Chapter H – Smith – Satan/ The Angel of death / "Yetser Hara"
Smith's character is perhaps the most important character in the film after Neo. At one point, the Oracle tells Neo that Smith is his mirror image – his negative. Smith's power grows and becomes stronger with Neo's evolution (He who is greater than his friend, his desire is greater then him). Neo's war against Smith along with his training, forces him to always squeeze a bit more out of himself, beyond what he thinks he is capable of.
Smith acts as both the main hurdle preventing Neo from reaching his fulfillment as well as the key with which he succeeds in fulfilling his destiny and stopping the war.
Just as Neo represents the embodiment of all souls in search of awakening and truth, trying to reach the beyond, so Smith represents the screen trying to hide the reality of that world from these souls, and by this, to rob their essence, their destiny.
It is not by chance that the Weshowsky brothers named him Smith – Satan's original name is S-a-m-a-e-l. Abbreviation: S-m. The angel who's job is to blind (Some – in Hebrew) people's eyes from seeing G-d (The force). His aim is to create difficulties on man's path, making it hard for him to progress, creating a situation of coping, out of which growth will occur.
However, his essence is to be beaten by man. A proof for this is in the Bible in Jacob's (Yaakov) struggle with Satan – Esau's Angel. When Jacob beats him, he asks to be released in order to go and say praise in Heaven. It is known that when an Angel completes his mission, he goes to say praise. From this we can conclude that his mission is to fight, yet the completion of his mission is to be beaten. Another example can be found in the Baal Shem Tov's parable of the King and the Prostitute.
What is driving Smith? And what is the source of this motivation?
Several parts of the film show us that Smith's basic ambition is to fill the world. He is so in love with himself that he wants everyone to be just like him and it makes no difference if the world will be destroyed on the way. Sounds familiar doesn't it?
There is a pattern in the human body that acts in the same way. The name of this pattern is Cancer. Cancer occurs when a certain cell, from some reason looses its sense of belonging to the whole which it inhabits the belonging to the general management of the system it populates. Although cells do not have eyes or ears to perceive the whole body and understand its essence, a healthy body is one in which each and every cell knows and understands its position and role in the system, although it does not “contemplate” the bigger picture.
When a cell decides to become independent – an individualist, Deciding for himself what and how much to manufacture. Deciding how many times he divides and reproduces himself. Deciding he has an essence of himself, independent of the body he operates in. Then, the body has a problem. The cell does not see beyond itself and does not understand that his selfish realization is what will eventually destroy the body he lives in, as well as himself.
The body has to teach his cells that their self realization is their recognition in their role and destiny within the system they live in. Even if they don't have the tools to entirely perceive its essence and shape. The self fulfillment of the heart is to set blood in motion. The stomach's is to digest food and so on. Every part of the system has a role that only he can perform right. This is his destiny and his true essence.
Smith's character comes to translate this knowledge from the body to the spiritual realm.
To understand the true meaning of self realization and essence. Every man is a part of the whole of existence. Man does not have the tools to grasp the essence of the whole as he sees in the matrix only finiteness and contrasts. His true meaning is to understand the relationship between himself and the whole he belongs to. In the Chinese Tao and other eastern holistic methods this is an iron rule: “The part has no meaning of its own, its meaning lies only in the connection between himself and the whole it belongs to”.
Smith thinks he has meaning of his own. What's important is “me, me and me again”. Moses passes an opposite message to the warriors of Zion in one sentence: “And I stand between you and God”. The Hassidic teachers say that the meaning is that what stands between the spiritual warrior and the source of all beings is the “I” – Selfishness. There is nothing that creates more distance between Man and G-d than pride. The Sages say that it is written about G-d that he “lies with them in their impurity”, but on a proud man it is said: “He and I cannot live under the same roof”. Why? Because when a man thinks he is something for himself, he denies the truth of an infinite force filling the entire creation. It is as if there is a section that is not filled by this infinity.
Every soul is in fact “A divine part from above”. A stone quarried from the mountain. At its source, each soul is still connected to the whole. Although this soul may have been sealed in a digital/ physical body, it still remembers the sensation it had when it was connected to the whole. An immense sense of pleasure, fullness, unity and perfection. This memory is the motivating force of all of man's actions. He aspires to become whole again, to not want anything, to fill the world and feel the world as his own. Everyone wants to become one with G-d again – everyone wants to be G-d. The difference between people is how to get back to this state. The material man thinks that by fulfilling his physical needs he will feel whole again. If he will manage to control the world and everything will be his, he will feel that way again. This is Smith. He wants what Neo wants – everything . Only his way of getting it is by enlarging the sense of self and fulfilling his own needs. This path, creates an illusion of progress by fulfilling one's momentary sense of pleasure and a false fullness but on the long run, reveals emptiness, regression and deterioration until total destruction and annihilation. The Sages describe this deterioration in the sentence: A man will not die with half a desire in his hand – he has a hundred, and wants two hundred. As man grows, so his emptiness grows and he feels it more strongly.
Neo's way to the same goal is opposite.
Neo teaches us that the way back to perfection is by surrendering to the whole. Removing the barriers of the “self” in order to be one with the infinite. The part that understands that his purpose is surrendering to the requirements of the whole – the system he is a part of. The summit of freedom and independence deriving from acceptance of authority.
Neo's journey to becoming the “One” passes through total devotion (mesirut nefesh) and his willingness to sacrifice himself for truthand for Zion . Even in his trial against the Architect Neo is measured by his devotion for everyone – for Zion, by refusing to accepthis offer to start a new Zion with him . (Moses had a similar experience in which G-d wanted as a result of the Golden calf act, He offered to start a new people from him but Moses refused and said that if he cannot forgive the people of Israel, let him erase him from the book of history). For a material man, society exists to give him something to climb on, on his road to self satisfaction. For a warrior of Zion, society exists in order for him to have someone to help, someone he can care for and devote to. Through this devotion he will construct a true, whole self identity deriving from a way of life guided by a system of inner spiritual principals. In the Jewish tradition man is obligated to arrive twice a day to the recognition that the whole world is an infinite unity in which all small details become united and nullified to the whole. This is why, in order for man to reach this understanding, he must be willing to surrender his mind – to give up his selfishness. The verse uttered in this instance is Shema Israel – meaning all forces of creation – all the different beings in the universe – derive from only one source, filling the whole of creation – the name י-ה-ו-ה
Giving up the “Self “ is not total annihilation but a passage to the recognition of the true self importance deriving from the acceptance of the mission and the special role I am supposed to perform for the entire system of creation – for infinity.
Neo teaches us that self surrender is not only a willingness to die for an ideal. Self surrender is a willingness to live for an ideal. To give not merely the last moment in life, which is only a moment, but to give each and every moment of life – hard work of discovering specs of truth in a world of lies.
The fault of selfishness and pride begins with the creation of the world. In the Kabala books, creation is described as the removal of infinite unity from a mid point to enable a void that is vacant from unity – a void that enables pluralism. A void in which there is place for a finite reality.
Once the whole had been concealed, once the king had disappeared, all creatures of creation rose and demanded the throne.
Man's first sin – eating from the tree of knowledge – had also to do with the fault of selfishness and pride. Knowledge means connection. The tree of knowledge – good and bad – means a tree in which good and bad are connected. The snake tells man that if he will eat from the fruit he will be able to create worlds just like G-d. World (in Hebrew Olam) also means concealment (Helem) and illusion.
It is as if the snake is saying – now there is no problem finding truth, you see and hear it, but if you eat from the fruit you will give the bad a way to your insides. You will enter another concealment; another world which hides truth. And if from there you will be able to find it, this will be a real challenge and you will be able to say you really did something. The first man wanted to do more than he was asked to, out of a need to prove himself, out of a feeling of selfishness. This is why the remedy for this fault is through devotion and dedication.