The Waters from Above and Below

We are influenced by spiritual energy that comes from within and without. The ultimate goal is to internalize the external influences that they become an integral part of our consciousness.

Wish them out of Existence?

Reading the Torah’s narrative about the Great Flood that destroyed the world, superficially, it reads as a story of a vengeful G-d who punishes His creations for their errant behavior. But if that was all the Torah was trying to impart to us, why the details of the flood? And furthermore, why couldn’t G- d just wish the evil people out of existence? Why the need for a flood and the ark etc.?

Two Sources of Water

When we read about the flood we discover that there were actually two sources of water that flooded the Earth. There was rain from above and the fountains of the deep opened up from below. Here too, the question can be raised why the need for both?

In truth, the flood was not just a punishment. As our Sages inform us, the waters of the flood were intended as a purification process, much like immersion in a Mikveh, which can be made of wither rain water (water from above) or spring water (water from below).

The question still remains, why the need for both sources of purifying waters? Wouldn’t it have sufficed if the water came either from above or form below?

Is Everything False?

To answer these questions, let us return to the theme of last week’s message. We discussed how truth cannot be accessed by utilizing the tools of the creation which were created by design to obfuscate truth. One must depend on the introduction of the Divine Commandments which transcend creation and are not tainted by the creation’s penchant for falsehood.

Two questions have been raised:

First, how can we say that everything in our world is false? Isn’t it preposterous to suggest that without Torah everyone and everything is false?

Second, haven’t the masters of Kabbalah asserted that to find truth we must search within ourselves? Isn’t it axiomatic in the writings of the Chassidic Masters that the world is inherently good and holy? Why then must we reach outside of our existence? Why not reach in?

Pre-Sinai Digging

In truth, before the Torah was given at Mount Sinai, that is precisely what the Patriarchs would do to become more G-dly; they would reach in to their soul’s potential and discover the road to spiritual perfection.

At Sinai, two dynamic processes occurred simultaneously that revolutionized the way we get in touch with truth and G-dly reality.

First, G-d revealed a level of Divine reality that transcended anything that we were capable of experiencing by virtue of our own efforts at reaching in to our souls. Now, we are able to transcend ourselves and reach heights that were heretofore elusive.

Second, when G-d declared “I am the L-rd your G-d,” in the singular form, with the emphasis on the word “your,” G-d “planted” this transcendent dimension of G-dly reality into our souls. From that point onward, our route to self-actualization is the same as the route to self-transcendence. Not only had Sinai introduced us to the transcendent beyond, it also exposed newly hidden depths of our beings.

The Precursor to Sinai

The flood that destroyed the world was a precursor to the revolution of Sinai. It too, came from two directions. The waters that engulfed the world came from above as well as from below. This was to prepare the worlds for a time when we would be afforded the opportunity to receive the transcendent energies from above and concomitantly reveal the hidden treasures that exist below within the core of our being.

With the advent of Sinai—to which the Flood served as a preparation—we were given the opportunity to discover the true range of experiences. By enabling us to reach beyond ourselves, we were also given the ability to discover our true selves. If we refuse to look beyond the self and connect to G-d the source of ultimate truth, we will not be capable of knowing our inner selves either. There will always be a part of us—and the most essential and profound part of us—that we are not able to access, and perhaps not even know of its existence.

To say that we need Torah and its commandments in order to experience truth is not a suggestion that we are all pathological liars without Torah. It does mean that without Torah we do not really know ourselves. We cannot get in touch with our true and most essential identities. We express only the surface parts of our personalities and the core of our souls remain helplessly covered up by layers of extraneous perceptions that belie our true feelings and inhibit our real potential.

In simple terms, when we deny ourselves the treasure that comes from G-d we simultaneously deny ourselves the ability to—using the cliché—“get in touch with ourselves.” The real us is not what is expressed in our words and even thoughts. So everything we think, say or do is not really expressive of our real selves.

To the extent that genuine truth is measured by our ability to express our innermost desires and aspirations, the galus/exile has made it extremely difficult to experience this truth. Exile conditions prevents us from observing many of the Divinely ordained commandments, such as the commandments that are associated with the Temple in Jerusalem. As a result, Galus conditions have made it difficult, if not impossible, to express our soul’s true feelings.

See the Rain and Well Waters

Thus, the process of Redemption that we have been praying for ever since the destruction of the Temple is for a time that will allow us to see the “rain” descending from Above, and the swelling of the waters of the deep from below.

The Messianic Age will thus open up the floodgates of G-dly awareness and deluge the world with G-dly knowledge, making the most transcendent accessible and simultaneously enable us to reach into the deepest recesses of our souls and access genuine and ultimate truth.

As a preparation for that age, the Zohar made a prediction that in the last few centuries (referring to the 18th or 19th centuries) the world will experience floodgates of knowledge below and the knowledge from above. This has been interpreted to mean that the world will experience an explosion of the deepest mystical teachings of Torah that will be mirrored by an erupti0on of scientific knowledge.

Indeed, this prediction has come true before our eyes. In the last two centuries the world has witnessed the proliferation of the mystical teachings, particularly through the popularization of Chassidic teaching. We also have seen the exponential growth of scientific knowledge, which was intended to be used to assist us in our mission to make the world deluged with G-dly knowledge, as a prelude to the Messianic Age.

From the book Light from the Future: Parshas Noach by Rabbi Heschel Greenberg, published by the Jewish Discovery Center.