper reason is that minerals and vegetables you can talk about, you can talk to their source, to their mazal, but you can't really talk directly to them. Animals, again this is one of the, a deep defining principle of the difference between chai and tzomeiach, that animals are a person that you can talk, that you have somebody to talk to yeish im mi ledaber.

Once more, some people talk to plants also, but when you're talking to a plant you're really talking to its mazal. If you really think that you are talking to it you have a little bit of a problem in your head. But if you have a pet dog you can talk to him, not just to his mazal. Just don't expect that he's going to talk back to you. If you do then you're also a little bit off. But what is the difference with man? Man is the only person that you talk to and he talks back. That's why he's called medaber, even for G-d. The only person that’s going to talk back to G-d is man. Man is the tzaddik. Hakodosh Baruch Hu gozer, v’tzaddik mevatel. Tzaddik gozer Hakodosh Baruch Hu mekayem. Man talks back, either for the good or for the bad. The fact that man is a talker, that’s like the tzelem Elokim that is the or chozer. He talks back, he talks to G-d, not only G-d talks to him. Obviously he talks back with one another.

Now this will help us understand more once more why with vegetables you just talk about them in the third person, there's no direct blessing of pru urevu. Animals you talk to in the second person, but they’re not going to talk back to you. Man you talk and he's going to talk back. What is the meaning that someone talks back? The meaning that somebody talks back means that by your talking to him, in a certain deep way you are talking to yourself. Talking back means that he is an extension of yourself, he is a feedback board. He's a mirror of yourself, that the mirror talks back. Just in order that it shouldn't be monotonous he doesn’t say the same words. He can say different words altogether, but he's talking back to you. That talking back to you is reflecting you. We said, when G-d says to begin to make man naase adam so He's talking to Himself but He's also talking to somebody else. Just that when He's talking to somebody else that’s going to talk back at him that's why Chazal say that naase adam means He's consulting with somebody. On that word naase Chazal say ‘bemi nimlach’ and there are 5 different answers. Who did G-d… naase adam means that G-d is consulting with someone. The phrase is bemi nimlach so whoever learns Chassidut knows what it says in Chassidut because Chassidut only quotes one of the five answers, that He consulted w/ the souls of the tzaddikim but the souls of the tzaddikim are those men that He's now creating, but He consulted with them. If you don't know Chassidut and don't learn a lot of Chassidut, and you don't necessarily learn this Midrash and you just learn peirush Rashi on the Torah, then you know another of the five answers. Rashi brings the answer that He consulted with malachei hasharet, that He took counsel with the angels, with the archangels, because ‘man is created in our image’ and He was afraid, or He was concerned, that the angels would be envious of man so He had to consult in order to receive from them, derech eretz, to receive from them their reshut, their permission as it were, even though He can do whatever He wants. But just miderekh eretz, me’anava because of G-d's anava to consult with the angels.

What we're now going to explain is, that according to Kabbalah, the counsel… where else in the Torah do we find someone who consults with someone whether to do something? Even though he's commanded by G-d to do something but he consults whether to do it or not. Shall we do it or shall we not do it? How shall we do it?

Yesterday someone asked here to... why don't we talk more about shalom bayit? I said we're talking about evolution, not about shalom bayit. We have to have another seminar. But I said ‘Don't worry, we always get to shalom bayit.’ Shalom bayit is the tachlis of every topic, especially in this… in this topic.

The ultimate counsel is taking counsel with your wife. And since your wife is your, your mirror, your other half, so that's also talking to yourself. Who talks back? Only your wife talks back. She…Women that don't talk back to their husbands are not, are not human. Once more, the essence of being human is talking back, not just talking. And who is the person who took counsel with his wife? That's Yaakov. The one that more rectified Adam Harishon more than anyone else was Yaakov. Before he fulfilled the word of G-d that appeared for him, first he called his two wives, Rachel and Leah, to the field to take counsel- shall we do it or not? And they said yes, go ahead, whatever G-d told you to do, do it…That’s amazing. Why does he have to need his wives to agree to do something that G-d told him to do?

In Akeidat Yitzchak, Avrohom, chas v'shalom, didn't tell his wife. When she found out about it she just, it says she passed away. He hid, he didn’t ask her- ‘should I go and take Yitzchak and offer him as a sacrifice?’ But in this story of Yaakov we found that he took counsel with his wives, bemi nimlach.

Who are the nishmoteihem shel tzaddikim, the opinion that G-d took counsel with the souls of the tzaddikim, that’s, the souls of tzaddikim are Hashem’s wives. That's what it says in Shir Hashirim. That's the ultimate relationship, even more than father and son.

So once more, naase adam is G-d speaking to His wife. How is that said in the terminology of the Zohar? We say in our prayers every morning baruch omer ve’oseh, blessed is He who says and does. So the Zohar reads that, and the Arizal and Chassidus explains that to mean, Abba amar Ima osah, that Abba, the father, says to the mother and the mother does it. She agrees to it, he takes counsel with the mother and the mother agrees and actually probably rectifies, tells him how to do it in the best possible manner and then she implements it herself. That’s called baruch omer v’oseh. Abba amar Ima osah. Kulam b’ chochmah asitah – be’binah, everything was done by Chochmah through consultation with Binah, and implementation by means of Mother.

So once more, the deep secret of na'aseh is that this is the only time in creation that G-d Himself is creating something through an explicit zivug with His own feminine side which is called yichud kudsha brich hu ushchintei.

Once more, everything that G-d creates… I’m going to say it very simply all of creation is Hashem creating it as a bachelor. That's why its not b'tzelem Elokim. It’s like, it’s like, once more, like a husband has to go to work, so he goes to work, he does a lot of good things he creates a lot of good things in the field, he builds houses, he does… whatever his occupation happens to be, but then he comes home, and to… and the greatest creation is to have children. That’s what he’s here on earth to do, more than anything else, and for that he has to do it, he can’t do it by himself. For that he has to consult with his wife.

So that’s a very very simple idiom, a way to understand the difference between all of Creation and the Creation of man. All of Creation is all kinds of nice things that G-d does by Himself.

Once more just His, so to speak, male component, but to create man He has to create man through what’s called yichud kudsha brich hu ushchintei, the union of the Holy One Blessed be He and the Divine Presence, which are relatively male and female, and the Divine Presence is equivalent to nishmot hatzadikim, the souls of tzadikim. Veamech kulam tzaddikim, and that’s why only, now we’re getting to what we said before, why only in relation to man is the concept male and female made explicit. Because that itself is the naaseh adam. The Creation of man is 2 verses in the Torah, verse 26 and verse 27 of Genesis. Verse 26 begins “na’aseh adam”, “Let us make man”, and verse 27 ends “zachar unekeivah bara otam: And nautz sofam bitchilatam, the end is wedged into the beginning. And that male and female, which is the chidush at the end, that is actually the manifestation of na’aseh, of the deep secret of na’aseh, of what na’aseh means.

So once more, it’s in the first person, it’s speaking to another, but speaking to oneself, and the true bemi nimlach, the true counsel that’s being taken here is the counsel of the male with his…, in G-dliness, in Elokhut, in Getlechkiet- kudsha brich hu ushechintai.

Right, so now, just to conclude, Chazal say that there are five different answers. So the five answers are, we said, from the bottom up, which are k’neged: nefesh, ruach, neshama, chaya, yechida of the bat zug of Hakadosh Baruch Hu, and this also has to do with what the Shelah says that all of Creation participated.

Answer number one, from below, this is also the same as the worlds and yud kay vav kay, the yud, v’chulu v’chulu.

Answer number one, melekhet hashamayim v’aretz, that G-d consulted with all of the workings of Heavens and Earth, meaning that the union that is taking place to create man is G-d together with all of the whole universe, as a whole.

The second level seems related but it’s not the same. It’s G-d…. Every one is a different opinion of a different Sage. The second opinion says that G-d consulted with ma’aseh kol yom v’yom. He consulted with the workings, the individual, we’ll call it the discreet creations of each and every day of creation. So even, the commentaries explain this is the difference between the universe as a whole and the particular discreet consciousnesses, meaning this is a more individual consciousness, that every day is a consciousness by itself. Once more, this is like discreet creation versus evolutionary creation. As we’ve said many times that Asiyah, the lowest level is evolutionary, the level above it is more discreet. Ma’aseh kol yom v’yom are the six days of Creation. The six days of Creation correspond to the vav of Hashem’s name. The vav of Hashem’s name is the ruach.

The next opinion says malachei hasharet. That’s the opinion that Rashi brings, that G-d consulted with the special arch angels that stand around His Kisei HaKavod, His Throne of Glory, which is a symbol in Kabbalah for the world of Beriyah and for the neshamah level.

And obviously these angels are above ma’aseh kol yom v’yom.

The next level is the souls of tzaddikim. Nishmoteihem shel tzaddikim, in the phraseology of the Midrash.

That’s the nefesh-chayah, that’s the “living one” level, the souls of tzaddikim. It says that the souls of tzaddikim are high. These two levels are like a pair in a certain way. It’s just that the souls of tzaddikim are higher than malachei hashareit.

What is the fifth reading of Chazal, by a different Sage? Now this is the one that proves really what na’aseh is,   that it says bemi nimlach? Belibo nimlach. That G-d consulted with His heart. When He said na’aseh adam, He was speaking to His heart. Now His heart means here reuta d’liba. Reuta d’liba the inner will of the heart is arich anpin, is the yechida sheb’nefesh of G-d. The heart is the origin of Eve, above the, chayah level here is more man, male, adam. The heart is the origin of Eve, she is called the heart. As we said in a certain way she is more the origin of life and the origin of man, the eim kol chai, even more than the male, Adam.

Now, all of these, obviously, eileh v’eileh divrei Elokim chayim, all of this goes together and all of this has this form that  ten lechacham veyechkam od  we can all try to meditate on these things.

How do we know that G-d consulted with His heart? Because Chazal bring a very beautiful phenomenon. If you consulted with somebody and something goes wrong, so then you get angry at the person who gave you the advice to do it.

At the end of Bereishit, just before the Flood, when all of humanity went off and G-d had to decide to destroy it, it says He got angry at His heart vayitatzev el libo it says in the verse. That He got angry, He got angry with His heart so Chazal say that that itself proves that the heart was the one that gave Him the advice to do it. His heart was the one that gave Him the advice to do it in the first place. So when it went wrong, He got angry with His own heart, but from His own heart down it is all one great shechintei deKudsha brich hu, the Divine Presence of Hakadosh Baruch Hu, as manifest in His heart, as manifest in nishmot tzaddikim, as manifest in malachei hashareit as manifest in the individual workings of every day of Creation, as manifest in the totality, the klal of melechet hashamayim v’aretz of all of Creation.

So all of this is na’aseh, the fact that it begins from His heart is more than anything else indicative of what we said before that Hashem is talking to Himself. Talking to Himself is talking to His wife, and the heart answers back, the reuta d’liba answers back, and He follows the instruction of the heart.

And then His wife becomes nishmot hatzaddikim and then in a certain way His wife becomes these malachei hashareit, and so forth, each one of these five levels.

Again, this is now our entrance into, IY”H tomorrow we’ll continue with this, with the most basic problem of evolutionary biology, which is called the “unsolved riddle of sex”. Why there is such a phenomenon of male and female in the world, and as we said before the ultimate answer is because of what is unknown to evolution biology, that man is motivating, that man is zachar unekeivah because man reflects Kudsha brich hu ushchintei, sovev um’malei, and that is the motivating principle and program that is pushing forward evolution until mankind, until the Jewish People, until Mashiach, as we said before that Mashiach is the ongoing motivation of evolution.