It is my hope in this paper to present several questions which follow in some sort of sequence in contemplating the ideas R. Schneur Zalman presents on ayin, yesh, Gcd, the world, existence and nothingness in the Tanya. The investigation will take something of a winding form, beginning, as does the Bible, with Gcd, and whether we can say he Exists or not. Next I jotted down some thoughts on how R. Zalman uses the term, and its attendent questions: of his own project and its supposed counterintuitiveness, of the relation between Gcd and the world as described in the sun parable, and of tzimtzum. From there I move on to discussions of Gcd's knowledge and omnipresence, and return to the central question of these investigations: what existence can and ought to mean.
There is the question in reading the Tanya as to whether the Gcd therein defined can be said to exist. Beyond the simple answer that a monotheist must conventionally say that It does, there is the equally simple interpretation of the Tanya's doctrines of Ayin and Yesh, which suggest that that which we call Ayin is Gcd, and so therefore Gcd is nothingness. The subsequent question is whether this nothingness is not the real "something." Although suggested in our sessions that this is the case, as seen by R. Zalman, I think that phrasing it that way is something (pardon the pun) of a misnomer. Rather, it is grammatically meaningless.
Gcd-as-Ayin corresponds to the negation of that which is Yesh in the world: things like tables and Tanyas and corporeality, etc. So does Gcd exist? The question is meaningless. The term 'exist' as it is used in our language is a state of affairs -- despite the title of this essay, I will not try to ascertain whether R. Zalman believes it is a predicate or not -- which is verified by certain procedures, be they empirical or analytical. By this standard, Gcd definitely does not "exist." However, Gcd IS; even such a phrasing is dangerous, because it seems to be the synonym of the sentence "Gcd exists." This is not so. Rather, we can only leave the sentence open as 'Gcd is.' Of course, with any predicate nominative or adjective we would have to change the 'verb' to "is not." It is thus my belief that it makes no sense grammatically to ask the question of whether Gcd, as described here, exists. For this reason, I think that stating 'ultimate yesh' as being 'conventional ayin' is misleading, as it implies that this Ultimacy has some sort of something-ness, a description only insofar as we remember that this somethingness is entirely Other from that which we generally refer to as somethingness. The Yesh is completely, totally different from yesh. In what sense, then, can we really use the word?
Since I think we can only use it in a limited, analogical fashion, by the way, I am inclined to question how actually anti-intuitive the Tanya is. Since R. Zalman seems to believe that his ideas can be arrived at through in-depth contemplation on the dependent arising of everything and the world as a whole, I think the "intuition" here would only be viewed by R. Zalman as a shallow, misconceived notion of the world. To say that something is counterintuitive would imply that one would be compelled to accept something logically true despite one's deep-held belief that it cannot be. A good example to me are certain principles of quantum mechanics, which are mathematically true, and there can be no question about them, yet which also contradict even well-worked out contemplations. No amount of contemplation can be expected to lead one to the conclusion that a particle--conventionally depicted as a small piece of stuff, like a chocolate chip--is equivalent to a wave--which we might imagine as a nonsubstantive pressure or disturbance--in the case of light. This is saying that something is nothing, which, while it might fit well with the Tanya, is radically counterintuitive. The sense in which the Tanya states all Yesh-ness as being ultimately void and dependent on Ayin, however, is more tricky, and I don't think R. Zalman is entirely consistent in his usage of the terms.
Sometimes, yesh and ayin seem merely to indicate magnitude, as where R. Zalman seems to set up a hierarchy from really small to really large, but not of something and nothing. By forming this change, he sets up many relationships of relative nothingness, thus problematizing the whole concept of ayin. True, he does use the term 'ayim mamash' to designate this relationship, but ayin is still used. In these hierarchies, the term basically seems to mean nothing as I could say that this essay is nothing compared with my best essay, which is nothing compared to Norman Mailer's essays, which are nothing compared to Montaigne's. This is quite different from saying that were (has v'shalom) the power cut from the computer, this unsaved essay would become nothing. The latter seems more what R. Zalman says elsewhere in the work--X, for example. It seems contradictory.
The relationship of 'objects' in the world to the Divine is discussed at some length by R. Zalman in the parable of the sun. This parable, it seems, can be interpreted in several ways. The agents within the analogy are the body of the sun, its light, and the light's radiance (ziv). Zalman states that the radiance of the light is considered "ayin v'efes mamash" in the sun-globe itself, and can only be seen as having existence in the rest of the world. Zalman says that it can be spoken of as Yesh in the world, but not when it's in the sun, at which time it is "ayin v'efes." An immediate question here is the status of the sun, which does have real existence. Zalman says that the parallel is "the relationship between all created things and the Divine flow (shafa' elohi [the same term shafa' used by Maimonides and others to refer to the intellect]) from the 'Breath of his Mouth' which flows (shafa') upon them and brings them into existence.
Mapping, then, it follows that rays of sun:sun::all created things:divine flow. But the next sentence contradicts it: "Gcd is their source, and they themselves [all created things] are merely like a diffusing light and effulgence from the flow and spirit of Gcd, which issues forth and becomes clothed in them and brings them from naught into being." Which is it? Zalman continues "their existence [i.e. created things'] is nullified in relation to their source, just as the light of the sun is nullified and is considered naught.. when it is in its source." The translation itself is misleading: the Hebrew reads "batel b'mitziut"--negated in existence, not 'their existence is negated,' as if existence was a property of them. So it's here the created beings:Gcd::rays of sun:sun. One must conclude that either there is a large contradiction within these four sentences or that the divine flow is more or less indistinguishable from the Divine. I think the latter must be the case, particularly as R. Zalman immediately qualifies the metaphor by noting that actually the sun would have to be present within the space of the universe, everywhere, to make the parable accurate. "All created things are always within their source," he says, and then moves to a discussion of tzimtzum to explain why they are not constantly nullified. For the parable to work, I don't think we can distinguish between the Divine and the Divine Flow--something a rigorous neoplatonist might appreciate.
One interesting question this raises is the relationship between the 'created things' (ha'bruim) and Gcd. There is such a relationship between light and the sun. Not only does the light originate from the sun, it resembles it isomorphically insofar as it illuminates, etc. Is there here a reading of "in the image of Gcd" being proposed? Here again the use of letters, and the creating via restriction that they represent, seems relevant as a shared characteristic between man and Gcd. Bringing in the tzimtzum as R. Zalman subsequently discusses it, Gcd packs his 'sun-light' into letters, which as conceptual parameters are excellent descriptions of finitude and multiplicity imposed on the infinite, this last being how R. Zalman interprets tzimtzum itself. One wonders about the nature of 'tohu va'vohu' and how it could even be said to exist prior to the organizing/restricting first utterance of Gcd (yehi or). Perhaps, although I don't see it in the text, one could read the 'spirit of Gcd hovering over the waters', in particular the 'al pnei' as referring to unmediated contact, and thus complete disorder, which again brings up the question of how we can call it existence at all. Once more, this issue (briefly, "does the world exist?") is, lucky for us, grammatically meaningless, because there is no referent on which to base the question. I can ask whether this chocolate bar exists, and define my terms as I eat it and wonder at what point it ceases to exist, but the dissolution of the world into Gcd is different in kind, as everything "existing" as one unit is said to cease to "exist." We know clearly from the Tanya that the world does not have existence independent of Gcd.
It is important to remember, though, that this is an all-or-nothing deal. Recent literature from Habad unfortunately seems to disagree, and has a sort of weird action from Gcd's or man's mind in which moons move backwards and dinosaurs disappear. We might say that ultimate evil does not exist, because evil represents turning away from Gcd and thus ultimate evil qua separation from Gcd cannot endure. Yet to say that the moon isn't there when Gcd (or Gcd's representatives here, people) isn't looking at it, I think, misses the point. I remain unclear as to how we can agree on the truth or falsity of propositions in the world, however. If there is conclusive factual proof of something (say, the dinosaurs) can we still say that it does not exist? The question of the relative status of truth-claims within the world, unless we adopt a Nietzschean idea of conventional truth, appears unresolved by the Tanya.
There might be interesting results from the contemplation on the dependency of every object, given the ultimate dependence of the entire world on Gcd, Which doesn't really exist as we use the term. The problem brought up by the Tanya is how the term can ever mean anything anyway. For example, R. Zalman neatly erases the problem of Gcd knowing particulars with his pan(en)theism: "He perceives and knows all the higher and lower beings... This knowledge does not add multiplicipty and composition to Him at all, since it is merely knowledge of Himself; and His Being and His Knowledge are all one." (p. 313) Since there can be no thing without its Gcdly element (nothing exists w/o participation in Gcd), and everything is ultimately this one Gcd-stuff, Gcd can know everything without having to change, because, ultimately, nothing really changes. However, this seems to have gotten us nowhere. If Gcd knows things only in their ultimate form, then does he really know particulars? Does He know that this pencil has been moved to this location, if He only knows them both as being ultimately ayin? One can answer then that the pencil hasn't really moved, and it's only illusion that is has, and of course Gcd isn't taken in by the illusion. But here we are at the truth-claims problem again. If Moshe 'returns to his ayin' Ploni by killing him, does Gcd know? Of course, nothing has really happened. But how can we then distinguish between Moshe killing Ploni and, as Moshe claims, Aharon killing Ploni? It seems that Gcd cannot. Of course, more trivial examples work even better, when there is no radical change of state taking place. If I cheat on a test, nothing has ultimately changed. Does Gcd know I cheated?
If not, then R. Zalman's system cannot fulfill a large chunk of what Judaism tries to say--indeed, what he tries to say--about Gcd's knowledge. If so, however, then there is once again multiplicity and change because the aspect of the world involved in this particular instance of knowledge is changing, does involve finitude, etc. R. Zalman has solved the problem of Gcd knowing all and Gcd's knowledge and being being one; because Gcd is all. However, the question of whether particulars are known still seems problematic.
These particulars are what we colloquially call existence. If there cannot be change in Gcd, as there are in colloquial existence, then that which Gcd knows is limited. The appeal to ultimacy seems only to put the problem off. The real issue is what is meant by 'existence' when all existence is ayin. True, as Kohelet says, everything under the sun (as Zalman reads the sun) is illusory, hevel, ayin. There seems to be a kind of divine solipsism at work here, as well as the paradox that only by negating/limiting something can it be brought into being. This last raises interesting parallels with contemporary ideas about language, which I believe is used as more than a handy metaphor by R. Zalman. Language in the Tanya seems to represent the very act of particularization and fragmentation from a whole which is more or less indistinguishable from Gcd. In distinguishing, we name, and in deconstructing, we un-name and consequently un-embody. If there is no means of distinguishing between, say, this part of a hair and that part of a hair, the two parts are one, and here the smallest division used is "hair." If we perform a similar operation on objects for which we do in fact have means of distinguishing--say, a table, we begin to have trouble figuring out what the table actually is as distinct from its surroundings. R. Zalman's view of tzimtzum seems to run along similar lines. Independent entities can only arise when Gcd withdraws his 'Stuff'-ness by means of drawing divisions, i.e. letters. Linked to this process of tzimtzum, by which the infinite allows finitude, seems to be the question of Gcd's immanence. If we loosely identify matter with Gcd and form with the tzimtzum/letters, there is immanence only on a primeval,quasi-Spinozistic level. Is this enough? Perhaps it is.
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