We’ll begin our discussion of God’s covert governance with the observation that each action’s outcome continues to exist even when the action itself is gone. So when for example a flaw has been repaired, the trace of the original flaw doesn’t disappear — it remains a flaw that has nonetheless been repaired. The opposite is also true, God forbid, that is, a merit that has become a flaw is still a merit, but it’s now a flawed merit. That’s because nothing is even forgotten before His Throne of Glory. And at the end of the entire cycle there will be a utter repair that would be based on everything that was done, good or — God forbid — bad (Petach 78).
Now as to how that applies with Divine governance. At the time of the Great Day of Judgment all the deeds of the world will be arranged and evaluated in the order in which they were carried out from the beginning of the universe until its end. Perfection will come about as such through the knowledge of God’s Yichud which would be revealed through the arrangement and evaluation of all those deeds. And eternity will be established forever and ever and to all eternity, ad infinitum, in accordance with the perfection that will exist then (Petach 79).
What follows is an analysis of the Kabbalistic background behind all of this. All the various sorts of defects that could possibly exist are rooted in BaN. And all the various sorts of repairs for those defects are rooted in the conjunction of MaH and BaN. As such, everything that was and will be was rooted there from the first, which is connected to the mystical notion of God’s foreknowledge. And in the end it will be understood that all of this served to bring about the overall perfection through the mystical phenomenon of God’s Yichud (Petach 80).
The phenomenon of the conjunction of MaH and BaN is truly the root of God’s governance of the universe. But, this root cannot be revealed. In fact, Divine governance is entirety dependent on its being concealed, for when it’s concealed people engage in their affairs out of free will while God carries out His own hidden agenda. As such, it’s the concealment itself that allows for repair. Accordingly, there is on one hand the overt order that God Himself displays which involves the order of Atzilut with its various Partzufim, while on the other hand there’s the concealed root that’s based on the fact that MaH is conjoined with BaN, which is covert (Petach 81).
Some remarks on how this affects us. The Tikkun granted each individual soul is a consequence of how the conjunction of MaH and BaN is arranged in his own instance. In fact, the vexing issue of why “a righteous person sometimes does well” while at other times “a righteous person suffers” derives from this. For there seems to be no good reason for this incongruity to exist, based on how souls are rooted in the Partzufim of the world of Atzilut. But in truth this mystical phenomenon is rooted in this hidden conjunction of MaH and BaN (Petach 82).
More now on the Kabbalistic background. The Partzufim of Atzilut were produced at the time of the Tikkun by the selections made at the time of the breaking of the vessels. But it’s no longer clear what they’d been produced from since the selections have already been conjoined and the Partzufim have been made equal — that is, those that were produced from certain selections are like those that were produced from other selections (Petach 83).
The fact that MaH is conjoined with BaN in the various Partzufim by means of the selections that were made was certainly for no reason. On the contrary, it gives the Partzufim important qualities. It’s just that those qualities are hidden within them, and what’s visible is only what was produced after the selection process. And the order in which they were placed to function depends on the form that all of them assumed equally (Petach 84).
(c) 2014 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman
Feel free to contact me at feldman@torah.org
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