A Cross Section In An Unknown Dimension
What is “faith above reason”? This is something that can only be understood through sensation, whenever it comes. And as long as it doesn’t come, we don’t even know that this kind of dichotomy exists in a person: a splitting into what is inside reason and what is above it.
We think that “above” reason means simply opposite to it. But that is not so. It is a cross section in a completely different dimension, one that we do not understand. This new dimension is called “spiritual space,” which becomes revealed to us. It’s as if one more world appears in my reality, which I did not even suppose existed before.
It’s like a cat that does not understand what a rich world man has. It thinks that it lives in the same world and has the same five senses as man, and it doesn’t need anything more! After all, man has the same thing.
The cat does not understand that man has his own world and all kinds of human calculations. A cat is incapable of understanding this.
And now imagine that this cat suddenly receives human feelings and reason, including all of the understanding that man has, which it did not even suppose existed before. To the cat, this is called “faith above reason”—above the feline reason that it had before.
But sometimes the cat falls from that level and becomes a cat once again, although one that’s stronger, wiser, and shrewder. However, it still exists in the boundaries that are fitting for a cat. And from there it will reascend again in order to become human!
These states are called spiritual ascents and descents. They are not the same as the psychological states where our mood gets worse and then better, and we consider ourselves in a “descent” when we’re down. A spiritual ascent is when you rise to true bestowal, to new desires.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/2/11, Shamati
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Right! I hadn’t thought of that enough. Thank you for making the distinction between rising above hatred in “faith above reason” and rising above feeling down when in a bad mood. Two different things!
Though not mapped directly into the (material) psychological states of upbeat mood or depression, is there not some relationship? It seems that an ascent would automatically bring with it a euphoric state.
Further in the extreme of prophesy, it seems that one could not enter this state without joy — though this may not mean joy in the standard (material) sense. We see that Saul’s melancholy blocked him from reachieving this state, but again, Jonah depressed enough to ask the Creator for death, is obviously at that very instant also in the prophetic state.