"Everything Is Godliness"

Excerpt from The Path of the Baal Shem Tov: Early Chassidic Teachings And Customs by Rabbi Dovid Sears:

One of the controversial issues which led to the persecution of the Baal Shem Tov and his disciples was his assertion that "everything is Godliness, and Godliness is everything." Mystics have their own way of speaking - sometimes to the chagrin of rationalists, who, after all, account for the greater part of the population. To some of his rabbinic contemoraries, the Baal Shem Tov's statements sounded dangerously like pantheism.

Of course, the Baal Shem Tov never identified God with nature - it is a fundamental belief of Judaism that, before or after creation, God is immutable, infinite, and transcendent. What the Baal Shem Tov wished to communicate was the oneness of all things within God and the presence of God's Oneness within all things. (In the language of the Kabbalah, these two perceptions are called yichuda ila'ah and yichuda tata'ah - the Higher Unification and the Lower Unification.) This experience of Divine Oneness gave rise to the surpassing love - for God, the Jewish people, for all creatures great and small - which the Baal Shem Tov uniquely expressed.

So the question immediately arises: How can this love be applied to evil? And if everything is Godliness, how can it not? In fact how can evil exist at all?

The manifestation of all phenomenal reality is a consequence of what the Kabbalah calls tzimtzum (constriction). This term refers to the withdrawal of God's Infinite Light when it arose within the Divine will to the create the universe. As a result of the tzimtzum, an "empty space" was formed. This empty space is the precondition for creation to possess an appearance of independent existence; and, since it is the antithesis of revelation, the empty space is the source of the potential for "evil," i.e. an act which could appear to contradict the Divine will. Basing himself on the teachings of both the Ari z"l and the Baal Shem Tov, the Chasidic master Rabbi Nachman of Breslov defines the issues in the following way:

"When God wanted to create the world, there was no place to do so, since everything was infinitee. Therefore, He withdrew the [Infinite] Light to the sides, and by means of this act of withdrawal (tzimtzum), an empty space was formed. Within this empty space were brought into being all the various finite entities (midos) which comprise the creation of the universe. This empty space was necessary, for without it, there would have been nowhere for creation to take place. [However,] the tzimtzum which produced the empty space is impossible to understand or grasp. [Its essence will become known] only in the Ultimate Future. For [concerning the empty space] one must say two opposite things: it is both something and nothing. The empty space came about through the tzimtzum: [the Creator] withdrew His Godliness from there (so to speak), and no Godliness remained (so to speak). Otherwise, the space would not have been empty. Everything would have remained infinite, and there would have been no room at all for creation. But the real truth is that Godliness surely exists there too, for nothing can exist without His life force. Therefore, it is absolutely impossible to grasp the aspect of the empty space until the Ultimate Future."

Chasidic doctrine fully agrees that from the standpoint of creation, evil exists and must be repudiated, according to the Torah's dictates. Man possesses free will and is, accordingly, subject to reward and punishment. At the same time, from God's perspective (so to speak), evil has no essential existence - everything is perfect, subsumed within His absolute Oneness. And, according to the degree to which a person can sanctify himself, he can receive a glimmer of this higher reality. The position taken on this issue by Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin, one of the most prominet leaders of the Misnagdim, is essentially the same.

So, if the ultimate truth is that "everything is Godliness," what is the substance of creation? What is the nature of the empty space which is the precondition of all phenomenal reality?

As Rabbi Nachman states, there is no answer to this paradox - not one that the rational mind can grasp. When man is finally granted this perception, he will transcend his status as a mortal who must chose between good and evil and attain the level of the angels.