08-30-2014, 08:33 AM
(This post was last modified: 12-06-2019, 09:37 AM by Director Michael.)
(07-26-2014, 08:06 PM)Demockrat Wrote: Hello, dear Director Michael!
First of all, thank you very much for the fullness of your answers. Please, let me have more questions.
1. Why did G-d punish the angel Samael (Satan)? Angels have no will, so how could this angel disobey G-d? If he executed G-d's will then why punishment?
This is explained in the midrashic source "Pirkei D'Rebbi Eliezer."
During the 6 days of creation, the ministering angels raised a complaint to G-d about His plan to make Adam and mankind the masters over the physical world. In response, G-d showed told them an aspect in which Adam in his righteousness was comparable to them, and an aspect in which Adam in his spiritual greatness was greater than them, thus informing them of His determination to carry through with this plan.
Up until then the angels were assigned to rule over the physical world, but now they were faced with the logical contradiction that Adam (a physical person) in his righteousness and spiritual greatness would be too great for them to rule over, hence nullifying part of the task which G-d had given them (to rule over the physical creation). So the angels sought an emergency plan - to cause Adam to sin and thus lower his spiritual level, so they would be able to rule over him (which was their understanding of their mission from G-d). As one of the great Heavenly princes, Samael descended to earth with a company of angels in order to carry out this plan, by acting through the serpent to entice and trick Hava, and through her, Adam, to sin.
When G-d then inflicted consequences on the serpent, He also caused Samael (and his company of angels) to fall from the holy levels of the Heavens. But Samael (Satan) was not banished from the spiritual realms entirely, because he still comes to stand before G-d in the spiritual Heavenly Court to bring charges against sinners.
Obviously this was all part of G-d's plan, because He wants human beings (as a whole) to be tempted by their evil inclinations, so He can judge them and bestow reward for righteousness and punishment for sins, measure for measure. So that is the intended main mission for which Samael / Satan was created, in G-d's plan.
(07-26-2014, 08:06 PM)Demockrat Wrote: 2. Is anything known about souls of angels? What type are they of?
As explained in our web page https://asknoah.org/faq/types-of-angels
there are a number of types of angels, and they are indigenous to different spiritual levels, and those are levels of ascending spiritual rungs in the chain of the heavenly worlds, with the higher levels transmitting life and influence to the lower levels, one after the other.
In this system, a higher-level angel is the soul of the next lower angel. That is what is meant by the statement that the bodies of angels are not radically different from their souls. This is described in
Ezekiel 19-21:
Quote:And when the Chayot [the angels with 4 faces] would go, the Ofanim [the angels that were "wheels within wheels"] would go beside them; and when the Chayot would lift themselves off the ground, the Ofanim would lift themselves.
Wherever there was the will to go, they would go; there was the will to go, and the Ofanim would lift themselves correspondingly to them, for the will of the Chayot was in the Ofanim.
When they [the Chayot] would go, they [the wheels] would go, and when they would stand, they would stand, and when they [the Chayot] would lift themselves up from the ground, the Ofanim would lift themselves correspondingly to them, for the will of the Chayot was in the Ofanim."
(07-26-2014, 08:06 PM)Demockrat Wrote: 3. You mentioned that righteous persons ascended to angelic levels. Has the opposite situation ever occurred, when angels were sent "down" to mankind in the post-Tanakh era?
There is one angel who is sent down eventually to almost every person since the times of the Biblical prophets, and that is the angel of death.
The fact is that the expressions of "up" and "down" in the spiritual realms are only euphemisms. Each spiritual world is enclothed within the next "lower" spiritual world, so everything in all the worlds is happening all together, but the "lower" level is insensitive to the higher level. An analogy for this is the side-by-side existence for four different "kingdoms" within the physical world, with a lower kingdom being unable to perceive, or at least comprehend, the higher kingdoms. These are the mineral, vegetable, animal and human kingdoms. Similarly, there are angels all around us that we are unaware of, except for some people who are granted a temporary "vision" of higher levels in waking, sleeping or prophetic states, or the tzaddikim (completely righteous) who have more or less of a higher vision constantly.