Or HaHaim, in his commentary on the Torah (Vayikra 22) captures the essence of the Kabalistic perspective with succinct and methodical clarity: (The Kabalistic perspective has become an established element of the Jewish worldview, including its differing factions who have adopted it with no objection.) "And I have seen fit to awaken human hearts to the great mystery alluded to in this portion: Know, that Hazal have said (Sanhedrin 93A) that the nation of b'nei Yisrael – their rank is above the rank of the angels. And they have said further that God created four worlds, one above the other. And they are listed (hinted at) in the pasuk in Yeshayahu (43:7): 'All that is called, by My name and for My glory – I have created it, I have formed it, I have even made it.' 'For My glory'; the supreme world, which is called atsilut, nobility. 'I have created it'; which is called olam habria, the world of creation. 'I have creatively formed it', yetsira, 'creative forming'. 'I have done it', asiya, doing."

Or HaHaim adds that a parallel exists between the structure of the worlds and the structure of a human being. In a human being the levels are physical/emotional life force - spirit - soul. Just as the worlds are one above the other, and a dynamic vector exists that binds and unites them according to a fixed order, from the lower world to the one above it, so a dynamic vector exists in a human being, which binds the purely physical needs to the material/emotional needs, binding these in turn to the spiritual needs, and these to the needs of the soul. (Incidentally, this dynamic vector has nothing in common with Abraham Maslow's humanistic theory. Maslow too ranks human needs from basic to higher – and even to "peak experience". According to Maslow, a higher need cancels the needs below it, whereas in the gradation of naran: nefesh, ruah, neshama – physical/emotional of life force - spirit - soul, all of the stages unite into one texture, with each component having its own well-defined, active role within the whole structure.

Human beings are found only in olam hayetsira, "the world of creative forming". (See section on creativity.) In the world of yetsira, a human being is sole ruler. Within a human being's own boundaries only, a human being is omnipotent. Human influence is decisive; the human being determines the state of affairs, and their meaning and their value. Human activity is qualitative rather than mechanical. We mean by quality the ability to create meaning, and to grant new and ever-changing validity and value to that which exists.

We should note that the world of yetsira is one's own private world, tailored to one's own size, and bearing the unique features of one's own authentic personality. Human creative activity is expressed in one's ability to use the raw materials found in olam ha'asiya, "the world of doing" which is the world of physical matter, and which includes all the components of the survival instinct that are found in existential reality.

According to this perspective, there is no significance – neither positive nor negative – to what transpires in olam ha'asiya. A human being alone determines their function for good or for evil. In relation to a human being, "the world of doing", the world of physical matter serves as a reservoir of raw materials, which lack any feature or capacity of their own. From olam habria, "the world of creation" which is the world of ideas – the world of spirituality, values, and quality – human beings draw values, ideas and qualities, which they then process, and fit to their own existential conditions according to the levels of nefesh, ruah, and neshama, physical/emotional life force, spirit, and soul. The use one makes of these qualities finds practical expression in giving meaning to the existential reality in which one is immersed and which is subject to one's control. The self belongs to the world of yetsira. Ego is subject to the world of asiya. According to the rules that characterize these values (ego, self) ego is subjugated by self when one activates one's creative will. Alternatively, self is subjugated by ego when one does not make one's presence felt in the creative world, when one is found doing (creating) nothing – merely immersed in the material level of one's existence that is found in the world of asiya. The moment a human being activates the self, a union is formed between the three worlds. In the cover diagram one can see clearly the connection of ego with its subjugation to "the world of doing", and the self, with its close attachment to olam habria, "the world of creation", of ideas and spirituality. On the other hand, we point as well to the connection that exists between ego and one's subjugation to "the world of doing". When a human being activates olam hayetsira, all the other worlds unite around it. One bestows the raw materials, as mentioned, and the other the spiritual meaning. As they merge together, an encounter takes place in the world of creativity. This is the moment of grace. When a human being neglects his duty in olam hayetsira, a rupture forms that is potentially disastrous, dividing the worlds from one another – a consequence of the absolute antagonism that exists between them. As the Or HaHaim writes: "...You must know that materialism opposes the spiritual connection more than fire opposes water." Hence the split, the terrible ripping apart that one experiences who does not fulfill his role as a creator, who does not activate his self's uniquely authentic quality. Such a rupture finds expression not only in one's body and physical/emotional life force, but in all of creation as well, in cosmic clash and natural disaster, in that the entire reason nature was created by the Creator of the worlds was to serve the human being, God's servant. When one neglects one's role, the very nature of creation's functioning is affected. Hence, the polar distance that separates the Jewish perspective from the other religions, which grant the Creator a central-exclusive role, with man filling a passive, docile, powerless role; self- nullification sustains his existence opposite the Lord. This opposition is sharpened further in comparison with the Far Eastern religions, which see in man's final and absolute merging into the cosmic vastness, the ultimate goal of his existence. Opposite these views of God and universe stands the Jew, as the leader who bears the burden of creation on his shoulder, and whose influence is felt throughout the worlds. "Everything is beneath his feet." Actualizing and consolidating the self and its authentic quality is nothing less than actualizing God's presence in the universe. 

An additional feature of ego derives from this, which represents the system of the world of matter. It is comprised of the needs of matter, which are a survival or self-preservation mechanism.

These needs divide into three elementary components: Kina, ta'ava, vekavod. Envy – possessiveness, lust – the body's needs, and honor – social needs; a mechanical system devoid of the abilities that characterize the self. It is devoid of will, decision, determination, moral/spiritual judgment, free choice, or personal responsibility. This is a blind system that is not autonomous and that is not self-activating, just as a machine is not self-activating, but is activated by an outside force.

An interaction exists between the self system and the ego system, which follows the classic prescription for relations between Yaakov and Esav: "When 'the voice is the voice of Yaakov,' then 'the hands, [which] are the hands of Esav,' do not rule."

In principle, originally, the self was meant to activate ego, as a tool giving material realness and expression to the self. Therefore, when the self takes initiative and control, ego yields and is subject to the self.

When the self (Yaakov) is inactive, then ego (Esav) is activated by stimulations that originate from the external environment. Therefore, our distinction must necessarily catalogue every egoist as a prisoner of his environment, as a weak character, rather than as a leader with a big ego, as a western perception would view him.

Creativity moves along a vertical axis. At its base lies the self. At its summit are gathered the values that belong to the "dimension of height" in the structure of reality. "Dimension of height" is the "third scripture" defined in section seven, which deals with the structure of the "two scriptures that contradict each other until the third scripture comes and resolves them".

It is important to emphasize the difference between the prevailing notion of creativity and what we define as creativity. In the common understanding of the term, creativity is anything that deviates from predictable action or that deviates from a structure of routine activity. Creativity in our understanding is a feeling, insight, or action that has its source in the uniquely original quality of a self that is specific to a particular private individual, and that differs from person to person.

Creativity is not a response to an external stimulus as is its opposite partner, the self-preservation mechanism. Creativity is original talent as it aspires to move from potential to actualization, to direct and mold action in accordance with its own original way, unique to itself. The ambition towards self-actualization characterizes every force that is in a state of dormant potential.

This ambition does not depend only on stimulations that come from the external environmental system, as Western psychology believes, for they may not be compatible with the original uniqueness of the talent that aspires towards expression. Originality recoils from external directives, for they are the result of external stimulations that do not suit - that are not amenable to – the inner need to express that talent unique to the self.

The dimension of height is the source of those values that provide creativity with direction and goal, and that answer the question: Is this activity justified?

To What Purpose?

Creativity does not confine itself to art, music, and other minor actions. Every human activity is accompanied by a creative indicator if that activity is adequate to express one's unique talent, and if it has a value-oriented goal that is compatible with one's authentic quality. Thus, an activity in the field of business or social organization or even political activity can join the creative aristocracy as long as it is tailored to the unique size of the one involved in it, and as long as it expresses character, talents, and the values that endow that particular activity with meaning, content, and justification. When this is the case, creativity wins the yetser tov's seal of approval.

Self-Preservation

Self-preservation is the action opposed to creativity. Its source is a technical mechanism that attaches to the structure of materialism/brute force. This structure contains a mechanism that is blind and that is devoid of qualities, values, or originality. It cannot answer the need for expression that the qualities of the self have, such as will, free choice, balanced judgment, and talent.

The need for survival is what exists at the bottom of the self- preservation system. It does not differ, in man, from the instinctual system that characterizes every animal. It belongs to the material nature of creation. It has no workings of awareness, balanced judgment, or will, but is activated, like every mechanical system, by an external vector that exerts force on it. The name of the game in every material/mechanical system is brute force.

The Torah denies self-preservation as a fundamental perspective or as an approach to understanding existence, accepting neither the disappointments and fears that derive from this approach, nor even the "positive" view found in its achievements. It sees these as temptation, the aim of which is to repress and to distance the influence of an existentialism that can be found only in the cycle of creativity.

The Torah sees creativity in the symbol of Yaakov, and self- preservation in Esav. Just as Yaakov's hand grasps Esav's heel, so did creativity and self-preservation come down to this world joined together. According to the Godly plan for the creation of man, survival is required to minister to and to obey creativity's needs and will, and to serve as the tool that gives substance to creativity, which in turn gives meaning to human existence.

"And nation from nation will grow mighty, and the greater will serve the younger." "When 'the voice is Yaakov 's voice', then 'the hands that are Esav's hands' cannot rule [Ya'akov]." We see here that a constant tension rules between these two opposites: Who will dominate whom?

When creativity rules self-preservation--the yetser hatov (the 'good-creating urge') rules the yetser hara (the 'evil-creating urge') and thus is fulfilled a cardinal rule of God's service: "'You shall love God, your Lord, with all of your hearts.' [The sages explain:] with both of your creating urges." The yetser hara, against its will, replies 'amen' to the yetser hatov, and serves it humbly.

When creative activity grows weak, the survival mechanism prevails over it, and drafts it into its own service. Thus a creative thief is possible, and a uniquely original murderer – though their ultimate purpose is civilization's destruction.

This is because survival was not created in order to ensure its own continued existence, despite its name, but rather to bestow realness and substance on and to serve as the tool of the yetser hatov, as a means only. When survival becomes the goal of existence, it becomes a vicious cycle that destroys itself and everything in its path.

Behavior based on creativity will be remarkable for its innovativeness and its courage, and for its intellectual and artistic achievements. It will preserve its own uniqueness. It will be capable of dealing with pressures and confrontations, which the war of existence saves for those who are faint-hearted and weak in character, who draw their sustenance and courage from the self- preservation mechanism: The more they drink from this false source, the weaker they grow, and the more they succumb to the environmental pressures that surround them in a vicious cycle – reminiscent of a thirsty man attempting to relieve his thirst with salt water.

"Being" and "doing" are concepts that derive from the very sense of existence. A form of existence exists that can be defined as 'being,' and as opposed to this, or alternatively, man can live with a sense that expresses itself in activity, in "doing".

The sense of being is controversial. Some maintain that every sense of existence is attached to a practical view, to an action that expresses it. As far as they are concerned, there is no existence – and mainly no sense of existence – without activity. On the other hand it appears to us that no activity has a chance of becoming a sense of existence if it lacks a dimension of "being", an experience that penetrates into or derives from the inner space of the self.

This means that the self has forms of expression that endow its existence with substance, and these are not necessarily dependent on being attached to activities that take up space in the dynamic world of mechanical "doing".

Lovers' very experience of 'being together' is a "love is not dependent on something else", and it is sustained even when no sign of external communication passes between them, nor any practical cooperation. 'They're just happy being together,' without utterance or sound. This experience of existence is one of deep and unifying silence.

The experience of "being" is built on an intimate contact that takes place within the depths of the self; between the self's need for expression and actualization and the environmental conditions that respond to this need. Any other happening that merely passes through the environment, that is not absorbed by the senses, that does not exist in the "being" dimension, lacks all significance for that person's existence.

We must note that the need for a "being" experience becomes more vital and necessary the more the component of the self takes central place in an individual's personality. An individual with a richly original personality cannot drown it in forgetfulness among the riotous noises of "doing" that are happening in the environment. The self that is in one must receive its appropriate attention, directed toward one's qualitatively unique needs and sensitivities. Small talk is not to one's liking, nor is following the crowd one's habit. One can never finish reading a book just because it is fashionable, or join the "in" crowd, or fit the style of one's existence to external directives. One's "doing" is attached by a direct bond to the self's expression of inner being, and takes orders to action only from the headquarters of one's own specific personality.

"Doing"

"Doing" that is not bound to "being" is that activity which takes its directive from the external mechanical system: From fashion, from the pressure of the crowd, from the intrusion of the public sphere into the Holy of Holies of the private space. Such "doing" is not necessarily opposed to "being", as long as it does not substantively contradict the needs of the self. Only the "doing" that is capable of interfering with those life needs that characterize uniqueness of personality – the "doing" that does not serve as an expression for the self's sensitivity and need for creativity – such "doing" does as it pleases, makes up its own rules, and threatens one's very sense of existence.

It should be noted that in a world that seethes like a madly bubbling cauldron due to a multitude of artificial stimulations that is nearly infinite, which peep out of every corner every day anew, one who possesses a rich and authentically original personality feels that he is floundering in deep waters; there are no fish.

Whereas a meager personality – a person of paltry uniqueness – on finding himself in the mad cauldron, feels quite like a fish in water. Because of his lack of inner experiences and sources of stimulation, he is in need of stimulation from the outside. He is like that extrovert who requires deafening thunder, extracted from a grotesque system of amplifiers and drums, in order to conceal his absence of any experience with the inner happiness of existence, and his lack of ability to convey the minimal experience he has. There is no need to speak when deafening noise rules the atmosphere, and serves as a substitute for the void, emptiness, and lack of experiences that derive from the source of the self.

This explains the increase in the external/competitive element: Grades and tests serve as a substitute for study for its own sake, the indicator of creativity.

This explains the constant and desperate search for a system that will boost work activity in business and industry, instead of awareness of the need to fit "the right person to the right job" or, as we would put it, the need for a "doing" that fits and expresses the "being" – the needs of the self.

It is important to note that excessive emphasis on "doing" can choke the self, by turning the personality into a machine devoid of human sensitivity. "A break in the fence calls for a thief", calls for a cruel harshness toward human needs, and calls for the declaration of every liberal, humanistic theory, as lip service and as an empty vessel.

The human element that flowers around the inner kernel of the self is responsible for behavior that overflows with tact, and for the balance between emotion, mind, and "doing". A deficiency in the human element causes a destructive clash between mind and emotion, and is a prime cause of personality deterioration and mental illness.

Pleasure does not draw its resources only from the self- preservation instinct, as they believe in the mechanical-materialistic west. Pleasure is the result of the self's own fulfillment, having succeeded in expressing and actualizing its own uniqueness. Such pleasure has no quarrel with the sense of duty. On the contrary, duty supports it, and celebrates its victory with it.

The self cannot move from dormant potential to actualization except along an axis of creativity, which is supported at its upper end, as mentioned, by the values of the "dimension of height". From these values, duty draws its strength. According to this introduction, pleasure would be the expression of creativity in its perfect state.

Pleasure is comprised – and embraces – the merging of all emotions, intuition, imagination, and desire. With their help, it becomes an excitingly dynamic vector, opening – for the one experiencing pleasure – the vastness of the horizon, enabling one to embrace the sensation of one's own existence.

This being so, we view duty as the fulfillment of a creative need: It is meant to support and to fortify the value of the self, and to build the foundations of positive and negative self-image.

Duty is an expression of responsibility. The feeling of duty is not caused as a result of fear of punishment, but rather from the will to experience and to explore one's capabilities.

Thus is duty tied to feeling, and to the will to bear responsibility – because responsibility is an expression of the self's ability to take control of reality, to get things moving, to determine, to decide, and to lead.

This is the most tangibly real expression of the power of the self, as opposed to ego, which is directed by the self-preservation instinct, which is made up of nothing more than existential fears.

The act of taking control requires fuel. Duty's energy is drawn from pleasure, and its components are joy and excitement, as pavers of the emotional path. Through this path flow creative imagination and intuition, and all other central components of creativity, pouring meaning and quality into the activity by which the self takes control of the existential system.

Thus pleasure and duty join together in mutual complementarity, along the self's creative route, whereas on the plane of the survival mechanism, both are left behind, mutually hostile and mutually exclusive: Duty source lies in existential fear, while pleasure is the compensation for that fear.

Balance between duty and pleasure is created through the "third scripture", which is the value-based "dimension of height" that makes possible the impossible: To enjoy duty, and to relate responsibly to pleasure.

Judaism thus rejects the compulsive moralist no less than the wanton hedonist who takes no responsibility for his actions.

On the one hand, belonging is a goal, the heart's desire. Happy is one whom everybody likes. Quantitative evaluation of the measure of popularity decrees the fate of a candidate's achievements: To life or to death – and not only politically, but professionally as well, and even academically. Here we derive a criterion of the similar and accepted one as the positive one, and the dissimilar one as negative, or at least as strange.

Yet on the other hand, psychology sees the march of human development as a march along an axis that opens with dependency and concludes in independence. What guides society in its search for an appropriate punishment for the deviant, if not the removal of his freedom for a given period of time.

Individual rights parallel individual liberties, and are built around the principle of the right to freedom: Freedom of expression, freedom of movement, and the freedom to belong!

Absurdity arises out of this: An individual's willingness to renounce a considerable portion of the right to freedom, in order to choose belonging: To a spouse, to family, or to some other social, religious, or cultural framework. These are frameworks that impose strict conditions on those who seek to belong to them, the common factor in all of which is a renunciation of personal freedom for the sake of belonging to that specific, demanding framework.

This paradox confounds even the proper procedures of democracy, because liberalism, which calls civil freedom sacred, and raises it to the top of the scale of values, falls from grace the moment it gets into government and must put on garments of flesh and blood like ordinary people.

This ordinary person of flesh and blood loses his liberal patience the moment he is forced to relate to another ordinary person whose bad luck it is that he does not belong to the accepted and enlightened camp. To this fellow, the principles of liberalism and social justice do not apply at all. One may persecute him and slander him until he is torn out by the roots and eliminated from the liberal landscape of enlightened society.

Enlightenment, as is well known, is a synonym for liberal, and liberal, as is well known, is a synonym for belonging to the camp that for some reason sees itself the correct camp. Here we see a freedom that is turned into a belonging that is restrictive, harsh, and intolerant, and that ultimately makes a sham of the freedom to belong and the right to self-definition.

Our perspective sees freedom as a derivative function of the self, of the unique, the authentically original, and the different that characterize one's quality. It is not only every human being's right, it is also every human being's obligation to pursue self-definition and self-expression, on the basis of the self's unique quality. This right is canceled only and whenever one person's right obstructs another's path to personal freedom.

Human development too from the first stages of childhood to maturity can be explained as traveling along an axis from belonging to freedom: A newborn's sign is absolute belonging while in its mother's womb. It undergoes a rather cruel wrench from the umbilical cord as part of the separating liberation.

The stages of its development are characterized by a continuation of the transition from belonging to freedom, which finds expression in an increasing need for independence – until the ideal stage of belonging through freedom, through the choice of a spouse. "Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and cleave to his wife." So one turns from belonging to freedom and from freedom to belonging, and it is free choice – the value-oriented embodiment of freedom, created by introducing the "dimension of height" – that creates the new belonging: Belonging through freedom.

Protecting and developing this freedom requires a protective framework, a preserving vessel. This protective framework is the need to belong. The vital importance of this need is derived from that other basic and universally accepted need, the need for freedom.

A baby belonging to its mother, and a child to its family, and a man to his wife and to his society, is not secondary to the need for freedom but rather parallels it in its vital necessity to human existence.

If a person does not succeed in attaining the conditions necessary to his belonging (for instance, in the wake of a war or tragedy that severs his ties to close friends and family) he may forego his freedom, casting it away as a useless vessel and even, in the extreme case, despising his own life. "Why should I live life, if no human being would feel my absence?" a man demanded once of me, immersed in depression over his lack of belonging. This man was a healthy and successful person by all conventional criteria.

Belonging and freedom do not exist and are not nourished each respectively from its own separate source. The need for belonging draws from the need for freedom, and vice versa. They complement one another despite their being essentially antithetical, and this is due to the mutual nurturing and fertilizing between them: Belonging is what connects the materials, stimulations, and conditions of the environment to the self's needs for expression and creativity. Belonging is what enables a selective, differentiating attitude, unique to the authentic needs of the self. The self dictates belonging's goals, and determines its path and the conditions under which it operates. The self is what raises the issue of its unique needs (freedom).

A person has no need of a belonging framework if this framework is inadequate to provide the self with an expression for its uniqueness, with an attentive ear, with empathy, with support, and with protection of its freedom.

This existential absurdity is the secret of belonging to God: This is a belonging that flows along an axis of hashgaha pratit, Divine Providence at its top (belonging) and free choice at its base (freedom). This axis is positioned vertically toward the "dimension of height", and along its course a unique experience of existence flows, that receives direction and definition from the "dimension of height". The "dimension of height" acts as the "third scripture" that resolves two scriptures that appear to contradict each other by their very essence – belonging and freedom.

When freedom and belonging are balanced, these two elements truly come into their own: They find their fullest and most tangible expression in the framework of the family – a microcosm of its own – and their noblest and most exalted expression in the bond between man and his Creator. On the one hand: "I am dust and ashes." On the other hand: "His heart grew proud in the ways of God".

It should be pointed out that the freedom/belonging paradigm can be used to diagnose and to understand various human behaviors, as well as determining a wide range of personality categories. As a diagnostic tool, this paradigm has consistently proven sound.

We mean by this classifying according to human intellectual qualities, and according to those that find their expression in art, and even determining separate categories for male and female. As the role of the intellectual component increases, so the need to belong decreases, in favor of the need for freedom.

Objective thought aspires to free itself from bias, from sticking to the known and fixed tracks, even attempting to free itself from structures of thought, and concepts that have the tendency to get in through the back door of "self-evident" and other mixtures of thinking habits, the rotten fruit of routine and mental laziness.

Heart as the source of emotions, as in emotions of love, hate, fear, and all the other emotions that make possible a personal relationship to existence. Yearning, aspiring to attain a goal with which one identifies as the object and purpose of one's existence, getting excited, devoting oneself, undergoing personal change, rejecting, withdrawing – and all the other emotions capable of halting one's sense of existence.

Mechanical-Quantitative Intelligence
Qualitative Intelligence

It is customary to view intelligence as the ability to attribute connections and causes, and to build a unified structure out of existence's components, in the present, past, and future. Intelligence today is defined quite well, and has even won numerical measurement, in the framework of I.Q. It is divided into defined sections according to the various functions of thought.

It appears to us that an intelligence assumed as such can be no more than partial. It expresses thinking's technical ability – technical-functional – which measures and evaluates dynamic relationships between the components of a given situation. We call this function by the name of 'connecting intelligence', and its role is to study the dynamic field created by the components of a defined, given situation. It includes memory (input/output), absorption and discharge of information, and its functional application.

From here we draw the conclusion that high level literary artists such as Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Lawrence, Flaubert, and others, demonstrate an ability to penetrate and comprehend the human mind that far surpassed that of Freud and other great figures in the "science" of psychology. Likewise, an artist demonstrates an intelligence that in quality far surpasses that of Aristotle, Newton, and Einstein, whose inventions are impressive only by virtue of their mechanical functionalism, and their benefit lies only in their pragmatic utility for the external functioning of existence, having no trace of a contribution to the quality of life. It would seem that even a mechanical/quantitative intelligence superior to that which served the man of science would have been necessary in order to write the sort of works that many of the literary artists wrote.

Qualitative Intelligence

As different from quantitative-mechanical intelligence that reaches maturity during adolescence (age fifteen) qualitative intelligence is only just beginning. Therefore a person whose development is arrested at this age will not attain qualitative intelligence at all, in that emotional maturity is crucial to the development of qualitative intelligence, for its purpose is to shape human quality.

Emotional maturity is given to definition and to treatment, in our opinion, just as every human ability deserves education and treatment in order that it might continue to thrive.

This human talent, the talent for empathy, grants the ability to understand behavior, to detect its external factors and its internal causes, through the miracle of identifying with another.

For a miracle it is, since the capacity to identify with another does not derive from any combination of causes, nor from any analysis of personality components. It is intuition, deriving from an emotional empathy that has no rational explanation. It would seem correct to associate empathy with art, or even with spiritual values. Understanding another is art mixed with values.

Artistic talent does not unfold at the binary level, nor does it deal with re-hashing what is already known and given. The artist deals with what exists, but his aim is to move past superficial reality. He seeks after the causes and laws that are above and beyond the given.

An artist is capable of reaching into the depth of an image and revealing its hidden roots, and then illuminating it by a light that the image itself could not have brought forth.

An artist attains this revelation by sensitive, penetrating introspection, through personal involvement, and sometimes even through a mystical bonding with those higher roots of a humanness that belongs to the Godly core. For humanness is the uniquely original quality that characterizes a private individual, who is an entire universe unto himself, something of a microcosm of all the worlds, and not a detail, not a cog in the general machine.

Human talent – empathy – is not dependent on talents of any other category. It is a talent that is rarely occurring, and found at its best only in a small segment of society. Women have been blessed with it more than men. This talent is found usually – though not necessarily – in combination with a high level of sensitivity. Despite the fact that it belongs to its own independent source, it is bound to causative thinking-- of the sort that aids in understanding, and in reasoning, and that is far removed from linear or mathematical thinking.

For this reason, those who possess the quality of human empathy, tend to be uninterested in numbers, chess games, and technical issues. Their thinking is closer to 'the heart's insight,' that intuitive wisdom that is comprised of emotion and imagination, and removed from the colder external/objective forms of analysis. Human insight takes place in the inner spaces of the self, being related to the human quality, which is the abode of creative original thinking, and of understanding causality – traits that have their source in God.

A person who possesses the gift of human empathy is destined for human work, for dealing with people. The greater his human quality, the more he will be involved with the innermost view of human behavior, and the less he will be satisfied with involvement in the "doing" fields, such as business, sales, marketing, and even medicine or law, but rather only issues that are educational and emotional/spiritual.

An interesting detail characterizes these people: They incline away from one specifically defined profession, and are in perpetual doubt as to which profession to choose, in that their curiosity drifts from one occupation to another.

It appears to me that this multi-faceted tendency derives from their destiny for a human calling, which relates to human beings who are all different from one another. Therefore one who is occupied with them and discerns the heart of each one of them, must himself contain a broad range of tendencies that can encompass the tendencies of many people.

What is common to those people who tend to work at a wide spectrum of occupations is that they possess "human talent", and that it occupies a central place in their personality.

The concept of Godly unity creates a dynamic vector within a dualistic, antagonistic structure. Two elements that are antithetical in their essence, yet possess the potential to complete one another, create unity in their encounter.

The condition of completeness is created by the intervention of a third side, by the intervention of the Creator of the universe, or of his representative, the human being.

Shamayim – heaven – is derived from esh – fire – and mayim – water. "By God's word, Heaven was made." "For by His rebuke He created the vault of the heavens." God "rebuked" the two opposing elements – fire and water. His rebuke was the "third scripture," the third component that was introduced into the system of two antagonistic elements. In its merit, it prevailed over the two opponents, and encouraged the potential for complementarity and compatibility that lay hidden in them.

So it is in the whole of creation, and so too in heaven, including the Godly force that rules creation, which too in its dynamic view consists of a fusion of two complementary forces: Dukra, male, and nukva, female. When the human being, who represents God in the creation, succeeds in uniting these two opposites, his sphere of influence rises to the heights, even exerting a unifying effect on the dynamics of heaven, upon dukra and nukva. (Union is reflected in the two kruvim, 'cherubs' of the mishkan: At a moment of grace, the 'cherubs' of the Temple were found embraced, as male and female during union. At a moment of wrath, they turned away from each other, their faces averted.)

Through this imagery we are to understand the constructive and destructive dynamics in the behavior of the creation: "A time for war and a time for peace," and all the other "times" that are in Kohelet, Ecclesiastes. This three-dimensional structure contains two opposing elements, while above them the role of the human being, which is to seek or to find, and to firmly place into a given situation the element of values – the "dimension of height"– in the form of an aspiration or a goal that endows the situation with meaning and direction.

Earthly male and earthly female are a faithful reflection of the heavenly structure, which too relates to creation by an image composed of united male and female. Male is the actor, the influencer, and female is the acted upon, the influenced. Alternatively, giver and receiver, or contained and container.

We have before us a structure that reflects power and spirituality in two forms – influencer and influenced. In heaven, masculine power contains judgment and the power that receives, that is feminine, contains compassion.

When the universe was whole, and connected to heaven, the heavenly reflection was discernible in the form of 'the measure of judgment' and 'the measure of compassion.'

Once the Temple was destroyed, the package came undone (from a superficial perspective only). Earthly male and earthly female became mere power vectors, fixed from that time onward into a dynamic of tension between opposites, between conquering male and conquered female, "and he shall rule her," including all the conflicting tensions inherent between male and female, which reach their peak and their fiercest intensity in the human creature, for better and for worse. It is in the human creature also, that they attain reconciliation.

In the heavenly reflection, 'male' was expressed as the 'measure of judgment', as mentioned. This is the harsh measure, straightforward and direct, reflecting truth, in its naked and pure form. The "measure of judgment" is measured in absolute power, in that it draws its strength from the measure of truth and justice, which serve as both its expression and its basis.

With the great break between heaven and earth, at the destruction of the Beit Hamikdash, the "measure of judgment" (of truth) was left in heaven, while coarse and brutal force was left in all its nakedness on the face of the earth. This force did not recognize, nor was it supported by any values of truth at all.

Hazal reveal to us that "the Holy Blessed One saw that the universe could not stand with the 'measure of judgment,'" [with the harsh measure, Ramban adds,] "therefore He stood and mixed the 'measure of compassion' with the 'measure of judgment.'" From that time onward, brute force could not stand alone and continue to exist, and it was forced to accept marriage with the soft "measure of compassion".

"Patriarch" from that time on, is that which reflects coarse brute force, which finds expression in human relationships, between private individuals and in the public domain. "Patriarch" is that which exploits its greater strength to subjugate and dominate the weaker.

At the level of the heavenly reflection, power appears charged with the 'measure of judgment', a measure that expresses the values of judgment: Justice, honesty, honor, awe, and authority. Its business is the direct response between a sinner and his punishment.

When it is not mixed with the 'measure of compassion', this measure appears in a state devoid of mercy, kindness, flexibility, tolerance, and all other issues of loving, forgiving consideration that eat at the table of "the measure of compassion".

"Until the third scripture [the 'dimension of height'] comes and resolves them." It will teach them both how the measure of awe stands firmly, and bows humbly before the measure of love, and learn tolerance from it, and leniency and consideration for human limitations, and more of compassion's measures of the same kind.

As opposed to this, 'the measure of judgment' enhances love with regularity and discipline, and a scale of good and evil, and boundaries, and other similarly marketable currencies from the world of "doing".

Thus love comes out strengthened and in control, and empowered to distinguish and to discriminate between "love that is dependent on something else" and love that is not. It learns the meaning of "one who is compassionate toward the cruel will end by being cruel toward the compassionate", and by making judgment into compassion and compassion into judgment, confusing the orders of universe and society.

They come forth arm in arm, in the end, in the figure of Father – the 'measure of judgment,' that establishes boundaries and principles and goals, and Mother – imbuing Father's principles with love, concerned with fitting them to the children's capacity to absorb.

Indeed it is into the microcosm of the nuclear family that the elements of heaven come and receive their existential tangible substance. We see from this that male and female, when there is love and unity between them, bring heavenly male and female to perfect unity-which is good for heaven and good for the universe.

Similarly awe and love, and judgment and compassion assist one another and arrive at unity, and coarse materialistic brute force cannot celebrate its victory, as it has celebrated it in the historical past, marked and stained with the blood of citizens persuaded by nationalistic movements, the offspring of brute force that appears in the center arena when the people have no vision to unite them around a ideological, moral, or spiritual goal.

How very wretched then becomes the relationship between the opposites, patriarch and matriarch, when the "third scripture" does not resolve them. Wretched, for the simple reason that brute force knows no other pleasure than humiliating its weaker rival: "Because you drowned someone, they drowned you, and in the end, your drowners will be drowned," Hazal warn. What you caused to others will be caused to you. When one gets to the top of the mountain, there is no higher to go. One will come down in the end, to make room for another.

The ancient states, tribes, and races teach us this important lesson through their own stories. Rome, mistress of kingdoms, attained the pinnacle of brute force in the ancient era, only to be broken by savage tribes in the end.

No more did the world believe in the eternity of brute force. Turning its back on might, it found its total antagonist from the opposite direction – matriarchalism. Pity and love, identifying with the other, understanding (psychology!) and tolerance promised protection and stability at an apparently lower price than its brutal adversary.

Both of them, brute force and pity as well, had bloomed in the garden of survival. Brute force promised survival through the use of force and subduing the adversary, the enemy, by modes of cruelty and fear, and a hierarchical, authoritarian rule that imposed law and order, while the competing matriarch offered peace among nations, which cancelled the need for war and aggression, automatically canceling the need to be stronger.

The slogan "make love not war" is an illusion capable of seducing pacifistic souls who labor under delusions, which must eventually crash to the ground of existential and historical reality. Christianity carved the seduction of love upon its banner, stumbled on its own path, and never hesitated to make use of the swords of Crusaders and Inquisitions that sowed destruction and murder in their path to religious redemption.

The United States as of today represents the peak flowering of the matriarch, and we have the opportunity to examine and to compare what has become of this compassionate approach. The world that flows with signs of matriarchalism overflows with blood. Bloodshed and cruelty seem to have moved up a grade in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, which preen themselves with the feathers of liberalism, tolerance, and love.

Also in the human microcosm, in the bosom of the family of man, in which the father represents the patriarch, the man of principles and order, and the mother – love, compassion, and tolerance, the situation has never been brighter in the matriarchal era.

The young criminal blossoms as part and parcel of primitive societies, where the beast stumbles over his own sword – yet he flourishes just as well in the matriarchal society, among the wellborn, from the best families, well-treated and pampered.

We have before us additional proof for our claim that without the "dimension of height", sheltering over the pair of opposites, hostility blooms between them, and separates them. When each does not complete its fellow, the patriarchal is left with its cruelty and the matriarch with its loose weakness, lacking any stable principles or red lines, and ending by being compelled to defend itself against the strong one, who would conquer it, take its place, and rule the family of man.

These things actually turn out to be quite illuminating at the microcosmic level of the family: In patriarchal societies, the father takes the central role, as single and solitary ruler, to whose will, all must bow. The mother takes a secondary place; she lacks all authority, being nothing more than the meek servant of father and children. We do not need to exercise our imagination excessively in order to predict the behavior of children who have been raised in the lap of cruel brutality, devoid of consideration for the rights of others. The rule is: Whoever is stronger is more admired, and his right to live is greater than the right of the weak, who is a scorned and contemptible creature.

In a matriarchal family (a contemporary family) single-parent families bloom – meaning, families where the mother plays the exclusive role. The father serves as a milking cow, whose role is to fill the duties of butler, servant, and menial laborer.

One would have expected of the matriarchal family – where the atmosphere, values, and education that prevail are imbued with love for the other – that it would produce progeny of pleasing ways, for whom love, kindness, and compassion would be their guiding light. Yet here to everyone's disappointment, the progeny comes forth an overindulged egoist who expects the measure of kindness and mercy from others, whereas he himself relates to others as though they are obligated to him. For his part, he himself feels no commitment toward others, and ends by robbing his fellow creatures, and finding himself in prison in the company of his fellow criminal from the patriarchal society. One by virtue of brute force, and the other by virtue of a compassion that lacks any understanding of the principle of balance between receiver and giver, united in service of the "dimension of height", which unites them through a commitment that is at once value-oriented, spiritual, and moral.

Will is not related to any of the other forces that make up reality's cybernetic cycle. It is not part of any larger mechanism, nor stimulated by any outer vector. It is its own primordial force from which a human being begins to activate his behavioral mechanism in all its aspects.

Will does not exist in the other creatures, and was given directly to human beings by the Former of human beings. In the ability to activate the power of will, a human being resembles the Creator Himself in all His glory. Recognizing the basic nature of will is prerequisite to understanding free choice.

A precondition of the ability to activate will is liberation from the mechanical systems, for it sends its stimulations from the outside. Whereas will belongs to the qualitative inner essence, the mechanical system belongs to the outside, to the environment.

From this, an equation:
Will = Inner Space = Quality = Uniqueness = Self = Creativity.
Outer Space = Mechanism = Materialness = Brute Force = Ego = Self- Preservation.

The initiative taken by human choice arouses itarut dil'aila, the Higher awakening", as a response to: "My beloved's voice is knocking [at my door.]" This response is expressed by personal attention from heaven to the individual or to the community that has taken the initiative. It is a response of hashgaha pratit, "private Providence" that is granted human beings in proportion to and to the extent of their awakening from below through choice. Thus is formed the bond between human being and Creator.

Quality differs from person to person, and it is that which determines one's different and unique character. The greater the quality, the more powerful the will. Quality's will dominates, enslaves, and occasionally even pushes aside the survival mechanism's existential needs.

Thus a sense of existence that relies on expectations of the mechanical systems' proper functioning, is substituted for a qualitative experience of Godly will, as it is expressed both in human beings and in the Torah.

In this way, the existential axis of inner-outer is canceled in favor of an axis of inner-higher, according to the following structure: "For your saving I have hoped, God. I have hoped, God, for your saving. God, for your saving I have hoped."

This is a three-staged mechanism. At the lowest stage, one still feels dependent on the existential needs of the survival mechanism.

At the second stage, one feels the awakening of yearning to connect with height.

At the third stage, one feels the need to identify with God, on one's journey towards self-actualization as a Godly presence. One no longer feels ego's sense of existence.

The three stages might be defined thus:
From outer to inner, as a first stage.
From inner to outer, as a second stage.
From inner to higher, as a third stage.

‘Heart’ and ‘hand’ without ‘head’ create enslavement to and dependency upon the brute force level of reality, according to the mighty-weak law of the jungle. This level is characterized by immorality, because it lacks the “dimension of height”.

Behind every fact stands a theory, but behind every theory, it is not certain that there stands a fact..

‘Head’ and ‘heart’ without 'hand': Politics, detached ideology.

This is the reason, apparently, that women do not show interest in politics, thanks to their bond with reality, stronger in degree and in kind than the man's, Politics, like business, is a result of the package coming undone: Head and hand without heart, and sometimes head and heart without hand, or alternatively, heart and hand without head, and it all runs according to the system of external pressures, because they belong to the type of behaviors that run in the following direction: From outer to inner, and even from outer (the self-preservation system) to outer. Absurdity celebrates in either case.

According to this, the leader's personality can be seen in a new light. A leader in general, and the modern leader in particular, requires a harmonious personality, in which are merged 'head,' 'hand' and 'heart' in solid, indivisible form that makes them, most importantly, resistant to pressure.