Notes on "Unity"

(Notes by Peter Saltzman)

The title refers both to the “unity” as that existed prior to the “beginning” of the universe as explained by theoretical physics, and the “unity” that existed prior to the “beginning” of the universe as explained by Lurianic Kabbalah. In the former case we are speaking of the infinitely small, infinitely dense proto-atom from which came the big bang and subsequently the “modern” universe. While this is far from a monolithic theory, the general idea is that everything that was to be existed in that virtual state, out of time or space (since time and space hadn't been invented yet, as it were.) The universe really had no choice but to come into existence; the teeny little thing had pretty much infinite energy and no place to put it. Generally speaking, physicists hate invoking God into this process, and most will state that God is completely unnecessary to the creating of universes.

I don't know if that is true, and a part of me certainly doubts it, but I do know that in Lurianic Kabbalah there is a remarkably similar description of how the Universe came into being, except, of course, in this case God is involved, though not in the simplistic way that normative religion describes it (meaning the often beautiful, but not too convincing creation stories.) In Lurianic Kabbalah, God, in the pre-universe days is pretty much the whole show: He/She occupies everything. In order to make room for the physical universe, God had to contract himself, in essence, get the hell out of the way. And speaking of hell, it is in this contraction that evil is allowed to appear on the scene. The reason being, since the universe had lost it's state of unity, different aspects of God were able to emanate on their own; evil itself is in this sense an aspect of God, though a distorted aspect. In fact, the sefirah Din (or Gevurah) represents the fearsome powers of divine punishment and wrath in the world, and is considered necessary to keep order in the universe. However, the destructive power necessary to keep this order, without the balancing power of Hesed (kindness, the adjacent sefirah), leads to demonic evil.

Yes, and some how all of this is evoked the this heavily improvised piece of music!

Part 1

• Prologue
• Unity
• I Was There
• Indeterminacy
• Sooner or Later
• Shekina's Dream
• Interlude
• Quantum Funk
• Quantum Reprise
• Broken Vessels
• Oseh Shalom

Part 2

• Living In Another Time
• Superstrings
• Blues without Barlines
• Force of Nature
• Searching
• Finale
•  
• Main Music Page