The Secret of Time and the Order of Creation: The Deeper Meaning of the Six Days of Genesis

Introduction

My teachers and rabbis, it is the eve of Shabbat Tazria-Metzora, and the Counting of the Omer. As has been our custom lately, I want to delve in a bit and explain the secret that we learned last night in the Rambam shiur, Shemoneh Perakim [Eight Chapters: the eight chapters of Rambam’s introduction to Pirkei Avot], to see what we can understand in this more deeply.

There are two main things, two main ways that we can explain more according to Kabbalah, from the side of the Kabbalah of the early authorities and the Zohar [the primary book of Kabbalah], the ways in which we interpret the same thing more deeply.

Understandably, as with all secrets, we haven’t fully grasped it – I haven’t fully grasped it. Perhaps there are Jews who have fully grasped it. But I have tried to do as is our custom, to say clear things:

– At least the questions should be clear

– At least the connections should be clear

– We should see how we need to proceed further here

For this is indeed a lengthy work.

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Part One: The Secret of the End – The Secret of Time and Order

The Foundation: The Secret of the End is the Secret of Time

Let us recall this: We learned last night that there is something called sod haketz [the secret of the End]. The secret of the ketz is truly the secret of time, that is, the order of time.

The order of time, or the word time, zman, is truly the word for order in general.

Chochmah and Binah: Two Types of Understanding

In other words, in order to understand the world – what does that mean, let’s say, Binah [understanding/comprehension], as we spoke about last week at the shiur – the type of understanding called Binah, not the type of understanding called Chochmah [wisdom/intuitive insight], which is above the world. There, there is no time, we don’t understand things in that way.

But the type of understanding that is called l’achar hatzimtzum [after the Divine contraction], or in the olam haneshamos [world of souls], in the world where there is a world, where there is intellect, what we call intellect, which takes time – that is also the type of understanding that exists there.

And the type of reality that exists there, one can say, because understanding is according to a reality, is such types of things that are ordered, and are ordered one after another.

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Part Two: The Six Days of Genesis – The Greatest Example of Order

The Torah Tells a Story in an Order of Time

As the greatest example of this is the six days of Genesis [the six days of Creation].

The Torah wants to say that the Almighty created the entire world, He is responsible for everything, He made everything. The Torah tells us the story in an order of time, even though “could it not have been created with one utterance?”

It didn’t have to be, and it didn’t have to be. When the Mishnah [Pirkei Avot 5:1] asks that it could have been, it means to say that it truly is – so learn all the kabbalists and all the commentators.

What is the Simple Point of the Creation of the World?

That is, according to the truth, the message, the point – one can say what is the point, one point, what is the simple meaning, the simple faith of the six days of Genesis, of the creation of the world, which is done in honor of the Shabbat?

To know that the Almighty made the world.

Or one can say that the Almighty makes the world, that the Almighty – I like the word “responsible,” yes?

King – a word that people think means some terrible dictator – it means He is responsible, yes? He is the thing, the thing that is responsible, from whom the world exists.

This is the meaning:

– Creation of the world

– Divine providence

– Creation

– All kinds of words that one can say

B’ma’amar Echad – Everything in One Moment

Now, truly, this is a point of one moment – “could it not have been created with one utterance.”

One says, one can even say it in one verse: “God created the heavens and the earth” – already even more than one verse, heaven and earth. “God created everything,” “I am Hashem who makes everything.”

This is enough, enough and more to say:

– That the Almighty makes everything

– The Almighty conducts everything

– The Almighty is master over everything

All kinds of expressions that one says for the same thing.

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Part Three: Why Do We Need an Order?

The World is Not Just “B’ma’amar Echad”

But, human beings – not just human beings, but the order of the world is not just like that. In the world, in order to understand what does it mean “the Almighty made everything”? I asked a question:

There are tables in the world, there are benches in the world, there are trees in the world, there are animals in the world, there are people in the world, there are all kinds of things.

What does it mean the Almighty made everything? How does this work? Did He make everything at once?

Sovev Kol Almin – The Truth of Unity

But the truth is, there is in this a point of truth. The Almighty is responsible for everything as one, yes – what is called in Chabad “sovev kol almin” [encompassing all worlds]. The Almighty is greater than the entire world, everything in total comes to Him. This is the truth.

But We Need an Order to Understand

But we wouldn’t understand it that way. In other words, it’s not entirely correct with time, the way the world works – there is an order in the world. But an order is explained.

He says that first, beforehand, yes, and who knows – it even says simply in the verses, all the more so that all the kabbalists and all the philosophers, all the commentators learn simply, that the six days of Genesis is not just divided into time.

On the contrary – dividing into time brings out what is called a causal order, an order of causes, an order of precedence.

The Order of the Six Days

That is, simple meaning:

– The first day: The Almighty made there should be a bit of dryness, He separated heaven from earth, He made light – He separated light from darkness

– The second day: He made there should be heaven and earth

– And so on…

This all goes level upon level. Yes, beforehand – perhaps we need to understand what is the understanding of nature that lies in this. But in any case, the intellectual order makes it intellectual, it makes an order of it.

The Parable of a Builder

First there must be that it shouldn’t be completely dark, there shouldn’t be a mixture of tohu vavohu [chaos and void]. Later one can make – as the Midrash tells – one must make space, one makes there should be a heaven, one makes there should be…

Like a person who builds a building: he makes first the floor, then the roof, and so on and so forth, the whole order. In this one can place people and animals and trees, the whole order. It makes logical sense.

This is what the six days of Genesis tells. It tells a story that is truly not in time.

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Part Four: Chochmah vs. Binah – Two Levels of Understanding

Above Time – The Attribute of Chochmah

In other words, it is from the side of the true understanding, from the side of the attribute of Chochmah, which is above the six days of Genesis in general, yes? It’s not even the eighth, it’s the ninth one can say, the order of the Sefirot. It’s not at all the six days of Genesis – there, there is no time, there the Almighty made with one utterance and so on and so forth.

The World of Binah – A Temporal Order

But since the world is a world whose order is a temporal order, and although one can learn time literally – that we take time for things – or even the time that is called intellectual time, yes, the time of Binah, not necessarily the time of the seven lower attributes, yes…

Two Types of Time

Time of Binah – the meaning, the time, that is that one thing causes a second thing. This is the meaning of time, this is the meaning of time at its root, not time in actual practice.

– Time in actual practice: Means to actually take time, a minute, etc.

– Time at its root: The meaning – as we said last week – that love is built from a question with an answer, from a premise with a conclusion, etc. etc.

The World Has Within It an Order

The same thing – that the world has within it an order. Since there is a system, one can build upon this a world:

– Since there is a father, children can be born

– Since there is dry land, land animals can live on it

– If you have a sea, there can be sea creatures

– If everything is tohu vavohu, nothing can be

This is the meaning of time, this is the meaning of the order of times, the order of the six days of Genesis – which is the first example, the first source, the first root of the fact that the world works in time, the world works with an order which is the order of times.

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Part Five: Application to History and Human Experience

Everything is “Built-In” from the Six Days of Genesis

Now, let us – here we have already shown a very simple way. One can already immediately see how what we have learned – the topic that there is a great debate, a great question how to understand the history of people.

One can speak – the words that we speak – one can speak in the general manner of the entire world, of all the nations that exist in the world. One can speak more specifically – a person who grows up, from what he grows in a certain time, or in a larger period of his life.

All these things one can already immediately understand now, that according to the truth, if one wants to think more basically, more about the basic ingredients that this is built from, one can immediately see that this is all built-in from the six days of Genesis.

It’s all built-in from the fact that in the world there is an order for things:

– Things cause one another

– Happen one after another

– Each thing in its time

“He Made Everything Beautiful in Its Time” – Ecclesiastes

“He made everything beautiful in its time” [Ecclesiastes 3:11].

When Ecclesiastes wants to tell that there are all kinds of situations in the world, all kinds of situations in the world, he says that there are all kinds of periods in the world, all kinds of times in the world – twenty-eight “a time to be born and a time to die” – and each thing has its time.

This is the meaning that the world is already built with a certain order, not that it’s random.

Random vs. Order

Random one can say like “with one utterance it could be created” – the Almighty makes everything:

– No difference what is before, what is after, what is in the middle

– There doesn’t have to be any prerequisites for anything

– Nothing is not prior to nothing

– In one second it can be like “suddenly it will come”

– In one second everything can be

This would be the world of Chochmah, the world above order.

But the world of Binah, which is the “God” who created heaven and earth – there, things must be with an order, at least an intellectual order. And when it becomes in actual practice, it also becomes an order of time literally.

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Part Six: The Great Question – Order and Free Choice

What Does This Mean for Human Free Choice?

Now it is like this – what this means is that everything we have spoken about that there is an order to things…

We have spoken that there is a whole problem how to connect the order with what we call:

– The service of human beings

– Bechirah [free choice]

– The possibility, the openness

– That things can be different

The Ability of People

That is, you have here that people have control, have an ability to decide things. Because this is built on the fact that in reality, in nature, the things for which people are responsible, are open:

– It can be this way

– It can be another way

– Not built into nature

In human matters, in the things how people live, in history – that it must be a certain way. This is indeed the meaning of what we say bechirah – that if not, there can’t be any free choice.

The Similarity to “B’ma’amar Echad”

The whole thing, however, is truly similar to the point of “with one utterance it could be created” – it’s very similar to the point that one can speak of everything at once. The problem is that then one doesn’t have any order.

So necessarily, the truth is that even what people do, what people have ability for, what people have control over – or in other words, that the world is not determined – in other words, which is the world of Binah, that the world, or each thing can be this way, can be another way…

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Part Seven: Free Choice Within the Order of the Six Days of Genesis

The Limits of Free Choice

It can be this way, it can be another way – not built into the nature of the things and people, in the things how people live in history, that it must be a certain way. This is indeed the meaning of what we say bechirah [free choice], that if not, there can’t be any free choice.

The Connection with “With One Utterance It Could Have Been Created”

The whole thing, however, is truly similar to the point of “with one utterance it could have been created.” It’s very similar to the point that one can speak of everything at once – the problem is that then one doesn’t have any order.

So necessarily, the truth is that even what people do, what people have ability for, what people have control over, or in other words, that the world is not determined – in other words, which is the world of free choice – that the world, or each thing can be this way, can be another way, all this is within the six days of Genesis. It’s all within the six days of Genesis.

Free Choice Within the Boundaries of Time

And one can say in a simple way like this: that means a person can decide, a person can change the order of things. In other words, the world of free choice, the world that turns and changes according to what people do, according to how the Almighty conducts Himself with people – this is all very fine.

But a person, for example, cannot do something without a time. Yes, I can do something, but on Sunday, on Monday, on Tuesday, on Wednesday and so on I can do something. I cannot do something not in a time. This means that even what I do, I am limited in which time it is.

Time as the Root of Order

Now, if we understand that time doesn’t mean now just simply, not just some number what time it was – time truly means at its root, this is the six days of Genesis. In other words, that there is an order how things can be.

It comes out that all how much we can do, how much we can change, how much there can be changes in the world – is all within a certain structure of how things can be. This is the basic approach that comes out from what we learn.

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Deeper Contemplation of the Basic Structure

Now, if one thinks a bit deeper – in other words, one takes more into consideration what the basic structure of things are, what the basic order, the basic time on which the world turns is – one finds, truly, one can perhaps divide it in many ways. There is here a bit like a question what are things that are perhaps not necessary that it should be so.

The Question of Twelve or Seven Days

That is, in other words, when the Torah would have said, when it tells a story that the world was created in twelve days – I know, because one can divide everything into twelve – you know what? It’s not yet speaking now as an event that happened, that specifically the event of seven worlds that we don’t understand, that the Almighty had decided to make the world in seven days.

That is, when one says seven worlds, it means that it fits most for people – I’m speaking of people who learn the Torah in the culture, in the world – it fits to say that in seven days the world was created.

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The Order of Reward and Punishment

And it fits with everything else – it goes to fit in, it goes to be in sync. Everything else fits with the order, with the division, with “to give reward to the righteous and punishment to the wicked.”

In other words, one must be able to understand that there is reward and punishment, that there is a way.

Reward and Punishment is the Order Itself

Reward and punishment – yes, let us understand very clearly. Reward and punishment doesn’t mean that it arrives, doesn’t mean that it’s random that I do something. On the contrary, reward and punishment – this is the order. From Sunday comes Monday.

In other words, in the human world there is a system of reward and punishment. When one does good things — in certain good things, in certain things there are halachos, there are principles, laws in this, how it works.

The Ten Utterances and the Seven Days

And this is perhaps the aspect of what is called the seven days, what is called the ten utterances [the ten utterances of creation] — ten, seven. One can divide it in different ways, their root is truly ten and seven. One can divide it, but this shows that there is an order.

No Order — No Reward and Punishment

If it had been entirely with one utterance, there would not have been any reward and punishment either, because one could say that the Almighty can do what He wants, whatever He wants can happen — no difference where one stands, no difference what was before, no difference what will happen afterwards.

But the fact that there are the six days of creation, the fact that there are ten utterances, the fact that there is a certain order — this shows that what is below actually has effect, there are actions of people. In other words, there is a certain openness, not completely closed, not everything is known in advance.

Apart from what we speak of regarding God’s knowledge, but essentially how the world works — not everything is known in advance precisely what will happen, but it is within a certain order. One does good, it goes well. One does bad, it goes badly. It doesn’t happen suddenly that a person does good and bad happens to him, or vice versa.

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What Is Clear and What Is Not Clear

Now, let us try to make clear here what is clear and what is not clear.

It comes out that there is an order in the world, there is an order which is called the order of nature, the order of the six days of creation. This defines how everything will be according to the limitations after the tzimtzum [tzimtzum: the divine contraction].

After we are not speaking now of the world of Chochmah [the world of Chochmah/Wisdom], the higher world — we cannot speak of the world of miracles — we are speaking of the world of nature, or in other words of the world of Binah [the world of Binah/Understanding], that there is a certain order there. The order is called the seven days of creation.

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Why Specifically Seven?

Why specifically seven, not eight or twenty? I said, I don’t know if there is an answer for this.

In other words, in a certain sense one will say: this is how the Almighty wanted it to be the order.

The Analogy of Gravity

One can say: why is gravity exactly this strong and not that strong? I don’t know. What I know is that everything fits with this. Perhaps this itself is difficult to give a reason for, or we don’t know, or this is His supernal wisdom that we don’t know why — but it exists, this is the fact that this is how it works.

Human Matters and the Order of Seven

And especially when we speak of human matters — in other words, we make afterwards we make Shabbos every seventh day. We could very easily, certainly, people could certainly make Shabbos every eighth day — nothing would happen. There could have been a mitzvah that says there is Shabbos every eighth day.

But then it would not fit how the world was created, how the Torah describes the events of the world. All these things fit.

The Difficulty in Seeing the Difference

But it is very easy to see that the more we speak of events of man, the more open the things are — we cannot see necessarily. I don’t see, one can say all the reasons that we know for Shabbos — from faith, from… there needs to be rest, from the elevation of the worlds — all things, it would not have hurt at all if it had been every eighth day Shabbos.

We would not have seen a difference. Certainly, there would have been a bit less Shabbos, yes? Now there is a seventh of the time Shabbos, then it would have been an eighth. Okay, there would have been a bit less rest. It is difficult for a person to grasp and you want something is missing.

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The Fiftieth Gate of Binah — “Except for One”

On this we say that the root of Binah, that is the fiftieth gate of understanding [the fiftieth gate of understanding] — one can call it in this sense the structure, this sort of thing.

You say: why is it so? One has said, one has said, the Almighty has given an answer. Why is it so? Why is it so? In other words: why are there seven days? Why did the Almighty make the world in seven days? And why did the Almighty make the world in seven days? Why the second seven vessels?

Here you say: I don’t know. Perhaps one can understand, perhaps there is an answer. One can say because there are seven sefiros. And why are there seven sefiros? And why would this be seven something else?

Many Answers, But in the End — “Except for One”

One can give very many other answers, very many things that fit that are in the framework of seven, of the order that we understand, that this is the building principle the order of the world. But in the end, after asking the question many times, at least each one according to his limitation how much he understands — the answer is except for one.

Yes, except for one. Here I already say back the one utterance of the Torah. “Fifty gates of understanding were given to Moses, except for one.” There I already say: I don’t know. The Almighty gave the Torah there. The Almighty made it so.

This is the meaning of fifty days of the giving of the Torah. The Almighty made it so — the Torah runs on cycles of seven. Why should it be able to run on cycles of eight? I don’t know. I don’t see that it couldn’t have. But this is how it is. There must be a higher reason, hidden and concealed from this. What explains, but I don’t know what the higher reason is.

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What Is Indeed True — The Order of Seven in Torah

But what is indeed true? After there is the order, and we see that the world was created on such an order in the Torah, and we see that the Torah conducts itself on such an order with:

– Shabbos

– Shemittah [the sabbatical year]

– Counting of the Omer

– The seven days of the metzora that we learn this week the entire series

– The seven days of niddah that we learn this week the entire series

– All things that run on the number of seven

Which we have already brought Pesach and the Shavuos Pesach shiur, that one struggles with reasons why specifically seven. Now we have a bit more additional understanding in this.

The Ramban on Seven Times Seven

But one sees that everything runs on this. One can understand that how strongly one relates to this order, how much one is in sync with the order, the more things will fit — because this is a central order, this is a central order of how things work. It is easier this way.

The Ramban [Ramban/Nachmanides], I think, does not bring all these orders. The Ramban in the introduction to the Torah when he speaks of the five books, says that this is hinted at in the Torah in the counting of the Omer and in the counting of the Jubilee. The two times one sees explicitly the topic of seven times seven, with soon ten.

What is the difference between seven times seven and one time seven? But the counting of seven is hinted at many more times.

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Counting Seven as a “Reset” — The Analogy of the Metzora

In other words, why do I count seven? I want, let us say, for example a person is a metzora [one afflicted with tzara’as] or there is a question of tzara’as — why does one count seven days? What is something seven days?

They have said, perhaps it is the order, most illnesses take seven days. I don’t know, it could be natural. But why have I given? There would have been another order, further one can ask: it would have made six days the order, it would have made eight days the order — I don’t know, would something have happened? One sees the Shemoneh Esreh [eighteen], what is the eighth? And the Ramban says, sometimes it is the eighth.

The Analogy of a Person Who Has Fallen Out of Order

But the answer is that here we enter into this order. A person has tzara’as — this is the meaning that he has fallen out of the order, right? He has some illness, something is not going here.

Now how does he catch himself? It is as if, the analogy is like this: let’s say, a person is not organized, his day is not organized. He doesn’t know whether… he doesn’t know whether… he has forgotten, is it Wednesday or Tuesday.

In simple terms, a person who conducts himself in a weekly order, each day he does six, seven things. Wednesday he should be holding by the third thing, but he got mixed up in the second thing, and he doesn’t know — he needs to go back and he needs to do teshuvah. It is a great confusion, he doesn’t know where he is.

The Advice: Count Seven Days

One tells him: come, I will give you advice — count seven days. In other words, come back to the order of Shabbos, or make your own seven days, or come back to Shabbos.

Then there is like a reset — one catches oneself with the order of the cycle, the cycle that revolves in the world. You come back, then you can catch yourself, you can better measure your order, because you catch yourself with the order — the order of the world, the order of nature.

Shabbos and Yom Tov as an Order That Is Greater Than Your Private Order

And this is indeed the order of people. A Shabbos comes, a Yom Tov comes, some period comes that gives an order that is more not your private order. Theoretically you can make your own order, but it depends how a person goes and he knows what he does — his free will overcomes the order in the world.

The Secret of Seven and Seven Times Seven: Teshuvah, Counting of the Omer, and the Order of Creation

Teshuvah Through the Order of Seven

But when he is a metzora [person with a certain impurity], one tells him what there is. Or a zavah [woman with a certain impurity], yes, “and she shall count for herself seven days,” afterwards she will be pure. What is this “and she shall count for herself seven days”? Why not six days?

What he means is: go back to a more basic thing. Yes, your order has been lost. You have some particular order that has its thing, you don’t know what is going on, you have become confused. It is a punishment for the wicked — which we said last time, this is only an analogy, you don’t know.

Okay, go back, make a seven order, bring in the order of seven into your life. This way you will come back to a normal order, it will become organized again, settled the world, it will become settled again your life.

This is the secret of teshuvah.

It is one way of doing teshuvah, yes, the foundation of teshuvah of the Kohanim. What they always say — what comes to a Kohen, the Kohen says: wait seven days. This is a way of teshuvah of going back, catching oneself again with the order that exists.

The Difference Between Seven and Seven Times Seven

One must understand an important thing, and this is the foundation of the way of Kabbalah: of the difference between seven and seven times seven.

That one must understand, just as Shabbos — what is the word of Shabbos? One must understand what is the order. Shabbos goes six days, afterwards comes another six days, afterwards comes again, again, again.

Why does it come again? It repeats itself the same thing again, again.

The Question of the Repetition of Yom Tov

Or just as one always asks what comes with Yom Tovim — everyone knows the discussion — that every year one speaks again of the Exodus from Egypt? We already went out once, what is going on?

All the commentators say, all the Kabbalists, and all the Chassidic books, that the simple meaning is that one repeats every year the point that was once.

But the truth is here, and here indeed a question arises that I have, and one must bring it out better.

The Ramak, Arizal, and Ramban Regarding Counting of the Omer

The later commentators — the Arizal [Rabbi Yitzchak Luria, the great Kabbalist], and this begins with the Ramak [Rabbi Moshe Cordovero] in the gate on the fifty gates of understanding — connect very nicely the topic of the fifty days of counting of the Omer with the fifty gates of understanding. The whole thing they connect very well with the topic of the Exodus from Egypt and the receiving of the Torah, the whole order.

The Ramban’s Different Approach

But in the Ramban [Rabbi Moshe ben Nachman] one does not see this, and the truth is that there is a good reason why.

Because it is indeed the opposite — the reason why in the Exodus from Egypt there should be an order of seven, must be because there is an order of seven in the six days of creation, and a greater order of the seven days of the world of seven times seven. So there is a more basic thing than the topic of the historical fact of the Exodus from Egypt.

This is one point.

The Ramban’s Concept of “Hint”

The second point is that it is not clear from the Ramban, one must understand it better: how the topic of the seven connects, the hint, the counting of the Omer, with the order of the fifty gates of understanding, of the seven that exists in the world.

The Ramban sounds in the introduction, and also in the places where he speaks about this in Parshas Emor and Behar regarding the topic of counting of the Omer of Shemittah, that it is more like a hint.

One must understand what a hint means. Seemingly, I will understand it better as I have said now:

The meaning is, we want to show, we want to connect ourselves into a certain order which is the correct order, which this is the order of the world essentially. True, it is certainly the story that one tells about the Exodus from Egypt — one looks into the story — is also correct. What the Zohar calls the story of the seven clean days, of a union that the Zohar has connected with this, is also correct.

But it seems that it is more that this is a simple order. And the point that one calls that one repeats the same thing — this is indeed itself, one must understand this in a deeper way — this is indeed itself a basic order.

The Deeper Meaning of “Repetition”

And here is the true difference between seven and seven times seven, as we have said.

The simple meaning is: it does not mean that it repeats itself, presumably doing the same thing each time, because there are spiritual influences from the Exodus from Egypt etc.

The simple meaning is: if one understands the world, one understands that the world was created founded the earth on the order of seven. And what repeats itself again, means that this is what happens afterwards — afterwards happens another seven.

And in total, this also has in a general way a greater order — a seven times seven. It repeats itself the same thing.

The Great Jubilee

And what is the end after the whole seven times seven? This is called a great Jubilee in the Kabbalists.

And truly, as we have said with the Baal Shem Tov, comes another seven, and one can make fifty times fifty. And we are in a very small part of the world, so one cannot see and one cannot bring out much greater orders. But one can imagine how many times greater it goes and how many times further it goes.

Return to the Root — The Secret of Jubilee

This is the thing that I want to leave here as a question, and I want to stop here for today, and with God’s help we will understand better. There are more ways that one can understand this, but this much we have explained about the seven complete weeks.

This is the first step.

The Previous Shiur About the Laws of Souls

One must remember that in his last year there was a shiur about souls, the laws of souls of counting of the Omer. Which that is truly another secret, which is a secret on what we said last night — the topic that there according to what a person does, according to what a person conducts himself.

We have already spoken also in another way on the seventh of Pesach and on the tenth of the festival — that the topic of how a person conducts himself, this is what he becomes. This is habit becomes nature, and through the way of reincarnations there is a deeper way to understand this, which we explained last year in that shiur.

The Concept of Return to the Root

There is another point that one must understand, because this is the topic that the repetition — what a thing repeats itself — also means that in a certain secret, return it goes back to where it came from.

This is called return to the root, which this is the true meaning of Jubilee according to Kabbalah.

And we need to understand this better, and with the help of Hashem (be’ezras Hashem) we will explain this next week.