Mashiach: The Great Reframer

The paint has dried on the canvas of life. What has happened has happened - there is no way to change the past, to whitewash the pain, to ignore the blemishes. But, amazingly, a new frame can be placed around this canvas that suddenly shifts the entire picture.

“To reframe, then, means to change the conceptual and/or emotional setting or viewpoint in relation to which a situation is experienced and to place it in another frame which fits the ”facts” of the same concrete situation equally well or even better, and thereby changes its entire meaning.”1

“[R]eframing can be seen as a generic process in therapy. In fact, I would go much further and propose it to be the single most basic and necessary operation in the process of change and therefore of all therapy. Everything else is subordinate and either aids or, alternatively, impedes this process...It is not that ”...a new frame may be an essential setting...for change”; I would argue that it is the only setting for change...”2

We look at the painful history of our people - and the pain of the present - and we ache for comfort, Nechama. Not the comfort of soothing but the comfort of seeing; the essence of Nechama is seeing things in a new light.

“For N.Ch.M. is consolation and regret, both a complete change of feelings to the way one had felt towards something hitherto. Up till now one had considered something to be right, had perhaps boasted upon it, and then suddenly finds out that one has to be ashamed of it: regret, remorse. Similarly, real consolation is only such, that brings the conviction to one who has suffered pain and grief, that this too leads to ultimate good and everlasting happiness, not the ‘Babylonian idea of consolation’ which says, ‘what can one do, one must accept what cannot be avoided (Bava Kama 38a), but which awakes the consciousness that if one were able to see through and over all the conditions and results and consequences as God can and does, one would not alter what has happened even if one could.”3

And that is why one of Mashiach’s names is “Menachem” - The Reframer.4

We await the day when Mashiach will come and “transform darkness to light and sweeten the bitter.”5

“The World to Come is not like this world. In this world on good tidings we say the blessing of “Hatov v’Hameitiv” and in bad tidings “Dayan Ha’Emet.” In the World to Come it will always be “Hatov v’Hameitiv.”6

“Then,” in that sudden shift, “our mouths will be filled with laughter.”7

”[Humor as] a flash of insight shows a familiar situation or event in a new light, and elicits a new response to it.”8

——————————

1 Watzlawick et al., 1974, p. 95 quoted in Antti Mattila, “Seeing Things in a New Light: Reframing in Therapeutic Conversation, p. 6

2 Cade, 1992, p. 163, quoted in Antti Mattila, “Seeing Things in a New Light: Reframing in Therapeutic Conversation, p. 55-56

3 Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch on Berrishit 50:21. See also Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch on Bereishit 5:29 and Rashi on Bereishit 27:42.

 4 Sanhedrin 98b. See also Talmud Yerushalmi, Sanhedrin 10:9 and Zohar III:173b

5 See Zohar I:4a. See Rav Kook, Igrot Ha’Rayah I:142.

6 Pesachim 50a

7 Tehillim 126

8 The Act of Creation Arthur Koestler (1964), quoted in Antti Mattila, “Seeing Things in a New Light: Reframing in Therapeutic Conversation, p. 93

A Thought Experiment

Imagine a person in your mind. Now imagine two, three four...a whole family, a whole town, a whole city, a whole country, a whole world.

 

The world only exists in your mind - if you were to stop thinking about the world it would disappear - and yet, it has no awareness of your existence.

 

At first whatever happens in this world is totally and completely dependent on what you imagine: it has no free-will, no independent activity. If at any moment you want to change the fixtures or dynamics of this world you can. Now it is blue, now it is red.

 

But try to imagine this world making decisions, building...and destroying. The world has now come alive, it has free-will, movement, independence. It's existence is still totally and completely dependent on your conscious intent, but now it has become more than an image; it is a dream.

Now imagine that this world begins to become aware of You, its Imaginer. It has brief moments where it can conceive of You, where Your consciousness shines through the world. But most of the time it cannot believe or even imagine that it only exists in your mind. Eventually, though, the Truth becomes apparent.

And now the dream of the world is united with it's Dreamer.

 

The world is the dream of God.

A Bm'ei ha'daga Production: haunting portraits of the homeless

Music by 8th Day - "Beggar Woman"

Today, she was sitting on the street

Sorrow in her eyes, a tin can at her feet

Holes in her stockings and holes in her shoes

She’s an old beggar woman no stranger to bad news

So I reached in my pocket to give a bill or two

In my heart I was trying to see what I could do

She thanked me for the money, I turned to walk away

But I waited for a moment as she began to say

(Chorus:)

G-d loves the widow and the orphan and the blind 

The old and the needy who haven’t got a dime 

G-d loves the sickly in his eyes we’re all the same 

And G-d he loves you too in the sunshine and the rain. (You just call upon His name)

I don’t know where she came from, don’t know her at all

But the wrinkles on her face, they kinda tell it all 

So reach in your pocket and give a bill or two 

And you can thank G-d in Heaven that the beggar isn’t you.

I want you to want me...

א"ר יצחק מפני מה היו אבותינו עקורים מפני שהקב"ה מתאוה לתפלתן של צדיקים

) שמות רבה כא ה, תנחומא, תולדות ט, (יבמות סד א, בראשית רבה מה ד

“Rabbi Yitzchak said: Why were our forefathers barren? Because The Holy One, Blessed is He, desires the prayers of the righteous”

Yevamos 64a 

Didn't I, didn't I, didn't I see you cryin'?
Ohh, didn't I, didn't I, didn't I see you cryin'?
Feelin' all alone without a friend, you know you feel like dyin'
Ohh, didn't I, didn't I, didn't I see you cryin'?
I want you to want me
I need you to need me
I'd love you to love me
I'm beggin' you to beg me

-Cheap Trick

 Hat Tip: My wife

Mirrors: Part II

 וְאִם-בְּאֵלֶּה לֹא תִוָּסְרוּ, לִי וַהֲלַכְתֶּם עִמִּי קֶרִי

 וְהָלַכְתִּי אַף-אֲנִי עִמָּכֶם בְּקֶרִי

 וְהִכֵּיתִי אֶתְכֶם גַּם-אָנִי שֶׁבַע עַל חַטֹּאתֵיכֶם

“If despite these you will not be chastised toward Me, and you behave casually with Me, then I, too, will behave toward you will casualness; and I will strike you, even I, seven ways for your sins.”

Vayikra 26:23-24

עִם-חָסִיד תִּתְחַסָּד  עִם-גְּבַר תָּמִים תִּתַּמָּם 

 עִם-נָבָר תִּתְבָּרָר וְעִם-עִקֵּשׁ תִּתְפַּתָּל

“With the devout You acted devoutly, with the wholehearted man You act wholeheartedly. With the pure you act purely, and with the crooked you acted perversely.”

Tehillim 18:26-27 (see also Mishlei 3:34)

 ה΄ שֹׁמְרֶךָ   ה΄ צִלְּךָ עַל-יַד יְמִינֶךָ

“God is your guardian; God is your shade/shadow at your right hand.”

Tehillim 121:5

אמר לו הק΄ למשה, משה אמור להן לישראל שמי אהיה אשר אהיה, ומהו אהיה אשר אהיה, כשם שאתה הווה עמי, כך אני הווה עמך, מסרתי להם שתי מידות טובות המשפט והצדק, אם עושין הן משפט, אין אני עושה משפט, ואני משפיע טובות, אם אינן עושין משפט, אני עושה משפט ומחריב העולם, וכן בצדקה, אם פותחין הן את ידיהן ונותנין, אף אני אפתח להן...

וכן אמר דוד ה΄ שומרך, ה΄ צלך על יד ימינך (תהילים קכ"א), כצלך, מה צלך, אם אתה משחוק לו הוא משחיק לך, אם אתה בוכה לו, הוא בוכה כנגדך, אם אתה נותן לו פנים זועפות, אף הוא נותן לך כך, ואם פנים מסוברות אתה נותן, אף הוא נותן לך...

“The Holy One said to Moshe: Moshe tell Israel that my name is ‘I will be as I will be.’ What is the meaning of “I will be as I will be? Just as you are with me, I will be with you. I gave you two good attributes – justice and charity. If you judge [appropriately], I will not judge; If you do not judge, I will judge and destroy the world. So too regarding charity: If you open up your hands and give, I too will open [my hands] to you…

“Similarly, David said ‘God is your guardian; God is your shadow at your right hand.’ As a shadow – if you play with your shadow, it plays as well, if you cry to it, it cries in response to you, if you give it an angry face, as such it will return to you, and if you give it a happy face, so will it give to you…”

מדרש השכם\ספר והזהיר על פרשת משפטים[i]  

כַּמַּיִם, הַפָּנִים לַפָּנִים כֵּן לֵב-הָאָדָם, לָאָדָם

“As a face is reflected in water, so the heart of man to man.”

Mishlei 27:19

וכמו שהאדם דבק להשי״ת כן הקב״ה מדבק בו

וכמ״ש ועל הכסא דמות כמראה אדם

וכן כל הנביאים ראו בדמות אדם לפי שהן אדם לכן מראה עצמו להם בדמות אדם

“As a person cleaves to God, so The Holy One cleaves to him. This is the meaning of the verse ‘And on the throne [of glory], an image like the face of Man.’ So too, all of the prophets saw in [their visions of the heavenly throne] the image of Man since they are men. Thus, He shows Himself to them in the image of Man”

Peirush ha’Gra on Mishlei 27:19

כל נביאים נסתכלו באספקלריא שאינה מאירה, משה רבינו נסתכל באספקלריא המאירה

“All the prophets looked through a poorly reflective mirror; Moshe looked through a highly shined mirror.”

Yevamot 49b (see Sukkah 45b)[ii]

בא ליטמא פותחין לו, בא ליטהר מסייעים אותו

“If one comes to defile himself, they [heaven] provide an opening for him. If one comes to purify himself, they help him."

Shabbat 104a[iii]

במדה שאדם מודד, בה מודדין לו

“In the measure that a person measures [his actions], so they [heaven] measure to him”

Sotah 8b[iv]

בדרך שאדם רוצה לילך, בה מוליכין אותו

“In the way a person wishes to go, in that way they [heaven] lead him.”

Makkot 10b

---

[i] See Ramban and Torah Shleimah on Shemot 3:13; Avodat haKodesh, Chapter 16; Midrash Shmuel on Avot 3:17; Sefer ha’Shelah, Toldot Adam, Sha’ar ha’Gadol; Kedushat Levi in many places in the name of the Ba’al Shem Tov (e.g. Derasha l’Chanukah); Nefesh ha’Chaim 1:6. For a discussion of this imagery see Moshe Idel, Kabbalah: New Perspectives, Chapter 8.

[ii] Regarding the meaning of “Aspaklaria” as “mirror,” see Keilim 30:2 (and commentaries there), Yerushalmi Berakhot 8:6 (and Mareh Pnim there) and Tikkunei Zohar 19 (#73).

[iii] See also Yoma 39b, which Torah Temimah quotes on Vayikra 11:43 and relates to Tehillim 121:5. 

[iv] For similar sources and applications, see Shabbat 105b, Pesachim 69a, Rosh Hashana 12b, Yevamot 107b, Nedarim 32a, Sanhedrin 90a and 108a, Chullin 127a, Arachin 16b, Bereshit Rabbah 9, Bamidbar Rabbah 11, Devarim Rabbah 11, Introduction to Eicha Rabbah, Mekhilta Beshalach 6.  

Iyov and the Goodness of Life and Existence

1. It is contradictory to maintain that one's life and existence as a whole is bad and still seek to support life and existence or mourn its demise. Therefore,

2. If one does support life and existence they implicitly believe that life and existence is overall good. Therefore,

3. If one believes that life and existence as a whole is good then the question of theodicy is greatly weakened. Since the overall expression of God's creation is good, the existence of evil elements is not as troublesome. Therefore,

4. Iyov (Job) is the primal book of theodicy since after his suffering Iyov wishes he would have never lived, i.e. that life/existence is bad. 

מַדּוּעַ, קִדְּמוּנִי בִרְכָּיִם;    וּמַה-שָּׁדַיִם, כִּי אִינָק
  לָמָּה לֹּא מֵרֶחֶם אָמוּת;    מִבֶּטֶן יָצָאתִי וְאֶגְוָע

כִּי-עַתָּה, שָׁכַבְתִּי וְאֶשְׁקוֹט;    יָשַׁנְתִּי, אָז יָנוּחַ לִי

Deeper is Higher according to Rav Hirsch

וְנִשְׁמַרְתֶּם מְאֹד, לְנַפְשֹׁתֵיכֶם: כִּי לֹא רְאִיתֶם, כָּל-תְּמוּנָה, בְּיוֹם דִּבֶּר יְהוָה אֲלֵיכֶם בְּחֹרֵב, מִתּוֹךְ הָאֵשׁ

"[H]ere it is a matter of not allowing ourselves to be robbed of the clarity of our conception and the certainty of our conviction of the supernatural, invisible yet absolutely real and personal existence of God, by any intrusion of any idea of substantiality...

"Besides God, there is only one other being of whose individual reality and personal existence, although invisible and unable to be realised by any of our physical senses, each one of us bears within himself the direct certainty of conviction, and that is our soul, our Nefesh. It is that, therefore, which reflecting back on oneself makes one comprehend the real existence of something which is invisible and intangible, and by the certainty of the conviction of ones's own self comprehend the conviction of the existence of God. Therefore, "it is our soul that we lift up to God, therefore does our soul long for, thirsteth, languisheth for God...Therefore, "doth our soul seek God in the night...therefore "doth our soul cling to folliwng God...[and] therefore do our souls bless God.

"וְנִשְׁמַרְתֶּם מְאֹד, לְנַפְשֹׁתֵיכֶם accordingly in this connection means: Guard yourselves, keep, above all, the influence the knowledge of your soul exercises, for it comprehends that what cannot be grasped by your senses has a more real existence than what can be grasped by your senses so that God may remain for your, just in His insubstantiality the most real actual existing Being."

- Rav Hirsch on Devarim  4:15

Jewish mystical testimonies of the 20th Century

“Our desire is to tear aside in one motion the entire curtain spread across the totality of life. Then, in an instant you will see yourself standing before God’s glory in the midst of a great camp of angels and seraphim–and you being one of them…

“…Instead of your senses forcing your thoughts to apprehend a sensory form according to their nature, the opposite will occur: your mind will contemplate a clear thought (the essence of thought without form and image), and this will overwhelm your senses, penetrating deeply into them and there being manifested by them in the world. Finally, all of your thought’s communication and contact with the world will occur without the veil of your senses. Your thought will function directly through the vehicles of your eyes, ears, and so forth. These organs will be no more than transmitters of your thought.

"This is not to say that I intend to entirely wipe out your physical senses so that you will not apprehend the world in front of you. You will see the world, but you will also see God’s holiness resting upon it (whether or not you are looking at it).

“…I know quite well that your heart is still doubtful. You believe somewhat, but then you doubt that you could reach a state from which you will see spirit and holiness in the entire world: that you will not merely understand conceptually, but that you will actually perceive holiness, souls and holy Names. You protest, “In truth, don’t I see a world that is physical? Who can deny the certainty of my senses, such as my sight and hearing?”

“But what makes you so sure that your senses are telling you the truth? The essence of each one of these things [that your senses perceive] is invisible to you. You see merely transient shapes and states of being. Your senses have led you astray and falsely led you to believe that the world we see and feel stands clearly before us, constituting the essence of reality. But our senses cannot reach this essence. Instead, like a blind man, we grope along the outer forms that envelop the hidden essence. This being the case, why should it be difficult for you to accept that the Kabbalist perceives the essence of true being within all things of the world as divine Names and souls?

Rabbi Kalonymus Kalman Shapira (the Pieseszner Rebbe), B’nei Machshava Tova (trans. By Yaakov Dovid Shulman), pgs. 34-35, 42-43

“The Brisker Rav passed away on Yom Kippur eve 1960, just a few minutes before the recital of Kol Nidrei…

‘My father [R. Shmuel Aharon Yudelevitch] told me that while leading the Mussaf prayers of Yom Kippur he suddenly felt he was going to expire from thirst, and he told himself that he was willing to give up his life for Hashem’s honor. Immediately afterwards he saw a brilliant light – a pillar of brightness – and was drawn to it as though by supernal cables. My father continued to relate that when observed this light he felt indescribable pleasure and that all the delights of this world could never compare to the joy that he was experiencing…’

It was obvious that R. Shmuel Aharon had been privileged to perceive the amuda d’nehora, the shaft of light, which according to the Gemara is bestowed upon only one neshama that has passed from the world in the generation and only select individuals in the generation are considered worthy enough to catch a glimpse. R. Shmuel Aharon had clearly seen the Brisker Rav’s amuda n’hehora.”

In Every Generation - The life & legacy of the Gaon & Tzaddik Rav Shmuel Aharon Yudelevitch, zt’l, pg. 251

“It is necessary to show how one may enter the palace: by way of the gate. The gate is the divine dimension disclosed in the world, in all its phenomena of beauty and grandeur, as manifested in every living thing, in every insect, in every blooming plant and flower, in every nation and state, in the sea with its turbulent waves, in the panorama of the skies, in the talents of all creatures, in the thoughts of writers, the imagination of poets and the ideas of thinkers, in the feelings of every sensitive spirit and in the heroic deeds of every person of valor.

”The highest domain of divinity toward which we aspire – to be absorbed in it, to be included in its radiance – but which eludes all our longing, descends for us into the world, and we encounter it and delight in its love, and find peace in its tranquility. At times, moreover, we are privileged with a flash emanating from the higher radiance, from that higher light which transcends all thought. The heavens open for us and we see a vision of God.”

R. Kook, Orot, Tzima’on l’El Chai (trans. in Classics of Western Spirituality, pg. 251)

“Suddenly there appeared before my aching eyes some great light, and infinite dimensions stood before my mind’s eye, while my eyes of flesh were closed. It seemed to me as if I truly experienced the many dimensions with my senses – once and never again – and I walked in their midst.”

R. ShemTov Geffen, Memadim-Nevuah-Admatanut, pgs. 27-28 (Dimensions-Prophecy-Geology, trans. By Bezalel Naor in Lights of Prophecy)

“The Zoharic literature (Tikkunei ha’Zohar 21:50a) teaches that in contemplating a flame, one should be aware of its five colors: white, yellow, red, black, and sky-blue…On an intellectual level this is impossible to understand…however, one must actually do a candle or lamp meditation. It should be done in an otherwise dark room, with the candle far enough from the wall that it casts not light on it. Again, one uses the standard contemplation technique, allowing the flame to fill the entire mind. One becomes aware of the colors in the flame, the white, the yellow, and the red; each color and gradation of color is extremely significant. One is aware of the heat and energy radiating from the candle, and…one reaches a level at which one can actually see these abstract energies.

“The next step would be to concentrate on the darkness around the flame. When one contemplates the darkness of the room, it becomes a very profound, palpable darkness. One sees it as a velvety blackness that appears to radiate darkness…

“However, when one gets deeper into the meditation, one will begin to see a sky-blue field around the darkness. The blackness will extend for a certain distance around the candle, but around this will be an experience of pure sky-blue. It will be the most beautiful sky-blue color imaginable, like that of a summer day of the Holy Land. The color will have an almost awesome beauty.”

R. Aryeh Kaplan, Jewish Meditation, pp. 68-69

“Somehow, when I open a gemara, either alone or when I am in company, when I teach others, I have the impression—don’t call it hallucination—I have the impression that I hear soft footsteps of somebody, invisible, who comes in and sits down with me, sometimes looking over my shoulder.

The idea is not a mystical idea—the mishnah in Avos, the gemara in Brachos says yachid heyoshev v’osek batorah, shechina shruya [one who sits and occupies himself with Torah, the Divine presence rests there]. We all believe that the nosein hatorah, the One who gave us the Torah, has never deserted the Torah. And He simply accompanies the Torah; wherever the Torah has a rendezvous, an appointment, a date with somebody, He is there.”

R. Soloveitchik, Remarks at RCA Convention, 1975 (transcribed by Eitan Fiorino)

"If You had created for me an ear to listen to You with eternal love,

But not shown me how Your eyes peer from one end of the world to the other -

That would have been enough!

If you had promised me to grasp all of Your secrets,

But not manifested them in me as present reality -

That would have been enough!"

R. Ashlag, Dayeini, Hakdama l'Chochmat ha'Emet, pg. 7 (free translation)

How I Wonder What You Are...

“The trait of faith is a subtle inclination from the sensitivity of the soul. If a person is attuned to his soul during a quiet time, free from the hunger of desire, with his eyes amazed at the vision of heaven above, the earth in its depth, he is overcome with emotion and is stunned. The world appears before him like an unsolved riddle, hidden and wondrous, and this riddle wraps up his heart and mind, and he is to faint. Life does not remain within him. Only to the riddle is his entire interest and focus, and the knowledge of its explanation is his entire desire; he would choose to go through fire and water for its sake. For what is life to him if the pleasant life is hidden from him, completely hidden, his being is dizzy, bemoans, and yearns to understand her secret and to know her root - but the gates are closed…

“When a person’s intellect merits seeing the truth of the existence of G-d, immediately an ecstasy which has no bounds enters him, and his soul is pleasant upon him. His imagination is complete with the intellect, to behold the sweetness of G-d. All of the physical pleasures disappear before him, and his sensitive soul is wrapped in holiness and it is like he is separated from his coarse body, wandering in the highest heavens. When a man rises in these levels of sanctity, a new world is revealed before him; it is possible for man in this world to be, for moments, like an angel, and to benefit from the splendor of the holy. All of the pleasures of the world are nothing compared the pleasure of the intimacy of Man to his Former, Blessed is His name…

“…and through recognizing his Creator he finds the answer to the riddle of the entire world, which leads him to his rest without hurt.”

-Chazon Ish, Emunah u’Bitachon, Chapter One

“Dear Madhva,

“Thanks for the tip. As you suggested, I spent the last few months alone with nature, reflecting on the mystery of existence: the inexplicable appearance of the world, life, consciousness, and the rational self.

“And, Madhva, it was in the mystical mountains of Munnar in South India that I came face to face with God, the ever-existent and the all-perfect. On a beautiful day in August, as birds sped past and the mist straggled through the hills, I became suddenly aware that every breath I take, every move I make, every musing of my mind was somehow directly held in being by God. Countless chains of cause-and-effect, innumerable agents and vehicles, all ending in HIM, always and everywhere, here and now. Even as I thought through this, even as the awareness of my dependency sank in, it became clearer than ever that Nature and the world are parts of a Whole, images of the Supremely Real, pathways to transcendent Splendor.

“But the very next day I sank into a stupor of darkest depression as I pondered death, oblivion, all those hideous fears of nameless dread that have always plagued me. Yes, all things point to supreme Intelligence, stupendous beauty. But why and wherefore are we? All that I learn in the last few months seemed to evaporate and vanish like a mirage. I was left only with the terrible thought that I would die and so would all those I hold dear.

“But, as they say, the darkest night sometimes precedes the brightest dawn. In the most unexpected and yet the least dramatic possible way, I heard from God. It was not a voice or even a thought. It was, how should I put it, a Father, gentle, tender and infinitely moving. I was aware at one and the same time that He was the Mind who thought a trillion galaxies and the Heart that felt every experience I ever had. Beyond this, I have no comprehensible way in which I can describe the nature of my encounter.”

-Roy Abraham Varghese, The Wonder of the World, pg. 393-394

"Thus Spoke The Lover:

"It is forbidden to burn or to destroy by direct action any sacred texts, their commentaries, and their explanations. A person who destroys them by his direct action is given "stripes for rebelliousness.

"To what does the above apply? To sacred texts written by a Jew with a sacred intent. However, should a Jewish heretic write a Torah scroll, it and the name of God it contains must be burnt, since he does not believe in the sanctity of [God's] name and did not compose it for this purpose. Rather, he considers this to be similar to any other text. Since this is his intent, the names [of God he writes] do not become holy."

-Rambam, Mishna Torah, Yesodei ha'Torah 6:8 (trans. Eliyahu Touger)

"In order to have its desired effect, study of Torah must conform to two conditions. These are reverence for the study itself and constant rectification of one's own deeds. The only reason why Torah has any power at all is because God bound his most precious Influence to it, making it dependent on the Torah. It is for this reason that reciting it and comprehending it can transmit this Influence...

"Because of this fact, it is imperative that one should have reverence and awe when involved in Torah. What one is then doing is approaching his God and involving himself in transmitting a great light from God to himself. The individual involved in the Torah should therefore be abashed of his human lowliness and tremble before God's loftiness. He should rejoice in what he can attain, but even this should be combined with the greatest possible awe.

"It is all important that one should not behave frivolously when involved in the Torah, and not show any disrespect for its books or their words. When occupied with the Torah, one must realize before Whom he stands...

"If this condition is not met, however, then it will not result in any such Illumination, and reciting words of Torah will be no different from any other human speech. Reading it will be no different than reading a letter, no different than considering any worldly matter. Quite to the contrary, such involvement will be considered a misdeed, since this person is approaching the Holy without reverence, and behaving frivolously in the presence of his Creator and occupying himself with His holiness.

"The value of a person's study, and the level of the resulting Influence, therefore vary according to the degree of reverence and the measure of his respect and attentiveness."

R. Moshe Chayyim Luzzato, The Way of G0d, 4:2:5 (trans. R. Aryeh Kaplan)

"This is the way of Torah. She does not reveal herself except to he who loves her, who knows the Torah, whoe wise heart compels hm to constantly pass back and forth each day at the gate of her palace. She then reveals her face to him from her upper chamber, giving a hint [of her presence], after which she immediately withdraws to her place in concealment...In this way the Torah is revealed and concealed, following the one whom she loves, to around him and awaken him."

-Zohar, Mishpatim 2:99a (trans. R. Avraham Sutton)

"Imagine, for a moment, that you are the universe, But for the purpose of this thought experiment, let us imagine that you are not the disenchanted mechanistic universe of conventional modern cosmology, but rather a deep-souled, subtly mysterious cosmos of great spiritual beauty and creative intelligence. And imagine that you are being approached by two different epistemologies - two suitors, as it were, who seek to know you. To whom would you open your deepest secrets? Would you open most deeply to the suitor - the epistemology, the way of knowing - who approached you as though you have no interior dimension to speak of, no spiritual capacity or value; who thus saw you as fundamentally inferior to himself, who related to you as though your existence were valuable primarily to the extent that he could develop and exploit your resources to satisfy his various needs; and whose motivation for knowing you was ultimately driven by a desire for increased intellectual mastery, predictive certainty, and efficient control over you for his own self-enhancement?

"Or would you, the cosmos, open yourself most deeply to that suitor who viewed you as being at least as intelligent and noble, as worthy a being, as permeated with mind and soul, as imbued with moral aspiration and purpose, as endowed with spiritual depths and mystery, as he? This suitor seeks to know you not that he might better exploit you but rather to unite with you and thereby bring forth something new, a creative synthesis emerging from both of your depths. He desires to liberate that which has been hidden by the separation between knower and known. His ultimate goal of knowledge is not increased mastery, prediction, and control but rather a more richly responsive and empowered participation in a co-creative unfolding of new realities. He seeks an intellectual fulfillment that is intimately linked with imaginative vision, moral transformation, empathic understanding, aesthetic delight. His act of knowledge essentially an act of love and intelligence combined, of wonder as well as discernment, of opening to a process of mutual discovery. To who would you be more likely to reveal your deepest truths?"

-Richard Tarnas, Cosmos and Psyche, pg. 39

Deeper is Higher - I and the Divine

“While the Baal Shem Tov was in Kutov, he used to meditate in the mountains and fast from one Shabbos until the next. The purpose of his meditation (hisbodedus) in the mountains and wilds of the forests was this: he sought to become one with his inner being – with his feelings and thoughts; to hear the voice of his inner soul from her very depths, without any admixture of external influences, the hustle and bustle of the city and its surroundings; to become lucidly aware of the flow of his inner being and its inclinations, and to bring them entirely under the authority of the mind, freed from all external distraction. Prior to him, spiritual seekers devoted all of their energies to searching out all that exists above and below, and completely forget about themselves and their physical existence in order to know their ‘I.’ By contrast, the Baal Shem Tov introduced a new method of spiritual probing: a way to become an explorer of one’s inner being, and to vigilantly observe whatever took place in the chambers of one’s heart and soul, all of one’s inner faculties, and every movement, however great or small."

-Dor Dorim, Rabbi Yekusiel Aryeh Kamelhar of Stanislav

"The exercise of dis-identification is based on the realization that we have in our personality many things, but we are not those things. For instance, we have a body, but we are not the body. We have emotions, but we are not the emotions, because emotions are changing, contradictory and so on, while the self-awareness is always the same. For instance, when we say, ‘I am tired’, it is a mistake of psychological grammar. The ‘I’ cannot be tired; the body is tired. So the exact formulation would be, ‘My body is tired.’ Instead of saying, ‘I am angry,’ say, ‘the emotion of anger is present in my self, in my awareness’. And the same with the mind. It works all the time, registering many things. But I am not the mind. ‘I have a mind, but I am not a mind.’ What remains? Simply the ‘I’, the observer of the whole panorama, phantasmagoria, of the changing personal life...

"A third step in Psychosynthesis is the recognition that the personal self, the pure self-awareness at the core of the personality is the reflection of a higher Transpersonal Self.... But it is not something different; it is the source of the reflection. For instance, the sun can reflect itself in many mirrors. There are not two suns (in our solar system). It is just the same reality that is reflected at another level of reality. The essential quality is the same. It is always light and heat, however attenuated and coloured."

-Roberto Assagioli, Founder of Psychosynthesis

"Adam the Second explores not the scientific abstract universe but the irresistibly fascinating qualitative world where he establishes an intimate relationship with God. The Biblical metaphor referring to God breathing life in Adam alludes to the actual preoccupation of the latter with God, to his genuine living experience of God rather than to some divine potential or endowment in Adam symbolized by imago Dei. Adam the Second lives in close union with God. His existential "I" experience is interwoven in the awareness of communing with the Great Self whose footprints he discovers along the many torturous paths of creation."

-Rav Soloveitchik, The Lonely Man of Faith, pg. 22

"I am in the midst of the exile" (Ezekiel 1:1).

"The inner, essential "I"-whether individual or communal-does not appear by itself. Rather, it appears in relation to our holiness and purity. It appears in relation to the amount of supernal power that, with the pure light of an elevated illumination, burns within us.

"Both we and our forefathers sinned" (Psalms 106:6).

"This refers to the sin of Adam, who was alienated from his essential being. He turned to the consciousness of the serpent, and thus he lost himself. He could not clearly answer the question, "Where are you?", because he did not know himself, because he had lost his true "I."
He had bowed to a strange god.

"And that was the sin of Israel, who "ran after foreign gods" (Deuteronomy 31:16). We abandoned our essential "I": "Israel rejected goodness" (Hosea 8:3).

"In the days of creation, the earth itself sinned. It denied its own essence. It constricted its power and went after limited goals and purposes. It did not give all of its hidden power so that the taste of the tree could be equal to the taste of its fruit. Instead, it raised its eyes to look outside of itself. It considered a trivial future and way of being.

"At that time as well, the moon complained. As a result, it lost its internal orbit, the joy of its portion. It was dreaming of a superficial beauty of royalty.

"Thus does the world continue, sinking into the destruction of every "I"-of the individual and of the whole.

"Learned educators come and focus on the superficial. They too remove their consciousness from the "I." They add straw to the fire, give vinegar to the thirsty, and fatten minds and hearts with everything that is external to them.

"And the "I" gets progressively forgotten.

"And when there is no "I," there is no "He," and how much more is there no "You."

"The Messiah is called "the breath of our nostrils, the anointed one of God" (Lamentations4:20).
This is his might, the beauty of his greatness: that he is not outside of us. He is the breath of our nostrils.
Let us seek Hashem our God and David our king.
Let us tremble before God and His goodness.
Let us seek our "I."
Let us seek ourselves-and find.
Remove all foreign gods, remove every stranger and illegitimate one.
Then "you will know that I am Hashem your God, Who takes you out of the land of Egypt to be your God. I am Hashem."
-Rav Kook, Orot Hakodesh III, pp. 140-41

The Thirst of the Soul

"Hasidic thought views philosophy and philosophers with an apathy verging on invalidation. The faith of philosophers rests upon the astute answer that they give to resolve some paradox that they themselves created. But contentment with some "answer" only stultifies the longing soul, which yearns daily for a more profound thirst and for ever-increasing fulfillment...The thirst becomes enclothed in philosophical questions, in the desire to understand a certain point. That philosophical quest is thus merely one of the vessels in which the soul's thirst takes on a form, because the ultimate thirst of the soul is still hidden from consciousness. But if a person were able to visualize what he really seeks, his mind would already have grasped it, and attaining it attaining it would then be within reach. However, since he is not yet ready to grasp this ultimate truth in his mind, his thirst must now express itself in some interim form in some desire to which the soul can presently relate...The person who relishes in resolving some philosophical question is just like that wounded child [who is pacified with candy]. His soul is only temporarily pacified, but he has not quenched his soul's ongoing thirst. For the thirst of the soul is to return to its Source...step by step...without too much tarrying at each step, for each step brings the soul closer..."

-R. Menachem Ekstein, H"YD, Tannai ha'Nefesh 'Hasagat ha'Chaddisut (Translated as Visions of a Compassionate World by Yehoshua Starrett)

"It is only possible to find a secure basis for the soul in the context of God. Knowledge, feeling, imagination, desire, and the inner and outer movements of the soul all require of Man that they be Godly. Then they will find their full expression, their proper relations, with a settled mind. However, if a person searches for greatness just below this level, then immediately he is like a lost ship in the sea; battling waves constantly remove rest from him, and from wave to wave he is taken in confusion. If it is possible for him to become stuck in any thick mud of an insensitive soul and heart, he will be successful in limiting the light of his life for a while until it seems like he has finally found rest. But this will not prevail for long; the soul will break through its prison and the unstable confusion will be at its full strength. The place of our rest is only to be found in God."

-R. Kook, Orot, Zironim, Tzima'on l'El Chai (See R. Haim Lifshitz here and here for his analogy of G0d as the appex of a triangle)

"The history of philosophy exhibits man's search for Truth by the way of discursive reasoning. A Neo-Thomist...has maintained that the judgement always points beyond itself, always contains an implicit reference to Absolute Truth...[W]e may say that the search for truth is ultimately the search for Absolute Truth, God, and even those systems of philosophywhich appear to refute this statement, e.g. Historical Materialism, are nevertheless examples of it, for they are all seeking, even if unconsciously, even if they would not recognize the fact, for the ultimate Ground, the supremely Real."

-Frederick Copleston, A History of Philosophy, pg. 6

"In My Father, Bertrand Russell, his daughter Katharine Tait, writes 'I would have liked to convince my father that I had found what he had been looking for, the ineffable something he had longed for all his life. I would have liked to persuade him that the search for God does not have to be in vain. But it was hopeless...' Tait, nevertheless, believes that Russell's 'whole life had been a search for God...Somewhere in the back of my father's mind, at the bottom of his heart, in the depths of his soul, there was an empty space that had once been filled by God, and he never found anything else to put in it.' He had 'the ghost like feeling of not belonging, of having no home in this world.' In a poignant passage Russell once said: ''Nothing can penetrate the loneliness of the human heart except the highest intensity of the sort of love the religious teachers have preached.'"

-Quoted in There is a God: How the World Most Notorious Atheist Changed his Mind, by Anthony Flew, pgs. xx-xxi

Deeper is Higher - Part VI.5: Jewish Philosophies of the Mind

Previously, I gave an overview of the mind-body problem and briefly argued that the Materialism cannot explain away consciousness. It is fundamentally a trans-physical creation, or in the words of the well-known neuroscientist Sir John Eccles, "a Divine creation" (Quoted in Varghese, Cosmos, Bios, Theos, pg. 160). However, we are not exempt from considering the role of the brain and body and it's relation to the mind.

The first point I want to make is that the soul is not confined to the brain. Berakhot 10a teaches that just like The Holy One fills the entire world, the Neshama fills the entire body. Furthermore,the Sages (Vayikra Rabbah, 4:5) compare the body to a blind man and the soul to a lame man - only together do they form a functioning organism.

Nevertheless, according to many traditional sources (e.g. Rokeach, Chochmat ha'Nefesh, 34) the locus of focus for the soul is in the brain. The analogy commonly given is that of a radio or television. The sights and sounds are not in the radio or television; it is merely a vehicle for its expression. Similarly, the brain enables the soul to be manifested in this world.

On a deeper level, the brain actually acts as a filter for the powers of the soul. For example, R. Aryeh Kaplan writes (Jewish Meditation, 9-10): “In a meditative state, however, it is possible to turn off the interference and concentrate totally on the rose. As we shall see, with training, one can turn off the spontaneous self-generated images and thus remove the screen. The beauty of the flower when seen in these higher states of awareness is indescribable to someone who has never experienced it. The most I can say is that the rose actually appears to radiate beauty. This can be true of anything else in the world...It is somewhat like trying to tune in to a faint radio station; even if you cannot amplify the volume, you will hear the station more clearly if you can eliminate the static." Also see Berakhot 57b; Niddah 30b; Shiurei Da'at, Chaye Olamot.

Similarly, Aldous Huxley writes: “Reflecting on my experience [with mescaline], I find myself agreeing with the eminent Cambridge philosopher, Dr. C. D. Broad, ‘that we should do well to consider much more seriously than we have hitherto been inclined to do the type of theory which Bergson put forward in connection with memory and sense perception. The suggestion is that the function of the brain and nervous system and sense organs is in the main eliminative and not productive. Each person is at each moment capable of remembering all that has ever happened to him and of perceiving everything that is happening everywhere in the universe. The function of the brain and nervous system is to protect us from being overwhelmed and confused by this mass of largely useless and irrelevant knowledge, by shutting out most of what we should otherwise perceive or remember at any moment, and leaving only that very small and special selection which is likely to be practically useful.’ According to such a theory, each one of us is potentially Mind at Large. But in so far as we are animals, our business is at all costs to survive. To make biological survival possible, Mind at Large has to be funneled through the reducing valve of the brain and nervous system. What comes out at the other end is a measly trickle of the kind of consciousness which will help us to stay alive on the surface of this Particular planet. See here.

Now we briefly turn to different approaches within Judaism to the mind-body problem:

1) The body is crass, physical and made of dust and ashes, while the soul is ethereal, spiritual, and angelic (Orach Chayyim, 6:1, Ramah; Aruch ha'Shulchan, 1:1 ). They come from two different dimensions. However, this is not to say that the soul is completely alien to physical body (although it certainly is not compatible with an impure body). The Kabbalists clearly take the position of Holism - that a soul in its fullness is to be found with a body - in their conception of Techiat ha'Meitim, Resurrection of the Dead.

Avakesh (with a little help from yours truly) writes similarly: “Let us return to the Kabbalistic approach to reality that we have previously discussed. To review, the spiritual rides the physical and the spiritual is both within and beyond the physical. We can posit that Consciousness, a spiritual nonmaterial entity, 'rides' and is enjambed within the physical substance of the brain in such a manner that each can affect the other. In this vein, Sefer Yetsirah (1:7) when discussing how the sefiros function within our world, says: "The beginning is stuck into the end and the end is stuck into the beginning." It is now fashionable in physics to speak about strings - vibrations and waves. One can analogize the physical and the spiritual as being two ends of a wave, so that vibrating either end also vibrates the other. When the brain is stimulated by neural activity (made up of matter), the consciousness (the spiritual) is stimulated. One can stimulate certain parts of the brain and produce a religious experience. However, one can also undergo a religious experience and locate activity in the same location within the brain. One does not disprove the other. It is a two-way street between the spiritual and the physical, top-down and bottom-up.

The assumptions of Cartesians (and all Christian philosophers were pre-cartesian Cartesians) is plain wrong from the Jewish perspective, for they view the spiritual as something distinct and separate from the physical world. However, as we have previously explained, there is no separation between the physical and the spiritual. It is one string and vibrating the string on either end will move the entire string. Activity in both worlds is contemporaneous from the material perspective; in the spiritual perspective which is beyond time, it is co-causative. We can extend this principle to explain why mystical experiences can be mapped within the brain as well as why direct contact with the Divine will cause movement in the brain. They are one organic whole. The whole problem of consciousness vs. neuroscience is only a problem if the two are separated. The Kabbalists, however, teach that they are intricately connected and interwoven.”

2) The body is physical and the soul spiritual but they are twins in all worlds. The body is certainly distinct from the body but it also has a spiritual root, an astral body. R. Yosef Leib Bloch, in Shiurei Da'at (Ki kol ba'shamayim u'va'aretz II), writes:

"Man, at the time that he lives here [in this world] is simultaneously found in the upper worlds. It is incumbent upon us to understand that the way we usually think and imagine [the nature of Man] is incorrect. We usually think that Man is composed of a body and soul, the soul descended from above, was tied to physicality, and after death it leaves the body and rises above. In truth, however, Man is found constantly in all worlds and lives there according to the matters of this world as they are manifested in the upper worlds. Yet the final manifestation of Man is found below in this world, tied and trapped in physicality. This is the part of Man which functions in this lower world through the senses and is limited by the laws of nature of this world. However, the essential existence of Man is found above in the lofty and exalted worlds. There he lives and exists during his descent to this world and even after his death when the body is seperated from him and decomposes.

"However, the relationship between the body and the soul which is found in this world also exists in Man in the upper worlds, although in a completely different sense according to the nature of those worlds.

"Furthermore, all of the aspects of Man that the Sages discerned and labeled as Nefesh, Ruach, Neshama, Chaya, Yechida, are not be understood as separate souls, one above the other, but, rather, according to the truth, there is but one reality that manifests on all worlds. All of these names given to Man are according to his level in each world in which he is found..." Ayin sham v'timsi nachat! Also, see Zohar Vayekel II:197a and Emor III:88b on Eliyahu's light-body.

3) The body, or perhaps only the brain, is the last manifestation of the soul itself. Gerald Schroeder (God According to God, 84-105) writes: "The late George Wald...envisioned that mind is the source of matter. This makes all the sense in the world if, in fact, matter is built from energy and energy is built from information. Suddenly the old conundrum of how the physical brain gives rise to the ethereal mind and experienced sentience evaporates. It is not a question of consciousness arising from matter. It is rather quite the opposite, of matter arising from consciousness."

Later (pg. 226), he continues: "The Bible informs us, and Wald, Heisenberg, Schrödinger, Jeans, and Wheeler have come to confirm, that wisdom...is the substrate, the basis of existence...To quote a portion of Sir James Jean's words...'We are beginning to suspect that we ought rather to hail mind as the creator and governor of the real of matter'...We are truly made...in the tsel’em of God. Tsel'em, the Hebrew word usually translated as "image" contains the Hebrew word Tsel, meaning 'shadow.' A shadow projects the shape of what casts it, yet it has no physical authenticity of its own. That notwithstanding, the presence of a shadow is readily perceived and its effect clearly felt, as we all know, that we seek the comfort of a shadow on hot and sunny days. As Heisenberg, Schrödinger, Jeans, and Wald realized, we are truly the tsel-em, the ethereal projection, of the thought that brought existence into being. Each of us is a spirit clothed with a body."

This approach seems consistent with the Kabbalistic view of the Sin of Adam. The Ramchal (Da’at Tevunot, pgs. 113-114, Friedlander edition), for example, writes that all of existence was on a higher plane prior to Adam’s sin. The body of Adam was on the same level as our soul. With his sin all of reality dropped down into our physical world. The Leshem writes (Derushei Olam ha’Tohu 2:4:3): “Existence has gone from soul to body, from body to garment, and from inner garment to outer garment; it is like a stamp that leaves its imprint on another stamp, which leaves its imprint on another stamp.”

This approach would explain how the soul has senses as well (see Berakhot 10a). Kenneth Ring, in Mindsight, describes the curious phenomenon of people blind from birth that had vision during an Out-of-Body-Experience or Near-Death-Experience. With this in mind, see Tehillim 94:8 and 115; Avot 2:1; Sha'arei Kedusha, 1:1.

"Know from the start that all truth derives from the Word of God and thus partakes of the sacred. Cultivate purity, knowing that this constitutes a precondition to the reception of truth. Learn once more to revere what is worthy of reverence. Cast off the profane and irreverent persona of the modern intellectual, and cultivate the spirit of discipleship. Learn to receive the gift of faith; know that faith is the seed of wisdom."

-Wolfgang Smith

Rembrandt, The Philosopher in Meditation

Deeper is Higher - Part VI

"By a "silly" theory I mean one which may be held at the time when one is talking or writing professionally, but which only an inmate of a lunatic asylum would think of carrying into daily life. I should count Behaviourism, taken quite strictly... as "silly" in this sense. No one in his senses can in practice regard himself or his friends or enemies simply as ingenious machines produced by other machines ... It must not be supposed that the men who maintain these theories and believe that they believe them are "silly" people. Only very acute and learned men could have thought of anything so odd or defended anything so preposterous against the continual protests of common-sense" (C.D. Broad, Mind and It's Place in Nature).


"We regard promissory materialism as superstition without a rational foundation... [It] is simply a religious belief held by dogmatic materialists...who often confuse their religion with their science" (Sir John Eccles and Daniel N. Robinson, The Wonder of Being Human, pg. 36)


"The current belief that all mental processes are unconscious is so obviously contrary to experience that it can be regarded simply as a symptom of the metaphysical miasma induced by overexposure to scientific materialism" (B. Alan Wallace, The Taboo of Subjectivity, pg. 81)

Philosophy of the Mind

After our excursions into paranormal psychology - Telepathy, Psychokinesis, Out-of-Body Experiences, Near-death Experiences, and Memories of Past Lives - we now (re)turn to normal consciousness. But, as we shall see, there is something mysterious and mystical about consciousness as well; most people are just unaware of their awareness, unconscious of their consciousness, unmindful of their mind to realize this fundamental truth. So let us begin by defining and delineating the ineffability of consciousness.


Consciousness

Consciousness refers to subjective experience and awareness. The data that is processed by one's consciousness is multi-faceted:

1) Sensory phenomenon: We experience sensations, we can relive these sensory experiences through memory, and we have the ability to imagine new sensory phenomenon built upon our experiences in the past. These experience have an irreducibly subjective - a first-person -quality to them (Qualia).

2) Cognitive system: We have the ability to conceive, remember, imagine, reason abstractly, and communicate meaningful concepts.

3) Self-identity: The “I” experiences these sensory phenomenon, it focuses attention, accesses one’s own internal state, judges and reasons, plans and executes intentions, and it chooses freely. It is the "center" of our consciousness, the unitary identity which is stable throughout one's life.

These are undeniable facts of human experience. Yet, there is another undeniable fact of human existence - the brain.


The Brain

Long before Pineas Gage and the Decade of the Brain humanity was aware of the importance of the brain in human functioning. Nevertheless, in our day the focus on the brain has been intensified as we have uncovered the "neural correlates" to certain cognitive and emotional functions. Furthermore, we now understand many disorders or illnesses, like strokes, from a neurological perspective (My Stroke of Insight is an interesting book about a neuroscientist who had a stroke). Furthermore, Split-brain experiments question the unity of consciousness. Lastly, the heart-wrenching Alzheimer's disease makes us question the nature of our very self.

Solutions

Thus we have arrived at what is known as the "hard problem" of consciousness. On one hand we have subjective-mental experiences of sensory phenomenon, cognitive processes, and our very own self, and, yet, on the other hand we know that without the physical brain these experiences would not be possible. Let us take a brief look at some of the solutions.


1. Eliminative Materialism – There is no such thing as a mind, not even an illusion, and eventually the terms "mind," "consciousness," "self," will be eliminated from our vocabulary.
2. Epiphenomenalism -Our experience is merely a product of the brain-body processes. It is an illusion that the mind affects the brain-body.
3. Psychophysical Identity Theory – The mind exists but is completely parallel to and influenced by the brain states like two sides of the same coin. The mind does not influence the brain.
4. Mentalism – Mental processes and consciousness arise from brain activity (emergent) but now that they actually exist they can influence the brain (dynamic).
5. Substance Dualism/Cartesian Dualism – Mind and matter are two entirely separate substances, and the mind cannot be reduced to a non-mental explanation. Nevertheless, there is an interaction between mental processes and neural events.


The Problems of Materialism

The problems with all reductionist-materialistic approaches are manifold.

1) It is very difficult to conceive of how consciousness - which from our experience is utterly different than matter - could have and does emerge from matter. Theorists, including Francis Crick, like to speculate about the "neural correlates of consciousness" (I counted about twenty such theories) but, to quote Roy Abraham Varghese, in The Wonder of the World, "the best that a theory like Crick's can do is show that certain mental processes can be correlated with certain brain activities, but such a theory can't and doesn't pretend to show why there's subjective experience that accompanies the physical operation. Crick admits that he has no answer to the question of what causes the specific experience of being conscious...[W]e have no idea where sentience, i.e. what consciousness feels like on the inside, came from. Nor do we know how or why" (pg. 301).

Furthermore, even if one were to posit that mind did emerge from matter we would have no parallel in nature for such an event. As B. Alan Wallace notes "At present there is no technology that can detect the presence or absence of any kind of consciousness, for scientists do not even know what exactly is to be measured...If mental phenomena are in fact nothing more than emergent properties and functions of the brain, their relation to the brain is fundamentally unlike every other emergent property and function found in nature" (Quoted in The Spiritual Brain, pg. 109).

On this basis, David Chalmers (see here and here) has concluded that the hard problem ("why should physical processing give rise to a rich inner life") is currently unsolvable within the current scientific framework. Some quantum physicists are calling for a complete overhaul of scientific worldview.

2) The existence of the self is equally as baffling and awe-inspiring. In the words of Mike Gazzaniga, the fact that we interact with others [besides ourselves!] and do not think of it as brains talking to other brains is "the deep mystery of neuroscience, and no one has touched it yet" (Quoted in Varghese, There is Life After Death, pg. 196).

Some maintain that there is no "I" - there are only brain-states or person-phases. Steven Pinker argues that this is incoherent since we have only one body and multiple agents would make it impossible for us to function since there is no unifier.

Furthermore, there is no one part of the brain where the self is located. Where are YOU located? And to top it off - within each neuron, the molecules are replaced approximately 10,000 times in a a life span (The Spiritual Brain, pg. 114), and, as Radin formulates it, "All of the material used to express that pattern has disappeared, and yet the pattern still exists. What holds the pattern, if not matter? This question is not easily answered by the assumptions of a mechanistic, purely materialistic science" (Conscious Universe, pg. 259).

The self also has the ability to (apparently) choose freely. To deny this can only be preached, not practiced. There is a long history to this debate and I only quote one interesting argument from John Searle. In Rationality in Action he argues that the illusion of free-will would not have an evolutionary advantage. The reasons for a decision are experienced as not a sufficient cause for the decision. We choose to act on the reasons. There is a gap in the causation between the reasons and the action. The responsibility for the action is due to a continuing conscious self that makes the choice and experiences the results. If the underlying neuro-physiology is deterministic, then the experience of the gap is an illusion, then the conscious response to the gap has no real effect on the action – it is a systematic property of the brain as a whole that is an "epiphenomenon." Evolution would not have produced that. Therefore, the underlying neuro-physiology must be indeterministic.

Lastly, Jeffrey Shwartz has demonstrated in his work with OCD, that one - through conscious volition - can actually change brain functioning (Neuroplasticity). This, he argues, is a clear example of "mind over matter," and is thus fatal to Materialism.

3) The existence of thought is the next manifestation of a trans-physical reality. To quote Varghese, "We may see neural activity, but that's not the same thing as seeing the thought in the mode we experience it...when we perceive a neural firing in the brain, we perceive a physical process, rather than that which we experience on the inside as a thought...Most important of all, it's the thoughts that drive the corresponding neural transactions and not the other way around. There is no chicken or egg question here. The thought comes first and, as a result, causes certain brain events" (The Wonder of the World, pgs. 56-57).

Furthermore, the ability to conceive of abstract concepts deals a further blow to Materialism. We have the unique ability to produce a concept that does not refer to a specific physical thing or being. The ideas of justice or mathematical abstractions do not correlate with our sensory experience or have a physical counterpart. Mark Steiner has discussed mathematics in this context at length. Also see Avakesh.

The Problem of Trans-physical Explanations

One problem with trans-physical explanation is that Materialism promises, based on previous successes, to eventually explain everything within the standard scientific framework. They argue that resorting to a trans-physical explanation is just another example of "the god of the gaps" phenomena.

However, the main problem with trans-physical non-reductionist approaches is that it is difficult to conceive of how the mind interacts with matter (mind-body problem). David Chalmers has responded to this objection as follows: It is sometimes objected that distinct physical and mental states could not interact, since there is no causal nexus between them. But one lesson from Hume and from modern science is that the same goes for any fundamental causal interactions, including those found in physics...there is no need for a causal nexus distinct from the physical and mental properties themselves."

The next post in this series will suggest what some Jewish approaches are to the mind and the mind-body problem.