Sunday, December 3, 2023

masculine-style activities

 If I may offer a thought that is entirely my own (as far as I know), the positive-time bound commandments are masculine-style activities. Sitting outdoors in the crisp autumn in a small hut that he rapidly built with his hands is the kind of thing a man is more inclined to do. Most women prefer to be in the house, near the kitchen, where children have room to play. The same applies to wearing simple black boxes -- every single day the same style. Few women want to wear the same plain article every day. The same can be said of adhering to the regimentation of saying Shema at a specific time, every morning, no exceptions for morning sickness. The same goes for making an intentionally jolting sound with a dead Ram’s horn and waving around a lulav as if it were a sword. The positive time-bound commandments from which women are not exempt don’t have this quality. Examples include kiddush, which is said at the dinner table over wine, and eating matzah, again at the dinner table. This may not be a profound philosophical idea, but it seems to fit somewhat. Even if the generalizations are offensive to some (but mostly not to people in the Orthodox Jewish world), you have to admit, there’s truth to it.

Friday, November 3, 2023

fulfill all 613 commandments

 However, it is well known that R. Isaac Luria, of blessed memory, stated10 that [the soul of] every11Jew needs to be reincarnated many times, until he will fulfill all 613 commandments of the Torah in thought, speech and action, i.e., using all three soul-garments with which one performs the commandments.

להשלים לבושי נפשו ולתקנם שלא יהא לבושא דחסרא כו'

This is in order to complete the garments of his soul and to correct them, so that no garment will be incomplete.

As explained in Tanya, ch. 4, the divine soul has three garments - the thought, speech and action of the 613 commandments of the Torah. If the performance of one of these commandments is lacking, the soul's garments are incomplete. It is thus necessary for each soul to perform all of the commandments.

לבד מצות התלויות במלך שהוא מוציא כל ישראל כי הוא כללות כולם כו'

Excepted12 are the commandments incumbent upon a king,13 because he discharges the obligation of all of Israel, as he is a corporate collective of them all.14

All Jews are incorporated within the king. When he performs those commandments that depend upon him, it is therefore considered as if all the Jewish people had performed them. As to the other commandments, however, if in one incarnation an individual did not perform them all, he must be reincarnated so that he will be able to do so.

Why must one have the garments of all 613 commandments?

והטעם הוא כדי להלביש כל תרי"ג בחי' וכחות שבנפשו

The reason is, in order to garb all the 613 aspects and powers of one's soul,

Tuesday, October 31, 2023

Divine efflux

 This [ascent] effects a union there, between the spiritually feminine Sefirah of Malchut and the spiritually masculine levels of Divine efflux that transcend it,


Iggeret HaKodesh, end of Epistle 27