Understanding Your Middos - 94 Fire - Hatred

Earth-Based Hatred vs. Fire-Based Hatred

We are continuing, with siyata d’shmaya, to learn about the element of fire. In the previous lessons, we learned about the fire-related traits which Rav Chaim Vital describes in Shaarei Kedushah: the traits of conceit, anger, intolerance, honor, and control. Now we will learn about the final trait in Rav Chaim Vital’s list of traits which come from the element of fire: the trait of hatred.

(The Hebrew word for “hatred” is sinah, which is from the words aish (fire) and nun (the number 50). Later, the significance of this will be explained.)

Earlier, when we discussed the element of earth, we learned about how the trait of hatred stems from the soul’s element of earth. Although Rav Chaim Vital lists hatred as a product of the element of fire, upon deeper analysis we can discover that there are really two different kinds of hatred: One type of hatred which comes from the soul’s element of earth, and another type of hatred which comes from the soul’s element of fire.

The idea of the hatred which comes from the element of fire is when a person considers another as a separate entity, turning “one” into “two.” A hint to this is that the word sinah contains the letters shin and aleph, meaning that the element of fire (represented by the letters shin, which alludes to aish/fire) turns “aleph”, “one”, into shnayim, “two”.

The hatred coming from the element of earth is when hatred is actualized. To illustrate, a plant grows in the earth and is later released from the ground. Earth enables a potential to become released, causing a state of separation between the ground and the plant which grew from it.

Earlier, when we discussed hatred coming from the element of earth, we explained how hatred can come from any of the four elements (within the element of earth). A person may either hate someone because he perceives the other person as being higher than him (fire), or because he does not enjoy the other’s personality (water), or because the other person has clashed with him or opposing him in some way (wind). In any of these scenarios of hatred, a person feels separate and apart from the other. Thus, hatred coming from the element of fire is when one hates another for being higher than him.

We also explained, when we learned about the element of water, that the trait of jealousy is linked with hatred. The brothers hated Yosef and later they were jealous of him. Sometimes the Torah’s word for jealousy, which is “kinah,” is referring to hatred. One is jealous of another when the other is above him in some way. If one wants to be equal with him, this is the holy jealousy of kinas sofrim. If one wants to lower another, this comes from jealousy, which stems from the element of water. If one wants to rise above the other, this is [the trait of conceitedness, which is] coming from the element of fire.

That is a brief outline of what we discussed earlier with regards to the traits of hatred (earth) and jealousy (water). Now we are learning about the kind of hatred which comes from the element of fire (besides for what we learned earlier about fire when we discussed the element of earth).

Fire-Based Hatred – The Idea of Turning One Into Two

Hatred coming from the element of fire, as mentioned, is when a person turns “one” into “two”. How does fire-based hatred turn “one” into “two”?

Fire is an element which clearly causes separation. When there is a fire, people jump back. A fire, in essence, is an element that divides and separates. Also, fire opposes the element of water. Fire is not able to co-exist with water. If water and fire meet, a fight ensues, and if there is more water, the water will douse the fire, but if the fire is too strong, the water will sizzle and evaporate. Thus, fire causes separation. In this sense, we can understand how fire turns “one” into “two” – fire always creates a separation (two).

Fir Can Also Turn Two Into One

However, we also find the exact opposite aspect of the above contained in fire: A can also turn “two” into “one”.

Contrast this with the element of earth. Earth takes one seed and produces many different plants from it. The earth turns “one” into “two”, just like fire, but the earth cannot turn two things back into one thing. A fire, however, is able to return two things into one thing. Fire burns up an object and then turns an object into smoke, causing the burnt object to rise, in the form of smoke, where it keeps rising. The smoke keeps rising until the sky, rising toward Heaven, where it is eventually returned to a state of oneness.

From this particular aspect of fire, we can see that fire also turns “two” into “one”: A fire can return anything on this world to the state of oneness, by burning it and destroying it, elevating the physical object back to its spiritual source, bringing several different physical objects at once back to their higher source, in Heaven. Thus, fire has the ability to turn “two” into “one”. This is the holy use of the element of fire: the ability to return everything back to a state of oneness [And later, we will explain how this ability of fire, turning two into one, can be used to repair the trait of hatred].

Hatred – The Evil Use of Turning Two Into One

However, this power of fire (of turning two into one) is also used in the side of evil, when it comes to the trait of hatred. Through hatred, which comes from the element of fire, “two” becomes turned into “one”, for selfish purposes. How? A person, in his hatred, becomes overly focused on his ego. He is focusing too much on his own “oneness”, causing his connections with others (two people) to fall away in the face of his own ego (one). Hence, through hatred, a person uses fire to turn “two” into “one”, for egoistic purposes.

Two Aspects To Fire    

When fire burns something and destroys it, it turns it into a fire, and later it reduces the object into ash. When fire turns something else into another fire, it turns “two” into “one”, because it turns each thing into fire. In the side of evil, when fire is impaired, it “turns two into one” by turning everything into fire.

Another aspect to fire is that it destroys whatever it encounters. When fire destroys, it turns something into fire, and it also returns the object into its root, because the smoke rises all the way to Heaven. In this aspect, fire actually brings unity, because it returns an object back to its Heavenly source. Fire destroys and burns everything it touches, sending an object back its source above, in Heaven. This is another holy aspect of fire: it returns something to its source.

Fire will also burn up something and turn it into a pile of ash. In this way, fire turns one into two, because it will turn any object into a pile of scattered ash. Earlier (in the lesson about Fire-Anger) we explained that ash is produced from fire’s connection to the element of earth. If not for earth, there cannot be ash, because earth prevents a fire from completely rising, causing some of the fire to remain on the world, in the form of ash. Ash is essentially an earthen form of fire. Thus, fire turns “one” into “two” due to the element of earth which is connected with the element of fire.

Certainly, the trait of hatred comes from the element of fire, as Rav Chaim Vital writes. However, the idea that hatred turns “one” into “two” is rooted in the element of earth.

How The Fire of Gehinnom Rectifies

Where is the revelation of fire in the Creation? The first time in the Torah where we find that “two becomes one” is by the first day of Creation, where “There was evening, and there was morning, one day”.[1] There was evening and morning, two separate entities, which became “one” day.

The Gemara says that on the second day of Creation, the fire of Gehinnom (Hell) was created.[2] The Maharal explains that Gehinnom is called tzeil-maves, “the shadow of death”, and this is because anything that enters the fire of Gehinnom is negated (this is called hed’air).

There is a Gehinnom of fire and a Gehinnom of snow, but only the Gehinnom of fire negates whoever enters it, because it is only fire which negates something. Gehinnom (specifically, the Gehinnom of fire) turns everything that enters it into a fire.

The Gemara says that the empty space for Gehinnom was one of things that were created before the world.[3] The fire of Gehinnom, though, was created on the second day of Creation.

The fire which we use today was created on Motzei Shabbos.[4] The Ramban says that the original element of fire, which is one of the four elements, is dark, and that this was created at the beginning of the world, when Hashem first made the four elements and created the universe from them. This “original fire” is not the same fire which we have today, which was created on Motzei Shabbos.

So, altogether, there are three kinds of fire: (1) The original element of fire which Hashem used to create the world with, which the Ramban describes as a “dark” fire, (2) The fire of Gehinnom, which was created on the second day, (3) The fire we use today, which was created on Motzei Shabbos.

The fire of Gehinnom was created on the second day from the split of the waters that took place on the second day, where the water was split into two divisions, the Upper Waters and the Lower Waters. The Maharal says that Gehinnom is a place of he’edair, it is a place which negates, by destroying [the physicality of] whoever enters it. Although Gehinnom is called hed’air/absence, which is nothingness, Gehinnom is still a creation. The Vilna Gaon said that darkness is a creation, unlike the philosophers who argued that darkness is merely the absence of light. In the same vein, the absence of a creation, hed’air, is certainly a creation in and of itself.

In the Torah, we find the term sinah (hatred) with regards to Avimelech’s hatred for Yitzchok when he abducted Rivkah, and with regards to Leah, when she felt hated, and also with Yosef, when he was hated by his brothers. From all of these examples of hatred, the most complete level of hatred was the hatred which Leah felt. This is because it is taught in the sefarim hakedoshim that Rachel and Leah were originally one soul who became divided into two souls. Hatred is the idea of one becoming two, hence, when “Hashem saw that Leah was hated”[5], this represents the complete level of hatred, where one entity (oneness) is turned into two entity (separation). Since Leah felt “hated” by Yaakov (figuratively speaking, in the sense that Leah was aware that she was not as beloved to Yaakov as Rachel was), Yaakov would have to undergo a tikkun (a soul repair) in order to repair the “hatred” that Leah felt from him. [Later this will be explained more.]

The tikkun for hatred/separation lies in the deeper meaning of the fire of Gehinnom. The fire of Gehinnom, which was created as a result of the division of the waters on the second day of Creation, was not simply created to upkeep the existence of the division between the Upper Waters and Lower Waters, as it would seem. Rather, the fire of Gehinnom is meant to rectify the very idea of separation, by creating hed’air, “negation” or “absence”, for Gehinnom is a fire that negates whatever enters it, turning it into a fire, and thereby turning two back into one .

This is the depth of the Maharal’s words that Gehinnom is called Tzeil-Maves, a place of death. It is because death creates separation, by separating the soul from the body, thereby turning “one” (the body-soul unit) into “two” (body and soul separated), and Gehinnom returns the “two” back into “one”, by turning anyone who enters it into fire.

Thus, the idea of hed’air (negation/absence) is all about turning “two” into one. Before the creation of the universe, there was only Hashem and His name[6], and then He created the chalal, the “empty void” of Creation, which is also explained to mean, the chalal (empty space) of Gehinnom. This was a hed’air/negation which came from above to below, for it was the element of fire (negation), which comes from above.

The Difference Between The Gehinnom of Snow and the Gehinnom of Fire

There is also another kind of hed’air (negation), which comes from below to above. This is the negation caused by the element of water. This type of hed’air corresponds to the “Gehinnom of snow” [Since snow comes from frozen water]. However, this kind of hed’air/negation does not turn two into one. Only the hed’air/negation caused by fire turns two into one.

The fire of Gehinnom reveals that even when something has become two [separate entities, caused by physicality], it is really one [a spiritual entity]. The fire of Gehinnom “negates” the concept of two and “returns” two/separation into one/oneness. The fire of Gehinnom, which destroys and negates whatever enters it, is an example of the concept, “From the wound itself, comes the recovery.”.

In contrast to the Gehinnom of fire, the Gehinnom of snow does not return two into one. It is only the Gehinnom of fire which turns two into one. This is because, as explained before, the element of fire is connected with the element of earth, and that is why fire turns whatever it burns into ash, where two objects [i.e. two tables] are turned into one [a pile of ash], as a result of being burnt by the fire. Thus, the Gehinnom of fire is reminiscent of ash.

The Flood – The Waters of Separation

When Hashem brought the Mabul (the Flood), the waters which brought “negation” to the world, in which Noach and his family were spared, the Ark only allowed couples, which included Noach and his wife, Noach’s children and their wives, and seven pairs of each animal that entered the Ark. The Sages teach that the giant Og, king of Bashan, was also saved from the Flood, by hanging onto the Ark.

The depth behind the couples who were saved from the Flood was that “two” (the couples) were becoming “one” (through the Ark). However, this was not the case with Og. The word “Bashan”, where he was king, alludes to the words ben shnayim, “son of two”, meaning that his existence implies “two”, the idea of separation.

Although Og was saved from the waters of the Flood, he did not enter the Ark, and therefore Og remained at the impaired number of “two”, in the dimension of separation, and he did not enjoy the status of “two becoming one”. Instead, Og remained like the “water” which he stayed in during the Flood, the waters of destruction which symbolized the division of the two waters on the second day of Creation, which corresponds to the idea of “two”, the dimension of separation.

Holy Hatred: Hating Evil

There is a verse, “With utter hatred I despise the wicked, and they are enemies to me.”[7] This verse is saying that the trait of hatred can be used for holiness (sinah d’kedushah, “holy hatred”) when one hates the wicked. This is because when one hates wickedness and evil, he views wicked people as his enemies, out of his love for Hashem. Such hatred is holy, and it is a hatred which brings rectification, because it is a “fire” of hatred which “burns” the wicked, turning “two” (the dimension of separation) into “one” (love for Hashem, for ahavah/love corresponds to echad/oneness).

How Fire Brings To Unity/Oneness

Based upon what has just been explained about the elements of fire and water, which element causes unity, and which element separation?

From a simple understanding, water is the element that fosters connection and unity, whereas fire is the element of destruction and separation. However, according to what we have just explained here, it is actually the opposite! Fire is the element that returns everything to its root, by destroying something and causing it to rise upward, to its source in Heaven. Therefore, fire, at its very essence, is the element that brings something to oneness.

Certainly fire also destroys and turns something into ash, causing separation, division, and scattering. That is the evil side to fire, and correspondingly, the trait of “hatred” causes divisiveness and separation between people.  However, there is higher aspect contained in the element of fire: the fact that fire returns everything to its root, to its Heavenly source, the state of oneness. The “negative” product of fire, ash, causes separation and scattering. But the essence of fire, the higher aspect of fire, is all about unifying an object back with its source, causing each object it burns and destroys to ascend back to Heaven.

As an example, the korbonos sacrificed on the Altar arose to Heaven through a fire. The fire destroyed the korbon and caused the physical flesh of the animal to ascend to Heaven. Thus, fire, in essence, causes a return to oneness, bringing everything back to its higher source in Heaven, which is a state of oneness.

How Destruction (Fire) Repairs Scattering

There are three primary numbers: One, two, and four. The number one symbolizes the state of unity and oneness. The number two creates division: One becomes divided into two. The number four is created when two becomes scattered further into the “four” different directions.

When one becomes two, and when two later becomes scattered into four, the scattering needs to be returned to a state of oneness. The element of fire is able to turn four back into one. When fire turns something into ash, one object becomes scattered into many different particles of ash. The word for ash, “aifer”, is from the words aleph pirur, “one has been scattered”, because ash scatters something that was originally one. As explained earlier, ash represents the downside to fire, when fire causes separation and scattering. The essence of fire, however, is to destroy something and thereby elevate it back to its source in Heaven [through the rising smoke of the fire], where it returns “two” back to the source, where “two” becomes turned into “one”.

Fire and water cannot co-exist together, on this world. But in Heaven, fire and water can co-exist together. Heaven is called shomayim, from the words aish (fire) and mayim (water), because in Heaven, there is oneness, and fire and water are able to exist together there, in a state of oneness. It is only on this world that fire causes division and separation, thus it is only on this world where fire cannot exist with water.

As mentioned earlier, the Hebrew word for “hatred” is sinah, from the word aish nun, “fire is 50”. This is a hint that fire returns everything to “50”, the number which symbolizes the highest spiritual level, because fire returns everything back to its root in Heaven (by destroying something and causing it to ascend back to Heaven).

As explained earlier, the negative use of fire is when fire causes separation. This is reflected in the concept of ash, a product of fire, which happens because of the element of “earth” that fire on this world is ultimately connected with. When fire turns something into ash, it scatters the object which it has burned. It turns “two” (two separate objects) into “four” (a scattered pile of ash).

The Ash That Rectifies Scattering

In the Beis HaMikdash, there was the mitzvah to gather together the terumas hadeshen, the ashes that remained from the korbonos of the Altar, and this was the repair for all separation and scattering caused by fire, because it gathered all of the scattered ash into one pile.

Avraham said “I am dust, and ash”.[8] This was a hint to the state of exile which was told to Avraham, in which Avraham was told that his descendants would undergo exile. The “ash” which Avraham compared himself to was a hint to the exile, to a state of “scattering”, hence this represented a kind of “ash” which is connected with the element of earth, with scattering.

We also find “ash” with regards to Yitzchok, whom the Sages referred to as the “ash of Yitzchok”[9], ever since Yitzchok was sanctified when he was tied to the Altar. The “ash of Yitzchok” represented a kind of ash which is not connected with the element of earth, and which does not become scattered. The “ash of Yitzchok”, the repaired form of ash, corresponds to the terumas hadeshen of the Altar in the times of the Beis HaMikdash, the ash which came from the korbonos which arose to Heaven and which did not become connected with earth.

The negative use of fire is represented by ash, the product of fire, where fire causes an object to become scattered. This corresponds to “two” becoming “four”.

[Since Avraham was told that his descendants will become “scattered”, it was his sons Yitzchok and Yaakov who need to repair this “scattering” on some level, as will soon be explained].

Yaakov married four wives, which he took from the house of Lavan. On a deeper level, this was because he was returning “four” back into a unified state. Yaakov was repairing the “scattering” in Creation.

Yitzchok was hated by Avimelech [when Avimelech had tried to abduct Rivkah]. Yitzchok said to Avimelech, “You hate me”.[10] The depth of this hatred of Avimelech to Yitzchok was because there had been “scoffers of the generation” who joked that that Yitzchok was born from a union of Avimelech and Sarah, when Avimelech had abducted Sarah. This was really an attempt to erase the whole existence of Yitzchok, because they were saying that Yitzchok did not come from Avraham, which essentially means that there is no Yitzchok. Thus, their words were the epitome of leitzanus (mockery), a trait which aims at negating the importance of someone. Leitzanus is a trait that comes from the element of wind (as explained in a previous lesson), and wind is an element that causes scattering. The scoffers of the generation were opposed to Yitzchok, and their role was to cause scattering.

As the antithesis to these scoffers, the role of Yitzchok was to become the “ash of Yitzchok”, to reveal the repaired level of ash, in which aifer/ash is turned into deshen/the gathered ash from the Altar, in which two becomes turned into one.

How The “Hatred” Upon Leah Was Repaired

As mentioned earlier, the “hatred” which Leah endured from Yaakov required a tikkun (repair) from Yaakov’s descendants. Leah was hated, and Leah was originally destined to marry Esav, who hated Yaakov. Yaakov knew that Esav still hated him after many years when Esav came to greet him with 400 men. On a very deep level, these 400 men, which symbolized Esav’s hatred for Yaakov, was a hint that Yaakov needed to repair the hatred which Leah felt from him (because Leah was originally supposed to marry Esav), and this repair would be fulfilled through 400 years of exile in Egypt. Thus, the 400 year exile in Egypt was (among many other reasons as well) in order to repair the hatred of Esav to Yaakov.

How was this hatred upon Leah repaired? It was repaired through Yehudah, the fourth child of Yaakov. The number four corresponds to the concept of scattering, as explained until now, but Yehudah was the “four”, the fourth child, who repaired the scattering connected with the number four. At Yehudah’s birth, Leah expressed hodaah (gratitude) to Hashem that now that she had a fourth child, she received more than her share of tribes, and now she no longer felt hated by Yaakov.  

Yehudah also went down to Goshen in order to establish a yeshivah there, and this revealed “oneness” (Torah) in a place where there was “scattering” (Egypt).

Also, Yehudah originally hated Yosef, but later when Yehudah met with Yosef in Egypt, the Sages teach that Yehudah unified with Yosef. His hatred for Yosef was repaired. The four (scattering) was now turned back into one.

The Essence of Fire – When Two Becomes One

Hashem said, “No man can see Me and live”, and Chazal explain that Moshe was allowed to see Hashem from behind, from the “back” (figuratively speaking), in which he saw the tefillin knot of Hashem[11], so to speak. What is the depth of this?

It is the idea of when “two becomes one”, the holy side to the element of fire. The knot of tefillin represents a state of oneness, in which two becomes turned into one. This is because, as taught by the Sages in the inner dimension of Torah, the back (which Moshe was allowed to see Hashem from) corresponds to darkness, and the face corresponds to light. Light and darkness are two different creations, which become turned into “one”, forming one complete day.

Esav and Yaakov are compared to darkness and light, two separate creations which are at odds with each other. However, just as darkness and light are two creations that become “one”, by forming one complete day, so are Yaakov and Esav two separate creations which can [eventually] become turned into one.

The Ramban says that the original element of fire in Creation is a dark element, unlike the fire which we have today, which is light. Therefore, fire contains both darkness and light. Fire is an element which, in its very essence, is “two” which becomes turned into “one”. (On a subtler level, light does not come from the element of fire, but from original light which was around Creation). Light, which is revealed through the element of fire, is together in one entity with the “darkness” contained in the element of fire, and this is fire itself represents the idea of two being turned into one.

Thus, the idea that fire contains the power of “two becoming one” is contained in the union of darkness and light within the element of fire. Night (darkness) and day (light) together form one complete day, two becoming one.

When Yitzchok was bound on the altar by Avraham, the love of a father for his son, which was “two” (father and son) was now turned into “one”, the father’s natural love for a child was now being overcome in favor of Avraham’s love for Hashem.

Repairing Hatred – By Turning Two Into One

Thus, the element of fire, at its essence, is a power of returning everything to its root.

When a person is occupied with returning each thing to its root, he cannot hate. Hatred takes effect whenever a person cannot return something to its root and he remains with separation and divisiveness. When one is returning every “branch” to its “root”, there cannot be any place for hatred.

The Gemara says that there is a creature called a salamandra (a fiery salamander), which is formed from a fire, which cannot be harmed by fire.[12] The depth of this is that there is a kind of fire which does not harm, a fire which causes something to be returned to its root. When the branch is returned to its root, there is no room for hatred (harmful fire). This is also the depth of the concept mentioned in the Gemara that the fire of the Shechinah is a “fire which eats fire”[13] [a fire which consumes itself but which does not consume other objects]. This is referring to a repaired level of the element of fire, the higher use of fire, in which fire does not cause separation, but a return to a state of oneness.

When one uses the element of fire to turn separate entities back into one entity, that is the depth of repairing the trait of hatred.[14]