A good friend of mine shared these comments with me concerning the subjects of the Language of Branches and PaRDeS. They seemed relevant to this study and I have posted them with his permission.
“As this journey of Peshat to Sod (through secular studies) begins and continues (especially without the right teacher), the students seemingly approaches progressive levels of contradiction, confusion, weird concepts, weird symbols, etc. This may excite the fan of things unique, strange, and mysterious. They may develop a superiority complex by obtaining what they view as “secret knowledge” or “the truth behind the truth,” although they do not fully understand what they have gotten into. As well, it may discourage the humble seeker who is accustomed to viewing things from a literal perspective. The farther down the path from Peshat to Sod, the more foreign, dark, and seemingly evil the path appears. Also, there may be the humble seeker who is not deterred by things they don’t yet seem to understand. They continue down the path to Sod while maintaining a more open-minded approach, something closer to Remez but that ultimately relies upon Peshat at the end of the day. In their mind, they are “eating the meat and spitting out the bones.” However, this approach is very selective in nature and only provides successes where the student has carefully selected information that supports previous beliefs while disregarding any opposing information. This kind of student will continue to think that they “get it”, and that so-called esoteric traditions support the legitimacy of their particular school of thought. The kind of students mentioned earlier, will either fully embrace things they deem weird, dark, mysterious, seemingly evil, or they will reject it. However, all three types of students have taken the wrong path.
“Peshat to Sod is the wrong approach, because from that direction, Sod will never fully be reconciled to Peshat. Some students will pretend that they agree with things they don’t understand and build their lifestyle around a lie. Others will flat out reject everything that is not literal, tangible, and capable of being understood by the most skeptical secular mind. Some will feel comfortable and seemingly uplifted by using select aspects of the deeper levels to support their previous Peshat beliefs. Peshat to Sod in no way prepares the student to fully benefit from any of these levels of study; not even Peshat.
“ “A wise disciple is a person who wishes to learn from the Creator Himself” (Rav Michael Laitman, The Path of Kabbalah, p. 260).
“ “Therefore, the Kabbalists said, and we also find it in the prayer book of the Vilna Gaon (GRA), that the order of attainment of the Torah begins with the concealed and ends with the revealed. This means that through the appropriate labor, where one first delves into the Torah of the hidden, he is thus granted the revealed Torah, the literal. Thus, one begins with the concealed, called Sod (secret), and when he is rewarded, he ends in the literal [Peshat]” (Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Item 103).
“The correct path is always Sod. Sod is actually the only true path. It is not a secular path and cannot be approached from that perspective. Unfortunately there are many books and teachers that would have you believe that God, or what they term the “Governing Force of the Universe,” can be studied and understood from a secular perspective. Since the uninspired masses typically approach life from a Peshat perspective, Holy men have usually always explained their understandings in a Peshat to Sod manner, although that is not how they have obtained their understanding. Seemingly it is easier to help the Peshat-minded individual to accept generalized Holy teachings if it is watered-down to their Peshat language. However, Sod is the only truth. Peshat, Remez, Derash are simply ways of attempting to explain Sod, and not meant to be an end in and of themselves. In fact, Peshat, Remez, and Derash methodologies were not created and taught to help the student reach Sod, but to help the Sod student explain and document their Sod experiences. If the Peshat-minded person will not take the Sod approach, they can never eternally benefit from the information and processes that they are involved in. Documents written by Holy men are communicated in a particular way. They are written in a way to help other Sod students recognize their Sod experiences as they read the text; they become the multi-layered language of Sod. Although such documents usually end up being somewhat of a spiritual psychoanalytic progression schematic sheet, they cannot be studied of themselves in a way to move the non-Sod student to Sod understanding and being. Unlike the contradictory conclusions that result from a Peshat to Sod approach, we will see that Sod to Peshat approach never contradict each other when built upon Sod. In fact, all truths contained therein perfectly fit together and combine to support God who is their origin.
“To further explain, the right approach to esoteric methods, teaching, symbolism, and such, we will review some teachings on the Language of Branches—the language of Sod.
“ “Baal HaSulam [Yehuda Leib HaLevi Ashlag] writes about Kabbalah that it is a method for, “the revelation of His Godliness to His creatures in this world” (The Revelation of Godliness)” (Rav Michael Laitman, The Path of Kabbalah, p. 263).
“ “All those who attained the Light of the Creator through their work wanted all those succeeding them to enjoy what they had already discovered, as well. Therefore, they named each and every attainment so they would be able to understand their intentions and the attainments that they attained, and thus form a common language with each other” (Rabash, “Letter no. 19”).
“Thus the Language of Branches is a language using the names of people, places, and events to actually describe personal spiritual experience as one progresses in their knowledge of and adhesion with God.
Remember, that as the student begins to learn God from God, they also begin to learn of their own eternal past, present, and future as all things become reconciled into one.
“Similarly the Zohar uses the Language of Branches to comment on the individual’s adhesion experience with God, and is not a secular or doctrinal commentary on the Bible. It cannot be analyzed in a Peshat to Sod direction and make any sense as a collective work.” (Yosef)
I will be adding some further discussion on the subject soon, with supporting LDS quotes. I look forward to getting into the actual Book of Mormon text study shortly.
