THEMES of Featured Chasidic Masters Articles

The Slonimer Rebbe teaches that there are two ways in divine service: One is the path of the Heavens or spirituality, i.e. mitzvahs, prayer, and acts of loving kindness. The second is the path of the Earth, or the physical, i.e. money, eating, sleeping and other physical needs. One is obligated to serve G-d with both aspects.

Before Adam’s sin, the spiritual force in the physical world had an intense desire for fulfillment and expression. Thereafter, the physical world became shrouded with a dark, filthy garment which obscured the underlying spiritual foundations of the world and actually encouraged one to chase after purely physical and carnal desires.

As a countermeasure, G-d gave us the holy Torah which instructs us how to discern and reveal the spiritual within the physical and to shed the coarse and filthy garment.

The creative energy direct from G‑d Himself represented by the name Havayah is so intense as to preclude Creation as we know it. Were G d to have created the universe using just this creative emanation, we would also not be able to perceive the created things as separate entities. Therefore G‑d shielded some of this light, allegorically speaking, with the aspect of G‑d referred to as Elokim, a concealing, restraining force.

The Holy Zohar explains the word "Bereishit": "With (or by way of) 'reishit', G-d created the Heavens and the Earth". "Reishit" means Torah. G-d created the world with the Torah. G-d looked into the Torah and created the world.

Before their sin, Adam and Eve did not know evil at all. After partaking of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, Adam and Eve knew good and evil. But unlike G-d and the angels, the human internalizes knowledge and good and evil become a part of him. The same blending of good and evil also occured throughout all of Creation.