Hasiduth: The Interior and Exterior Life in Judaism

 Rebbi Abraham, the son and exponent of the foremost medieval Jewish authority Moshe ben Mimoun, contends that the path of the Torah consists of a dimension which is outward and another which upon the basis of this outward-ness leads to the inward.  

“The pathway leading to the fulfillment of the Torah has always been comprised of two paths: a common and a special path…We traverse the common path by fulfilling the outward commandments performing the positive ones and avoiding the negative ones.    We say this is a common path, because it is common to the elite and the masses of Israel, and said this way, it is outward because it is something that everybody understands...  We say that the special path is inward because it aims at the purposes of the commandments and their secrets and what can be understood of the intention of the religion and the lives of the prophets and the friends of God.”

The revelation is meant for the Jewish people and for all human beings destined to follow this tradition. But not everyone is meant to follow the interior path. It is enough for a person to have accepted the yoke of heaven and have lived according to Halakhah (Jewish law) to be granted the vision of God in the “next world”

“And he who follow this common path of the performance of the commandments is call ssadiq (just) tam (whole)... but the best name for that is ssadiq, which is derived from ssedeq (justice) and the “full payment of what is due,” for the performance of the obligatory commandment is a claim that, He, May He be exalted, has upon us, just as a servant is obligated to follow the directives of is master, as it is said: “The children of Israel are my servant” 

But there are those who yearn for the Divine here and now, and whose love for God and propensity for contemplating Divine reality compel them to seek the path of inwardness. The Torah revelation provides a path for such human beings, for those human beings who are with God while still walking upon the earth. This path is the path of love and is called Hasiduth because it is going beyond the obligation of the common law.

“The special path is a way of life attuned to the objectives and secrets of the commandments, the implied goal of the Torah and (the realization of) the inward states of the prophets and the Hasidim.  The most correct name (for them) is Hasids which comes from Hesed: loving kindness, because they go beyond what is required of them according to the explicit sense of the Law.”

While the concrete embodiment of the Divine will which is the Halakhah, is called the exoteric dimension in the sense of governing all of man’s outward life as well as his psyche, the spiritual path, Hasiduth, is call the esoteric dimension. To interiorize life itself and to become aware of the inward dimension, one must recall God upon the waves of multiplicity. In the words of Maimonides “the aim of... the prayer, the proclamation of divine unity, the reading of the Torah etc is to recall God all the time.” But these rites themselves are not limited to their outer forms. Rather, they possess an inward dimension and level of meaning which man can reach in function of his degree of faith and the intensity and quality of his virtue or inner beauty.

“(For example)…You follow the special, esoteric path when you understand the secret of Shabbath and is purpose, and on that day, you remember the creation of the world and its source, and you direct your meditation to the “Ma’ase bereshith” (self disclosure of God through the existence of the universe) and attain inward sanctity.”  

Rebbi Moshe ben Mimoun in his code of Halakha (Jewish law) describes the perception of the self disclosure of God in the creation and the fruit of this meditation:  

“What is the way to love and to be in awe of Him?  When a person meditates about His astonishing deed and His great creatures (ma’ase bereshith) and perceives His infinite wisdom, immediately he loves, praises, lauds, and desires passionately to know the great Name, as David said: My being thirsts for Go-d, the living G-od. When he is concentrating upon this matter, he immediately draws back, is awe-struck, frightened, and knows that he is a feeble, humble, obscure creature, standing weak-minded before the perfect Self understanding…”(tamim de’oth) Mishne Torah Halakhoth de’oth ch 2 h 2  

There is, of course a difference of degree in the performance of the interiority of all commandments – Tefilla, prayer, Ssom, fast, Hagh, pilgrimage, Ssedaqa, charity.  The example Rebbi Abraham gives however concerns Shabbath: 

The range (of level of fulfillment) of the special path is as broad: as East is far from West. Those who follow it are on a very distinct level, even if they all follow a common trail at the same time. For example, let us look at three special persons among the Hasidim observing one Shabbath.

Resting and refraining from work in Shabbath are the obligations of the limbs. Through this observance, one may reach the level of the obligation of the heart.  The awareness of the purpose of Shabbath and the thought of the unfolding creation in the six days, lead in turn to the realization there is no real existence but the existence of God.

 “The first (hasid) adds to the common path of resting and refraining  from profaning the Shabbath the special path of contemplating upon the purpose of Shabbath and reflecting in general about the creation of the world, that heaven and earth and what is between them were created in six days and that there is no eternal existence except the creator who gives us the law of Shabbath, may He be magnified and exalted.”

Not only does the ritual observation of Shabbath possess an interior dimension, but also it serves as the basis for a more inward service: The opening of the soul through the “ten creative words,” in which God reveals himself through nature.

For the second (Hasid) the special way consists in meditating in a more detailed manner. He will focus on all that the first did, and in addition, contemplate the totality of the existence and what he is able to consider of its details from the center of the earth up to the circumference of the highest sphere, considering His wisdom,  may He be exalted, in  the whole (manifested) existence, and ponder about what was created the first day, the second day and every one of the rest of the six days according to what can be understood from the portion of “Genesis.”

The third level is the highest and the most comprehensive. It is the level of the intimate. For this Hasid “the six days of the creation,” the science of nature, is not a matter of curiosity; the knowledge of creation is not analytical speculation, the contemplation of the cosmos, not a matter of sentiment.  His whole being is surrendered to G-od.  He has no separate existence of his own. He is like the birds and the flowers in his yielding to the Creator.  Like them, like the other elements of the cosmos, he reflects the Divine intellect to his own degree. The intimate one is from this point of view “one with nature.”  He understands it “from the inside.” He has become in fact the channel of grace for the universe.         

For the third (Hasid) the special way, his special path (consists) in that he meditates about what the second reflects about and in that  becomes absorbed in his meditation until he is transported to the true  sanctity and rejoices in the Maker as the light of His majesty shines in his inwardness.  This will occur as he contemplates God and discovers His greatness through the greatness of what He has made.

Nature is viewed as a symbolic text which is read through contemplative intellection, and the Torah is the counterpart of that text in human words.  The objective of Shabbath is the perception of both “the ten words” (of creation) and “the ten commandments” (the Torah), as signs for the presence and the word of God.  One should be mindful of the changing usage of the words.  Intellect is so closely identified today with analytical functions of the mind that it bears no relation to contemplation, but in fact the truly contemplative attitude is based in intellection.

He will perceive[1]  the nobleness of these bonds: the intellect and the Torah (that exists) between Him and him.  This perception is the objective of Shabbath, as God said “between Me and between the children of Israel there is an eternal sign (of the bonds)”.

 The common forms of prayer possess an interior dimension, but they serve also the basis for other forms of prayer which become ever more inward as man progress upon the spiritual path.  The plain “service of the heart” the invocation (hazkara) without effort, and at times without effort in which invoker, invocation and invoked, become united, and through which man return to the center which is pure inwardness.

  Through this path he will attain what he strove for and wished:

”Your name and your remembrance are the desire of the soul a”

The fruit of the absorption of the intimate in meditation is described in the chapter of the retreat of this book: “David (King David) said about the contemplation of the stars “How great are you, friends O God, how great is their number!” David became absorbed to the point of dozing or resting and realized the Meeting that he realized! When he woke up or got up he remained in the Continuitya of that meeting---I awake, you are with me. We learn that the fruit of the meditation in daily life is:

….. Awe and love and desire for God.

  In the practice of the torah is an intermediate region between the exoteric and the esoteric and this is illustrated by the example of the practice of the first Hasid: the general contemplation of the purpose of Shabbath, while not strictly speaking esoteric, is like the reflection of the inner teaching of the prophets and the great Hasids within the whole community.

There is no doubt that between the ways of the third one, regarding Shabbath and the way of the second, there is a great difference and also even more so between the first and the third! 

In the same way that the dimension of inwardness is inward in relation of the outward, the outward being necessary as the basis and point of departure for the journey toward the inward, so it is regarding the common path in relation to the path of the intimate. It is only in accepting the Halakhah, the exoteric commandments, that one is able to travel to the path of the intimate where he will finally reach the truth, the soda of the torah and the heart of all things.

Unless is knows what is commanded he will not succeed in his way, as the sages said “an ignoramus cannot be a Hassid” but if he is informed (about exoteric law) he will be following the right way on the road with God.