We this installment, we complete our review of the 9 Principles of Faith of the Torah’s inner dimension. The ninth principle is in many ways the highest and most difficult to grasp: that there is special sanctity to the Land of Israel and to the body of every Jew. Just as the sefirah of foundation (corresponding to the eighth principle) relates to the sefirah of kingdom (corresponding to the ninth), so the special status of the Land of Israel and the Jewish body serve as a vessel for the revelation of the Divine soul that dwells within the people of Israel as a whole and each individual Jew.
The contents of this series first appeared in Hebrew, in HaRav Ginsburgh’s book, Emunah VeMuda’ut (Faith and Consciousness). It is being translated here for the first time.
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The Ninth Principle of Faith of the Torah’s Inner Dimension
The ninth and final principle of faith of the Torah’s inner dimension is the faith that even within the physical matter of this lower world there can exist a Divine aspect, known as kingdom, the sefirah of kingdom (malchut), alluding to mundane reality and the earth, as it is said: “And Havayah shall be King over all the earth.”[1]
In truth, we believe that “God is everything” and “everything is God.” This is the inner pulse and rhythm of our Divine soul as captured in two verses spoken by Moses, “You have been shown, to know, that Havayah is God, there is nothing but Him,”[2] i.e., “God is everything” and “You shall know today and take to your heart that Havayah is God in the heavens above and on the earth below, there is nothing else,”[3] i.e., “everything is God” or Godly. Nothing in the world is separate from God; on the contrary, one can encounter the revelations of God in each and every thing in the world. But not in everything in the world is there a Divine quality that is capable of revealing this absolute truth.
The Land of Israel and the Day of Shabbat
The Land of Israel is sanctified in space just as the Shabbat is sanctified in time. In both, physical reality ascends to God. The entire Land of Israel speaks of holiness and purity. Its air is holy as the Sages state, “the air of the Land of Israel makes one wise”[4] and wisdom is an aspect of holiness, as is known. From the verse, “Your servants desired its stones and its dust they cherished,”[5] we learn that “its stones are holy, its soil is holy.” As Moses states, it is the “land that Havayah your God cares for; the eyes of Havayah your God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year to the end of the year.”[6] There is a special quality to the Land of Israel: for those who dwell within it, it is possible—without much effort—to be conscious of God’s individual Providence over every detail of the world He created for His glory.
The Land That Desires to Do the Will of Its Creator
When the redemption comes, “the Land of Israel is destined to spread out to encompass all the lands.”[7] Today, the lands of the nations are considered ritually impure by the Sages. But in the future, when God removes the spirit of impurity from the entire Earth,[8]—and only God can extract the pure out of the impure[9]—then the truth will be revealed in its fullness, that God is everything and everything is God. It is then that “the glory of the Havayah shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see together that the mouth of Havayah has spoken.”[10]
The Land of Israel is simply referred to as “land” (אֶרֶץ) because the root of the word “land” is related to “will” (רָצוֹן) or “desire” and it is the land that desired (רָצְתָה) immediately upon its being brought into being, to fulfill the will of the Creator.[11] The Sages teach that “Whomever dwells in the Land of Israel is as one who has a God,”[12] which means that dwelling in the Land of Israel causes one to always desire and yearn to draw near and cleave to God. By corollary, when we identify the lands outside the Land of Israel (chutz la’aretz) with the continuation, “And whomever dwells outside the Land of Israel is as one who has no God,” we are saying that other lands lack holy desire and therefore in them the mundane, natural will pulls in the opposite direction from God, distancing consciousness from recognizing God’s Providence and Presence. Still, in the future it will be clarified that “from afar Havayah appeared to me,”[13] meaning that even in the very feeling of distance there is Divinity, for the distance itself was also created by God in order to create a bond specifically between those who appear to be distant and separate.
Choosing the Divine Essence in the Jewish Body
This faith in the holiness of the Chosen Land also includes the faith in the holiness and unique quality of the chosen body—the physical body of every person called by the name of Israel. The Alter Rebbe explains in the Tanya[14] that God's choosing of the Jewish people is the choosing of the Jewish body specifically for the Divine soul in Israel is “a veritable part of God above,” as it were, and therefore the notion of choosing it is irrelevant. When explaining the text of the blessing “Ahavat Olam” recited just before the Shema in the morning “And it is we You have chosen from all peoples and tongues” he writes, “this refers to the physical body that resembles in its corporeality the bodies of the nations of the world.” Because the Jewish body is similar to the non-Jewish boy, the term “choosing” is applicable here.
Just as the Land of Israel is the appropriate vessel to receive and reveal within it the presence of God’s Divine majesty as the verse reads, “the land in which I dwell,”[15] so too the Jewish body is the appropriate vessel to receive and reveal within it the Divine soul—the veritable part of God above that dwells within it.
This principle of faith of the Torah’s inner dimension completes and complements Maimonides’ 13th principle of faith in the Resurrection of the Dead. Maimonides viewed the miracle of the Resurrection of the Dead as a temporary miracle after which the soul would return to a purely spiritual life, free of corporeality. However, according to Kabbalah, following Nachmanides view, as above, the miracle of the Resurrection of the Dead is an eternal miracle, eternal life for an eternal body. This is the ultimate revelation of God’s very essence, revealing He who is the Paradox of all Pardoxes and omnipotent and thus able to dwell as the infinite within the finite.
“And You Shall Be to Me A Holy People”
In the future, the verse, “You shall be to Me a holy people”[16] will be fulfilled by the body being refined to its ultimate degree until “it will be said to be holy.”[17] Then we will live up to our title, “the hosts of God” who exist forever. Indeed, the value of “a holy body” (גּוּף קָדוֹשׁ) is equal to the numerical value of the word “hosts” (צְבָאוֹת). This word is itself a holy Name of God, which is why He is called “the God of Hosts.” Furthermore, the body will be elevated above the soul. The body is relatively feminine to the masculine soul and its elevation above the soul is the secret meaning of “a woman of valor, the crown of her husband”[18]; the body will then nourish the soul by bringing it a revelation of God that the soul itself cannot fathom by itself.
This wondrous innovation in our faith surpasses all others and exemplifies the entire concept of chosenness, for by God choosing the Jewish body, which appears most removed and distance as it were from His essence, in fact even its very opposite, the soul comes to discover the wonder that it is “a veritable part of God above.”
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[1]. Zechariah 14:9.
[2]. Deuteronomy 4:35.
[3]. Ibid. 4:39.
[4]. Bava Batra 158b.
[5]. Psalms 102:15.
[6]. Deuteronomy 11:12.
[7]. See Sifrei on Deuteronomy 1:1; Pesikta Rabbati, Shabbat and Noach 2; Yalkut Shimoni, Isaiah §503.
[8]. Zechariah 13:2.
[9]. Job 14:4.
[10]. Isaiah 40:5.
[11]. Bereishit Rabbah 5:7.
[12]. Ketubot 110b.
[13]. Jeremiah 31:2.
[14]. Ch. 49.
[15]. Numbers 35:34.
[16]. Exodus 22:30.
[17]. Isaiah 4:3.
[18]. Proverbs 12:4.
