{"id":561,"date":"2021-05-24T15:08:01","date_gmt":"2021-05-24T18:08:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/berdichev.org\/wordpress\/?p=561"},"modified":"2021-05-24T15:08:01","modified_gmt":"2021-05-24T18:08:01","slug":"denying-the-use-of-i","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/berdichev.org\/index.php\/2021\/05\/24\/denying-the-use-of-i\/","title":{"rendered":"DENYING THE USE OF &#8220;I&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Finally, the self-denying attitude of Hasidism is seen in the following analysis of the self by Rabbi Levi Yitzhak of Berdichev. This beautiful piece of self-reflection does not need any commentary.<br><br>No man, or any Seraphim, Heavenly Creatures and the Wheels, can refer to himself as &#8220;I,&#8221; because the word &#8221; I&#8221; indicates something which has substance and selfdom. Therefore, a person must observe himself [carefully] when he says, &#8220;I.&#8221; It is obvious of what he says, &#8220;I.&#8221; He senses something which is the Being innate to him, and of which he says, &#8220;I.&#8221; Namely, the most real thing that you observe [within yourself] is &#8220;I.&#8221; The life [<em>hiyyuth<\/em>] which is in him is [actually of] the Creator, blessed be He. The word &#8220;I&#8221; does not belong to&nbsp;<em>hiyyuth<\/em>&nbsp;because the word &#8220;I&#8221; indicates something innate within him. And the&nbsp;<em>hiyyuth<\/em>&nbsp;is a part of God above. Since man&#8217;s&nbsp;<em>hiyyuth<\/em>&nbsp;&nbsp;[which is the very essence of man] is derived from the Creator, blessed be He, it is no longer appropriate [for the man] to say, &#8220;I.&#8221; When the&nbsp;<em>hiyyuth<\/em>&nbsp;has gone, he becomes like nothing. There is nothing in him. So, of what does he say, &#8220;I?&#8221; Of a thing which is not anything!<br><br>Only God is able to refer to Himself as &#8220;I.&#8221; This is the intention of the verse, &#8220;See that I, even I, am He&#8221; (Deuteronomy 32:39) I am the Creator, to me belongs the word &#8220;I.&#8221; Besides Him, none of the upper beings could refer to themselves by the word &#8220;I.&#8221;<br><br>[If so,] of what can a person say, &#8220;I&#8221;[<em>ani<\/em>]? It is actually the dimension of Nothingness [<em>ha-ayin<\/em>].<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Finally, the self-denying attitude of Hasidism is seen in the following analysis of the self by Rabbi Levi Yitzhak of Berdichev. This beautiful piece of [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/berdichev.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/berdichev.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/berdichev.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/berdichev.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/berdichev.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=561"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/berdichev.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":562,"href":"http:\/\/berdichev.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561\/revisions\/562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/berdichev.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/berdichev.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/berdichev.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}