Chagiga 13: Secret Learning: the Divine Chariot, the Angels and the Electrum

After the esoteric musings of Chagiga 12, we continue to explore verses that discuss the levels of the firmament and the secrets of Creation.  

Without divulging the actual content of these teachings, the rabbis discuss how these materials should be studied.  We learn about the preferred age and the disposition of those who learn.  We are told which special individuals are privileged to have that information.  However, there are limitations on most of us.  In fact, even Rabbi Elazar called himself unworthy to learn the secrets of the Divine Chariot.  When Rabbi Yochanan offered to teach him, Rabbi Elazar said that he was too young to learn; Rabbi Yochanan died before Rabbi Eleazar felt old enough to learn.  And when Rabbi Asi offered to teach him, he stated that had he been meant to learn these secrets, he would have learned them already.  

Magical thinking is described in today's daf.  For example, reading Ezikiel could lead to great danger, which is the result of reading about and understanding the 'electrum'.  We are told that animals that sometimes are on fire and sometimes speak; that lightening and fast-moving creatures are part of this experience of the mechashmal, the electrum.  We are told about the angels seen by Ezekiel and by Isaiah.  The differences in their descriptions are chalked up to where they lived: as a villager, Ezekiel might have been more impressed and thus more elaborate in his description.  Alternately, a note shares that the Zohar teaches that Ezekiel may have enhanced his description of the Divine Chariot to bring hope to the people who were at a very low moment.  The Gemara continues to try to reconcile differences in descriptions of faces and of wing-length.

Our daf ends with a discussion about another contradiction regarding the angels. How large were these troops?  Numbers differ.  Are they referring to numbers of angels in each troop, or numbers of troops?  Are those troops ministering to G-d or to the river Dinar?   And where does this particular river flow?

I find these dapim on the more ephemeral components of Jewish thought to be both deeply satisfying and deeply distressing.  In yesterday's daf, G-d was described as a thin green line, around which are layers of firmament.  This was profoundly moving for me, as when I pray with my eyes closed, I see a thin line.  I have always felt that that line is G-d.  Does this mean that G-d might be housed in that thin line?  Or might it mean that there is a physiological 'vision' of a thin line when one meditates on G-d?   And that I am sharing that experience with the Sages?  In either case, how very exciting!  

However, at the same time, I cannot quite grasp most of what is described in these dapim about G-d.  Is that because the material is complicated and I am not yet able to understand?  Is it because I have not yet been provided with enough information to understand?  Or is it because the material is meant to be elusive, especially to those like me (not learned, a woman, etc etc.)

It is 2014 as I write this, and we are well into the month of Elul - Rosh Hashana is only days away.  There could not be a better time for me to be introduced to this material.