Levels of Yichud Hashem

So let's see perek rishon, perek rishon, and then the next week we'll discuss whether we're going to go back, but let's see perek rishon. Amar himechaber: בגדר יחוד האלהים בלב שלם הוא, geder in the sense of the definition, the same way if you have geder mizzeh u'mizzeh, if you have a fence around something, so it circumscribes an area, right? It defines an area. So my backyard is defined, is circumscribed by the fence that's around the backyard. So בגדר יחוד האלהים בלב שלם הוא, she'yehu halev nistama like the Rambam, meaning not so much the heart as the mind, v'halashon and the tongue, שוים ביחוד הבורא יתברך, that it's not simply a formula that a person mouths, but it's something that he fully understands and has intellectual conviction in what he's saying.

שיהיו הלב והלשון שוים ביחוד הבורא יתברך אחר אשר יבין בדרכי הראיות ביאור מציאותו ואמתת אחדותו מדרך העיון.

So the Chovos Halivavos is of the opinion that in order to fully be mekayem the mitzvah of ה' אלקינו ה' אחד, it's necessary again on the highest level that a person should understand, should know the proofs, the logical proofs to yichud Hashem. Right? That's what he says, right? That that יחוד האלהים בלב שלם is only

אחר אשר יבין בדרכי הראיות ביאור מציאותו ואמתת אחדותו מדרך העיון.

And then he's going to conclude the perek on the same note:

על כן אמרתי בגדר היחוד השלם שהוא השוות הלב והלשון ביחוד הבורא אחר שידע להביא ראיה עליו ולדעת אופני אמתת אחדותו מדרך העיון.

Okay so that we need to understand. Why can't we just be told what the conclusion of a proof is and believe and know that without knowing how to work through the proof? Right? That's... okay so that's what needs to be understood. But before we get there. ופני שיחוד האלהים מתחלק במדברים, again using medabrim in the sense of דומם צומח חי מדבר, representing people, not people who are shmoozing, but people as opposed to animals who have abstract intelligence, which hopefully is sometimes reflected in their speech. Okay. ופני שיחוד האלהים מתחלק במדברים כפי התחלקות הכרתם והבנתם. What yichud Hashem represents depends upon who's... I mean what it represents objectively is absolute, there's nothing relative to it. But what it represents when people say it, that depends upon their degree of understanding. Mehem, one group is מי שיאחדו בלשונו בלבד. The whole thing is min hasafa v'lachutz. They parrot a formulation.

והוא שישמע בני אדם אומרים דבר והוא נמשך אחריהם מבלי דעת ענין מה שהוא אומר.

They parrot words. When one reads the Chovos Halivavos's description... It seems ludicrous, it seems comical. I guess sufficiently so that we think it's not real. But let's say it happens not just in this context. It happens, I don't know. It happens, let's say, in learning. There's a certain vocabulary, let's say, that Rav Chaim developed, and what the words represent is they sort of express and summarize a train of thought. It's not clear that all the time those terms and that vocabulary is used that we understand the words we're using. And there's no words, the same thing can be true when one of the questions Friday night was about learning Sifrei Chasidus. There too, it's prone to happening when you learn something. It doesn't have to happen, but it can happen and does happen sometimes that when you're learning something which is steeped in Kabbalah and one doesn't have the background to understand it, so one is throwing around terms without really understanding what the terms mean. Again, what the Chovos Halvavos describes when you just look at the description, it seems very comical. But then when we look in the mirror, it's not just a flight of imagination, is it? The Rambam writes in the mishna in Avos: הכל צפוי והרשות נתונה. So the Rambam writes:

זה המאמר כולל דברים גדולים מאוד. וראוי היה זה המאמר שיהיה לרבי עקיבא.

Rabbi Akiva is the tanna of this mishna, and it's appropriate, it has to be that way. Only Rabbi Akiva could say it. It needed to be Rabbi Akiva who was metayel ba-Pardes, נכנס בשלום ויצא בשלום. Only Rabbi Akiva could have said it. Okay, what does הכל צפוי והרשות נתונה mean?

וזהו פירושו בקצרה ועל תנאי שתדע כל מה שקדם בפרקים הקודמים. אמר כל מה שבעולם ידוע אצלו יתברך והוא משיג אותו והוא אמר הכל צפוי.

Hakadosh Baruch Hu knows everything, including the future. The tsofeh, the scout, is the one who's looking to see whether or not there's an army approaching in terms of whether or not there's an attack which is going to happen in the future. So Hakol tzafuy means it's foreseen.

והוא אמר הכל צפוי ואחר כך אמר לא תחשוב שבהיותו יודע המעשים יתחייב ההכרח, כלומר שיהיה אדם מוכרח במעשיו על מעשה מן המעשים.

So maybe Yedias Hashem precludes bechira? No, ein ha'inyan ken. Aval harashus... Rashus here doesn't mean permission, it means the way the Rambam uses... capacity

אבל הרשות ביד האדם במה שיעשה והוא אמרו הרשות נתונה ורצונו לומר כל אדם רשות נתונה לו כמו שביארנו בפרק השמיני.

Okay, so why does it need Rabbi Akiva? Because yedi'as Hashem and there's still bechira? I just said, why does that need Rabbi Akiva? He says, no, this mishna, this mishna needs Rabbi Akiva. So the answer is that to say it without A, understanding it, B, being able to explain it, doesn't mean anything because then it's just words. It's just words. If if I'm saying it, but in my mind I don't begin to understand it and I think it is a contradiction, so vos toig mir that I said it? You know? So when Rabbi Akiva said it, it meant that he understood it and was explaining it to us. And that's what the Rambam again in Shmonah Perakim and in the Yad he does, he does explain and says that the reason we think that knowledge of the future and bechira are mutually exclusive is because we're operating with the model of human knowledge. How does a person know something? A person knows what is, right? How do I know that it's daylight? Because I can look outside and I see that it is, so a person can know what is, right? A person can know that two plus two is four because two plus two is four. A person knows what is, right? That's what it means again; either it's what is in terms of empirically, it's daytime now, or what is in terms of a logical truth, a person knows what is, right? Which would mean that on the human model of knowledge, if a person would know the future, the future would have to be predetermined; it would have to be is, right? The future would have to be is because again, what a person knows, I either know empirically because it already happened or it's right in front of my eyes, or I know or I know a logical truth that two plus two is four, but I can't know with absoluteness what will be because it isn't yet. And if you were to tell me that I did know with absolute certainty what would be, so that would mean that it is because it's it's predetermined. So the Rambam says that's the fallacy because we don't understand how Hashem's yedi'a works. And and the fallacy of asking the question is that the question is based on this fallacious assumption that Hashem's yedi'a functions the way our yedi'a functions. Now our yedi'a again is we know what's external to us, right? We know what's external to us. The only way a person knows what's external to him is because it is. Again, either it is logically, two plus two them don't have to be two oranges and two oranges in front of me, right? Person knows what is logically, or a person knows what is, or what has been empirically, factually, and therefore a person can't know the future unless the future is predetermined. Ma she-ein kein with Hakadosh Baruch Hu that Hu ve-da'ato echad. So the Rambam says again, you can't fully understand this idea, but what you can understand is that Hakadosh Baruch Hu, the same way his existence is, is unique and sui generis, so too his, the way he knows is, is totally unique and has nothing in common with the way we know. So so you can't ask, how does yedi'a, how is it compatible with bechira? You don't even have a question if you don't, if you can't understand how Hakadosh Baruch Hu's yedi'a functions. That's what the Rambam explains. Meaning that, so that's what the Rambam is saying, just to say something, but if in your mind it is a contradiction, so saying, no, no, no, it's not a contradiction, no belief is, is linked to understanding. It's not just an oral affirmation, an oral declaration; it's an affirmation of what one, to believe means to understand. Can't believe if if if you think one thing you can't believe to the contrary. So it's it's linked to to understanding. That's what Rabbi Akiva—anyone can say הכל צפוי בשימוש לשונו, you have to to really say it, you know, piv velibo shavim, say, you know, that that that's that's where Rabbi Akiva. Okay, so the first is people who simply parrot a formulation, they don't really know what the formulation means.

ומהם מי שיחדיהו בלבו ולשונו יבין עניין מה שהוא אומר מדרך הקבלה שקיבל מאבותיו.

No, he knows the tytch of the words ה' אלוקינו ה' אחד. He's not, he's not, he's not a parrot. He understands the tytch of the words ה' אלוקינו ה' אחד in terms of, you know, translation. However, אינו יודע אמיתת מה שהוא מאמין מהעניין ההוא. But obviously, it's one thing to be able to translate ה' אלוקינו ה' אחד and it's another thing to have a grasp of what the concept of echad is.

ומהם מי שיחדיהו אחר שיבין מדרך הראיה אמיתת העניין אך יחשבנהו במחשבתו כשאר האחדים הנמצאים ויבוא להגשים הבורא ולהמשילהו בצורה ובדמות מפני שאיננו יודע אמיתת ייחודו ועניין מציאותו.

And even if someone has somewhat of a grasp, but if he doesn't really have a correct grasp, so he can think Hashem Echad, but if he equates the echad of Hashem Echad with the way we use echad in every other context, he could think Hashem is physical. Right? Nothing physical is echad. Right? We're, we're composed of—we're one. Yeah, we're one and we're composed of billions, trillions—how many cells? A lot. Okay, so with that—so—not echad in some absolute, in some absolute sense. 37 trillion. 37 trillion, okay. Give or take. 30 to 37 trillion. I want to highball. Vemehem—and and here's the the the full

inyan—מי שיחדיהו בלבו ולשונו אחר שיבין עניין האחד האמת והאחד העובר ויביא ראיה על בירור מציאותו ואמיתת ייחודו וזהו החלק השלם בעניין הייחוד.

So again, he's, he's repeating the yavi raayos. So maybe to try to understand a little bit, משל למה הדבר דומה. Let's say again, we asked what's the difference between just being told the result of the proof, being told the theorem, or or knowing the proof of the theorem. So let's say let's say you're told that if you have two parallel lines and then you have a line that bisects those two lines, that of those angles which are going to be congruent, which are going to be equal to each other. So you can be told that and then you'll know. If you have a diagram A B, you know, and and the test question is, you know, which of those—write down the the pairs of of congruent angles—you'll write A and D, whatever, and you'll write it. So that is is a yediah, but is it the same yediah as understanding why that is and why that has to be? Do do you have the same grasp on it? You hear the moshal in that sense? You don't have the same grasp. In one case, when you know it is that way. No one is, we're not mefakek on that, not at all chas v'shalom. But it's not the same as understanding why it has to be that way. It's not the same grasp, right? It's not the same level of understanding when, oh, okay, so it's always gonna be that way. Okay, fine. Okay, I hear, got it. One time I understand because, you know, it's hitting the two at the same angle, and v'chulu. It's eino domeh, the understanding when a person understands why it has to be that way, as opposed to when he's just told what the what the bottom line of the proof says without understanding the steps. That's where the Chovos HaLevavos is coming from. Again, whether that means that we should continue, so we'll talk about that next.