Part V: Secrets of the Enlightened Master

For a question such as this, I resolved, AIM^® or even iChat^® wasn't going to cut it. I left my coastal villa and took upon myself the hardships of journey over the Mexican desert hills in my air-conditioned Hummer.

Upon arrival at the Guadalajaran Shteibl and Mind-Body Fitness Center, I prepared myself with the ritual immersion in the heated pool followed by the traditional shot of kosher tequila. I donned the required tunic. Then, in awe and trepidation, I turned the doorknob of my master's private sauna and gently tiptoed in. There, in his flowing ecru cotton robes, in serene contemplation, sat the great fountain of wisdom and revealer of hidden stuff, the Guadalajara Rebbe.

Me:

Boo! Guess who?!

Guad:

Freeman! You again! Who gave you the right to hack into my personal correspondence and post these things online for public perusal!?

Me:

Esteemed master, enlightened mentor! How else will we get your teachings out there and you onto the Oprah Winfrey Show?

Guad:

But these are writings that are unfinished, incomplete, full of holes and errors! How would you like it if I took all those silly "Files" of yours and had them published for public consumption?

Me:

No, please, master! Anything but! They are so incomplete, full of holes and errors!

Guad:

Then cease and desist. And find some other way to get me on that show.

His wrath, as typical, endred but a moment. Then the air of refined composure returned to him as he spoke to me with warmth and intimate understanding.

Guad:

Grab a towel and sit down. What are you here for now?

Me:

I am searching for the meaning of wave/particle duality. Teach me, master, what our holy Torah says concerning this great mystery.

Immediately:

Guad:

Manna.

Me:

Manna?

Then a pause.

Guad:

What was manna?

Me:

Uh, bread from heaven that the Children of Israel consumed during their wanderings in the wilderness.

Guad:

What were its properties?

Me:

It was, well, according to tradition, whatever you wanted it to be. If you wanted chicken cacciatore with choco sauce, so that's what you got. You wanted potatoes and beer, so you got potatoes and beer.

Guad:

How did you measure it?

Me:

Measurement was an issue. You made one measurement when collecting it and you could have a lot or a little. But back home, you measured again and you had exactly one omer-measure for each member of your household.

Guad:

So the manna itself, before you tasted it or measured it, what was it then?

Me:

It was, well, I guess...

Guad:

It was bread from heaven, right? So it was spiritual.

Me:

Whatever that means.

Guad:

It means that it had non-discrete properties. That is, its properties were spread over a spectrum of possibilities. Describable, perhaps, by the non-commutative mathematics of a matrix. Or by a wave function.

Me:

But then, how did we eat a wave function?

Guad:

You're sitting on a wave function right now. But don't jump, because you yourself are nothing more than a wave function. The whole of reality is nothing but wave functions, as it is called in the Kabbalah, "the pulsation of the isifying force."

Me:

Isifying?

Guad:

Isifying, vivifying... it's all the same. See Pardes Rimonim of Rabbi Moses Cordovero, "The force that vivifies is the force that isifies" -— meaning, gives things their "isness," that they exist at every moment. It, too, is a wave funtion. A matrix of probabilities.

Me:

So how's manna different from everything else?

Guad:

Nothing. Just that the manna phenomena was out in the open, obvious for all to see what's going on. You didn't need cloud chambers or nuclear accelerators to discover the underlying reality. Manna simply ripped away the façade. It was cognitive reframing therapy in preparation to receiving the inner reality of Torah at Sinai.

Me:

Torah is about wave functions?

Guad:

Torah describes a world of probabilities -- until we have observed and collapsed those probabilities into a quantifiable reality. That is the acausality that allows for free choice. That is why all the Torah is centered on the observation of witnesses. Nothing is real in Torah until it or its effects have been observed.

Me:

Whoa! Can you run that by me again?

Guad:

Take the example of the blessing to be said in the granary at the time of harvest. You're about to measure how much grain you have gathered in this year. You say a blessing thanking G–d for blessing your grain and making it plentiful. But what if you've already counted the grain?1

Me:

You can't say the blessing any more.

Guad:

Why?

Me:

Because now the grain has been quantified. There's no room left for G–d's blessing.

Guad:

In other words, before it was measured, it could have been more or less. It did not have a discrete measure. But now that you have measured it, you have introduced discrete measurement to it.

Me:

Wow! Quantum physics in an ancient Mishnah. It's just too weird. I don't get how we eat wave functions of probabilities. Or step on them. Or...

My mouth ceased chattering as I noticed my master and teacher had fallen into a deep meditative state. His eyes were shut tight, his limbs did not quiver. An aura of transcendent serenity hovered over him. On the other hand, I thought, maybe he's been in the sauna too long.

Not ready to take any chances, I quickly filled a bucket with cold water and prepared to dump it on his holy head. But at the last moment, I looked once again and saw his holy lips mumbling. I bent over to listen.

Me:

Say what?

Guad:

Mist.

Me:

I didn't even try yet!

Guad:

Throw the water upon the hot stones and there will be mist.

Me:

Oh! Mist. With a "t"!

I did so. The temperature rose. The tequila was having its effect. Not a good combination. I sat faint on the lowest bench.

Guad:

Look at your bare forearm. What do you see?

Me:

Everything's a blur.

Guad:

Look closer. You see beads of water forming?

Me:

Perspiration. Kewl. I'm dehydrating to boot.

Guad:

If all those beads would be perspiration, you'd be no better than a freeze-dried tortilla by now.

Me:

Master, I'm sick. I feel like a freeze-dried tortilla by now.

Guad:

Those beads are principally condensation.

Me:

Oh yeah. It's wet in here. So I'm a soggy tortilla.

Guad:

Wet? Or humid?

Me:

Humid. Wet. Whatever. There's a mist. An invisible mist.

Guad:

Is the mist wet before you touch it? Before it condenses on your hand?

Me:

I dunno. That's very mystical. Heh-heh. How could I tell?

Guad:

Zakly!

Me:

No! Don't bring him in here! I promised the CIA...

Guad:

He is everywhere you go...

Me:

I've been bugged?

Guad:

He is the Force of Cosmic Fusion...

Me:

What did you buy off them?

Guad:

The singular underlying reality. Only that His light progressively condenses through the medium of ten modalities of being, the ten sefiros, which are themselves only condensations of His Infinite Light. For all is from Him—light and darkness as well.

Me:

How did you know I had contact with RSI, anyways?

Guad:

So you see each world is an entirely new stage of condensation of that light. And with each condensation, the essential oneness becomes more concealed, more fragmented. From the World of Emanation, the light condenses to become a World of Formless Creation, and then again condenses to become a World of Form and Harmony...

Me:

I'm getting real sick.

Guad:

Until the ultimate concealment occurs in the World of Events, through the ten modalities that comprise human perception. The same ten modalities as the ten supernal sefiros, but in their most limiting, crystallized form. At this point, events become things. Objects. Illusions of a reality independent of their source.

Me:

You know about the psychiatrist, too!

Guad:

You have been searching for the secret of thingness! But there are no things! In all our holy Torah, there is no mention of things, objects, stuff...

What are things in Hebrew?

Me:

Things are just fine. Who cares that I'm melting onto your floor?

Guad:

Say "things" in Hebrew!

Me:

Dvarim.

Guad:

Dvarim -— but that is literally "words"! Do you get it? In Hebrew, there are not things, only words! Cosmic events. Condensations of cosmic thoughts! That is all there is. For "He spoke and the world came into being." There is nothing else to reality but those words.

Me:

I can't find a pulse. Maybe I'm dead already.

Guad:

Only words. Dvarim. There are no things, no stuff, no matter...

Me:

It doesn't matter?

Guad:

Yes! There is no matter! At least, not as you understand matter -— as an independent, self-sustaining existence of "stuff."

Me:

It doesn't matter that my body is about to melt into a puddle in the middle of your sauna floor?

Guad:

See! When something is important to you, you say it "matters." Words, spirit... these you say do not matter. Discard this artificial bifurcation of reality!

Me:

Bifur... Not sure what that means but I think I did it already, too.

Guad:

How do you say "physical" in Hebrew?

Me:

I need to get outa here.

Guad:

Say physical in Hebrew!

Me:

Um. Geshem.

Guad:

Geshem!?

Suddenly, I was struck by a cold shower from above. I looked up to see my master and teacher standing over me with an empty inverted bucket.

Guad:

Geshem means "rain".

Me:

Master! You have saved me! I'm alive. I can think again!

Guad:

You mean, I have restored your spirit within you.

He threw open the door.

Me:

Spirit -- "ru-ach" in Hebrew. A wind.

Guad:

And what is the relation of wind and rain?

Me:

I mean, as much as I was able to think before...

Guad:

The wind carries molecules of water, which condense to become rain. So in Hebrew, there is not such a duality of spirit and matter -- only as much as there is a duality of thought and words. Or mist and moisture.

My teacher's face beamed with enlightened joy. A spirit of rejuvenation hadd fallen upon me. I saw that this was an auspicious time, a time when great mysteries might be revealed. Tenaciously, I prodded forward:

Me:

Master, enlighten me now, on my long and arduous quest: Reveal to me the secret entrusted to you by the heavenly transmitters of secret knowledge: What on earth is a soul?

Guad:

For this you had to contact angels, visit a quacky shrink and bring upon me a plague of Interpol, CIA, KGB and Mossad agents posing as Chassidim in my spa? You needed no more than to look in the Etz Chayim of Rabbi Isaac Luria, the Holy Ari!

Me:

oh.

Guad:

In The Portal of Four Worlds. Portal 39, chapter 10. There you would see clearly that there are four categories of soul.

Me:

Four?

Guad:

First there is the soul of the rock, the water, the air -- of all inorganic substances. This, the Ari says, is a simple, singular force that organizes the four elements...

Me:

Fire, air, water, earth.

Guad:

Which, within the current cosmological paradigm are: positive, negative, matter and anti-matter. See Likutei Sichot, volume 38, page 184. And this force integrates these four forms of events consistently as that which your senses interpret as a rock.

Me:

And organic material?

Guad:

These more complex systems demand a whole new level of creative energy and consciousness, a level that cannot be truly resolved and defined as tightly as the rock. Therefore, the plant itself does not truly resolve as a static entity, but continues to grow and change.

Me:

So animals must be a whole other level of sophistication...

Guad:

...whereby the consciousness of the cosmic creative force becomes apparent—although truly, all things are made of consciousness. But the mobility of the animal provides a modality of expression for that consciousness.

Me:

And us human beings?

Guad:

The speaking being. Here the soul of the inorganic, the organic and the animal are integrated as a harmonious whole to achieve the ultimate expression of the abstract within concrete terms. For the human, speaking being can transcend its own self to communicate with an other, to empathize, to hear its own self with another's ears, to understand itself as he is received within the other's mind. To even write crazy books that express deep mysteries in forms palatable to tv-jaded Americans.

Me:

Is that the neshama, master?

Guad:

The neshama we will not discuss now. The neshama is G–d Himself breathing within us. The Author doing a cameo. Beyond this paradigm in every way. It is neither matter nor spirit—beyond spirit more than spirit is beyond matter. So that to the neshama, both of these may as well be one and the same.

And now, my faithful nudnik disciple, you must return to your coastal villa and let these agents follow you and leave me be. And there, you will find the true meaning of all that I have revealed to you.

After a pitcher or two of spiked lemonade, washing down a few hot tamales, followed by a therapeutic session of deep tissue massage, I immediately followed my teacher's instructions and journeyed homeward. Upon arrival, I found my copy of Sefer HaTanya of Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi mysteriously open on my desk. The following words were highlighted:

"If the eye were granted permission to see and to grasp the spiritual vitality within each created being, then the physical, tangible stuff would not be visible at all."

The teaching of my mentor, enlightened guide, resounded in my mind: The world is made of manna. Our senses make it into white bread.

I pondered that thought as I booted up my PowerBook G5. It was then that a message appeared across my screen:

Watch out! We're coming in for landing!

A strange voice blurted something from behind me. I spun around and gasped. It was weird.

Two awesome beings with very strange goggles and earphones. Shimmering. That's right -— shimmering. That's the only way I could describe it. They were there, but they seemed struggling to remain visible. If it weren't for those clumsy goggles covering half their face, I'd be downright scared.

"Hi, rabbi? You're the earthly mortal who contacted me online last week, right?"

"I contacted you?"

The other pair of goggles turned to him. "I told you he wouldn't have a clue."

What happened next was so other-worldly, so weird, so bizarre, I'm going to need another chapter to describe it to you.