Secrets of the Torah: Questions and Answers in Kabbalah

Hello Rabbi. Occasionally, I encounter the word 'Shekhinah.' What does it mean? It seems like the Shekhinah is not Hashem, but something else.

Hello and blessings. The term 'Shekhinah' refers to the tenth Sephirah of the ten Sephirot - the Sephirah of Malchut. Hashem bestows influence to the Shekhinah, from which it flows to the people of Israel. Additionally, or concurrently, 'Shekhinah' is also used to denote Hashem's providence over the lower world.

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Recently, I read an article that said before Eve, Adam had another wife, who later turned out to be the wife of Satan. She was none other than Lilith, a symbol of immodesty, malice, and rebellion. My question is, how is it possible that Eve is mentioned as the first woman? After all, Lilith came before her. What does this say about women, if the evil came before the good? And is it possible that the Torah is hiding important details and trying to beautify the story of Adam and Eve? If possible, I would very much like to hear the true and complete story of Adam and Eve.

Hello and blessings. As the Sages revealed in the Talmud, there are many secrets of the Torah in the stories of Genesis, as extensively elaborated by the sages of Kabbalah. In this matter, it is clearly specified in the holy Zohar that initially, alongside the first Adam, there was a 'first Eve,' who preceded Eve, Adam's wife. After she did not accept her status properly, she fled from Adam, and Hashem then created Eve, the mother of all life. I will quote from the Zohar regarding this: Rabbi Yehoshua said, "The first Eve existed and was removed from him, and she harms creatures. This is what is written, 'And took one of his ribs,' which is the first one taken from him because she was a harmful spirit, and he closed the flesh in her place, raising another in her place." Rabbah said she was flesh, while the other was not. And what was she? Rabbi Yitzchak said, " Earth's impurity and refuse." The first Eve is connected with Lilith, the mother of demons, as elaborated in the Zohar. It is not necessary to delve into these matters when much of our sacred Torah pertinent to us is yet to be properly studied and made part of our spirit.

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I have seen Rabbi Menashe Israel write that according to the ancient Kabbalists, there was a world before ours. Is there any idea of what existed then, and how did the world look? The question refers to whether the Kabbalists convey anything about the world before ours, and what details have been passed down from the world before our current one.

Hello and blessings. In these matters, we must not make assumptions but only relay what was received from our revered Kabbalistic teachers, generation after generation. There are very few insights about the previous Shemitah, and I shall bring some here with Hashem's help.

A. The esteemed Tiferet Yisrael holds that the Earth is a creation from the previous world, and that the forms called dinosaurs discovered in the Earth's depths are remnants of creatures from the world before ours. (His words were cited by a great sage from before the Holocaust, the Maharsham of Berezhany, in his book Tachles Mordechai, Genesis, Section 2). This idea is also supported by the sacred words of the Radbaz in his book Magen David, indicating that the Earth progresses from world to world, as the scripture states 'the Earth stands forever,' renewing itself with the suitable flora and fauna for the current world according to the Sephirot order.

B. In the book Bnei Yissaschar (Discourses on the months of Tammuz-Av, Essay 5), it is stated that during the previous Shemitah, silver metal was valued more than gold metal.

C. In the book Iggeret HaKalah (on the verse 'between the light and between the darkness'), it mentions that anyone whom the Tanakh uses the expression 'was,' like 'And Moses was a shepherd,' it means that this soul was already in the previous world. And the Almighty, in His great mercy, sent the soul again in this Shemitah for the sake of this generation.

D. In the aforementioned book (on the verse 'And let the birds fly'), it is explained extensively in the name of the ancient Book of Kenah that the majority of fish in the sea are from the previous Shemitah, from the world before ours. Similarly, it is mentioned there on Parshat Noach (on the verse "of all that were on dry land died").

E. In the aforementioned book, Parshat Chayei Sarah, on the verse "And Abraham was old, well advanced in years," it explains according to the mystics that Abraham our patriarch's soul was also in the previous world, and this is the secret of the verse stating that Abraham was 'old, advanced in years.'

F. In the book Sefer HaTemunah (attributed to one of the Tannaim), it is written in one place discussing this matter, that only in our Shemitah are bodies constructed such that there are more veins than organs.

G. Radbaz in his book Magen David (Section 3) writes that during the previous Shemitah, the Torah included only positive commandments.

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I have heard in several lectures by Rabbi Zamir Cohen that the Sages say that Hashem would create worlds and destroy them until He made our world. And I saw in Rashi's commentary on Genesis 1 that it arose in Hashem's mind to create the world in the attribute of justice, but it could not stand. So, He combined the attribute of mercy before the attribute of justice and said 'Let it be the will that it stands.' Is there a connection between these statements? In a lecture, Rabbi Zamir Cohen also said that the Sages said that in the previous worlds, there were also people who were spiritually inferior to us, and that it could be what scientists find today – skulls and bones showing signs of cannibalism – are those of the people from the previous worlds, who would eat their kind due to their spiritual baseness. The rabbi did not provide sources in the lecture. Could the rabbi provide the sources? And I have a few more questions:

1. If Hashem destroyed the worlds, why create them?
2. What was the purpose of those inferior people?
3. Could it be that our world will also be destroyed, Heaven forbid, and a new world be created where humans will be spiritually greater?
4. How many worlds were there and destroyed?

Hello and blessings. The matter of the Shemitahs and worlds before the one we inhabit is a very marvelous explanation for the finds of dinosaurs and Neanderthal humans. This is elaborated in the essay "Or HaChaim" by the sage Rabbi Yisrael Lifshitz, author of Tiferet Yisrael, about a hundred and fifty years ago, and included in the Mishnas "Yachin and Boaz" at the end of Tractate Sanhedrin.

The early Kabbalists reveal that the world we are in now is not the first framework of life on Earth. According to them, the world moves through cycles of seven Shemitahs, in each Shemitah there are seven thousand years, and Hashem renews His world at His will at the end of each seven thousand years cycle to match the parallel Sephirah in the seven upper Sephirot. According to most ancient Kabbalists, we are in the fifth Shemitah world, corresponding to the Sephirah of Hod, meaning there have already been four creation processes, and of course, we have no idea of what the previous creation was like, what it contained, and what it did not, what traits existed there, and what was its temperament.

The Kabbalists explain that the planet Earth we are on existed in Shemitahs that preceded us, and this explains the verse "and the Earth remains forever." This is also why the creation of the Earth is not mentioned at all on the first day of creation in Parshat Bereishit. The verse means this: In the beginning – before the start of all Shemitahs – Hashem created the heavens and the Earth, and they remained throughout all the Shemitahs (and there is a hint to this in the Torah in a kosher Torah scroll where the scribe notes with small tags on the first letter 'B' in the Torah, hinting that the matter spoken of in this verse 'In the beginning' was already from the past four Shemitahs that came before us, thus the verse continues to detail exactly what happened at the start of the current Shemitah we are in). "And the Earth was formless and empty," meaning after Hashem transferred the world preceding us at the end of the fourth Shemitah, it was in a state of formlessness and emptiness. When it arose in Hashem's will to renew His world in the fifth Shemitah, then "He said, 'Let there be light,' and there was light," etc. From there, it begins to describe in detail the entire current creation, which lasted six days. Thus, it is clear that we have no concept of the time state in Shemitahs that preceded us, how time operated then, and what were the movements of that time. Consequently, when bizarre creatures are discovered in the Earth's belly, it is quite possible that these are remnants from earlier Shemitahs, as ultimately, the Earth served even in the previous Shemitah.

This is one of the explanations of the sages' words that Hashem was creating worlds and destroying them. It is also stated in the Midrash "There was evening, and there was morning" - "indicating that there was an order of times beforehand" - and we have no idea of how matters conducted themselves in those ancient worlds, if they had Torah and how choice and providence concepts melded with each other. Exile and redemption in those worlds, as well as the existence and how they functioned there, we do not even know if they had free will and according to what logic and rules they operated. Similarly, we have no concept of what the affairs will be like in the next creation cycle under the mystery of the Sephirah of Yesod, etc. We came for a very brief sojourn in this current world and it is enough for us to delve into and achieve our duties in our world. We have no interest or ability to investigate what was before or what will be after.

Someone who wants to understand everything and know precisely how everything fits together is like an ant investigating and trying to understand the logic and business rules of Wall Street, and even more than that.

The answers were given by Rabbi Menashe Israel and Rabbi Benjamin Shmueli, compiled, and edited from the Q&A section on the Hidabroot website.