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Orchard of Delights
Although we tend to think of prophecy as God’s attempt to transmit
particular messages to the entire Jewish people by imparting them
to his holy prophets, the Ramchal (Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzato)
expands this definition significantly. In his book Derech Hashem he
describes prophesy as a state of consciousness that is achieved when
an individual experiences an intense bond with God and can actually
feel that attachment. This state of mind lends itself to receiving deep
insights, inspiration, and knowledge. In other words, one does not
need to be a prophet charged with delivering God’s message to the
Jewish people to experience a prophetic state.
Although there are a number of ways to become a fitting vessel
for obtaining Divine inspiration and prophetic experience, perhaps
the easiest to comprehend and use is music; for music penetrates the
heart, mind, and soul in a manner unlike nearly any other experience.
It allows the soul to soar to heavenly heights, giving wing to peoples’
most glorious aspirations and dreams, and expression to their
deepest pain and existential loneliness. Music is a cosmic language
that unites the physical and spiritual, body and soul, universal and
particular, while simultaneously transcending time and temporal
space altogether. It was exactly this lofty experience that the people
of Israel achieved as they sang the Song of the Sea together. (See
“The Spirit of Prophecy and Song” for further discussion about
prophecy and song.)
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Rebbe Nachman of Breslov teaches that one can do teshuvah for a
previous act of teshuvah; that is, one can repent for the manner in
which one originally repented, or deeper yet, for the way in which one
initially drew nearer to God. This insight reveals the radical notion
that there is no limit to the boundaries of teshuvah. The higher the
level of consciousness one reaches, the more alert one becomes to how
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Firstly, according to a tradition cited by Rashi, all that would
ever be created was created in potential on the first day (Rashi on
Genesis 1:14). Each succeeding day of creation revealed that which
had already been created in potential on the first day. The notion
of all creation being contained in, and emanating from, an initial
starting point has been substantiated by the Standard Model of
the Universe, also known as the Big Bang. According to science the
entire universe composed of tens of billions of galaxies was contained
in an almost infinitely small and condensed speck of matter that
“exploded” and to this day is still expanding. The Jewish tradition
that all that would ever be created existed in potential on the first
day of creation can now be understood quite literally. (The textual
basis for this interpretation is the description of the “first day” as
“one day.” In contrast to all the other days, whose creation stories’
conclude with the phrase “and it was evening and it was morning”
and then mention “the second day,” “the third day,” and so forth,
the first day’s story ends with the words “one day.” Commenting
on this, Jewish tradition explains that the first day was not just the
“first day,” it was a unique and self-perpetuating day which included
all the other days as well.)
Secondly, Kabbalah and Chassidut teach that the first verse of the
Torah – “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth”
– contains all that was created on the first day in archetypal form.
The creation of light and darkness and their separation is already
contained in embryonic form in the creation of heaven and earth. The
creation of heaven represents the creation of everything spiritual that 24107-EYAL - 24107-EYAL | 8 - B | 18-01-28 | 12:12:04 | SR:-- | Magenta #24107-EYAL - 24107-EYAL | 8 - B | 18-01-28 | 12:12:04 | SR:-- | Yellow 24107-EYAL - 24107-EYAL | 8 - B |
would ever come into existence and the creation of earth symbolizes
the creation of all material and physical reality.
A third manifestation of further contraction is evident in the six
letters of “bereishit,” the Torah’s first word, into which the six days
of creation are condensed. (In “Permutations of the Word Bereishit,”
we cited several examples of how these six letters can be understood
on a deeper level.) An additional insight regarding the process of
contraction, which is related to the letters of the Hebrew alphabet,
is that the very nature of this world, its dualistic appearance and its
relationship to God, can all be intuited from a deeper understanding
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