62 Spirituality Studies meanings. This awareness opens the way to see this unique building block within every real entity, whether spatiotemporal or not, whether material or not. As such, this atomic building block of “semantics” is that which is the source of the possibility of all beings, all meanings, contents, significances, values, good and bad, of true and false, of entities and identities, of signifying, of words, language, representations, ideas, narratives, or the capacity to define, compare, distinguish, and judge. In Platonic terms, it reveals the unified idea of Good, Truth, Justice, and Beauty (see Steinsaltz 2006, 27). This awareness is connected to the practical, unique ability of the consciousness to name, that is, to identify a real entity (a manifestation of Being in any Sefirah) and “baptize” it, assigning it a rigid designator (Kripke 1980). From that moment, it has, to some extent (depending on its level of realness), its own distinct existence; it has a constant, permanent identity that persists across all possibilities – all possible worlds. In the act of naming, we are allegedly, phenomenologically, breathing identity, life, and spirit into an entity (necessarily supported by the atomic building block of meaning) [7]. If the naming is guided by wisdom and not by confused or illusory projection, it reflects objective reality, and the identity created emanates from Truth. Otherwise, it is a false name, producing an unreal entity and identity. In other words, naming light and darkness, or a newborn, is connected with reality. However, when acted upon without wisdom, thus assigning a disproportionate amount of reality and identity to things, it results in creating idols or, in contemporary terms, inflated bubbles of meaning that will eventually burst against reality. Connecting naming and the terminology of the Torah wisdom, it is to experience, as Moses had, the essence and unification of Being by its name (Heb. “Y-H-W-A” – .י.ה.ו.ה), and to recognize Him directly, Who Ever Him Is (to paraphrase Exodus 3:14), the supreme creator of all real entities, identities, meanings and contents. Such an awareness also internally connects to total love and honoring Him and seeing Him as absolutely identified with Truth, Good, Just, and Beauty. Another aspect of this superior spiritual stage is that it reveals the principle, tools, and criteria by which one sees the worth of every possible meaning in every context. It connects to what was described earlier under the subtitle On the Actualization-Worth of Possibilities. If we accept the idea of Ecclesiastes chapter 3, that for every possibility, even opposites like love and hate, war and peace, there is a season and a time in which one possible point (on the scale of possibilities between the edges) is worthier than the others, then this spiritual stage is the accumulated ability to see what is the right moment (in the spatiotemporal world and for the inner life of the spirit in all its levels) for each possibility and to act and be present in a way that will best contribute to that specific possibility being actualized spatiotemporally for the best. 5.9.1 A Remark: Wisdom vs. Chesed – Knowledge vs. Doxa (True Opinion) While both Chochmah and Chesed are characterized by a seeing identification between Being and the Good, in Chesed, it is only a doxa, and in Chochmah, it is knowledge (Plato 1967, Meno 97b–98a). Doxa is a true-belief that, while correct, is not grounded robustly in the soul and tends to “run away” from time to time (Plato 1967, Meno 97b–98a; Segev 2016). For example, I have a doxa that smoking is bad for my health and that I wish to quit, but sometimes I “forget” it, it runs away. In contrast, experiencing the movement of Chochmah establishes knowledge, which, in Plato’s terms, is the power to always, under any circumstances, hold the true belief and act upon it. For example, never to smoke, and, in our case here: always to see Being clearly, to perceive its identification with the Good, and to act, speak, and mentally behave, accordingly, under all circumstances (Plato 1967, Meno 97b–98a; Segev 2016). Awareness of Chesed is the light in the dark tunnel of Gevurah, but it has a random effect on one’s soul and consciousness. It allows one, for a portion of consciousness-time, to perceive the overlap between Being and the Good. However, this vision is not bound to consciousness and may run away. When it runs away, even briefly, it can lead to metaphysical and ethical errors that bring suffering and badness, that is, it interferes with the manifestations of Being and the joy of being. Chochmah, by contrast, is a bound, inseparable, continuous, clear vision of the unity of Being and Goodness. Therefore, in our spatiotemporal world, one’s spirituality can be said to reach the level of wisdom only after death. As long as one lives, it is impossible to know whether this awareness will remain unbroken, even for the briefest moment (see Plato 1967, Meno 97b–98a; Maimonides 2024, lightning analogy in The Guide to the Perplexed; and see also Segev 2016). In summary, attention and awareness of the movement between Chochmah and Binah means encountering, experiencing, and conceiving the atomic building blocks (perhaps
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTUwMDU5Ng==