SPACE
The Zohar does not
often appear to address itself directly to the issue of time except in its
frequent reference to the end times, the time to come, the future to come. Of the problem and nature of time it says
almost nothing. Still, there are little glimpses here and there.
“For time and zot (
“And this is what
defiled the temple, which is Malchut, until the set time when the moon will be
mended and shine again. And this is why
it is called ‘the Tent of appointed time.’” (KiTisa para. 118)
Perhaps the Zohar
says very little about time because it is an interpretation of a text written
for an audience of people firmly fixed in physical reality who were most in
need of stability, structure and law — the Torah is the hallmark document in
the provision of such guidelines. And
the Zohar, while it can be read as a deeply mystical interpretation of the
Torah, does not leave the world of time behind except by indicating that it is
to be surmounted by a strong adherence to behavior patterns that will bring
about certain rewards ‘after’ this life.
Of the physics of time there is no discussion.
It has been said
that the Zohar is ultimately against any process in time, and it does
demonstrate that in a number of ways: first and most notably by the dialogue
between rabbis of different centuries and different placements in this world or
the world beyond; second by the deliberate reversals of time in such arguments
as Abraham being saved through the merit of Jacob, who wasn’t born until much
later. Yet in other ways the Zohar seems
fixed in the ‘normal’ flow of time, as when it talks about three consecutive
reincarnations, each one atoning for the previous one, or when it talks about
the restoration of the soul in levirate marriage. These are quite contrary to the concept of
multiple simultaneous existences as expressed in some mystical traditions.
It is tempting to
say that the Zohar is telling us (without ever putting it into words) that
Malchut, the Kingdom of Heaven on earth, the physical partner of Zeir Anpin’s
spiritual manifestation, is Time itself, as suggested in the first quotation
above. There is a certain logic to that
interpretation, and it’s worth exploring whether the Zohar is saying this. Its temporal linearity seems, however, only
to be broken when arguing cases, not when explaining the mechanisms of creation
or physical life.
And yet when Rabbi
Shimon is preparing to leave the world he laments that he has only this one day
to reveal everything he has kept secret for so many years, and then he says a
curious thing: “And this day
will not be far from coming to its place on another day.”
(Haazinu para 97). No explanation
is made of this. What does it mean? It means something like this: the day spoken of here is the conjunction of
an event with its fulfillment in a higher realm. As an event takes place in physical reality
it finds expression in the timeless world above, whereby “the day” and its
events are inserted into the spiritual reality as a manifestation, not of cause
and effect, but rather of creation and conjunction. The effect above is one of either assisting
with the flow of blessings and sustenance or of constricting that flow. “The day” below settles into the etheric
pattern and is ultimately recorded in the book wherein all things are known and
kept. In this sense “the day” is like a
page, and in the higher realm the pages can easily be flipped backward or forward
or accessed at random, while on earth the days can only be inserted into that
book in linear order. It appears likely
that Rabbi Shimon knew this but he seems not to have told his disciples about
it. And the ultimate conclusion to be
drawn here is that Malchut is time, that it is in essence the
concatenation of a long series of days in the physical realm that is also
Malchut.
The Zohar tells us
in several places that a day of Zeir Anpin is like a thousand years. It also says overtly many times that the six
days of creation were the six Sfirot from Chesed to Yod, and it overturns
normal logic somewhat by saying that the days themselves generated the events
portrayed at the beginning of Genesis.
How can we think about units of time as being creative in this
sense? By understanding that “the day”
as a unit of time is simply part of the flow from the higher to the lower
realms. Each day is an opportunity
marker or block that can be dedicated to these events or an entirely different
set of events. The correlation with the
individual Sfirot is not accidental, for on each “day” spoken of in the six
days of Creation the quality of that particular Sfirah was most evident. Therefore by looking at what was created in
the first day and looking at the quality of Chesed one can glean a deeper understanding
of what that particular piece of creation said about God and His ultimate
relationship to us. “The day” here is
most clearly understood as an encapsulated opportunity, and “time” as a
sequence of such opportunities. As time
does not exist in the higher realms these opportunities for creation,
expression and growth are not available in the same way as they are in
third-dimensional reality, and this is one of the most profound reasons for
God’s creation of the reality we live in ‘today’.
Earlier I wrote:
“And the ultimate conclusion to be drawn here is that Malchut is time,
that it is in essence the concatenation of a long series of days in the
physical realm that is also Malchut.”
According to Einstein, time and space are not separate but are two
completely interconnected parts of one whole he called the space-time
continuum. By identifying both space and
time with Malchut the Zohar is suggesting the same thing, although it never
states this explicitly.
By mapping other
kabbalistic concepts to modern physics we can achieve some remarkable
understandings. For instance: Gershom
Scholem (On the Kabbalah and its Symbolism. 1965. p.47- ) writes about the Written Torah and the Oral
Torah, talking about an early kabbalistic conception that the primordial Torah
that pre-existed the creation of the world was written on white fire with black
fiery letters. Much earlier, Moses
Cordovero had said that the primordial Torah was composed of divine letters
that are configurations of divine light, and in the process of materialization
they combine in various ways. Scholem
quotes Rabbi Isaac as saying,
“In God’s right hand were engraved all the engravings [innermost forms] that
were destined some day to rise from potency to act... This formation is called
the concentrated, not yet unfolded Torah... in one spiritual act [God]
emanated the not yet unfolded Torah in order to give permanence to the
foundation of all the worlds.” Scholem goes on to write that from the not
yet unfolded Torah there sprang the written Torah, corresponding to Tiferet,
and the Oral Torah, corresponding to judgment in Malchut. In this cosmology the written Torah does not
exist on earth at all; only the manifested oral Torah does, and the Zohar often
says that the Torah is Malchut.
There is a
fascinating symmetry between this view and the theories and discoveries of
physicist Dr. David Bohm, those having to do with the holographic
universe. One of Dr. Bohm’s key terms is
“the enfolded universe”, also called “the implicate order”. A holograph is formed by the interference
patterns of two laser beams bounced onto a photographic plate, and the 3-D
image can only be revealed by beaming a strong light through the plate. It is Dr. Bohm’s view that this encoding may
be a perfect expression of the makeup of the universe itself, where all events
and forms are a ‘projection’ of a vast encoded master holograph that
encompasses or engenders the ‘real’ reality, of which ours is only a shadow.
The Zohar speaks
about creation in much the same terms, as having been the result of the
pre-existent Torah ‘unfolding’. And it
is wonderful to realize that in both the story of creation and the theory of
the holographic universe it is light that projects, expresses and decodes. When the light is turned off, the holographic
image disappears.
There is another
symmetry to be mentioned here. If the
holographic plate is cut into pieces, each piece still retains the image of the
whole — and the Zohar repeatedly asserts that All is One. Furthermore, the Zohar itself is constructed
somewhat like a hologram. It could be
fairly said that every one of its dozens of volumes carries not only the entire
message but also a portion of every technique the Zohar uses in its goal to transform
the soul. One might learn everything the
Zohar has to teach by studying only Shlach Lecha, for example, or even one
section of Shlach Lecha. Even more
astonishing, the Zohar itself would say that everything can be learned by
studying and truly understanding only the Tetragrammatron — the four letters
YHVH in the unpronounceable and Holy Name of God — a masterpiece of succinct
codification. One would think the code
could not be further reduced, but there is plenty of evidence in the text that
suggests the letter Aleph alone carries all the meaning in the universe. The extremities of alternate reduction and
expansion that the Zohar engages in over and over have quite an effect on the
mind; just so, time and space expand and contract in ways we cannot understand
with the intellect.
To carry this
analogy further, it seems possible that the mind itself is a projection or
unfolding of a much higher implicate order.
If so, the Zohar’s own recursive technique may be to set up an
unconscious resonance between its technique and the mind of the human engaging
with it, thus mapping the workings of the mind onto the structure of the text
itself, in such a way that the resonance can result in an instantaneous shift
or awakening to the mind’s own higher pattern.
This would move the mind beyond space and time altogether, because the
higher order is enfolded beyond space and time.
Far out.....