Chapter D – Too much truth ruins all the fun – Cipher
Why would someone who has seen the truth choose to go back to the lie?
"To truly enjoy, one must learn. To enjoy completely, one must work."
Cipher's character in the film represents the second stage of the war. The first war is the liberation war – the war to open one's eyes and see the truth. This is the effort of the lost soldier (who has lost his position on his route), trying to remember and get back onto his navigation route. This war is more ideological, a matter of perception.
The second stage of the war is the war after the awakening – the hard war to persevere, to work and to cling to the truth. This is the war of the soldier who has already remembered his navigation route, to gird his loins and start walking the hard route. This war is about the strength and quality of the work invested.
Cipher is fed up with the war. He has no strength left to work hard. He only wants to enjoy. If the truth demands work, he would rather live in a lie – as long as he doesn't have to make an effort. Cipher prefers to be a slave to the Matrix – to the illusion – to the senses, rather than be a slave to the truth – a soldier of Morpheus and of the fighters of Zion. He claims he wants freedom, but he means the freedom to do whatever his limited senses dictate to him – which is in fact the very essence of the "house of slavery." He has a hard time with all of Morpheus' commands and orders, but he does not understand that this path leads to true freedom – to wholeness, through fulfilling one's purpose and connecting with the "Source." He does not grasp that in order to truly enjoy, one has to learn.
In order to enjoy fully, one has to work. The effort and pain of the process of learning and internalizing are the payment for the final, complete pleasure – spiritual wholeness, and the happiness that comes from the confirmation of having achieved it.
Cipher in fact represents the lowest level of the human soul – the animal soul (nefesh habehamit): the desire to fill physical needs. He does not understand that the human soul has several more parts / levels, each with its own pleasure center. The whole person is the one who knows how to connect and unify all the pleasure centers in order to attain complete delight. The Ramchal, in his book Derech Hashem (The Way of God), reveals to us that man's purpose really is to delight – but in a complete way that includes all the parts of his soul. For example, it is possible to eat a steak just like any other animal, and it is possible to eat a good dinner on one's wedding anniversary with one's spouse. Here we see a way to connect the basic physical pleasure (the steak) with an emotional pleasure (love) and with a spiritual pleasure (the covenant of marriage, which is a spiritual value) (see the chapter on relationships and love). The aim is not to ignore the physical forces and needs, but to know how to connect them with the higher centers of the personality.
Cipher mistakenly thinks that the "truth" spoils his ability to enjoy life. He thinks that if he could do everything his body wants, he would be the happiest of men. If we look, even only physically, at a person who eats whatever he wants without rational judgment, we will plainly see how he slowly destroys himself and becomes ill. The inner mechanism in man is built in such a way that if (as the agents of Western society push us to do) we ignore the higher emotional and spiritual centers and concentrate only on the lowest level (since that is the only one that can be marketed, sold and profited from), a process of self-destruction is created – an integral mechanism of self-destruction, meant to direct a person and show him that he is not living correctly.
The fighters of Zion work according to a program meant to educate and teach a person how to turn physical pleasures into emotional and spiritual pleasures: to convert the physical pleasure file, which is bound within the reality of a finite world, into a spiritual pleasure file, which is not limited by finiteness and therefore has the capacity to accumulate. Through this conversion the spiritual person can accumulate his pleasures and become fuller with each pleasure. It is different with the physical person, for whom the memory of his pleasures only arouses a greater lack, since in order to get back to the same pleasure he must look for a physical stimulation of greater intensity. Therefore, for the physical person every pleasure brings lack and brokenness instead of fullness and wholeness.
Integrating the higher pleasure centers not only converts and elevates the forms of pleasure, but also compensates for habit, boredom and the loss of excitement that result from repetitive stimulation. For example, a Maccabi fan will prefer to watch his own team's game over an NBA game, even though the physical game in the NBA is more beautiful, since Maccabi's game also involves a higher emotional center connected to his identity. The emotional pleasure connected to his identity compensates for the lost physical pleasure. In the same way, the love (nefesh) between a couple, and the understanding (ruach) of the enormous influence their bond has on the whole world – if it is alive and real – compensates for the loss of physical stimulation that comes with the length of their acquaintance and the force of habit. However, the program according to which the fighters of Zion work also takes care of this aspect, in the form of a regular physical separation, meant among other things to intensify the physical longing and strengthen the power of attraction. Paradoxically, it is precisely using pleasures according to the dosage given in the program that also brings greater physical pleasure, since it is measured and combined in the right proportion with the whole. It is like the difference between drinking a whole bottle of wine in one gulp, and drinking the wine slowly, in measure and together with other dishes, which raises the enjoyment of the wine to a different level.
During Neo's training, Morpheus demonstrates to him the enormous danger in descending into the Matrix, into the world of trials. When he arrives in the physical world with its temptations and sensual pleasures, Neo forgets the purpose of his coming and is diverted by his impulses toward the woman in red. Morpheus stops the "world" and explains to him that the woman in red is a figment designed to divert him from his path – the woman in red is in fact a dangerous enemy who waits for him at every corner and wants to kill him. Frightening. After all, he only looked! Morpheus understands that a "negligible" deviation of a small angle here grows into a huge miss over great distances. "Do not stray after your eyes" (לא תתורו אחרי עיניכם). He teaches Neo that pleasures are a powerful tool of spiritual work if they are used to activate the spiritual centers in a person. They are a bridge connecting to the Source if their operation is regulated according to the higher program. But if there is no control over them, they become the number one enemy endangering the path – the spiritual life – of the fighter of Zion.
When the people of Israel left Egypt too – when at last they managed to free themselves from the spell of the house of slavery – even then there were those who longed for the desires of the world of illusion: they longed for the pots of meat, the cucumbers and the melons of Egypt. "And the mixed multitude (asafsuf) among them felt a craving."
In the chapter on Smith – the evil inclination (yetzer hara) / the Angel of Death / Satan – we will discuss the basic "flaw" in creation, the flaw of separate selfhood (yeshut) – the ego (in Hebrew, ego has the same letters as ga'avah, pride). From this flaw of selfhood, three "evil" forces arise within man that hinder disconnecting from the illusion and joining the Source: jealousy, lust and the pursuit of honor (kin'ah, ta'avah, kavod). Cipher is the embodiment of these three forces in the human soul: Cipher is jealous of Neo, longs for blondes and steaks, and wants to go back into the Matrix as an actor or someone famous.
These three flaws find expression in the generation of the desert, which left Egypt as part of the preparation for entering the Land of Israel – Zion, both the physical and the spiritual one. The flaw of jealousy – Korach and his company. The flaw of lust – the cravers (hamit'avim). The flaw of honor – the spies.
To sum up: from Cipher's character we learn several very important things:
- 1. That man is always a slave – either a slave to his impulses or a slave to the truth. As the Ramchal expressed it in Mesillat Yesharim: "The beginning of a person's service is to clarify what his duty is in his world" – out of the basic assumption that duty is integral to the structure of man. He only needs to decide to whom he is obligated – whose servant is he? Of the limited sensual impulses, or of the Source, which is the point of truth of all existence?
- 2. That the awakening is not the end of the war. It is only the beginning of the work. Spirituality is work, and we came here in order to work – "Man is born to toil" (כי אדם לעמל יולד).
- 3. That physical pleasure, when it stands alone by itself, has the power to ruin and destroy. Only by elevating it and connecting it with the higher centers of personality and pleasure in the soul can it be fully realized and brought to its purpose. Physical pleasure is the fuel, the power that is meant to activate, enliven and excite the higher centers (nefesh / ruach).
- 4. That there is a lower freedom, which is slavery to the senses, and there is a higher servitude, which brings spiritual freedom. "The servants of time are servants of servants; only the servant of the Lord is free."
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