1.8.07

the foundation sweet spot

Lately I've encountered a number of sources that mention the lower worlds--the worlds of demons and other partially formed creations. At the same time I've been learning about how HaShem created the world in order that he could create for himself a home or a nation.

People sing the praises of the physical world because it is sufficiently cut off from HaShem to be a place that can truly relate to a God who exists and recognizes no other entity as His source. What bothers me is that, if the lower worlds are even lower than olam haZeh, this world, then why aren't they appropriate places to be the dwelling place of HaShem?

I think this is the explanation: The upper worlds are too close to HaShem, too aware of His emanations. The lower worlds are so far that they are starved. As we know, a person who is starving doesn't have the luxury of enteraining fantasy, they are forever rooted in reality. In this case their reality is that they receive their life-force, however little it is, from HaShem. They can't actually deny HaShem's presence because His absence is painfully clear.

Only in this middle world are we comfortably provided for, but at the same time distanced enough from HaShem, such that we might entertain the illusion that He doesn't exist.

I think this is the deeper meaning of the comment of Chazal that the Shechinah never rests below ten tefahim. The physical world above ten tefahim is a place of divine plenty and simultaneous divine ignorance, it is the proper foundation upon which to build the resting placed of HaShem.

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