“Our master of blessed memory began and said: Everyone says there is This World and the World to Come. We believe that the World to Come exists. It is possible also that This World exists somewhere, in some world, because here, what we see is Gehenom, for everyone is full of tremendous suffering constantly. And we said: It is possible that This World does not exist anywhere at all” (Likkutei Moharan 1:119).
So goes one of the most well-known quotes from Rebbe Nachman, well-known because it paints our present reality as Gehenom, purgatory, because of all the suffering people endure.
In this note posted to X on the 10th of Kislev, 5786, HaRav Ginsburgh reinterprets Rebbe Nachman’s famous quote using the constructs of Kabbalah and Chasidut leading to some very surprising conclusions. This post was first published in the Vayishlach 5786 edition of Nifla’ot.
There are three Worlds: This World (הֶּזַם הָלֹעו), the World to Come (םָלֹעו אָּבַה), and the Future to Come (אֹבָיד לִתָעֶל), which is considered loftier than the World to Come.
Whenever there are three elements that are connected chronologically or developmentally, it is worthwhile to explore how they correspond to the Ba’al Shem Tov’s model of development known as submission, separation, and sweetening.
Our toil in This World—the toil of the beinoni, the intermediate, or inbetweener, the toil of the everyman—is performed out of a sense of submission. We are meant to carry the yoke of the commandments and to carefully obey the Divine directive while believing that all that happens to us is for the good.
The tzaddik serves God in This World as if it were a microcosm of the World to Come. As such he enjoys a separation from the darkness of This World and is even able to receive from the light sequestered for the righteous from the light that was created on the first day of Creation, “And God saw that the light was good” (good for the tzaddikim in the future, and the tzaddik is described as good, “State that the tzaddik is good”). Indeed, when “God separated the light from the darkness,” He also separated the actions of the tzaddikim from those of the wicked, meaning that He ensured that the tzaddik’s essence would exist in existential separation from the wicked.
It is the true ba’al teshuvah who merits not only a microcosm of the World to Come but also the level known as the Future to Come; he tastes the simple oneness of “it was evening and it was morning, one day.” This is the taste of the sweetening of “sins becomes merits,” where the sins are represented by the evening and merits by the morning. He merits to reveal the goodness hidden in the evening.
To summarize:
- This World – beinoni – submission
- The World to Come – tzaddik – separation
- The Future to Come – ba’al teshuvah – sweetening
Elevating Gehenom Through Joy and Awe
The combined values of This World (הֶּזַם הָלֹעו), the World to Come (םָלֹעו אָּבַה), and the Future to Come (אֹבָיד לִתָעֶל) is 864, the value of “serve Havayah with joy” (הָחְמִׂשְּת י-הוה בֶ אּדוְבִע), whose value is itself the filling of the word for joy (הָחְמִׂש), שין מם חית הא, or 4 times the value of “awe” (הֶאְרִי), which means that “awe” is the average value of each word in the phrase, “serve Havayah with joy” and each letter as written in the filling of the word “joy.”
The average value of these three states is 288, the number of holy sparks that fell with the shattered vessels of the World of Chaos that preceded the World of Rectification. From this we can extrapolate on why 864 is also 8 times the value of “Gehenom” (םֹּנִיהֵּג)—normally designating a fourth state or World situated below the three we are discussing.
Our soul descended into This World, which rightfully seems to us sometimes like Gehenom itself to elevate Gehenom to holiness (together with these 288 sparks).
“This Too Is for the Best”
To better understand the concept of elevating Gehenom, we first need to explore what Gehenom is. Gehenom is a state in which God is concealed as described in the verse, “And I will completely conceal My face from them on that day.” The Ba’al Shem Tov explains that this refers to a state in which God is doubly hidden, “a concealment that is concealed,” a state in which we are not even aware that God is concealed from us.
How can we emerge from this state? How can we come to reveal God if we are not even aware that He is hidden? The only way is through earnest faith that “this too is for the best” (הָבֹטוְ לּם זוַּג) whose value is 108, the same as “Gehenom” (םֹּנִיהֵּג)!
As explained elsewhere, “this too is for the best” was the phrase Nachum Ish Gamzu would regularly repeat, indicating that Nachum was able to see and point to the good in every situation. His disciple, Rabbi Akiva continued this direction, but because he himself could not actually see the positive aspect in every situation, he would regularly say, “All that God does is for the best,” not in Hebrew but in Aramaic, the language that is considered the backside of the Holy Tongue, Hebrew. Where Nachum saw, Rabbi Akiva believed.
Rabbi Akiva is identified as a reincarnation of our patriarch Jacob. Jacob thinks he is marrying his beloved Rachel but, “In the morning, behold she was Leah.” Jacob believes in Divine Providence (a belief he inherited from his grandfather Abraham). Interestingly, the word “she” has a phonetic form and a written, orthographic form (kree and ketiv). Though it is read as “she” (יאִה) it is written as “he” (אּהו). The written form then reads, “In the morning, behold he was Leah.” To which “he” is the verse referring to?
We can imagine that Jacob said to himself, “this too is for the best” (ּם זוַּג הָבֹטוְל), whose value is equal to 3 times “Leah” (הָאֵל). “This too is for the best” (םַּג הָבֹטוְ לּזו) contains 9 letters, so the average value of each letter is 12, the value of “he” (אּהו), but it is also the value of “this” (הֶז). The pronoun “he” refers to the concealed World (אָיְסַּכְּתִאְּא דָמְלָע), the pronoun “this” refers to the revealed World (אָיְלַּגְתִאְּא דָמְלָע).
By saying “this too is for the best,” Jacob revealed that “this”—what he was witnessing, that Leah was now his wife instead of Rachel—was He, God! Concealed behind this unexpected (and unwanted) situation was God Himself. Through earnest faith that concealed within every reality is He—God—one merits to reveal Godliness and point to it; one is able to reveal the secret behind the concealed World.
Levels of Concealment
The concealed World is associated with the sefirah of understanding (binah), but understanding is divided into two levels known as comprehension (הָנּבוּת) and supernal mother (הָאָּילִא עָּימִא). Comprehension corresponds to one level of concealment describing the state of “the World to Come” (אָּבַם הָלֹעו) within This World. Supernal mother, the higher level of understanding, reflects a double state of concealment, in which the concealment itself is concealed (ירּתְסַר אֵּתְסַה) describing the state of “the Future to Come” (אֹבָיד לִתָעֶל).
The Arizal explained that comprehension itself is divided further into two corresponding to two separate levels of “the World to Come.” The first is the World to Come as it influences our present state of mind, even within the difficulties of our present reality. The second is the World to Come as it influences our existential state from afar, meaning that we feel an existential angst regarding the concealment of the purpose of Creation. The first level acts like a near-surrounding influence (בֹרוָיף קִּקַמ), the second as a far-surrounding influence (קֹחוָיף רִּקַמ), but in both, we are aware of the concealment therefore it is not a double concealment.
These three levels of understanding themselves correspond to the three Worlds we have been discussing. The first level of comprehension corresponds to This World with the World to Come hovering above it and providing it with purpose and life. The higher level of comprehension corresponds to the World to Come as an existential angst in our reality, but one that cannot be consciously pinpointed. Finally, the supernal mother corresponds to the Future to Come.
To summarize:
- This World – beinoni – submission – comprehension – World to Come hovering above This World
- The World to Come – tzaddik – separation – comprehension – concealed World to Come
- The Future to Come – ba’al teshuvah – sweetening – supernal mother – double concealment of Future to Come
Mashiach, a Leader That Rectifies Gehenom
As stated earlier, we are called upon to uncover the concealed good at all its levels until it is revealed to our physical eyes. This represents the reversal of the descent from Nachum of Gamzu to Rabbi Akiva—from a state of “All that God does is for the best,” back to a state of “this too is for the good.” If we do not engage in this spiritual work, we are left with a feeling that our reality is one of Gehenom, and as noted earlier, not just one layer of Gehenom, but up to 8 different layers of Gehenom.
The individual who can elevate the Gehenom in This World and reveal the light of God in it—God’s essential light regarded as a superior form of light because it came out of a transformation of darkness—merits to lead the Jewish people. The Hebrew word for “leader” (יגִהְנַמ) is a palindrome of Gehenom (םֹּנִיהֵּג). The leader is also one who has compassion on the people, “for the one who has compassion for them, he will lead them” (םֵגֲהַנְיםָמְחַרֵי מִכּ). The connection between compassion and leadership is also related to the transformation of Gehenom; the final word, “he will lead them” (םֵגֲהַנְי) is a permutation of “leader” (יגִהְנַמ) and of Gehenom (םֹּנִיהֵּג) and the first two words, “for the one who has compassion on them” (םָמְחַרֵי מִּכ) equal “Mashiach” (ַיחִׁשָמ).
Indeed, great compassion is needed for us dwellers of Gehenom who need Mashiach Now, beginning with the revelation of the spark of Mashiach in each of us, the spark that shows us that, “this too is for the good.”
