16.12.10

the end sealed in the beginning

All of creation really only takes place between two opposing forces. We learn from Chazal that HaShem thought to make the world with Hesed but needed to combine that Hesed with Din, Gevurah. The whole world is this balancing act of giving and holding back. That's why HaShem created the klippoth, the other side, they do the taking, HaShem does the giving.. in between the two, unholiness and holiness is where People were created.

We get to choose, we're the most alive out of anything in creation because we are balanced between the two. Our actions make us either alive and Holy, or dead and Unholy. That's why HaShem gave us the Torah and said, "choose life."

Out of the Ten Sayings through which HaShem created the world, Chazal teach that only the first one is a ma'amar satum, or a Sealed Saying. To me this means it's fundamentally unique. As we said, everything in creation is brought about by a balancing act, the contrariness of two opposing forces. When it came to the very first act of creation, there are no two opposing forces, there's only HaShem, (well, there's always only HaShem, but that's a discussion for another time) that first saying is Sealed because it's beyond comprehension, the initial creation of things without a duality as a backdrop, without the vacuum created by those two opposing forces.

In this Parashah VaYeChi, we learn from Chazal that Yaakov Avinu wanted to reveal the final Redemption but at that moment it was hidden from him. This is so important but to understand this we need to think a little bit about the nature of creation and the roles that will play themselves over the course of it.

Chazal teach us also that the redemption from Egypt is a microcosm of the macrocosm that will be the eventual redemption. In the final redemption the "other" side, death itself, will be obliterated from existence. Similarly, in the Exodus, The Jewish Nation emerged from the splitting of the sea alive, whereas the Egyptian Nation washed up on the shore dead.

This is a direct metaphor for the birth process, as we've written before. The placenta is what initially provides the developing baby with life, up until the moment of birth at which the baby is born alive and the placenta is born dead. The placenta is essentially the scaffolding that allows the baby to be properly "built." Once the building, the baby, is complete, the scaffolding is removed, ceases to have a function.

In the very same way, the "other" side is a temporary creation, the scaffolding upon which humanity could be created and elevated to their eventual heights, to truly be alive in the service of The King, to "choose life." At the point in which the choice is made and Humanity truly "lives," the "other" side, death, is no longer necesary, the scaffolding falls away and the creation is complete.

Just as the first step in this creation is absolutely Hidden by the fact that it is incomprehensible how the world came into being without the dual background vacuum of opposing forces, so too, the completion of that creation, our "life" beyond death, beyond the "other side" where we no longer have a counter-force to the force of Holiness is beyond our ability to conceive and so it is hidden in the very same Seal, as the first Sealed Saying.

This is why Yaakov Avinu couldn't reveal the end time, it is by its very nature always hidden.

Instead all Yaakov Avinu could do is describe the final challenges of his children prior to the end time, and this is what he did in his blessings, laying out for each one his challenges and how to overcome them.

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