The Gate of Unity and Faith

This is the second part of my Tanya study guide, covering a second part of the classic Chassidic work of philosophy, The Gate of Unity of Unity and Faith.  It is dedicated to the rapid and complete healing of my mother, Gail bat Adele.  

Chap 1 the world is made of g'ds ten utterances.

Chap 2 the universe is sustained by these continuing utterances and without them would revert to void.  Human creation is transformation of what already exists, while Divine creation is creating existence itself.

Chap 3.  Sunbeams appear like they have their own identity but at their source, the sun itself, they are subsumed.  So too the material world is an illusion which we only perceive because its divine source is obscured.

Chap 4

The aspects of the divine associated with אלוקים׳  , vessels, הגבר protect the world from an over abundance of divine light while the aspect associated with light, יקוק  and הגדול provide the constant renewal of creation. Both aspects have their source in the highest level of the divine.

Chap 5

Divine mercy is embodied in our world through saintly people and through the miracles recounted in the Torah.  There are levels of comprehension of the universe that are beyond what even Moses perceived.  Such understanding will nourish the souls of Torah scholars when they enter the Garden of Eden after they die.

Chap 6

The divine tendency to expand and influence provides life.  The divine tendency to conceal allows life to continue.  The two tendencies are one at their source.

Chap 7 - Direction and time are the structure of our revealed world; these dimensions are not pertinent to G'd but he is one with them.

Chap 8

Consider how a person's speech is derived from thought.  Thought in turn is derived from aspects of personality, which in turn are derived from a person's wisdom, knowledge, and understanding.  The speech, thought, personality aspects, and wisdom knowledge and understanding are all one.  So too the universe, with all its multiplicity of parts and complexity, is one.

Chap 9

Wisdom is the highest level of this world, but there are levels of the divine that are above and beyond wisdom.

Chap 10

One can understand the first three days of creation as follows:  Day One, with the creation of luminaries, is the revelation of light, divine kindness and extension. Day Two, with the separation of heaven and earth, is the revelation of boundaries and limits.  Day Three, the revelation of dry land, is the unveiling of space maintained through the tension between divine boundary and divine extension.  This 'dry land' is the space within which we can exist and serve G'd.

Chap 11 and 12

The Rabbis called the process of divine creation 'utterances' because the manifestation of divine will in this world is similar to the translation of thought into speech.  The revealed world is analogous to divine speech while the concealed world is analogous to divine thought.

The 22 Hebrew letter are analogous to 22 kinds of emanation of divine influence.  Every distinct created thing comes from a unique permutation of these letter-forces.  A thing's name reflects the 'letters' from which it is created.