T113 PNC - Exacting With and Without Knowledge — Soul-Level Consent to Decrees (1 seg)

Pirkei Avot teaches: 'They exact (moshchin) from man with his knowledge and without his knowledge.' Rabbeinu heard in the name of the Baal Shem Tov: before every decree in the world — God forbid — they assemble the entire world in a kind of heavenly court, and if the world (or the person himself) agrees to the judgment — even implicitly or unconsciously — then the decree is sealed and enacted. This is the meaning of 'without his knowledge': the person may not consciously know he has consented, yet on some deep level, through his own actions and spiritual state, he has acquiesced to the judgment being decreed against him. This is a profound insight: every decree that befalls a person carries within it some element of the person's own soul-level consent. The teaching serves as a call to self-awareness: be conscious of what one is 'agreeing to' on the spiritual level, because one's own inner state helps shape the decrees that are applied.