Time, as we know it, began approximately fourteen billion years ago. From the Kabbalistic, spiritual perspective, the “big bang” was the shattering of Adam’s soul. The reason we see it as a material event is that we see the world through corporeal (self-centered) eyes. If we could see it from the perspective of the force that induced this massive explosion we call “the big bang,” we would see it as an outcome of Adam’s attempt to receive using the last, and greatest desire, as described in the previous chapter.
The Four Stages in Matter
As the original desires evolved in stages, their mundane parallels appeared and corrected one at a time, from the easiest to the hardest. Now, as each desire manifests itself in our universe, Nature, which we said in Chapter 1 is synonymous with the Creator, must “teach” it to work so that it contributes to the well-being and sustainability of the universe.
To accomplish this, Nature applies a very similar approach to Darwin’s natural selection principle. In fact, many leading scholars now acknowledge the existence of the natural selection process in the period before the advent of life on earth. Professor Ada Yonath, Nobel Prize laureate in Chemistry, made the following statement in an international convention celebrating the 150th anniversary of the publication of Darwin’s On the Origin of the Species: “The survival of the fittest and natural selection played an important role in the pre-biotic world, even though these qualities are related primarily to the evolution of the species.” [68]
As in Darwin’s natural selection principle, the merit of any new development in Nature is judged by its contribution to the sustainability of its beneficiary. The difference between the Darwinian principle and the Kabbalistic one is the beneficiary: in Darwin’s classic theory, the beneficiary is the species; in Kabbalah, the beneficiary is Nature–the whole of Nature, meaning the Creator.
If this concept sounds a bit far-fetched, think of a species as part of its ecosystem. In contemporary biology, it is common to view a species in relation to its surroundings, rather than irrespective of it. And since we now know that all ecosystems are connected, it is easy to understand that a disturbance in one system can and will adversely affect the rest of the systems on the planet.
Perhaps the best description I have heard to date, explaining how Nature shifts its elements from receiving from their environment to giving to their environment, came from evolutionary biologist Elisabet Sahtouris, PhD. In a presentation she gave in November 2005, at a conference in Tokyo, Dr. Sahtouris stated, “In your body, every molecule, every cell, every organ and the whole body, has self-interest. When every level… shows its self-interest, it forces negotiations among the levels. This is the secret of Nature. Every moment in your body, these negotiations drive your system to harmony.”
Clearly, the balance and well-being of all systems is imperative for the survival of the human body. As a result, balance is just as imperative for the survival of each of the body’s systems. Today, the view of Nature as a system rather than a collection of separate elements has gained ground among leading researchers. It has led to the emergence of such fields of science as ecology, cybernetics, systems theory, and complexity.
As we have already seen, Kabbalah has always regarded the whole of Nature as a single unit. This wholeness applies not only to earth and to life upon it, but to the entire universe—the corporeal part of it, as well as the spiritual one.
Hence, the same rules that apply to the spiritual world—the world of altruism—apply to our corporeal world—the world of egoism. The difference between our world and the spiritual one is that spiritual desires are all about bestowal, while we are descendants of Adam’s shattering. As such, we are inherently self-centered, at times to the point of obliviousness even to this fact that we are so.
And because we are so self-absorbed, we are unaware of the fact that at its deepest levels, Nature is governed by altruistic rules. The role of Kabbalah is to uncover these rules and introduce them as a way to understand our world and manage it on a new level of awareness. For this reason, everything I will discuss henceforth, from the formation of the universe to the mending of human relations, will derive from and rely on the concept of evolution of desires I have explained thus far.
Still
Following Adam’s shattering, each piece in the desire to receive begins to feel like an independent self, separated from its environment and wishing to absorb from it. This desire to absorb, the pulling force, or gravity—the physical parallel to the desire to receive—caused the first clusters to form in the universe, which later became the substance of the first galaxies in the universe.
As space and gravity fields created more structured forms of the desire to absorb (meaning the desire to receive), particles appeared. The absorption process continued and stars were born with planets surrounding some of them. Thus, gravity, the weakest force in Nature, created the infrastructure of the entire universe, just as Stage One, the weakest desire to receive, created the infrastructure for the Four Stages and all the spiritual worlds that followed.
As in Stage One, the desire to receive in the corporeal inanimate consists primarily of a wish to secure its own persistence, to sustain itself. Its only relation to others is that it resists any attempt to break, dissolve, or otherwise change it. Yet, as a result of the inanimate level’s aspiration to maintain its own persistence, some particles “discovered” that they could best secure their future by collaborating with other elements.
Unlike Darwin’s theory of evolution, Kabbalah asserts that there is no coincidence. Particles do not really “discover” or happen to collaborate and subsequently benefit from doing so. This would imply that Nature is purposeless, random, that there is no predetermined goal at the end of the process. Instead, Baal HaSulam explains (in “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” [69] The Study of the Ten Sefirot [70], and in other places) that since our world is the last in a series of cause-and-effect events, the desires that appear in our world already contain (albeit not consciously) recollections of previous states within them, since they are their offshoots. Hence, the desire to receive in this world already has a recollection of the Four Stages, the Partzuf, and all the spiritual worlds. As a result, the preparation, the set-up for discovering the benefits in collaboration, pre-exist in all the levels of desires in this world. This is what allows them to “miraculously” discover the benefits of “negotiating into harmony,” as Sahtouris put it.
Most physicists agree that particles did not need much time to “discover” the benefits of collaboration. A publication by the Haystack Observatory, a research center at MIT, explains, “When the universe was 3 minutes old, it had cooled enough for these protons and neutrons to combine into nuclei.” [71] However, to develop further, they had to forge additional collaborations, which manifested in the form of electrons. These balanced the positive charge of the nuclei. This is how the first atoms appeared.
To those particles, being part of an atom—and thus yielding their own interest in favor of the interest of the atom—was all the correction they needed. In acting for the good of the system they lived in instead of for their own good, they stopped being self-centered and became system-centered. They were now “aware” of their environment and how they could contribute to it. In doing so, they became “altruists,” albeit for the selfish reason of perpetuating their own existence.
The “reward” for particles that excel in giving to their environment is the creation of a strong environment, meaning stable atoms. This guarantees their future existence.
Moreover, because atoms need all their particles to maintain themselves, the atoms themselves protect the particles within them. Thus, by yielding their self-interest in favor of the interest of their atoms, particles gain the entire system’s interest in the well being of these atoms. This “deal” proved so successful that “Moments after the Big Bang, protons and neutrons began to combine to form helium-3 and other basic elements,” said Robert Rood of the University of Virginia, as quoted in a release by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory [72]. Thus, the first minerals emerged.
The human body is possibly the most vivid example of the modus operandi of yielding self-interest before the interest of the host system in return for the system’s protection. In the human body, as in any organism, each cell has a particular role. For the organism to persist, each cell must perform its function to the best of its ability and replace the goal of maintaining its own life with the goal of maintaining the life of its host organism. If a cell begins to act contrary to that principle, its interests will soon clash with those of the body and the body’s defense mechanisms will destroy it. Otherwise, it is likely to create a tumor of insubordinate cells that strive to consume the body’s resources for their own benefit. When such a process occurs, we diagnose it as “cancer.”
If the cancer wins, the body dies and the tumor dies along with it. If the body wins and the cancer dies, the body persists, along with the cells of the organ that did not become malignant, and the self-centered cells are extinguished. This is Nature’s failsafe mechanism for ensuring that self-centered systems will not exist. Here, too, there is nothing miraculous; it is simply that self-centered mechanisms invariably consume themselves to extinction because they end up consuming their food supply.
Thus, it is in the interest of all cells in the body to dispose of the tumor. Put differently, to guarantee the survival of elements in a system, the elements in that system must cater to the well-being of the system before they cater to their own well-being. In return, the system will cater to their well-being and provide for their survival.
The principle explained just now is valid not only for particles, atoms, and organisms, but for all of life. By applying it, all elements in Nature learn to yield their self-centered natures to an altruistic nature, which considers the good of the collective before its own good.
Thus, returning to our topic of observing the early universe, once particles joined to create atoms, atoms began to bond, thus creating the first molecules. These adhered to the same rule, and the molecules that survived were those in which the atoms were tightly connected, just as with atoms, yielding their self-interest before the interest of their host systems—the molecules.
In this entire process, there is no freedom of choice. An atom or a molecule cannot choose to not be created, since the elements that constitute it find it in their best interest to form it in order to best protect their interests. Yet, by creating molecules, atoms accomplished something far more significant than protecting themselves and the particles that created them. Like particles, they built a system before which they could yield their self-interest, and by so doing, atoms transformed from being self-oriented to being system-oriented, meaning altruistic.
In this way, another layer of the inanimate level of desire to receive was corrected. And although there was no free choice in this correction, the altruistic modus operandi is all that is required of minerals to be considered corrected. As Stage One did not have any free choice in its evolution, the inanimate has no free choice in its evolution; it simply works to ensure its persistence as best it can.
Interestingly, Darwin’s theory reflects almost the same pattern in its principle of natural selection. One difference between Kabbalah and Darwinism is that what Darwinism defines as stable molecules vs. unstable ones, Kabbalah defines as balanced molecules vs. unbalanced ones. Balanced molecules support the atoms that comprise them, and the atoms equally support their molecules.
In The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins—one of Darwin’s most renowned contemporary proponents—describes the process of molecular evolution: “The earliest form of natural selection was simply a selection of stable forms and a rejection of unstable ones. There is no mystery about this. It had to happen by definition.” [73]
Dawkins’ observations are congruent with those of Kabbalah. In Kabbalistic terminology, a stable molecule is one whose atoms have yielded their self-interests in favor of the interests of the molecule. Thus, Dawkins’ “stable forms” are synonymous with Kabbalah’s “corrected molecules,” in which atoms have become “altruistic.” Conversely, in unstable (uncorrected) molecules, one or more of the atoms remained focused on its own interest.
Following the same procedure as particles and atoms, molecules began to congregate and create what biologists refer to as “molecular interactions,” or “bonds.” As with molecules, interactions in which molecules dedicated themselves to the strength and well-being of the bond prospered, and those whose molecules were only partially supportive of their bond disintegrated.
Many forms of molecular interactions exist in nature, but less than four billion years ago, one particular interaction marked the shift between the inanimate stage on earth (and perhaps in the universe) and the vegetative one. This special aggregate of molecules was given the name, “Deoxyribonucleic acid,” otherwise known as DNA (Image no. 2).
Image no. 2:
Deoxyribonucleic acid, also known as DNA
In atoms, particles assume different roles: some form the nucleus and some form the shell, for example. Similarly, in molecules, atoms assume different roles and must adhere to rigid forms of connections. And finally, in molecular interaction, each molecule plays a different role.
But with the appearance of DNA, things began to change. DNA is not yet another structure made of different molecules that form a structure. It is a structure that can interact with other structures, where each structure is assigned a different function. These, combined, serve the good of the structure. In biology, these structures are called “cells” or “unicellular organisms” and they constitute the most primitive form of life.
You could argue that essentially, these organisms function much the same as atoms, molecules, or molecular structures introduced before. But the unique structure created around the DNA allows for two hitherto nonexistent functions to occur: 1) DNA is the first known structure in nature that can replicate itself, as well as the molecular structures that support it! 2) Cells are the first structures that systematically interact with their environment. They absorb nutrients from their environment, process them to extract the energy they need for survival, and then secrete the waste. Moreover, cells can repeat this process accurately so many times that they can actually change their environment.
There are many definitions of life. To be on the safe side, I will choose the one that Encyclopedia Britannica offers: “Matter that shows certain attributes that include responsiveness, growth, metabolism, energy transformation, and reproduction.” [74] The first cells, named “prokaryotes,” had all those attributes and were a direct evolution of molecular interaction. Thus, the beginning of life as we know it was prompted by the same law by which all systems achieve balance and sustainability—their constituents yielding their self-interests before the interest of their host systems, in return for the system’s care for them
Vegetative
As we said above, the first living organisms were primitive cells, known as “prokaryotes.” As with minerals in the inanimate phase, prokaryotes grew more complex.
The vegetative phase in the evolution of life corresponds to Stage Two. The difference between Stage One and Stage Two is that Stage One is passive—receiving what Nature gives it—while Stage Two reacts to it, wishing to give back. Similarly, plants respond to their environment and interact with it. Their product, oxygen, is the gift of the flora to our world and is such a vital element of life that without it, evolution as we know it would not be possible.
In his “Introduction to the Book of Zohar,” [75] Ashlag explains that the vegetative level of the desire to receive, as manifested in plants, exhibits a more intense desire to receive. This is why the structures it creates are more complex and have a more noticeable impact on their environment.
Also, unlike minerals, plants are individual specimens with their own reproduction, feeding, and even migration mechanisms. Yet, like minerals, all plants behave similarly—accurately adhering to the program installed within them by the Creator. They open their petals (if they have them) at the same time in the morning, close them at the same time in the evening, and follow almost exactly the same procedure as do the other specimens in their species.
Thus, compliant with the law of yielding self-interest described in the previous section, cells continued to evolve, producing increasingly intricate and complex structures. At first, they congregated in large colonies of single cells. Then, gradually, they began to realize that they could benefit from ascribing different roles to different groups of cells. Some cells became “hunters,” providing food for the entire colony, other cells became guards, others still became cleaners, and each group contributed its best to the community.
As we said earlier about the collaboration of particles, collaboration of differentiated organs is not coincidental. It relies on similar structures that exist in the spiritual, altruistic realm. The description of the spiritual (altruistic) worlds we provided in Chapters 2 and 3 is a very basic depiction of them. In The Study of the Ten Sefirot [76], Baal HaSulam provides a detailed examination of the internal structure of the Partzuf we discussed earlier, and explains about such systems as the digestive system, the reproduction system, hands, legs, etc.
However, Baal HaSulam describes all these elements as interactions between desires to bestow and desires to receive. These are not physical objects of any kind, although how they behaveserves as a “prototype” for the behavior of similar systems in our world. In Kabbalah, a prototype is called “root” and all its offshoots are called “branches.”
Beyond the obvious advantage of size that colonies have over single cells, returning to the topic of evolution, cells in colonies have another edge over single cells: they can focus on a single task and thus perfect their performance, increasing their contribution to the colony and relying on their fellow cells in the colony to provide for their other needs.
Single cells, on the other hand, had to perform all the necessities of sustenance by themselves. This heightened efficiency meant that colonies spent less energy to produce the same amount of food, warmth, protection and any other necessity. Thus, yielding their self-interests, cells began to differentiate.
As cellular differentiation evolved, bigger, stronger, and more diverse plants appeared. By allowing some cells to focus solely on the suction of water from the ground, and others to focus on photosynthesis, plants began to ascribe certain sections in the colony, not just certain cells, to dedicated tasks. This resulted in the emergence of organs such as root, stem, stalk, and leaves, and allowed for higher level plants to evolve. As before, the determining factor in the success or failure of a new evolutionary stage was the “consent” of cells or organs within the host system to yield their self-interest in favor of the interest of the entire system, in this case, a plant.
Animate
For some two billion years, plants were the rulers on planet Earth. But the desire to receive that broke Adam’s Partzuf had more facets that needed correction, that is, to be taught how to work as a system, yielding selfish interest before the interest of the host system. As desires continued to emerge, those that correlated to Stage Three of the four stages began to manifest, creating more complex life forms.
Because of their higher level of desire, explains Ashlag in his “Introduction to the Book of Zohar,” each specimen that belonged to Stage Three had a heightened sense of self-determination and a greater desire for autonomy. Thus, while specimens continued to recognize themselves as part of a species, they began to develop individual identities [77].
Corals, for example, which evolved nearly 500 million years ago, were among the first species of animals to appear. Some of these developed (a primitive form of) muscles by which to stir their movement, and were thus able to move about relatively freely. Moreover, unlike plants, which provide for their nutritional needs using photosynthesis, corals must prey on other organisms to sustain themselves, and often contain algal cells to photosynthesize light for their supply of carbohydrates (sugars) (Image no. 3).
Image no. 3: Unlike plants, which photosynthesize for their nutrition, coral feeds by preying on other organisms.
But corals possess another form of tissue characteristic of animals: nerves. The appearance of a nervous system, particularly a Central Nervous System (CNS), allowed for enhanced control over the organism’s function and facilitated the evolution of the diverse fauna that exists today.
Below is a very approximate timeline of the 3.8 billion year history of life on Earth, demonstrating how desires have manifested through evolution:
Still—Stage One
Vegetative—Stage Two
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3 billion years since the appearance of photosynthesis;
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2 billion years since the appearance of complex cells (eukaryotes);
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1 billion years since the appearance of multicellular life;
Animate—Stage Three
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600 million years since the appearance of simple animals;
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570 million years since the appearance of insects;
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550 million years since the appearance of complex animals
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500 million years since the appearance of fish;
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475 million years since the appearance of land plants
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400 million years since the appearance of seeds;
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300 million years since the appearance of reptiles;
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200 million years since the appearance of mammals;
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150 million years since the appearance of birds;
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130 million years since the appearance of flowers;
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65 million years since the non-avian dinosaurs died out;
Human (Speaking)—Stage Four
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2.5 million years since the appearance of the genus Homo;
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200,000 years since the appearance of Homo sapiens.
As we can see in the list above, evolution of the species and evolution of desires correspond rather nicely. The next chapter will be dedicated to the appearance and evolution of Stage Four in the desire to receive on earth—“the speaking”—which is the human being.