Da'as Elyon and Da'as Tachton

Daas/Daat Elyon ("Higher Knowledge") and Daas/Daat Tachton ("Lower Knowledge") are two alternative levels of perception of reality in Hasidic thought. Their terms derive from the Kabbalistic sephirot: Keter (above conscious Will) and Da'at (conscious Knowledge), considered two levels of the same unifying principle; the first encompassing, the second internalised within the person. In Kabbalah either Keter or Da'at are listed in the 10 sephirot, but not both. While the significance of this duality is limited in Kabbalah to its discussion of the Heavenly realms, the significance, and the terminology of "Higher" and "Lower Knowledge" emerges in the Hasidic internalisation of Kabbalah to describe alternative, paradoxical conscious perceptions of Divine Panentheism in this material World. Upper Knowledge refers to the Divine view "from Above", Lower Knowledge to the Created view "from Below".

Description

The terms Daas Elyon and Tachton are used particularly in the Habad philosophical systemisation of Hasidic thought. The alternative Kabbalistic terms Ayin and Yesh ("Non-Being and Being") are more commonly used in wider Hasidic mysticism. Habad differed from Mainstream Hasidism by its intellectual investigation of the Kabbalistic terminology and concepts that Hasidism had adapted to its psychologically focused mysticism. In this Daas Elyon and Tachton take on a related, but wider conceptual connotation than Ayin and Yesh, as they become the two alternative conscious perception paradigms of all Hasidic mysticism. Hasidism had extended the significance of Ayin and Yesh beyond its Heavenly abstract Kabbalistic meaning, to describe how this physical realm is alternatively Being or Non-Being, as perceived by Creation, in its nullification in the Panentheistic Divine All. Higher and Lower Knowledge broadens this further to any spiritual level of existence, or any concept under consideration.

In historical Kabbalah, Keter ("Crown") is the transcendent Divine Will above conscious internalisation, while Da'at ("Knowledge") is the internalised aspect of the same principle, channeling the Creative Ohr lifeforce into existence. Consequently, Keter is the "Hidden Knowledge", that becomes revealed in Da'at. Moshe Cordovero lists Keter as the first sephirah and excludes Da'at, while Isaac Luria excludes Keter as being too transcendent to consider as the first cause of Creation, while substituting Da'at instead. Where Keter is the hidden soul root of the intellectual sephirot, Da'at is the hidden soul root of the emotions that emerge subsequently. Keter is revealed in Intellect, and Da'at is revealed in Emotions.

Hasidic thought adapted Kabbalistic terminology to its own concern with direct psychological perception in deveikut cleaving to God. It related the sephirot to their corresponding parallels in the Kochos hanefesh (soul powers) devotional experience in Man. Similarly Da'at Elyon and Tachton emerge as the two alternative perspectives of Creation, the Divine consciousness "from Above", and the Created consciousness "from Below". While Hasidic thought universally retains the Kabbalistic meaning of Ayin (Non-Being) to refer to the inaccessible grasp of the Infinite Divine from the Creation's perspective, and Yesh (Being) to refer to Creation's perception of its own existence, this ascription only reflects the Lower Knowledge view. From the Divine view of Higher Knowledge, in truth only God exists, who is the Yesh Amity ("True Being"). Creation is nullified into acosmic non-existence (Ayin) within its Divine source, "as the light of the sun is nullified within the sun's orb". Nonetheless, as Hasidic mysticism describes man's devotion to God, it still uses the terms Ayin and Yesh in their Lower Knowledge, traditional Kabbalistic reference, and not reversed.

Examples

... It seems to the lower worlds as if the light and lifeforce of the Omnipresent, blessed be He...were something apart from His blessed Self ... Yet in regard to the Holy One, blessed be He, there is no tzimtzum, concealment and occultation that would conceal and hide before Him ... for the tzimtzumim and garments are not things distinct from His blessed Self, heaven forefend, but (Genesis Rabba 21:5) "like the snail whose garment is part of its very self"[1]

See also

Notes

  1. Tanya I:21
  2. One such talk is reprinted as an Appendix in On the Essence of Chasidus, Kehot pub.
  3. Tanya I:26
  4. Rabbi Chaim Vital Shaar HaNevuah, cited in Tanya II:2
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