The Milieu of Existence

What is the "milieu of existence"??

To quote a sociologist (and metaphysician) I have respect for:

Writing is at the bottom of all things. Manifested in its concrete signs, it is the strangeness at our innermost core, the bottomless bottom of our being. Text and language are not agencies or instruments, as most people think; they are the very milieu where we are, the being that we are, given, of course, that we are in the passage. That is to say, there is a strangeness in us that transcends our identity, so that language “belongs” to us and at the same time it doesn’t, so that the text is ours and at the same time it escapes our hold. It pertains to the realm of the name. – Shmuel Trigano, The Philosophy of the Law

The relentless attack on Judaism from HP Blavatasky to Rene Guenon, Frithjof Schuon, Alice Bailey and Manly P Hall and all of the other gnostic oriented esotericists, is based on a profound MISUNDERSTANDING of Judaism because of a core MISUNDERSTANDING of the nature of the world were born into.

Manly P Hall in his "lectures on ancient philosophies", in the 1st chapter, identifies "Jehovah" (the tetragrammaton) with the Greek Zeus and the Roman Jupiter, which he explains is associated with the 'being' of creation (which would accord with the grammatical root of the tetragrammaton); a sort of universal ego which stands behind the astral (which he identifies with poseidon/neptune) dimension and the physical (Hades/Pluto) world.

I don't disagree with his exposition of pagan metaphysics; in fact, I think it is right on. My objection is his complete and total ignorance, his supercessionist theologizing over Hebraic thought, that I consider to be total nonsense.

YHVH derives from the root "HAYAH" - to be. In the famous Israelite declaration of faith, and the touchstone phrase of Jewish spirituality, " שְׁמַע יִשְׂרָאֵל יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵינוּ יְהוָה אֶחָד "- Shema Yisra'el YHWH Eloheinu YHWH Eḥad., YHVH, the being of creation, is identified as being at one with name Elohim.

In the metaphysics expounded upon in all ancient myths and esoteric philosophies, the word Elohim is associated with the aggregate forms creation takes. Therefore, the crux of all metaphysical motion is equal to the name Elohim, and hence, is often used as a reference to either: pagan deities, who were symbols of these modalities, or, nature taken in its totality - which is why this word Elohim has the same gematria as the word HaTeva (Nature). Hateva also means "ark', as in Noahs ark, as well as a 'word'. Fundamentally then, it is not nature persay, in it's outward external form that Heteva refers to, but to any FIELD OF REALITY, i.e an Ark, which is entered, a word, which is articulated, or a physical nature, which is inhabited. Elohim is the totality of these forces. It is the MILIEU of creation.

YHVH, the being of reality, which inheres within its 4 letters the various levels of being/existence, is an OBJECTIVE reality. It is UNIQUELY called in the Bible, the God of Israel; not of anyone else, but specifically Israel. To non-Jews, this implies a sort of tribalism akin to the gods worshiped by other pagan peoples. But is this so? In Kabbalah, it's explained that Israel corresponds to a level of consciousness that relates with the being of creation. Israel has been sometimes etymologically elaborated as "Ish Ra EL" "Man sees God", but it also implies a vertical relationship, in the sense that Yod-Shin-Resh, "yosher" means upright. Israel would then mean "the power of the upright". Once the level of Jacob, or 'heel' is transcended, and Israel attained, the individual soul symbolized by the word Yisrael comes 'face-to-face', so to speak, with the being of creation.

Now, according to the usual gentile/pagan argument, being is beneath non-being. In manly P Halls terminology, it would be the 'dot' which is written on the blank page. The blank page being the 'non-being', the empty space, or void, which being unfolds in. Therefore - the being of creation, "Jehova", is NOT and CANNOT be the God He claims Himself to be, because He is subordinate to a yet higher reality (or metaphysical truth).

This thinking, first of all, seems to be motivated by an pre-disposition, mostly Christian, which sees the Jewish religion as fundamentally wrong. But aside from this likely emotional bias, which undermines their entire argument and ability to rationally accept an opposing metaphysic, is a fallacy: why do you assume that this world has no intention? Or rather, why do you assume that the personal nature implied by the name of God (YHVH) isn't DELIBERATELY designed to emphasize the MILIEU - the reality in which man lives?

Man cannot function without an ego. He simply doesn't exist without one. The ego implies a RELATIONSHIP, between man and his environment. Manly P Hall rightly points out that the tetratrammaton (carelessly/impudently called Jehovah) implies a sort of universal ego; just as man TAKES ON A EGO as a means to exist within a WORLD OF DUALITY, so too, does the infinite take on a "personality" as a means to relate with his creatures within the context - mileu - of creation.

The pagan response to this same situation is: Escape to the void, to non-being, to the fundamental unitive ground which underlies all that exists, away from the 'demiurge', from a relationship with the personal creator God, which is 'beneath' them, and according to Blavatsky, an offense to God as He is in Himself. The Gnostics - and Acher (Elisha Ben Abuyah) that Tannaitic Rabbi who experienced the 'garden of paradise' only to come back and forsake the Torah, believe that the personal God and the morality he commands is only relevant to one who hasn't become awakened to the 'Absolute' reality. Once one has reached that infinite peak, common morality which is valid for the average person no longer applies to him, because at the level of the absolute, ALL is spiritualized; evil is good, all is purposeful, so therefore, there is no reason to fret over questions of a relative nature.

The argument of the Talmudic mystics isn't that one should ignore the absolute; but rather, it is a CORE PRINCIPAL of Hebraic thought (though completely ignored by non-jewish mystics, who prefer to misrepresent Judaism in some degrading way) that the absolute - the transcendent principle - is to be united with the particular-relative world. YHVH, the being of creation, which the soul of Israel knows and understands, is to be understood in relation to the name Elohim, the various 'worlds' of existence, and this world in particular.

In other words, man is to know the transcendent source of all, that everything is Godly, but he should realize that this world, this 'garden', is to serve as a mechanism for a relationship between the creator and the created. The purpose of this world LIES in its multiplicity. Its DESIGNED to be this way; hence the importance the Bible puts on memory: One is to TRACE Back to the beginning, to the fact of creation, in order to understand WHY man is in this world, and for what reason.