"The Duties of the Heart" Gate 8, Ch. 3 (Part 1)

"In Search of Spiritual Excellence"

-- A Reworking of Classical Mussar Texts

Rabbi Yaakov Feldman's series on www.torah.org
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"The Duties of the Heart" Gate 8, Ch. 3 (Part 1)

It's become clear that introspection at bottom is the act of taking stock of what we've been granted and thanking the Supplier. But just imagine all the instances in life we could dwell on to do that! So since we couldn't possibly feature all of them we'll focus on thirty of the most fundamental of all. This too will obviously take us quite a while but it will prove to be very helpful and enlightening -- if we take each one to heart.

The first instance to consider, obviously, is our birth. Ibn Pakudah asks us to reflect upon the fact that we each came from out of nowhere to life itself "not as a result of our merits, but simply because of G-d's generosity, goodness, and kindness". How true. For each one of us could simply have never been, and nothing we'd done beforehand would have guaranteed us existence or deemed us indispensable. G-d's love and generosity alone allowed for us to be, and we have a lot to be thankful for, for that alone.

So we're charged to thank G-d outright for that privilege by reflecting upon the following. "Just imagine you were thrown out into the street by your mother as an infant" Ibn Pakudah offers, "and a passing stranger took pity on you, brought you home, and took it upon himself to raise you. Imagine how obliged you'd be to him ... !" That's all the more so true when it comes to G-d. We'd do well to use that as a model for how freely we should be giving our thanks to Him.

We're to then contemplate upon just how generous G–d had been to us when He allowed us fully functioning, healthy bodies from the earliest points on (as most of us have, thank G-d), and what wonders He prepared for us subsequently. After all, He provided us with nourishment while in the womb, and with food when we were born -- and all again despite anything we had or hadn't done.

"Just think of how thankful and appreciative you'd be to someone if he furnished you with eyes, hands, or feet and made you whole, if you were born without them" Ibn Pakudah points out, "and how eternally grateful you'd be". So "that's the extent to which you should be drawn to your Creator, who formed your body and fully rendered your limbs" we're advised, which cannot be denied.

We're then to reflect upon how good G–d has been to us by granting us an intellect and senses, as well as all the other stunning, wondrous, and glorious traits that set us apart as human beings.

After all, imagine you were born dull-witted, and that someone somehow provided you with an intellect, Ibn Pakudah advises. "You'd certainly realize how your life had improved", and it would surely be clear that "a lifetime spent thanking and praising that person wouldn't be enough to repay him". So, isn't that "all the more so true of the Creator, whose favors are perpetual, whose generosity is never ending, and whose kindness is unceasing?"

We're then to take G-d's greatest favor to us to heart -- "His encouraging us to engage in the very life–blood of our existence in both worlds, the auspicious Torah" which our people have been so blessed with. After all, what Torah does is "expel our blindness, undo all our foolishness, enlighten our eyes, draw us closer to G-d's will, inform us of the reality of our Creator and of your obligations to Him (and all) in order to rescue us in both this world and the World to Come."

Reflect upon how hard you'd find it to thank someone who introduced you to G-d's Torah if you weren't granted it from childhood or if you'd been thrown off-track and been reintroduced to the glories of Torah anew. And imagine '''how inadequate your efforts to thank and praise (him) ... would be"! So, shouldn't we thank G-d Himself, "who encourages us in Torah all the time, and helps us to understand and observe it?" And shouldn't we rededicate ourselves to Him and his Torah everyday accordingly?

And then continuing to reflect upon Torah, we're encouraged to be introspective about how lax we often are when it comes to trying to truly understand what it's telling us, and how satisfied we often are with inadequate or faulty understandings of it.

After all, "we'd never do that if we were unsure of the meaning of a statement offered us by a king" having to do with things that were confusing or vexing to us, just "because the concepts were too profound or subtle, complex or ornate for us. We'd work tirelessly to set heart and mind to the task of understanding it". So if we'd do that when it came to a statement offered from a mere mortal, aren't we even more obliged to do so when it comes to understanding G-d's statement -- His Torah, "which is our very lifeblood and the source of our redemption"? How in all faith could we be satisfied with a "close enough" understanding? Consider all we're missing out on by settling for that!

(c) 2004 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman and Torah.org

(Feel free to contact me at feldman@torah.org )

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AT LONG LAST! Rabbi Feldman's translation of "The Gates of Repentance" has been reissued at *at a discount*! You can order it right now by logging onto www.tinyurl.com/49s8t (or by going to www.rowman.com and searching for it). Rabbi Yaakov Feldman has translated and commented upon "The Gates of Repentance", "The Path of the Just", and "The Duties of the Heart" (Jason Aronson Publishers). And his new work on Maimonides' "The Eight Chapters" will soon be available from Judaica Press.
His works are available in bookstores and in various locations on the Web.
Rabbi Feldman also offers two free e-mail classes on www.torah.org entitled "Spiritual Excellence" and "Ramchal".

"The Way of G-d" Ch. 5, Paragraph 1

RAMCHAL

-- A Reworking of Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto's "The Way fo G-d"

Rabbi Yaakov Feldman's series on www.torah.org

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"The Way of G-d" Ch. 5, Paragraph 1

Everything in the world comes to us from beyond the world, by way of the grand and colossal stream of Divine Flow (see 2:8:3,3:4:4). Now, for the most part we need to *ask* for it (though a lot comes our way despite us as G-d's will is played out), and the more fervently and from deep-within we ask, and the firmer our conviction that we're beseeching G-d Himself, the surer the response. In any event, it's clear that the innate human need to pray to G-d is rooted in the workings of the universe and G-d encourages us in it.

(In fact, our people have become not spontaneous, dare I say not *impulsive* enough in prayer. We hesitate too often standing before G-d, as if not wanting to intrude, when He wants so much to hear from us and to answer us back full-throatedly and bounteously. Does a baby need to be provoked to cry out for food? Why do we have to be prodded to cry out to G-d when *we're* hungry ... or lonely, pained, weak, poor, or anguished?)

And we're taught that the immense Gates of Prayer are always wide open, that they face outward, and that we need only turn toward them and call out for help. In fact, we're enjoined to do that every day in order to allow for the day's great abundance awaiting us.

(c) 2004 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman and Torah.org

(Feel free to contact me at feldman@torah.org )

********************************
AT LONG LAST! Rabbi Feldman's translation of "The Gates of Repentance" has been reissued at *at a discount*! You can order it right now by logging onto www.tinyurl.com/49s8t (or by going to www.rowman.com and searching for it). Rabbi Yaakov Feldman has translated and commented upon "The Gates of Repentance", "The Path of the Just", and "The Duties of the Heart" (Jason Aronson Publishers). And his new work on Maimonides' "The Eight Chapters" will soon be available from Judaica Press.
His works are available in bookstores and in various locations on the Web.
Rabbi Feldman also offers two free e-mail classes on www.torah.org entitled "Spiritual Excellence" and "Ramchal".

"The Duties of the Heart" Gate 8, Ch. 2

"In Search of Spiritual Excellence"

-- A Reworking of Classical Mussar Texts

Rabbi Yaakov Feldman's series on www.torah.org
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"The Duties of the Heart" Gate 8, Ch. 2

We're each distinctive inside and out with individual circumstances, and with our own way of perceiving both ourselves and those circumstances. Yet we're all told to be introspective despite those differences, and to do it in order to see for ourselves how to serve G-d in light of how good He's been to us. So, how do we manage to do that?

As Ibn Pakudah puts it, it comes to this: since "we're all obliged to serve G-d according to our perceptions and according to the favors He's done for us alone" (as we said), it follows that each one of us should "ponder what his obligations are to G–d" in his own way, "be as exacting in that as possible", then "do as much as he possibly can" to follow through on his realizations.

That's to say that we're each to sit long and hard, and consider all the good we've been blessed with in our own lives that others don't have (*aside* from all the good that every living being enjoys); and we're to then thank G-d for it by serving Him -- "reimbursing" Him, if you will -- in kind. We'll get into the details of that later on, but that's it in sum.

But Ibn Pakudah adds one item at the end. Each one of us is to do as much as he possibly can to repay G-d -- "or to at least *long* to do as much". What that means to say is that we're to also come to know ourselves well enough in our ruminations to realize what we can and can't do so as to aim for the appropriate mark, but to *want to reach higher yet* even when we know we won't.

"Do that", we're told, "and G-d will judge you favorably" for having done what you could -- just as long as you aspire to fulfill as many of your obligations to G-d as you can, and you "neither absolve yourself of them with excuses, belittle them, or neglect and ignore them." For while knowing your limitations is invaluable, settling for them and never hoping to transcend them is inexcusable.


(c) 2004 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman and Torah.org

(Feel free to contact me at feldman@torah.org )

********************************
AT LONG LAST! Rabbi Feldman's translation of "The Gates of Repentance" has been reissued at *at a discount*! You can order it right now by logging onto www.tinyurl.com/49s8t (or by going to www.rowman.com and searching for it). Rabbi Yaakov Feldman has translated and commented upon "The Gates of Repentance", "The Path of the Just", and "The Duties of the Heart" (Jason Aronson Publishers). And his new work on Maimonides' "The Eight Chapters" will soon be available from Judaica Press.
His works are available in bookstores and in various locations on the Web.
Rabbi Feldman also offers two free e-mail classes on www.torah.org entitled "Spiritual Excellence" and "Ramchal".

"The Duties of the Heart" Gate 8, Ch. 1

"In Search of Spiritual Excellence"

-- A Reworking of Classical Mussar Texts

Rabbi Yaakov Feldman's series on www.torah.org
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"The Duties of the Heart" Gate 8, Ch. 1

Let's start off by defining introspection more thoroughly.

Ibn Pakudah depicts it as "the act of contemplating your material and Torah–based circumstances" i.e., your worldly and spiritual standing, "in order to identify what you've already done and what you still have to do".

That's to say that we're to begin by surveying our inner and outer situations dispassionately and impartially; and then we're to speculate about all the consequences of what we've done, and about what they imply about the future.

Suppose I notice that I'm selfish, for example (and believe me, we *all* are to some degree). Then I observe just how much that trait has interfered with my religious life as well as my relationship with others. If I were fortunate, I'd then realize that that doesn't bode well for my spiritual standing, and that I'd hardly likely grow if I continue being selfish. I'd then want to take steps to be less self-centered.

Ibn Pakudah then provides us with a number of verses meant to inspire us and shore up our resolve. The most cogent among them seems to be this one: "Don't be like an ignorant horse or mule" (Psalms 32:9), which is to say that we're not to just trudge ahead without thinking.

But the one that goes deeper to the core, it seems, is this: "Taste and see that G–d is good" (Psalms 34:9). Because it seems to set out to remind us that G-d is good to us all, despite our errors and notwithstanding all our false starts. But how can we come to realize that? By "tasting and seeing" (i.e., experiencing and noting) G-d's goodness in our lives, which we can also only come to by being introspective, and catching sight of G-d's presence in the course of each day.

(c) 2004 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman and Torah.org

(Feel free to contact me at feldman@torah.org )

********************************
AT LONG LAST! Rabbi Feldman's translation of "The Gates of Repentance" has been reissued at *at a discount*! You can order it right now by logging onto www.tinyurl.com/49s8t (or by going to www.rowman.com and searching for it). Rabbi Yaakov Feldman has translated and commented upon "The Gates of Repentance", "The Path of the Just", and "The Duties of the Heart" (Jason Aronson Publishers). And his new work on Maimonides' "The Eight Chapters" will soon be available from Judaica Press.
His works are available in bookstores and in various locations on the Web.
Rabbi Feldman also offers two free e-mail classes on www.torah.org entitled "Spiritual Excellence" and "Ramchal".

A New Venture

As some of you may know, I offer two weekly classes for www.torah.org -- "Spiritual Excellence" (see it at www.torah.org/learning/excellence) and "Ramchal (see it at www.torah.org/learning/ramchal).

I've decided to mirror the two here.

I'll start with the next entry at a new-enough point in "Spiritual Excellence", and wait till we get around to a new chapter in "Ramchal" to offer that here, too.

Stay in touch, and Good Shabbos!

R' Ashlag Ch. 14 (sect. 3)

Rabbi Yehudah Ashlag's "Introduction to the Zohar"

-- as translated and commented on by Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

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Ch. 14

3.

"The third (and final) era will encompass the rectification of all souls (and it will come about) after the resurrection of the dead. Even the bodies will be fully rectified then. For the ratzon l’kabel for our own sake, which is the body’s (true) tsurah, will be overturned (by then), and a tsurah of pure bestowance will come upon it, when it will deserve (and experience) all the good, pleasure, and delight contained in the (original) intentions for the universe. And they’ll merit (experiencing) a surpassingly strong (degree of) attachment (onto His presence) as a consequence of their essential affinity with their Creator."

"But that won’t come about from their ratzon l’kabel but rather because of their (having fostered the) willingness to grant satisfaction to their Creator. And G-d will derive pleasure from their having received that from Him."

-- This is a loaded statement. What it's saying first is that the third era will only come about when the very thing that the souls had always sought -- all the good, pleasure, and delight of attaching itself onto G-d's presence -- will have been achieved. And secondly, that that can only be achieved selflessly, with G-d's wishes in mind alone. But the third era *will come about in any event*, we're taught; since it was always part of G-d's intentions for the universe (see 13:2).
-- So the point is that the souls are to achieve all that goodness on their own by following through on G-d's mitzvot, and that "G-d will derive pleasure from their having received it from Him" in recompense for that in the end.

"For brevity’s sake I’ll simply refer to the first era, second era, and third era from now on (when I discuss this phenomenon)."


(c) 2004 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

(Feel free to contact me at feldman@torah.org )

********************************
AT LONG LAST! Rabbi Feldman's translation of "The Gates of Repentance" has been reissued at *at a discount*! You can order it right now by logging onto www.tinyurl.com/49s8t (or by going to www.rowman.com and searching for it).
Rabbi Yaakov Feldman has translated and commented upon "The Gates of Repentance", "The Path of the Just", and "The Duties of the Heart" (Jason Aronson Publishers). And his new work on Maimonides' "The Eight Chapters" will soon be available from Judaica Press.
His works are available at www.discounttextbooks.net
Rabbi Feldman also offers two free e-mail classes on www.torah.org entitled "Spiritual Excellence" and "Ramchal".

R' Ashlag Ch. 14 (sects. 1&2)

Rabbi Yehudah Ashlag's "Introduction to the Zohar"

-- as translated and commented on by Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

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Ch. 14

1.

“Thus, souls experience three distinct 'eras', all told. The first encompasses the 'time' they're lodged within the Infinite’s intentions for creation and when they already have the tsurah they'll assume when the final rectification comes about.”

-- The first occult, sweeping era precedes everything else in time -- including time itself. And it’s the embodiment of the esoteric notion expressed variously as “Their conclusion is embedded in their beginning, and their beginning in their conclusion (Sefer Yetzirah 1:7), “The final act was in the original thought” (Lecha Dodi), “Before the world was created, He and His Name were (already) one” (Pirke D’Rebbe Eliezer, Ch. 3), “What will be seen in the end is what was already there at the beginning” (Klach Pitxhei Chochma, 49), and “(you’ll) reach the point you’d started from” (Ibid.).

2.

“The second one encompasses the six thousand years (“of creation”, i.e., of life as we know it), in the course of which the souls are separated by (passing through) the two previously cited systems (i.e., the four worlds of holy-A.B.Y.A. and their counterpart, the four worlds of defiled-A.B.Y.A [see 10:2]) into a body and a soul. It’s when the observance of Torah and Mitzvot is granted them so they might convert their ratzon l’kabel to a ratzon l’hashpia and grant satisfaction to their Maker rather than to themselves.”

-- The second era, our own, is the one in which everything needs to be done and will be given the means to.
-- It’s life as we know it: bifurcated in every way but flush with the great and consummate communal row homeward -- toward the broad and sweeping, epochal and selfless admixture of the mixed.

“Only souls could be rectified in the course of that era, not bodies. For (in order for the body to be rectified) it would need to undo its ratzon l’kabel -- which is the (essence of the) 'body'-- and to set in its place a ratzon l’hashpia, which is the soul's (true) tsurah of willingness.”

-- Only souls can be rectfied in this era (and only after death at that), because the entirety of our being, body with soul, is still cleft apart, and the body part won’t be rectified (and reunited with the soul part) until the third era. That is, when the ”ratzon l’hashpia ... which is the soul's (true) tsurah of will” is restored, and everyone and everything’s original and true will to only give-out will be reestablished.

“In fact, even the souls of the righteous won’t be able to rejoice in the Garden of Eden after their death (then, and not) until their body would have decomposed into dust.”

-- But that too will reversed in the third era, when body and soul will bypass the system of holy-A.B.Y.A. and defiled-A.B.Y.A.


(c) 2004 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

(Feel free to contact me at feldman@torah.org )

********************************
AT LONG LAST! Rabbi Feldman's translation of "The Gates of Repentance" has been reissued at *at a discount*! You can order it right now by logging onto www.tinyurl.com/49s8t (or by going to www.rowman.com and searching for it).
Rabbi Yaakov Feldman has translated and commented upon "The Gates of Repentance", "The Path of the Just", and "The Duties of the Heart" (Jason Aronson Publishers). And his new work on Maimonides' "The Eight Chapters" will soon be available from Judaica Press.
His works are available at www.discounttextbooks.net
Rabbi Feldman also offers two free e-mail classes on www.torah.org entitled "Spiritual Excellence" and "Ramchal".

At Long Last (2)

As I wrote in response to the inquiry about the last entry, Jason Aronson Publishers was taken over by Rowman and Littlefield (as you can see by linking on to the page I listed).

Rowman and Littlefield only has "The Gates of Repentance", but you can do a search under my name (Yaakov Feldman) on www.discounttextbooks.net and come up with used copies of my works on "The Path of the Just" and "The Duties of the Heart".

In any event, Judaica Press will eventually be bringing out the latter two, as well as "The Eight Chapters" soon enough.

At Long Last!

My translation of "The Gates of Repentance" has been reissued -- and *at a discount*! You can order it right now by logging onto www.tinyurl.com/49s8t (or by going to www.rowman.com and searching for it).

R' Ashlag Ch. 13 (sect's 2 &3)

Rabbi Yehudah Ashlag's "Introduction to the Zohar"

-- as translated and commented on by Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

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Ch. 13

2.

"The point is that as soon as it occurred to G-d to create the cosmos *that very thought alone* brought it about in its entirety. Since G-d doesn't need to resort to action per se the way we do (to bring anything about; for the reality of it just has to occur to Him and it's fulfilled)."

-- Know that G-d's methods, scopes, and domains are utterly unlike our own. For while things physical demand time, place, and person, the ethereal stuff of His formless and primal dominion doesn't. His considerations make things so; His Self immerses itself in its Self and something other than Himself appears in coat and hat. And that was true of the whole of reality as well.

"So, as soon as (He decided to create them,) all the souls and worlds that were to have been created, *were* created -- full of all the goodness, delight, and tranquility planned for them. And they were also already in the ultimately perfect state they're destined to be in when everything is rectified in the end -- which is to say, when the soul's ratzon l’kabel is fully rectified and is transformed into pure bestowance, in complete affinity with the Emanator."

"For past, present, and future are one and the same to the Eternal, (so) the future functions as the present for Him, and all the impediments of time are irrelevant to Him."

-- For not only was the whole of past and present reality already in G-d's mind (i.e., His intentions), all of what seems to us to be a gathering, impending reality was there, too, at that point -- including the furthermost, ultimate end. And that's the point at which there'll no longer be the appearance of a ratzon l’kabel in the face of a bestowing G-d; when there'll no longer be the contradistinction between beginning and end we now imagine there to be because we don't understand how above cause and effect G-d is.

3.

"Hence, the matter of the corrupt ratzon l’kabel -- which is a tsurah (that's diametrically opposite to G-d's own, since it's the embodiment) of separation from the Infinite -- was never at issue. In fact, the opposite is true. For the essential affinity (between our souls and G-d) that's to be revealed when all is fully rectified came about automatically, thanks to G-d's Infinite nature. Our sages depicted this mystical phenomenon with the expression, 'Before the world was created, He and His name were one' (Pirke D'Rebbe Eliezer, Ch. 3)."

"For the tsurah of separation (from the Infinite) found in the ratzon l’kabel never actually manifests itself in the souls that emanated from (G-d's) intent to create (the cosmos). Instead, they (have always) enjoyed the d'vekut with Him that is essential affinity, in keeping with the stated mystical phenomenon of 'He and His name (being) one'."

-- R' Ashlag's point is that beginning and end are one and the same in G-d's Being. Thus, while we certainly experience a ratzon l’kabel, the irony of its existence is outside of G-d's consideration, and might as well not exist as far as His experience goes. For both, “before the world was created” *and subsequent to its being created and then being undone*, “He (His being) and His Name (what He's known for; i.e., creation en toto)”, will prove to have always been conjoined, with nothing actually interposing between them -- even the ratzon l’kabel.
-- For as we'll start to examine in the next chapter, there will prove to be three cosmic "eras": the first, which concerns itself with the period of "time" before the cosmos were created; the second, which concerns itself with the period of (actual) time the cosmos exist; and the third, which concerns itself with the period of "time" the cosmos no longer exist. And R' Ashlag's point is that the three have already played themselves out in full in G-d's Being, though not in ours.
-- So, yes, there is a ratzon l’kabel as far as we're concerned, which is no small matter; but, no, the ratzon l’kabel hasn't a place in G-d's Being, so it doesn't contradict His being the Ultimate Benefactor.

(c) 2004 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

(Feel free to contact me at feldman@torah.org )

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Get your own copy of Rabbi Feldman’s translation of “The Gates of Repentance” by logging onto http://www.aronson.com/jbookstore/ and typing in "The Gates of Repentance".
Rabbi Yaakov Feldman has translated and commented upon "The Gates of Repentance", "The Path of the Just", and "The Duties of the Heart" (Jason Aronson Publishers). And his new work on Maimonides' "The Eight Chapters" will soon be available from Judaica Press.
His works are available in bookstores and in various locations on the Web.
Rabbi Feldman also offers two free e-mail classes on www.torah.org entitled "Spiritual Excellence" and "Ramchal".