Chapter XLI · 1 min read
The Future Is Not a World Without Vessels
Form remains, saturated and inhabited
A crude mystical utopia imagines the future as dissolution.
Everything becomes light.
Differences disappear.
Bodies cease mattering.
Individuality evaporates.
Torah imagines something richer.
The wolf and lamb remain distinct in the prophetic image.
Nations remain nations while calling upon HaShem.
The earth remains earth while filled with Divine knowledge.
Knowledge covers the earth "as waters cover the sea".
The sea remains present beneath the water.
Form remains.
But it is surrounded, saturated, inhabited.
The goal is not for the vessel to disappear.
The goal is for concealment no longer to be experienced as separation.
This is what Chanoch can now teach.
He experienced one form of transformation, the vessel becoming fire.
The future asks the world to achieve another:
the vessel remaining vessel while becoming transparent to its purpose.
The first is ascent.
The second is dwelling.
The first is breathtaking.
The second is what creation was for.