Creation began when the Infinite Light withdrew from Its center forming a hollow womb that could hold worlds. The progression of history is the undoing of that concealment, the re-illuminating of that dark void by revealing G‑d’s presence there. Each moment draws another trickle of Infinite Light back into the “empty” space that holds our world. This happens via the agency of mitzvot (and right-action) as well as through sufferings, for both are consciousness-raising experiences. Lessons are learned and wisdom absorbed from the school of hard knocks as surely as from the study of holy texts. And, since “HaShem’s seal is truth, [20]” both, in the end, reveal G‑d.
An elaborate machinery exists to package this influx of light into a form that matches the capacities of its recipients. In the hierarchy of worlds, each creature participates in this relay of illumination according to its position along the continuum. Each receives a drop of light (or teaching) from the level above, digests it, reformulates it, and passes it on in a modified form that befits the level below it.
In this way, through the course of time, the Infinite Light increases its presence in the lower worlds. The evolution of culture, knowledge and consciousness are the visible fruits of this gradual enlightening.
In the world of straightness, each level draws from the one above it. Everyone has a rank in the hierarchy, which extends from above to below with a whole range of points in between. The top is closest to the Infinite Light, the bottom is farthest away. Translated into human terms, a higher soul is one that is awake, in continuous communion, and always chooses the most spiritually productive option; a lower soul is ignorant of spiritual truths and wallows in the entangling repercussions of wrong action. Now, in the linear world, this hierarchy is real, and serves two purposes.
- It defines a descending flow of teaching that draws the Infinite Light down, level after level, from above to below.
- Its hierarchy of status provides incentives for the resource-demanding labor of self-improvement. HaShem placed each soul in the world with a unique potential and the holy chore of assuring that it gets actualized.
Self-development is a labor-intensive process. No one spends that amount of effort without very compelling inducements, both positive and negative. HaShem hangs a carrot in front and a fire behind to assure that the work gets done. One of His most successful motivating tools is “the rule of the Jones’.” Implanted in the human soul is a natural drive to keep up with one’s peers, and in the world of straightness this is a healthy and functional tendency, especially if one’s Jones’s are spiritually striving folk.
Hierarchy of status defines a pecking order whereby each strives to improve his position and defend it from encroachments. Self-worth, for better or worse, is often linked to one’s position on the particular hierarchy that measures success in the area of one’s values and ambitions.
People occupying higher ranks become role models that inspire effort. One looks at them and thinks, “Since they did it, I know it’s possible. If I work hard enough there is no reason that I can’t do it too.”
The whole point of the era of hierarchy is to create a context of values, inducements, constraints, and coercions that press out the full potential of each soul down to its last drop. Its straight line presents a clear direction of growth and compelling enforcements to assure forward motion.
Every soul will eventually actualize its potential. The utopian end-of-days is exactly that; all the fallen sparks will be raised, all the gevurot sweetened, all potentials actualized, all illusions neutralized. G‑d’s light will shine through the world, dissolving hierarchy as it turns the line into a circle.
A possible mechanism for this configurational transformation of line into circle is as follows: A circular disk (like a coin) when viewed along its edge can appear as a single line. When viewed from an angle slightly above its edge it begins to look like an oval.[21] Finally, when observed from above it appears as the circle that it really is. Nothing has changed except the viewer’s perspective. This is a three-dimensional analogy of an infinitely more complex process taking place in our ten-dimensional world. Nevertheless, the difference between the world of hierarchy and the circular world remains a matter of perspective. An immature and narrow-minded consciousness has a constricted field of vision that perceives the universe as a line. As the mind evolves and enlightens, its perspective expands. From its now more elevated orientation the world assumes a circular form. Nothing has changed except the mind’s visual field and its expanded capacity to integrate multi-dimensions of complexity.
When that happens the distinctions between higher and lower, giver and receiver, masculine and feminine will cease. Everyone will know G‑d in a way that is perfect and unique. In the world of lines, quantity is the primary yardstick of value for it lends itself easily to comparisons. In the world of circles, quality is what counts, and, like apples and oranges, qualities are not easily ranked. Each person is a unique entity, incalculably complex, intrinsically worthy, who fulfills an absolutely necessary and irreproducible function in the universe.
In the world of hierarchy, value is peer-referenced. Everyone looks around to see where others are aiming and what they are achieving, and then measures themselves to that. In the circle world where absolute value is an inalienable right and an intrinsic property of each soul, worth is completely self-referenced, which actually means G‑d-referenced. “Am I realizing the full potential of my soul with its unique combination of talents and sensitivities? Am I fulfilling what G‑d wants from me?” These are the only questions that will matter, and in the world-to-come their answer will always be yes.
Each soul will eventually attain its full potential and shine with the unique revelation of Divine beauty that only it can manifest. The spiritual bliss of the-world-to-come is the intensely abiding joy of finally becoming who you are. Deep down, this is all anyone wants. The problem is the near impossibility of knowing what that is. Our potential is not only hidden from others, it is generally hidden from ourselves as well. The remedy is our extended training period in the world of lines and straightness. Its mechanism is as follows: Each person looks around at the Jones’ and the beautiful things they possess, and this triggers drives, lusts, and desires inside them to acquire similar things. HaShem cleverly implanted a lock and key mechanism into the universe whereby a soul is attracted to exactly those beauties that resonate with some unactualized potential inside itself; as the popular saying observes, “There is no accounting for taste.” Each soul is programmed to respond to the specific “attractors” that, while laboring to possess them, it “coincidentally” realizes its own potential. In this way HaShem motivates the grueling work of self-actualization, leading us along right paths and persuading us to invest the enormous effort required to underwrite the endeavor. In the end, all will find their place around the circle’s edge and celebrate with overflowing joy the pleasure of finally becoming who they really are. There is no greater delight than this. It is the heavenly elixir of the world-to-come.
When we arrive at this stage, the distorting veneer of hierarchy (and line consciousness) will melt away, for it will no longer have a purpose. It was a temporary and utilitarian truth, though in its heyday it was the most relevant truth, for the whole point of that era was to get massive amounts of work done. Soul actualization is a labor-intensive exertion that requires the irresistible incentives provided by the web of intersecting hierarchies and status-rankings in the linear world. Still, its days will pass and we will return to the era of circle consciousness which proclaims a more exalted and eternal truth: every creature is one of a kind, uniquely fashioned to reveal a distinct facet of Divine beauty. On its scale of values, everyone is HaShem’s most favored one and all will have become completely equal.
In that world the baker will not look to his neighbor, the rabbi, or even to messiach, and feel less accomplished or worthy than he. Everyone will be filled to overflowing with the joy of having discovered who he or she really is. It will be absolutely clear to the baker that it would not augment his pleasure to stand in his neighbor’s more prestigious or affluent shoes, rather the opposite. It would dampen his ecstasy for he would suffer from not being true to his own soul and its Divinely ordained mission to be the best baker possible.
For everyone, whether baker, rabbi, or housewife, it takes life times of grinding labor to accomplish one’s soul-purpose. That curious fact becomes the great equalizer, based on the well known principle that, “the reward is in proportion to the toil.”[22] On the scale of effort everyone comes out equal.
The consciousness of the-world-to-come is symbolized by a circle, a perfectly symmetrical object that has no beginning or end, no up or down, and each of its points is equidistant from the common center toward which it faces. Similarly in the circle world, it will be gloriously clear that every soul is equally precious and singularly beautiful in a way that cannot be ranked. It will not anymore be possible to look to one’s neighbors for guidance in serving G‑d, for each person has a unique soul-specialty, and in that area they are the world’s foremost expert. There is nowhere to look for instruction except straight from HaShem, who metaphorically sits at the circle’s center equidistant from all its holy points.
On that eternal day, everyone will be satiated with knowledge of G‑d to the fullest capacity of their joy and all hierarchies of status will dissolve. In wonderment they will discover that on the scale of enlightenment all have become equal.
All this Jeremiah prophesied:[23]
I will put my Torah in their inward parts and write it in their hearts, and will be their G‑d and they will be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor and every man his brother saying, “Know the Lord.” For they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord. And I will forgive their transgression and I will remember their sins no more.
This serves to explain the passage from the Gemara cited above:
In the future the Holy One will make a circle dance (מחול) for the tsadikim. He will seat Himself among them in the Garden of Eden and each one of the tsadikim will point with his finger and say, “This is our G‑d for whom we have waited, that He might save us. This is the Lord for whom we hoped, we will be glad and rejoice in His salvation.”[24]
In the future everyone will be cleansed of sin and attain full knowledge of G‑d, thereby entering the category of tsadik. The accumulated labor of lifetimes of striving and suffering will end in collective perfection. This path toward sainthood is equally a journey toward circle consciousness, for the knowledge of G‑d acquired en route is what dissolves the illusions of hierarchy, and will ultimately eliminate gender roles altogether, which serve as the archetypes for all other power disparities.
If one associates the masculine role with an enlightened master who imparts knowledge, and the feminine role with an unlearned novice who receives instruction, then gender will cease in the world to come, for no one will be learning from neighbors, spouses or even teachers. Truth will shine through the world, its light as plentiful as the air we breathe, and all will have the taste buds to enjoy (and comprehend) it.
Hierarchies will cease and merge into the more expanded and rectified circle consciousness that will rule that new age. Like the perimeter of a vineyard where each point is equidistant from its center, so will all be equally close to the Infinite source of light and consciousness, the Blessed Holy One.
This circle-truth is reenacted each year on the two festivals of Sukhot and Simchat Torah. Among the practices of those days is the custom to dance in a circle around the Torah. On Sukhot (which includes Hoshanna Rabba) the movement is slow and stately; on Shemini Atzeret (which includes Simchat Torah) the dance is vigorous and celebratory.
The verse which describes the deeper symbolism of this practice reads,
The Lord has created a new thing on the earth, woman shall surround man.[25],[26]
Its words hearken to the era described above where circle consciousness supercedes hierarchy and replaces it as the greater and more encompassing truth.
The circle dancing that happens on Sukhot and Simchat Torah draws the lights of that sublime era down into our constricted world of lines and hierarchy. For those moments gender disparities cease and the soul encounters circle lights. Now it knows how to orient, for having glimpsed the larger landscape, it identified the center to which it must face. With this experience the soul is primed to discriminate holy sweetness and pure teachings by their consistency with circle truths.
All this Miryam knew and intended when she led the women in their circle dance. Miryam drew the future into the present, initiating the Jewish nation into the secret truth, promise, and yearning of the circle world: The day will come, blessed and welcomed by all, when “woman will encompass man.” The highest lights will fill the world, insights that cannot be imagined by minds confined by hierarchy. On that day gender disparities will cease, and perfect equality will reign.
Moshe phrased his celebratory song of the sea in the future tense, (“I will sing to HaShem…,”), because his vision was more limited than Miryam’s. His conceptual mind could not break the gender-barrier to access the infinitely sweeter lights that lie on the other side. And so he sang in the future tense, accepting that he could not, in the present, access those future truths, as if to say, “Then, when my mind has evolved to the next level, and I become able to hold those holy circle lights, then I will sing.”
Miryam, conversely, was able to touch those lights and bring them down into the present through her circle dance. This exalted task required the participation of her entire body. Circle world lights are so intensely bright and complex that they do not fit into the delimited spaces of brain and mind. These sufficed as organs of awareness for straight-line-consciousness but no amount of upgrade will equip them to hold circle lights. Like trying to run a complex graphic program on an antiquated laptop, there is not enough space in the computer’s brains to hold the complexity of operations, to allow the images to form or move through their transformations. Similarly here, circle awareness is so vast that it takes an entire body to hold it. Each cell must participate in the effort and share in the load. The final “knowing” is a visceral experience where awareness permeates every limb and organ in the body. It is this body-based feature that makes these truths ecstatic.
…Every mouth shall offer thanks to You; every tongue shall vow allegiance to You; every eye shall look toward You; every knee shall bend to You; every erect spine shall prostrate itself before You; all hearts shall fear You, and each of my internal organs and kidneys shall sing praises to Your name, as it is written: “All my bones shall say: HaShem, who is like You?[27]…Let all my internal organs bless His holy Name.”[28],[29]
Through her dance Miryam attained a visceral state of knowing the highest and most mysterious truths of the universe, and from inside that knowing she rejoiced, “Now I sing…” All that we will discover in our eternally deepening journey toward knowledge of G‑d, Miryam knew then. This is what the Torah teaches when it describes her celebration:
And Miryam the prophetess, the sister of Aharon, took the timbrel in her hand; and all the women went out after her with timbrels and with circle dances. And Miryam answered them: “Sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider has He thrown into the sea.”[30]
When Miryam gathered the women to dance in a circle (like the untilled ground surrounding a vineyard), she embodied, as a physical reality, the abstract and incomprehensible concept of “woman surrounding man.” In that moment the lights of that truth actually descended below and imparted their secret knowledge to all present. In the deepest recesses of soul, all understood that hierarchy is an illusion and that gender disparities, their primary expression, must eventually cease.
Miryam answered the women in the present tense, “Sing, now, to the Lord…” for in that moment she apprehended and embodied circle truths, the highest secrets of the universe. She merited to sing her song in the present tense, while even Moshe (the greatest prophet that every lived), could only know those words as distant truths.
