3 replies to this topic

[shaya]

they say it in the name of reb nachman breslov, what does this mean and whats the mekor?

[Rabbi Shapiro]

The source is the Sefer Bechinas Olam, and it is quoted also in the Sefer HaIkarim - all way before Rav Nachman.

It means that we should not think that we can understand Hashem in part, but we just cannot understand Him totally. Rather, we need to know that we cannot comprehend a thing about Hashem at all. (We can only know what Hashem is not; not what He is. Also, we can only know about His Midos, but not His Self.) The more we learn about Hashem the more we realize that we have absolutely no conception in the slightest of His Self.

We know things about Hashem - that He created the world; that He took us out of Egypt, etc. None of this however tells us anything about what Hashem is - merely what He did or does. When we start learning about what Hashem is, we find out that the more we learn, the less we know.

We learn that Hashem has no emotions; He is not comprised of parts; He has no cause; He has no boundaries, etc. All of this tells us that Hashem has no this and no that; that, in more and more ways, He is not like anything we can understand. The more we learn about Hashem, the more we realize that He is incomprehensible. The understanding that He is incomprehensible takes a lot of knowledge. Unlearned people may say it, but they do not understand it.

תכלית הידיעה שלא נדעך - the objective of learning about Hashem is to gain an understanding of the fact that He is incomprehensible.

See what I wrote about this is צדה לדרך, footnote 18.

[shaya]

 The more we learn about Hashem the more we realize that we have absolutely no conception in the slightest of His Self.

We know things about Hashem - that He created the world; that He took us out of Egypt, etc. None of this however tells us anything about what Hashem is -

We learn that Hashem has no emotions; He is not comprised of parts; He has no cause; He has no boundaries, etc. 

 

the words of his self struck me and i wonder..

 

if hashem is not physical and is kuloi poshut, and has no cause to him, what would be "his self"?

 

isnt his middos and his actions all there is to hashem? his self would imply anything physical or at least describable.

 

lets say one might ask what does hashem do all day, well he learns torah, ok, but that again does not imply that there is anything of himself, meaning more than his middos or and actions, 

 

i guess my question is: you say we cannot know anything about hashem himself, what would that himself entail? 

 

i hope my Q is clear enough

[Rabbi Shapiro]

Yes it is clear enough. We cannot conceptualize Hashem's self. See here.