I have been thinking of PaRDeS as modes of understanding, but I have been losing confidence in that conception.
And now I am having to rethink the being of the self and of how truth is known at each level.
Buber’s duality of I-Thou and I-It strikes me as a choice of Ruach.
When two or more Ruchot encounter one another Ruach-to-Ruach, each chooses: descend to Nefesh or ascend to Neshamah.
If both choose ascension, dialogue transpires. In the spirit of I-Thou, each relates to the other as Thou and implicitly assumes a shared transcendent being in whom both participate. Neshamah is that shared transcendent being in whom dialogical partners become participants.
Hans-Georg Gadamer says that in profound conversation, the conversation has us. Neshamah is the being of the conversation, who animates each Ruach together within itself. When we “conduct” a conversation, each participant is a medium through which the conversation flows.
From participation within Neshamah, revelations ex nihilo irrupt from Chayah, source of selfhood, bringing with its influx direct intuition of ultimate wherefore.
In being, Chayah becomes medium of Ein Sof.
In revelation, Neshamah becomes medium of Chayah.
In dialogue, Ruach becomes medium of Neshamah.
In subject, Nefesh becomes medium of Ruach.
In life, matter becomes medium of Nefesh.
But matter and Ein Sof are one, and this unity is Shekhinah.
Raw notes:
- Mode of world
- Mode of self
- Mode of truth (of knowing)
- Mode of word (saying or hearing) (PaRDeS)
Is the table: world, self, truth, word?
| World | Self | Truth | Word |
|---|---|---|---|
| Atzilut (emanation) | Chayah (source) | Epiphanic | Sod (mystical) |
| Beriyah (creation) | Neshamah (intellect) | Dialogical | Derash (homiletic) |
| Yetzirah (formation) | Ruach (spirit) | Subjective | Remez (figurative) |
| Asiyah (actuality) | Nefesh (soul) | Objective | Peshat (literal) |
Here is what is bothering me. I committed Well-Tempered Kabbalah to a perspective from the standpoint of Asiyah, which — it seems to me — is less a choice than an acknowledgment of a necessary constraint. But this “word” column is radically Asiyah-rooted. A word links an actual finite thing in Asiyah to some kind of truth within or beyond Asiyah.
- If Peshat is a literal word mode… observing and recording objective givenness… what is the mode of truth, given to what mode of understanding?
- If Remez is a figurative word… observing and thematizing subjective difference in concrete experiences… what is the mode of truth, given to what mode of understanding?
- If Derash is a homiletical reading… lucid spiritual participation in transcendent being… (Neshamah is always one in whom Ruach participates)… what is the mode of truth, given to what mode of understanding?
- If Sod is a mystical reading… immediate disclosure of our source of being… what is the mode of truth, given to what mode of understanding?