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Orchard of Delights
£One Becomes Two One Becomes Two One Becomes Two
££
in Order to Become One
in Order to Become One
in Order to Become One
In this portion, the Torah teaches that God created man in “the
image of God” (Genesis 1:27), but what exactly does this mean? How
can man be created in the image of God when God has no body? The
answer is clearly to treat the word “image” figuratively, an approach
which has led to several different profound answers.
A concept mentioned above, may provide one answer. It is man’s
ability to speak that expresses his creation in the image of God, as
this gift mirrors the Divine speech through which the world was (and
still is) created. Another explanation suggests that the gifts of free
choice and the moral and ethical sense to distinguish between good
and evil express humanity’s creation in God’s image. These gifts are
implicit in the verse describing why Adam and Eve were banished
from the Garden of Eden after they chose to eat from the Tree of
Knowledge of Good and Evil: “Behold man has become like One
among us, knowing good and evil, and now lest he stretch out his
hand and take also from the Tree of Life and eat and live forever”
(Genesis 3:22).
From another perspective, man’s creation in God’s image may
be read as reflecting the process of creation itself. Before creation
only the undifferentiated oneness and unity of God existed. The very
act of creation implies the beginning of multiplicity; something has
been brought into existence that is, as it were, other than God. The
first letter of the Torah, a beit whose numerical equivalent is two,
symbolizes this new reality. In fact, this beit is even written especially
large in our Torah scrolls in order to stress that, one, as it were, has
become two.
“Hear O Israel, God our God, God is One” is the cardinal expression
of Jewish belief (Deuteronomy 6:4). However, belief in the unity of
God extends beyond the unity of God Himself to the realization
that in essence everything is connected, everything is unified and
part of God’s essential oneness. Human beings reach their highest
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nOah ַחֹנ
£The Three Floors of the Ark£The Three Floors of the ArkThe Three Floors of the Ark
£
When God told Noah to build an ark to save himself and his family
from the impending flood, He described the ark in the following way:
“A window you will make for the ark and to a cubit finish it above.
Put the entrance of the ark in its side, make it with a bottom, second
and third floor” (Noah 6:16). Two of the Ba’al Shem Tov’s most
importance teachings are based on this verse.
The first derives from the ark’s division into three distinct floors.
Kabbalah and Chassidut teach that Noah’s ark was an archetype for
the Holy Temple, which was itself a microcosm encompassing the
physical and spiritual worlds. The ark’s three floors symbolize the
three levels of consciousness that encompass all human experience
and physical and spiritual reality: Worlds, Souls, and Divinity.
The middle floor, symbolizing the soul, links the bottom floor – the
physical world – to the top floor, the spiritual realms of Divinity.
According to Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburgh, on the level of “Worlds,”
man searches for God; on the level of “Souls,” man attempts to serve
God; on the highest rung of “Divinity,” man longs to unite with God.
In the realm of “Worlds,” man’s task is to uplift, enabling himself to
ascend above the mundane and gravity-bound weight of physicality.
In the “Souls” realm, souls are drawn to connect with other souls
in intimacy and shared friendship. On the level of Divinity, the
soul passionately wishes to unite with God, foregoing any sense
of individuation. (Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburgh, The Hebrew Letters,
pp. 14-15). The three levels of Worlds, Souls, and Divinity and the
interaction between them are reflected in our constant processing of
our internal experiences and in our daily encounters with external
reality.
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