Weekly Letter: The Ultimate Unity of the Material and the Spiritual

In the week of Parshas Zachor, preceding the joyous holiday of Purim – we present an interesting, incisive and quite unique letter of the Rebbe – wherein he connects the events of Purim with the current developments in science. 

With the advancement of science – where science has been in search of the ONE, underlying UNIFYING element in the created world – the closer we get to the principle of UNITY. Just as science has advanced – explains the Rebbe, so has there been human advancement in the service of G-d. Witnessing the ultimate unity of the material and the spiritual.

By the Grace of G-d

28^th of Adar, 5721

Brooklyn, N.Y.

Greeting and Blessing:

….the unity of the material and spiritual, to which I referred above, is also one of the features of Purim. For Haman’s decree began with an attack on the spiritual freedom of the Jews, as our Sages explain the verse “But Mordechai did not bend his knee nor bow down to Haman” who wished to impose his idolatry upon all and indeed succeeded, except for Mordechai. But then his decree extended to the physical annihilation of all Jews, young and old, children and women. That is why the miracle of Purim is observed both spiritually and materially, with light and gladness and joy and glory, which our Sages explained in a spiritual sense – Light that is the Torah etc., and at the same time with a se’udah, with wine, etc.

Indeed the principle of unity is the essence of Judaism, since Abraham the first Jew proclaimed Monotheism in a world of idolatry, which came to full fruition at the revelation at Mount Sinai. For true Monotheism, as professed by us and as explained in the Jewish religion, is not only the truth that there is only One G-d and none with Him, but that there is nothing besides (Ein Od), that is the denial of the existence of any reality but G-d’s, the denial of pluralism and dualism, even the separation between material and spiritual. 

It is interesting to note that the more the physical sciences advance, the closer one approaches the principle of unity even in the world of matter. For whereas formerly it was the accepted opinion that the plurality and compositeness in the material world can be reduced to some 100 odd basic elements and entities, and physical forces and laws were regarded as being separate and independent, not to mention the dichotomy between matter and energy. But in recent years, with the advancement of science, the basic elements themselves were reduced to several more elementary components of the atoms, viz. electrons, protons and neutrons and even these were immediately qualified as not the ultimate blocks of matter, until the discovery was made that matter and energy are reducible and convertible one onto the other.

It is well known that the Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Chassidus, and the Old Rebbe, the founder of Chabad, explained and amplified that every detail in human experience is an instruction in man’s service to His Maker. Thus, what has been said above about the advancement of science, exemplifies also the progress of human advancement in the service of G-d. Man possesses two apparently contradictory elements, not less incompatible than the incompatibility of matter and spirit, the counterpart of which in the physical world is matter and energy. I refer to the Divine soul and animal soul – or on a lower level, the Yetzer Tov and the Yetzer Horah. But this incompatibility is evident only in the infantile stage of progress in Divine service, comparable to the plurality of elements and forces which were presumed to exist in physical Nature. But just as the appreciation of the underlying unity of Nature grew with the advancement of science, so does the perfection in the Divine service lead to the realization of the essential unity in the human nature, to the point where the Yetzer Tov and Yetzer Horah become one, through the transformation of the Yetzer Horah  by and into the Yetzer Tov, for otherwise, of course, there can be no unity and harmony, since all that is holy and positive and creative could never make peace and be subservient to the unholy, negative and destructive. And in this attained unity, the Jew proclaims: Hear, O Israel, G-d or G-d, G-d is One.

This is also what our Sages meant when they succinctly said – as they often compress far-reaching ideas in a few concise words – that the words “And thou shall love G-d, your G-d, with all your heart (levovcho)” which immediately follow Shema Yisroel, mean: with both your yetzorim– with your Yetzer Horah as with your Yetzer Tov.

                                           With blessing