Fallen Angels is a widely known concept, but many people have wrong perceptions.  One of the big myths is that the angels come to the physical world with a physical body.  Although there is a possibility that an angle can take a physical body such as when the Angels Visited and ate by Avraham Avinu. We know that it was for a certain time while doing their mission and when they finished they left their physical bodies and returned to the angel's world.  A fallen angel on the other hand is an angel that descends in its spiritual level because of our sins.  Contrary to the belief that it is an angel that was 'pushed' out of heaven and roams our physical world.

 

   Every mission that an Angle comes to our world for is temporary and the Angel always returns to its spiritual world.  An Angel can not come to this world permanently to stay, especially in a physical body.  Like a person can elevate his Spirituality through guarding the mitzvot, perfecting one's character, and Kabbalistic meditations one can ascend to higher levels and elevate his consciousness to reach the spiritual realms. Ascending from the physical to the spiritual dimensions and receive revelations. Even to the level that he is similar to an Angel and barley has free will, in the same way, Angels are able to come to this world and reveal themselves for a specific purpose or to send a message, still, the physical body is only temporary.  

In Israel, this week's parasha is 'Balak' and next week in the diaspora.  The Parasha speaks of 2 wicked sorcerers, Bilam and Balak, that went to the school of witchcraft in the mountains of darkness that was run by two 'fallen angels'.  Although these 'Mountains of Darkness' seems like a description of a physical place, it is not.  Obviously you will not find them in our physical world (try on google maps) rather it is a spiritual place in one of the spiritual dimensions.  Just like we try to connect to the worlds of purity, likewise, Bilam and Balak tried to connect to a dark place where the revelation of Hashem is hidden, and that is where they found these angels who thought them the art of witchcraft. 

How and Why does Hashem give space to these mountains? 

Why put negativity in the world?

the answer that is brought down in the Ariza"l, is that the space that Hashem gave to the negativity is to punish the wicked people.  but this seems to us a contradiction it seems like a reward. They have techniques that give them wealth and fame.   We must take a deeper look. 

 

Our physical world is spiritual in the middle between the lofty worlds of purity and the worlds of negativity where the mountains of darkness can be found.  when a person changes levels in their morality they can either elevate to become closer to Hashem (which is our purpose) or heaven forbid connect to the negative worlds.  The Negative worlds aka the dimensions of darkness is a place were resides all the powers of the tuma (impurity), and the power of the Klipot (shells).   

 

What does it mean to go up or down in the spiritual worlds?

 

It is not a physical elevator or plane. 

Since we do not know much about the negative worlds Barch Hashem, we do know that parallel the positive worlds of the kedusha (holiness) In the Kedusha as much as we go up in the higher levels there is more revelation of Hashem.

 

First, we go up to Asiah, even though there are many connections to this world, they are not the exactly same. The presence of Hashem is felt much stronger in this higher dimension. We see the same principle that when ascending higher to  Atzilut the revelations of the presence of Hashem are so abundant that one can see that there is nothing besides Hashem. In Beriah, it becomes so much more definite.  

 

On the opposite side in the worlds of negativity as much as one goes lower into the dimensions of negativity he does not see Hashem and loses the consciousness of the presence of Hashem and feels as there is no law, no judgment, and no punishment. This leads such people to go against the Torah

 

This is why when we talk with some people they can not understand the presence of Hashem because there consciousness in those lower dimensions.  

 

In Har Sinai, Am Yisrael said Na-aseh and Nishma we will do and we will hear; once we do a mitzvah it raises us to a higher level of spiritual understanding we will be able to comprehend the Torah that comes from a pure and high spiritual world.  This is also the meaning of mitzvah causes mitzvah and avera causes avera. Since when we do a mitzva we go higher and our revelation becomes more clear and we are able to do another mitzvah since we have less inclination to sin. On the opposite side when we sin there is a part of Hashem that is concealed from us that lets us sin again and makes it more difficult to do mitzvot. 

 

Therefore those that do not live in holiness, and who still have revelations and powers, where do they get these from? From the Sitra Achara, the negative side, it is not possible that one can have revelations from Hashem if he is not pure. 

 

I heard about Bilam from Rabbi Toledano that explains this principle.  We see that Bilam, in the beginning when he started his journey to Bilak he first started through a field then through a vineyard and finally got stuck. 

 

This is true about all those who against Hashem, in the beginning, feel they can do as they please no one can stop them.  After a while, the possibilities become limited like a path of a vineyard where one can move only forward or backward, no left or right, one set direction.  Finally, Bilam got to a place where his leg was stuck to a wall and could not continue...  This brings us back to the age-old question of free choice.  The answer is there is a bit of free choice some time more sometimes less, it depends were our spiritual level is.

 

The Zohar Pikuday speaks of there are certain angels, that when a person does not guard to his eyes it gives strength to these angels. Who will eventually force him to look at such things without wanting to.  Again the power of the choice that there is in the beginning dissipates.  Eventually, the person from his sin gives up the power of his choice and is forced to continue in the way one wanted to go.  This is also true on the positive side that people who purify themselves, Hashem is more revealed to them. Making it that they no longer have a choice to do something against Hashem.  

 

The best example is Eliyahu hanavi who now functions like an angel because of his high spiritual refinement.  so we see this principle is the same in positive and negative realms. A person who is in one of the extremes pure or negative realms has no free choice, either they forced to do good or forced to do evil simular to a robot with no free will.  

 

This is why the mountains of darkness are a punishment.  By losing there free will they become slaves under the power of those forces that they get the inspiration from.  Someone that has supernatural power in black magic or gets revelations has become a slave. He has utterly lost his identity, having no more consciousness and for sure not something to be jealous of.  Chazal says that a slave has no lineage, his name is not called on his children, he lowers his level to be less than human when going to those negative powers.  

 

We look and see on the story of Bnei Yisrael in Egypt which will be like the final redemption.  Just like in the redemption from Egypt Am Israel were salves and almost lost there identity and in the last moment before completely losing their identity they screamed out to Hashem and when they cried to Hashem from the depths of there heart then Hashem brought the revelation and took them out of Egypt.  This is what happening now.  People who are connecting to negative things feel the emptiness and cry and Hashem brings them forth from the garbage they got themselves into.  The secret is we don't have to wait to get to an extreme situation Hashem is waiting for us in every moment of our life and then He will reveal Himself to us and this is an elevation and then we can see things on a higher level.  

 

The not holy, light, darkness, humans, and angels are all part of Hashem's creation and under His domain.  

Even though it seems that the place of the darkness is as if it is not under Hashem or opposing Him this is an illusion, Hashem has given it a space for a limited time.  

 

All these people that follow them and deal with witchcraft and black magic become slaves and limit the source of there powers.  They are slaves of slaves, since the forces that they are subjected to are in fact slaves of Hashem. This is what Chazal say 'Hashem says Yisrael are my slaves and not the salves of slave they are not under the domain of the negativity.'  As much as we are in the state of mind that we are slaves of only Hashem and do His will then the negativity will lessen until there is absolutely no control of the negativity.  

 

This example of Chanina ben Dusa clarifies the above. there was a woman that was a sorcerer and wanted to take the soil that Rabbi Chanina ben Dusa stepped on so that she can make witchcraft on him.    Obviously everyone around was scared of her since she had very strong powers but the Rabbi was not afraid.  He gave the soil to her because he was in the dimension of 'ein od milvado' there is nothing but Hashem! Sure enough she took the soil and tried to do the witchcraft and was not able to succeed since he was such a Tzadik and on such a high level that there was no space for negativity.  Whoever wants to connect to Hashem learns Torah does the meditations will eventually reach such a high level that such things can not control him. They are powerless, as we see in our Parashah that even though Bilam and Bilak had such strong powers since we were in a time of intimacy with Hashem they were not able to do anything to harm us.