R’ Ashlag’s “Introduction to the Zohar”: Ch. 67

            Now, don’t be surprised by the idea that a single individual can have the entire world plummet downward or soar upward by his deeds alone. It’s (simply due to the fact that there’s) an inviolable (cosmic) law (that indicates) that the universal and the specific are like two drops in a pond, and that whatever occurs to the universal occurs to the specific as well.

This is the principle of the microcosm corresponding to the macrocosm, each particle of a hologram mirroring the whole of it, each link reflecting the chain.

The point is that though we’re each independent elements of the whole, every one of us is inexorably linked to it. Jiggle one and you impel the other, and vice versa. As such, move one way, and you move the universe along with you, you are that powerful. (Contrarily, encounter the universe moving another way, and know that you’ll find yourself moved in that direction, too, you are that susceptible.)

            In fact, all specifics do the selfsame things that the universal does, because the universal only comes about after its specific parts do, with all their quantitative and qualitative elements.

So for example, the notion of “four-ness” can’t exist until there are four separate entities. Though each entity is different from the others, they each go into making up the “four-ness” they’ve now become, and so they’re linked. As such, whatever happens to any one of them affects the lot of them, and it subsequently changes the entire “four-ness” as well. The same is true of the universe: it wouldn’t be what it is without each one of its necessary separate and unique elements, so each one is vital and representative of the whole.

            As such it follows that the acts of a specific (person) can (indeed) have the universe soar upward or plummet downward to a degree.

This chapter brings us back full circle to the book’s initial questions, and thus ties the whole work together.

If you recall, Ashlag had asked (among other things) in the very first chapter: What are we at bottom? And, what role do we play in the great course of events which we’re such minor players in?

The bulk of the book is then spent explaining all that, but what’s most telling in the context of the present discussion about delving into Kabbalah and Zohar is what Ashlag said in Ch’s 48-49, 56, where he indicated that each one of us fully establishes what he or she is made of and fulfills his or her true raison d’être when we study Kabbalah, since by doing that we each single-handedly help bring the universe to full blossom.

            That explains the Zohar’s statement (to the effect) that we’ll be brought from exile to redemption through the study of the Zohar and Kabbalah (Tikkunei Zohar 6). After all, what does studying the Zohar have to do with the redemption of the Jewish Nation?

 (c) 2013 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

Feel free to contact me at feldman@torah.org

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