a thread on truth and the question of how to realize truth in the world

in honor of Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liady

tonight, the 24th of Teves, marks the day he passed away in the wake of Napoleon's invasion of Russia (1812)

1/?

Truth might well be viewed as fundamentally elusive, some would say that ordinary people can only grasp truth through the acknowledgment that truth is beyond their grasp.

R. Shneur Zalman disagreed:

2/?

"Truth," he wrote, "drives from one extreme to the other extreme, from the most exalted heights and station to the nadir of all stations, and at every height and station it drives through its central point, which is the point and measure of its truth." Tanya, Ch. 13, p. 19a.

3/?

For this reason, he argued, although ordinary people will certainly struggle to endow their daily lives with spiritual integrity, such struggles should not be seen as evidence of superficiality or inauthenticity.

True love, in his view, is not spontaneous or automatic ...

4/?

but is generated and sustained through contemplative practice.

Truth, accordingly, does not stand in some transcendent and inaccessible realm beyond the self, but is rather deeply personal: "It is called *their* perfect truth, each according to their station." Ibid.

5/?

True love of G-d is anchored in the essential quality of the soul, which can be aroused at any moment, so long as the individual has the presence of mind to choose to contemplate the sort of things that will bring that truth to the fore, and then to speak & act accordingly.

6/?

A day or to prior to his passing, R. Shneur Zalman penned a cryptic and profound meditation on the apparent tension between truth and kindness. This may have been the very last thing he ever wrote, and in some ways can be seen as a final testament, or a spiritual will.

7/?

"The vocation of the soul that is, in its root lowly in perfect truth, is *physical* Torah, whether for herself or for others, and whether in doing physical kindness through bringing minds closer and [offering] solutions from afar in all household affairs ...

8/?

Though most of them are falsehoods ... for ... truth said do not create [the world] (for it is full of falsehoods) etc., and kindness said create for it is full of kindnesses, and truth was sent to the ground and the world was built with kindness that is not of truth."

9/?

Commenting on this passage, the 7th Lubavitcher Rebbe, argued that it true meaning is that in "the physical kindness" of healing rifts born of this-worldly "falsehoods" the ideal of transcendent truth is thrown aside in order to reveal a truer truth:

10/?

"the infinite truth of Gd’s essence has no constraint ... [&] is not circumscribed by the need for Gd’s truth to be recognizable. For even in a place of hiding and concealment, even including such a concealment that appears to be a falsehood ... is the truth of the essence."
11/?

To immerse oneself in the pragmatic negotiation of worldly kindness, is not to abrogate truth, but to engage in the socio-mystical reconstruction of reality, wherein we can realize the truth that the world and G-d are one.

Likutei sichos, Vol. 16, p. 43-44.

12/12

I guess it makes sense to append my pinned tweet https://twitter.com/Eli_Rubin/status/934630108266196992