From solid, cold, undeniably there, to a puddle, and then…gone. But is it really gone?
That simple transformation holds a profound secret, one that Rabbi Yehuda Leib Ashlag, known as Baal HaSulam (Master of the Ladder) uses to unlock a deeper understanding of the universe, especially in his "Preface to the Zohar."
He starts by talking about touch, the most "powerful" of our senses. Touch tells us hot from cold, solid from liquid. It feels real, doesn't it?
But Baal HaSulam challenges us. Are these sensations – hot, cold, solid, liquid – truly the essence of the thing itself? Or are they just… manifestations, incidents, fleeting moments of something deeper?
Think about it. We can chill the hot, heat the cold. Solid becomes liquid through chemical processes, liquid turns to vapor, escaping our five senses entirely. Remember that ice cube? It becomes invisible vapor.
And yet, Baal HaSulam insists, the essence is still there! We can turn the air back into liquid, the liquid back into solid. The potential remains.
This is where it gets interesting. Because if even our most powerful sense, touch, only perceives these changing “incidents” and not the underlying essence, what does that tell us?
It means, as Baal HaSulam makes clear, that our five senses – all of them – cannot reveal to us any essence whatsoever. We only perceive the activities within the essence. Not the thing itself.
So, what is that underlying essence? What is the “thing itself” beyond our limited perception? That, my friends, is the question that the Zohar, and Baal HaSulam's explanation, invites us to explore. It’s a question that invites us to look beyond the surface, beyond what we think we know, and to consider the hidden depths of reality. What do you think is truly real?