"The Great Redemption" (38)

... can be found at ...

Toras Ramchal

More on "The Gates of Repentance"

I continue my series on Der Alter.

R' Ashlag Ch. 44 (Part 2)

Chapter Forty-Four:

Rabbi Yehudah Ashlag's "Introduction to the Zohar"

-- as translated and commented on by Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

__________________________________________________

44.

2.

"Now, the extent to which you purify the mineral part of your ratzon l’kabel is the very extent to which you build-up the 613 parts of the point in your heart, which is the mineral (aspect) of your holy soul."
-- We begin to purify the mineral, lowest, most demanding aspect of ourselves that only wants to take-in by first honestly taking note of it in our being, and by engaging in mitzvot, whose aim is to foster bestowance. (We'll explain the 613 parts of our soul shortly.)

"And when you fulfill all 613 mitzvot on a tangible level, ..."
-- As that can only actually be carried out by the entire Jewish Nation in the course of history in fact, seeing as some mitzvot can only be fulfilled by Cohanim or Leviim, for example, others can only be fulfilled while the Holy Temple is operational, etc., Rabbi Ashlag’s implying that once you play your part in the fulfillment of all 613 mitzvot, then ...

" ... you (begin to) perfect the 613 organs of the point in your heart, which is the mineral (aspect) of your holy soul."

"Since its 248 spiritual-organs are bolstered by fulfilling the 248 imperatives, and its 365 spiritual-tendons are bolstered by avoiding the 365 prohibitives, and it becomes a complete partsuf of a holy Nephesh. Then the soul ascends upward and engarbs the sephira of Malchut in the spiritual world of Asiyah."
-- There are 613 mitzvot in all (and 613 parts of our soul, as we indicated): 248 “imperatives” -- things we’re obliged to do, like be honest for example, observe the Shabbat, etc.; and 365 “prohibitives” -- things we’re obliged to *avoid* doing, like eating unkosher foods, stealing, etc.
-- When we do our part as members of the Jewish Nation to fulfill all 248 imperatives we bolster the 248 “spiritual-organs” of our mineral soul; and when we do what we can to avoid the 365 prohibitives we bolster the 365 “spiritual-tendons” of our mineral soul, and thus bolster all 613 of its parts.
-- We then cultivate a complete spiritual system known as a “partsuf” (literally, “face”, but perhaps best conceived of as an entire and integrated organism with a face or “presence” of its own). While it's indeed a partsuf and thus significant, it’s nonetheless a partsuf of the lowest order in that it’s attached to the lowest level of the soul (Nephesh), grade of being (mineral), sephirah (Malchut), and the lowest spiritual world (Asiyah), since it’s rooted in our only *beginning* to purify the lowest aspect of our ratzon l’kabel.

(c) 2005 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 from here
Rabbi Yaakov Feldman has also translated and commented upon "The Path of the Just", and "The Duties of the Heart" (Jason Aronson Publishers). His new work on Maimonides' "The Eight Chapters" will soon be available.
Rabbi Feldman also offers two free e-mail classes on www.torah.org entitled
"Spiritual Excellence" and "Ramchal"

R' Ashlag Ch. 44 (Part 1)

Chapter Forty-Four:

Rabbi Yehudah Ashlag's "Introduction to the Zohar"

-- as translated and commented on by Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

__________________________________________________

44.

1.

"Now, this 'point in the heart' doesn’t become manifest before age 13, only afterwards, (and) when you begin to engage in Torah (study) and (the observance of) mitzvot."
-- That is, though we’re each born with this most basic albeit hindmost part of a soul, it still and all only hovers in the background until we become 13 and are responsible for mitzvah-observance. And it only truly comes into its own and becomes manifest when we do in fact engage in mitzvah-observance and Torah study. We’re taught however that *all* of us are mitzvah-observant to some degree or another (see Berachot 57A), so this last point shouldn’t be seen as discouragement so much as reassurance.

"It does though begin to develop and to display itself outright even if you do so (i.e., engage in mitzvah-observance) without (any specific, lofty) designs, which is to say, without the sort of love and fear (of G-d) that’s only warranted of one who serves a king; and even (if you engage in them) less than altruistically."
-- We’re said to serve G-d outright and to be near-at-hand to Him when we engage in His mitzvot and study His Torah. The realization of that should strike us deeply with either a sense of reverence or of love (or both) and should encourage us to do our best at it and to fulfill it in as high-minded a manner as we can. The point in our heart still and all manifests itself even if we engage in mitzvot in rather humdrum, even self-serving ways.

"For (in point of fact, we’re taught that) mitzvot needn’t (be fulfilled with) any designs, for even random (mitzvah-related) acts are qualified to purify your ratzon l’kabel -- but only to the lowest degree, i.e., (on the) mineral (level)."
-- That’s to say that if we do though engage in mitzvot perfunctorily or with an agenda of our own (either for reward, or for recognition and the like), our ratzon l’kabel will be purified indeed, but only to a minimum, mineral-level degree.

(c) 2005 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 from here
Rabbi Yaakov Feldman has also translated and commented upon "The Path of the Just", and "The Duties of the Heart" (Jason Aronson Publishers). His new work on Maimonides' "The Eight Chapters" will soon be available.
Rabbi Feldman also offers two free e-mail classes on www.torah.org entitled
"Spiritual Excellence" and "Ramchal"

R' Ashlag Ch. 43

... has been completed and can be found at ...

Toras Rav Ashlag

A Meditation on Ch. 1 Of "The Gates of Repentance"

... can be found at Der Alter.

R' Ashlag Ch. 43 (Parts 1 & 2)

Chapter Forty-Three:

Rabbi Yehudah Ashlag's "Introduction to the Zohar"

-- as translated and commented on by Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

__________________________________________________

43.

1.

"We each receive a holy soul as soon as we’re born. But it’s not a soul per se that we receive so much as the hindmost part of one, which is the soul’s last rung and it's termed a 'point' because it’s (so relatively) small."
-- While holy, the soul we’re each born with isn’t a whole and utterly pure one so much as the augur of one in the form of its posterior, faintest, tiny sheen.

"And it’s engarbed in our heart, which is to say, in our ratzon l’kabel, which (in fact) manifests itself in our heart for the most part."
-- We’d been told earlier on about this hindmost part of our soul that’s termed our “point in the heart” and is engarbed in our ratzon l’kabel. And we learned that it’s only operative from age 13 onward, when we’re liable for mitzvah observance (see 30:1 and our remarks there). So we now start to see the connection between the elements enunciated to the mitzvah-system.

2.

"Now, note this principle: Everything found in existence in general can also be found in each and every world, as well as in each and every one of each world’s tiniest fragments."
-- Like a colossal clan-family and regardless of whether its members are in close proximity or not, everything is in everything else by degrees; a small or large part of this is found in that, and some of that is in this. As such, each world contains facets and parts of each other one, and each facet and part contains the lot of them to degrees.

"As such, just as there are five worlds over all which are the five aforementioned (cluster) sephirot Keter, Chochma, Binah, Tifferet, and Malchut there are likewise five (cluster) sephirot of Keter, Chochma, Binah, Tifferet, and Malchut *in each and every world*, as well as five (cluster) sephirot in the smallest fragment of each world (ad infinitum)."

(c) 2005 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 from here
Rabbi Yaakov Feldman has also translated and commented upon "The Path of the Just", and "The Duties of the Heart" (Jason Aronson Publishers). His new work on Maimonides' "The Eight Chapters" will soon be available.
Rabbi Feldman also offers two free e-mail classes on www.torah.org entitled
"Spiritual Excellence" and "Ramchal"

R' Ashlag Ch. 43 (Prologue)

Chapter Forty-Three:

Rabbi Yehudah Ashlag's "Introduction to the Zohar"

-- as translated and commented on by Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

__________________________________________________

43.

-- It’s important to review some things at this point in order to recoup our perspective.

-- Recall that this whole section is in response to Rabbi Ashlag's sixth inquiry as to how it could be that all the upper worlds as well as this corporeal world were created exclusively for the sake of man -- who by all appearances is, "so insignificant and hasn’t a hair’s-breadth of worth in comparison to all we see before us in this world -- to say nothing of the upper worlds" as Rabbi Ashlag put it in Ch. 33. So "why would man need (for there to be) such august and hallowed worlds?" he asked there. But as he said at the end of that chapter, it would be proven to be "worth G-d’s while to have created all the worlds, higher and lower alike, for the sake of the satisfaction and delight He’ll derive" from those of us who reach our full potential.

-- He then went on to explain that "since G-d wanted to prepare His created beings for the aforementioned exalted levels, He wished there to be four grades (of them) to unfold out of each other" (Ch. 34) so that we might ease into revelation. The four grades are "known as the 'mineral', 'vegetable', 'animal', and 'verbal' (beings)”. As he then said and as we'll begin to see exactly later on in this chapter, "those beings correspond to the four degrees of the ratzon l’kabel which the upper worlds are differentiated by.

-- As we then summed up in Ch. 39, it all has to do with the following: (1) with the fact that the only reason G-d created the world in the first place was to grant pleasure to His creations; (2) with the idea that the mechanism He created for us to enjoy that great pleasure is our ratzon l'kabel; (3) with the fact that while "some entities ... can’t sense G-d’s presence or great largesse at all ... ; others only sense it to a limited extent ... ; and others (yet) ... sense it fairly much ... "; and (4) with the idea that, in the end, it’s we humans alone who can fully sense G-d’s presence and benevolence.

-- What will prove to qualify us to sense G-d's presence and benevolence will be our adherence to the mitzvah-system, which is unsurpassed in its capacity to refine our ratzon l’kabel and to help us develop the sort of full-spectrum soul that will enable us to gain an essential affinity with G-d which is the greatest pleasure of all, and to thus satisfy G-d’s full intention for creation.

-- Rabbi Ashlag will now go on to discuss our souls and their component parts; to examine how they relate to the mineral, vegetable, animal, and verbal realms; to indicate how all that ties-in with the sephirot and the various supernal worlds; and to explain what all that has to do with the mitzvah-system after all.

-- The discussion itself will get rather complex and convoluted at times, but we’ll do what we can to resolve it and enunciate its overarching points.

(c) 2005 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 from here
Rabbi Yaakov Feldman has also translated and commented upon "The Path of the Just", and "The Duties of the Heart" (Jason Aronson Publishers). His new work on Maimonides' "The Eight Chapters" will soon be available.
Rabbi Feldman also offers two free e-mail classes on www.torah.org entitled
"Spiritual Excellence" and "Ramchal"

Another New Series

This is being sent out to my readers at Torah.org which you're invited to be a part of, too.

______________________________________________________

NEW SERIES!

Ever wonder what you're made of, what you're meant to do with that all, how to draw close to G-d in light of it, how to change what you don't like about yourself and maintain what you do, and what G-d and we are all about for the most part, too? Then join in on Rabbi Yaakov Feldman's new Spiritual Excellence series, based on Rabbi Moshe Maimonides's (Rambam's) "Eight Chapters".

Rambam actually wrote "Eight Chapters" as a prelude to his comments upon Pirke Avot ("The Ethics of the Fathers") but it has always been regarded as a seminal work onto itself. A very early composition, "Eight Chapters" lays out themes that Rambam explains in great detail in his later works. So it serves as a wonderful introduction to Rambam's idea and ideals, and it details very specific ways you and I can indeed achieve spiritual excellence.

As has been the pattern in our past Spiritual Excellence works, we won't be reading the text itself so much as a paraphrase of it with occasional quotes, along with explanations.

------------------------------------------

If you're already subscribed to Rabbi Feldman's "Spiritual Excellence" series you'll automatically receive these new classes, but if you're not already subscribed and you'd like to be, simply send along a blank e-mail to excellence-subscribe@torah.org and you'll be a part of it, too.

R' Ashlag Ch. 42

... has been amended and completed, and can be found at ...

Toras Rav Ashlag

"The Great Redemption" (37)

... can be found at ...

Toras Ramchal

"The Great Redemption" (36)

... can be found at ...

Toras Ramchal

A New Series

This is an invitation being sent out by the folks at torah.org. You're all invited to be a part of it. Needless to say it's based on the Great Redemption series running on Toras Ramchal, but as the statement says, the series itself won't include the translation itself very much.

______________________________

Let's pass on, you and I, through the door to the Messianic Era! Our text will be Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto's "Ma'amar HaGeulah" (A Discourse on The Redemption), our teacher will be Rabbi Yaakov Feldman, and the series itself will be entitled "The Great Redemption".

"Ma'amar HaGeulah" is a rather short and fairly unknown work of Ramchal's that was composed sometime before 1730, and only came to light in 1889 through the research of Rabbi Shmuel Luria. What is manages to do is explain the cosmic backdrop behind the exile we're in now, the first low stirrings of the Messianic Era, the coming of the Moshiach (Messiah) himself and more!

The series will start off with a quick preliminary overview of classical Jewish ideas of exile and redemption, we'll then be offered the "end of the story" at the very beginning word for word and thus come to see what we're all to look forward to, then we'll go on from there to enjoy a fuller, step by step depiction of Ma'amar HaGeulah.

We'll only be presented with short samples of the original text itself in translation, and we'll be offered very little of the work's out-and-out Kabbalah si


mply because it would demand that we step aside from the subject at hand -- the redemption -- in order to explain terms and concepts tangential to it. We will though have those Kabbalistic ideas that lay at the core of Ramchal's vision of the redemption explained for us, simply because they're essential to the story. And we'll be allowed a bird's-eye-view of the how's and why's of redemption.

This will prove to be uplifting and a lot of fun! The hope is, though, that we'll experience this all for ourselves in real-time with the actual coming of the Moshiach, and that this series will then turn into news reports from the front rather than predictions of the future!

------------------------------------------

If you're already subscribed to Rabbi Feldman's "Ramchal" series you'll automatically receive this new series, but if you're not already subscribed and you'd like to be, simply send along a blank e-mail to ramchal-subscribe@torah.org and you'll be a part of it, too.

R' Ashlag Ch. 42 (Part 1)

Chapter Forty-Two:

Rabbi Yehudah Ashlag's "Introduction to the Zohar"

-- as translated and commented on by Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

__________________________________________________

42.

1.

"We’ve now explained the five worlds (Adam Kadmon, Atzilut, Briah, Yetzirah, and Asiyah) that incorporate all of supernal existence extending from the Infinite Himself to this world. We saw in fact that they’re all interconnected and that each world corresponds to the five worlds (i.e., the five clusters of sephirot) of Keter, Chochma, Binah, Tifferet, and Malchut in which are garbed the five lights of Nephesh, Ruach, Neshama, Chaya, and Yechida, which (themselves) correspond to the five worlds."

"Now, aside from the five sephirot (clusters) of Keter, Chochma, Binah, Tifferet, and Malchut in each world, the four spiritual grades of mineral, vegetable, animal, and verbal (cited before) are found there, too."

(c) 2005 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 from here
Rabbi Yaakov Feldman has also translated and commented upon "The Path of the Just", and "The Duties of the Heart" (Jason Aronson Publishers). His new work on Maimonides' "The Eight Chapters" will soon be available.
Rabbi Feldman also offers two free e-mail classes on www.torah.org entitled
"Spiritual Excellence" and "Ramchal"

R' Ashlag Ch. 41

... has been completed and can be found at ...

Toras Rav Ashlag

R' Ashlag Ch. 41 (Part. 1)

Chapter Forty-One:

Rabbi Yehudah Ashlag's "Introduction to the Zohar"

-- as translated and commented on by Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

__________________________________________________

41.

1.

"We’d still need to clarify in fact why humankind would need all the supernal worlds that the Creator forged for it, though. What use are they to it?"
-- That mystery will be solved for the most part by Ch. 56. But before we can understand the answer we’d first need to learn some things about the supernal worlds, about how they’re connected to humankind, and about what all that has to do with Torah and mitzvot. In fact we’ll find that they’re all intimately, even congenitally linked.
-- It's important to realize that unlike most of Rabbi Ashlag’s works, this one isn’t a Kabbalistic book per se, though these next few chapters will draw on certain Kabbalistic ideas and motifs. So while we’ll try to offer insight into their import and meaning, we won’t be providing the kind of detailed Kabbalistic comments here in our notes that would be called for in a Kabbalistic text.

"You’d need to know, though, that reality is comprised of five (supernal) worlds en toto which are termed: “Adam Kadmon”, 'Atzilut', 'Briah', 'Yetzirah', and 'Asiyah', each of which is comprised of an infinite number of elements."
-- These utterly nonmaterial, inchoate “worlds” can best be depicted as whole, largely unfathomable realms that somehow emanate and devolve downward from G-d’s nonmaterial, transcendent Being, and then culminate in our material universe.
-- Adam Kadmon (“Primordial Man”) is the first supernal, utterly transcendent world to have emerged from G-d’s Infinitude. It’s termed “Adam” (or, Man) because it’s the supernal basis of humankind, and “Kadmon” (or, Primordial) since it’s nearly as primeval as G-d’s original idea to create the universe in the first place.
-- Atzilut is the world that flowed forth from Adam Kadmon. It’s termed that both because it’s aristocratic, if you will, in its import, high standing, and inaccessibility (from “atzil”), and because it’s adjacent to and next after Adam Kadmon (from “eitzel”) in sweeping consequence.
-- Briah (“Creation”) is termed that because it’s the first utter existant appearing out of the relative formless nothingness of Adam Kadmon and Atzilut, which are so utterly unfathomable and immaterial.
-- Yetzirah (“Formation”) is the first realm in which "something” came about, and where the raw undefined “stuff” that was created out of the formless Divine began to assume shape.
-- And while Asiyah (“Activation”) is just as much a spiritual realm essentially as the others, it still-and-all grazes against the physical universe, and is thus able to provoke or activate formed and molded materiality.
-- It’s important to recall, as Rabbi Ashlag put it above, that each one of the five worlds is comprised of an infinite number of elements. For not only is each one of the worlds extensive in implication, they’re likewise comprehensive in scope, and each part of each is interwoven with each other part in an infinite amalgamation. Those elements are known as the Sephirot, which we’ll discuss below. They too are infinitely divisible.

"Those (five) worlds are (represented by) the five (primary) sephirot, termed K.C.B.T.M. (Keter, Chochma, Binah, Tifferet, and Malchut), in that Adam Kadmon is (represented by) Keter, Atzilut is (represented by) Chochma, Briah is (represented by) Binah, Yetzirah is (represented by) Tifferet, and Asiyah is (represented by) Malchut."
-- There are ten sephirot (“Spheres”, as in spheres of influence or of concern) altogether in fact: Keter (“Crown”), Chochma (“Wisdom”), Binah (“Understanding”), Chessed (“Kindness”), Gevurah (“Strength”), Tifferet (“Beauty”), Netzach (“Endurance”), Hod (“Splendor”), Yesod (“Foundation”) and Malchut (“Kingship”).
-- As we see here, the ten are often lumped together into a cluster of five: Keter, Chochma, Binah, Tifferet (which then incorporates Chessed, Gevurah, Tifferet itself, Netzach, Hod, and Yesod), and Malchut.
-- Suffice it to say that each sephirah has a unique luster and timbre, and that their names help explain that, but that’s all beside Rabbi Ashlag’s point here. He assumes we know all this already (or perhaps he's whetting our appetite for all this in hopes of encouraging us to study Kabbalah, which he’ll argue for later on in this work and elsewhere), and he means only to explain how the lot of them interact with our beings and the mitzvah-system as we indicated above.
-- His final point is that the five worlds and the five (main clusters of) sephirot align with each other.

(c) 2005 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 from here
Rabbi Yaakov Feldman has also translated and commented upon "The Path of the Just", and "The Duties of the Heart" (Jason Aronson Publishers). His new work on Maimonides' "The Eight Chapters" will soon be available.
Rabbi Feldman also offers two free e-mail classes on www.torah.org entitled
"Spiritual Excellence" and "Ramchal"

"The Great Redemption" (35)

... can be found at ...

Toras Ramchal

R' Ashlag Ch. 40

... has been completed and can be found at ...

Toras Rav Ashlag

R' Ashlag Ch. 40 (Part 1)

Chapter Forty:

Rabbi Yehudah Ashlag's "Introduction to the Zohar"

-- as translated and commented on by Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

__________________________________________________

1.

"Now, I know that this (idea) is intolerable to some philosophers who simply can’t accept the notion that man, whom they regard as lowly and worthless, is the focal point of creation in all its splendor."
-- "After all", they reason, "man is neither angel nor is he any greater than the humanoids he’d evolved from. So how could he possibly be G-d’s prized entity and the focus of all His attention?

"(But they only feel that way because) like a worm born and raised in a radish who deemed all of G-d’s creation as bitter, dark, and tiny as that radish, and who suddenly sat up in stunned wonder and said: 'But I thought the whole world was the size of the radish I was raised in, and now I see a huge, splendid, beautiful, and wondrous world before me!' the moment the radish’s outer-shell breaks open and he’s able to peer out -- these philosophers are likewise encased in the outer-shell of the ratzon l’kabel they’d been born with, and they have never savored the distinct aroma of Torah (study) and mitzvah observance that can break through that hard outer-shell and turn it (from a rank ratzon l’kabel) into a willingness to bestow pleasure onto the Creator. In fact they can’t help but consider humankind worthless and empty -- since that’s what they *themselves* are. (And it also explains why) they can’t fathom how all of reality was created for humankind’s sake alone."
-- Rabbi Ashlag’s point is that those who contend that humankind is small and of little worth only feel that way because they’ve never attained the rank of true humanness. They’ve never looked past the pettinesses they -- and most of us -- function out of, or caught sight of the human they could be if they’d but follow the mitzvah-system that encourages selflessness and surrendering to G-d’s will. For following it enables one to transcend the ratzon l’kabel that defines most of humanity, and to draw close to G-d, which is G-d’s great aim and focus.

(c) 2005 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 from here
Rabbi Yaakov Feldman has also translated and commented upon "The Path of the Just", and "The Duties of the Heart" (Jason Aronson Publishers). His new work on Maimonides' "The Eight Chapters" will soon be available.
Rabbi Feldman also offers two free e-mail classes on www.torah.org entitled
"Spiritual Excellence" and "Ramchal"

"The Great Redemption" (34)

... can be found at ...

Toras Ramchal

"The Great Redemption" (33)

... can be found at ...

Toras Ramchal

R' Ashlag Ch. 39

... has been emandated and completed, and can be found at ...

Toras Rav Ashlag

"The Way of G-d": Introduction

RAMCHAL

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

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

__________________________________________________

"The Way of G-d": Introduction

1.

Ramchal's introduction to “The Way of G-d” isn’t really what we’d expect it to be. It isn’t for example a rationale for studying G-d’s way in the first place, or a justification for the idea that we humans can explain it. It obviously assumes that, as believers, we accept the idea that has been so fundamental to the Jewish Faith for millennia that G-d revealed these things through the Tradition, and that despite the complexity of it all, they can be explained.

So what this introduction does from the very beginning, and without apology, is to simply lay out G-d’s methods of interacting with the universe, and in an orderly and rational way. And more.

2.

Ramchal’s first point is that it's far, far better knowing things in a structured and orderly manner than in a haphazard one. He compares haphazard knowledge to a wild, chaotic forest, and structured knowledge to an orderly, symmetric garden.

He offers that we become befuddled when we confront things that are set out in a hodgepodge fashion, and that we can’t determine a correlation between the whole and its parts, or between the parts themselves. Our mind becomes taxed, he says, and we shut down. For we find ourselves lost in a great forest of data that we have to sift through exhaustingly. And as a consequence the very thing that excited us so much from the start -- the possibility of understanding something clearly -- proves to be our nemesis.

The opposite is true, though, when we come upon data that’s laid out in order and by category: we're delighted and pleased.

Now, on the surface Ramchal seems to be offering a reasonable-enough insight that matches our experience and goes far to explain mental-stress. But we quickly become excited when we realize that he's suggesting that there needs to be order and symmetry when it comes to books that speak about G-d in the universe; so when he sets out to do that in “The Way of G-d” our interest is piqued. And in fact ”The Way of G-d” is perfect in its layout, as well as very soul-satisfying and alluring.

3.

Yet it's clear that there’s a deeper, more subtle message being conveyed here, too. Ramchal seems to be addressing the inner life. He’s apparently contrasting a perplexed, torn, tortured G-dless soul who can’t see the connection between things, and the person of pure, clear faith and religious erudition who can.

For the tortured soul finds himself in the midst of a wild, chaotic forest of fear day after day. He never knows what he'll come upon from moment to moment, and can’t be sure he’ll know what to make of it once he comes upon it.

The only connection he sees between things is a chronological one. He stumbles about with mind shut down, and can fathom neither rhyme nor reason. The more things he comes upon, the greater his confusion. It gets to the point where life and its travails threaten rather than bolster his confidence.

Not so the person of full faith and knowledge, who walks about a veritable Garden of Eden laid out in full splendor. Each and every thing he meets confirms his faith in an orderly way and meaningfully, and reveals the shrewdness and wisdom of the Great Planner.

Ramchal's intention seems then to be to provide us with the great master plan laid out in order, and to thus allow us the great bliss and airy-ease that true and knowledgeable believers enjoy.

4.

Then Ramchal seems to turn a corner and begins advising us how to analyze things.

His first suggestion is that we'd do best to always consider things in relation to the whole -- to look at "the big picture". Taking his own advice, Ramchal then steps back a nearly infinite distance and speaks of all of existence -- "(of) both the tangible and the abstract, i.e., (about) everything you would possibly imagine".

He determines from that perspective that absolutely everything is different from everything else, both in kind and in quality; and that everything has rules unique to itself. Hence the only way to understand anything and how it functions would be to see what sets it apart from everything else.

He then goes on to offer (quite succinctly and precisely) that there are four general categories under which things fall: they're either a whole entity or part of one, a general instance of this or that or a particular instance, a cause of something else or an effect of some cause, and either an essence (i.e., a thing itself) or a quality (something about that thing).

He advises us to keep in mind that (1) if something is a part of something else, that we'd do well to determine the whole it's a part of, in order to see it in “the big picture”. If (2) it's a cause of something, then we'd have to determine its effects, or determine its cause if it's an effect. If (3) it's a quality, then we should surmise the essence associated with it, and consider if the quality preceded the essence, came about at the same time, or if it came about after it; and whether the quality is intrinsic to the essence or happened by accident, and whether it’s only a potential quality, or an actual one. Then we'd do well to determine (4) whether the thing we're analyzing is absolute or limited; and if it's limited, then we'd then have to determine its limits. Since doing all that helps to provide us with a complete picture.

His final point is that we'll never determine the truth about anything unless we unearth its context and take it from there. And the astute reader notices that "The Way of G-d" is constructed just that way (though it would take a whole other book to point that out, step by step.)

5.

On a deeper level though we also find that Ramchal has allotted us another profound lesson in self-knowledge along the way.

For if we're ever to determine who we are and to thus better ourselves, we too would have to look at "the big picture" and see ourselves in context. For while we're each unique with rules of our own, we nonetheless fit into a whole and would do well to see our own place in it.

The whole we're a part of is the universe in its entirety. In certain instances we cause things to happen, and in other instances we're affected by others' initiatives. Sometimes we're essential to a situation, and other times happenstantial and quite secondary. And on and on.

The point seems to be that knowing ourselves hangs on knowing our context and our relation to others. But that's only one level of looking at what our author is alluding to so astutely. At bottom he also seems to be saying that each one of us is a particular part of G-d directly affected by Him and beholden to Him. And that He alone is the essence.

And indeed, that's what 'The Way of G-d" is all about. It's a methodical manual for delving into our beings and for finding G-d's place in it and in the entire universe.

(c) 2005 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 from here
Rabbi Yaakov Feldman has also translated and commented upon "The Path of the Just", and "The Duties of the Heart" (Jason Aronson Publishers). His new work on Maimonides' "The Eight Chapters" will soon be available from Yashar Books.
Rabbi Feldman also offers two free e-mail classes on www.torah.org entitled
"Spiritual Excellence" and "Ramchal"

R' Ashlag Ch. 39 (Part 1)

Chapter Thirty-Nine:

Rabbi Yehudah Ashlag's "Introduction to the Zohar"

-- as translated and commented on by Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

__________________________________________________

39.


1.

"Now that it has been explained that G-d created everything in order to bestow pleasure upon His creatures ... "
-- See Ch’s 6-7 about this, as well as about our having been created with a huge capacity to take-in, in order to accommodate all the pleasure that G-d wants to bestow on us.

" ... so that they could know Him and His greatness, and accept all the goodness and delight He’d prepared for them to the extent enunciated in the verse, "Is Ephraim (not) My precious son? Is he (not) a darling child? For whenever I speak about him I earnestly remember him and my innards are moved by him” (Jeremiah 31:19) ... "
-- See Ch. 33 where Rabbi Ashlag wrote that, “the satisfaction that G-d derives from granting His creatures pleasure depends on the extent to which they sense that it’s He who’s bestowing it and granting them that pleasure. For when they do, G-d regales with them much the way a father regales with his beloved child" about whom it’s said "Is Ephraim (not) My precious son? Is he (not) a darling child? ....”

" ... It’s obvious, then, that this intention doesn’t apply to the mineral (realm), or (even) to the great heavenly bodies like the earth, the moon, or the sun, however effulgent or immense (they are). And (it likewise doesn’t apply) to the vegetable or animal (realms either), since they aren’t even aware of others of their own species, and thus can’t sense G-dliness or His beneficence. (It) Only (applies to) humankind, since it (alone) becomes aware of others of its kind."

(c) 2005 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 from here
Rabbi Yaakov Feldman has also translated and commented upon "The Path of the Just", and "The Duties of the Heart" (Jason Aronson Publishers). His new work on Maimonides' "The Eight Chapters" will soon be available from Yashar Books.
Rabbi Feldman also offers two free e-mail classes on www.torah.org entitled
"Spiritual Excellence" and "Ramchal"

"The Great Redemption" (32)

... can be found at ...

Toras Ramchal

R' Ashlag Ch. 38

... can be found at ...

Toras Rav Ashlag

"The Great Redemption" (31)

... can be found at ...

Toras Ramchal

"The Way of G-d" Part 4, Ch.9, Paragraph 3

RAMCHAL

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

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

__________________________________________________

This ends our exhaustive study of Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto's "The Way of G-d". We'll backtrack and offer our author's introduction to the work next time (as we said we would at the very beginning). Then after a short break we'll start a new series based on another of Ramchal's works, "A Discourse on The Redemption", which we'll term "The Great Redemption". It will touch on some of the more esoteric aspects of the Messianic Era and offer a mystical eye-view on the redemption itself. Stay tuned.
-------------------------------------------------------------

"The Way of G-d" Part 4, Ch.9, Paragraph 3

Sometimes though not only mundane things need to be more salted and peppered, inherently holy things need to be as well. For as Ramchal puts it, "the more we do to motivate ourselves to draw close to G-d", be it holy or mundane, "the more help we'll get from Him to do that".

That's why our sages enjoined us to recite a blessing before we perform various mitzvot. The blessing reads, "Blessed are You, G-d our L-rd, King of the universe, Who has sanctified us through His mitzvot, and commanded us to (do thus and such). "

Saying that has the mitzvah we're about to perform stand out in our minds and adds heft to it. After all, we cite G-d's name first thing in the blessing and thus remind ourselves Whom we're serving through the mitzvah. And we also concentrate on thanking G-d for singling us out as His emissaries in this world, and for enabling us to better our spiritual standing.

(c) 2005 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 from here
Rabbi Yaakov Feldman has also translated and commented upon "The Path of the Just", and "The Duties of the Heart" (Jason Aronson Publishers). His new work on Maimonides' "The Eight Chapters" will soon be available from Yashar Books.
Rabbi Feldman also offers two free e-mail classes on www.torah.org entitled
"Spiritual Excellence" and "Ramchal"

R' Ashlag Ch. 37

... can be found at ...

Toras Rav Ashlag

Oops ... Some Changes to R' Ashlag

I've made some fairly major changes to Ch. 34, Ch. 35, and Ch. 36. I was off the mark and I'm sorry.

"The Duties of the Heart" Gate Ten, Ch. 7 (Part 2)

"In Search of Spiritual Excellence"

-- A Reworking of Classical Mussar Texts

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

This concludes our study of "The Duties of the Heart", the second in our "In Search of Spiritual Excellence" Mussar series. We'll take a break for a while then move on to our next work.
----------------------------------------------------

"The Duties of the Heart" Gate Ten, Ch. 7 (Part 2)

What's most remarkable about people who love G-d through-and-through, we're told, "is the fact that they find the number of mitzvot that G–d gave (us) to be too few in light of (our) obligations to Him for all His kindness".

After all, they said, while there are indeed 613 mitzvot (248 imperatives and 365 prohibitives), a number of the imperatives are exclusively communal obligations, others are for specific days and times of the year, some are only obligatory in the Land of Israel, and others yet are only circumstantial and occasional. And they reasoned that the prohibitives shouldn't really be taken as requirements per se, since we "fulfill them by merely *avoiding* certain things". Wasn't it true then, they pointed out, that the only thing incumbent upon us all the time was Torah-study? And so they came to consider what's required of us to serve G–d as actually quite minimal "in relation to the yearnings and longings to please" Him we should have. So they engaged in "special spiritual disciplines and practices" as well as all the duties of the heart we'd explained, epitomized by the love of G-d, and "added them onto the established mitzvot with a pure heart and for the sake of G–d".

"If you want to be affiliated with them, brother, and to be on their level," Ibn Pakudah counsels us, "then forsake and divest yourself of worldly luxuries, be satisfied with the bare minimum; train yourself to do without, and lessen your worldly burdens and allow your heart to not concentrate on them; and hurry to do the physical things you must do, but with your body only, not wholeheartedly or willfully –– like someone who swallows a bitter pill reluctantly, who's only willing to put up with its abhorrent bitterness in order to be cured."

Finally, we're exhorted to accentuate the spiritual over the material in our lives: to "favor things that will rescue you (from life's untoward temptations) and that bring you peace in your Torah and worldly affairs"; to "accept reason as your king, humility as your commander, wisdom as your guide, and abstinence as your beloved"; to "beware of negligence, laziness, and idleness, and to (instead) allow one instance of enthusiasm to follow another one, ever–increasing patience to follow increasing patience, and for each level of good qualities to be followed by the next"; and to "try to keep the world's desires from your heart" by replacing them with "thoughts of your ultimate destiny and the duties of your heart".

"Delve into this book" and read it again and again, we're told, "memorize its contents, observe its principles, and ponder your progress at all times". Do that and "you'll reach the most coveted of all (spiritual) levels, as well as the ultimate of exalted qualities that please G–d.

Bachya Ibn Pakudah then concludes this most precious and divine book with the following prayer, to which nothing could possibly be added: "May G–d in His compassion and greatness teach us all how to serve Him." Amen.

(c) 2005 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 from here
Rabbi Yaakov Feldman has also translated and commented upon "The Path of the Just", and "The Duties of the Heart" (Jason Aronson Publishers). His new work on Maimonides' "The Eight Chapters" will soon be available from Yashar Books.
Rabbi Feldman also offers two free e-mail classes on www.torah.org entitled
"Spiritual Excellence" and "Ramchal"

"The Great Redemption" (30)

... can be found at ...

Toras Ramchal

"The Way of G-d" Part 4, Ch.9, Paragraph 2

RAMCHAL

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

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

__________________________________________________

"The Way of G-d" Part 4, Ch.9, Paragraph 2

One of the most mundane -- though utterly vital -- things we do day after day is eat and drink. And outside of the concerns for the food's kosherness, whether today is a fast day or not and the like, very little Torah-based thought goes into our meals. But that's a problem, simply because everything we do *ought* to be exalted on one level or another that way, since everything matters on a high, cosmic level (as we'd indicated). So G-d in His wisdom exhorted us to raise the level of our meals and snacks.

That's why we were enjoined by the Torah to recite Birkat Hamazon ("The Grace after Meals") as well as other blessings before and after eating. For by doing that we sanctify what we'd just eaten, we funnel it into the great rush of material things serving to help perfect the world, and we thus use our most basic urges in the service of G-d. (Understand of course that we couldn't ever hope to sanctify unholy things no matter how hard we try; it would be absurd to think we could recite a blessing over stolen food, for example, eat it, and walk away a better Jew.)

We do a lot of other routine things ever day, of course. And we're to sanctify them too along the same lines. Understand though that some things are more vital and potent than others in that process, depending on their makeup and on the place, time, and spirit in which they're used. But be that as it may, everything kosher, ethical, and just that we come in contact with that isn't already a part of the mitzvah-system can and ought to be used in G-d's service. It wouldn't do to use those sort of things on a distinctly mundane level or for merely superfluous purposes. Since that would only defy G-d's plans and defeat our own higher purposes.

We're thus also asked to recite a blessing before smelling aromatic things, when we see natural wonders, when we catch sight of the season's first blossoms, and more. For all goodness comes from G-d, everything good helps humankind when used in that spirit, and otherwise non-descript things become good and ultimately beneficial along the way.

(c) 2005 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 from here
Rabbi Yaakov Feldman has also translated and commented upon "The Path of the Just", and "The Duties of the Heart" (Jason Aronson Publishers). His new work on Maimonides' "The Eight Chapters" will soon be available from Yashar Books.
Rabbi Feldman also offers two free e-mail classes on www.torah.org entitled
"Spiritual Excellence" and "Ramchal"

R' Ashlag Ch. 36

... can be found at ...

Toras Rav Ashlag

R' Ashlag Ch. 35

... can be found at ...

Toras Rav Ashlag

"The Duties of the Heart" Gate Ten, Ch. 7 (Part 1)

"In Search of Spiritual Excellence"

-- A Reworking of Classical Mussar Texts

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

"The Duties of the Heart" Gate Ten, Ch. 7 (Part 1)

We come close now to the end of this gate and to our study of "The Duties of the Heart". And there's no better way than to depict the demeanor of those who do indeed love G-d, heart and soul.

As Ibn Pakudah portrays it, those who love Him to that extent "know their G–d and realize that He's pleased with them, that He guides, directs and sustains them, and that He controls and is in charge of everything". It's also clear to them that "all their activities and movements depend on G-d's decree and will, so they no longer prefer one thing to another and they trust instead that He'll choose the best and most appropriate course for them."

These great and lofty souls want nothing better than to "please Him with all their heart and mind, and they stop yearning for things of the world and its boastings" and "they look instead, both wholeheartedly and with the full force of their souls, for help and courage from G–d to keep their thoughts fixed on His service."

They likewise "praise and thank G–d for all their accomplishments .... But when their plans to do good don't come to fruition because of circumstances, they absolve themselves from them before G–d and decide to do them when they can, and they await the time G-d will prepare for them (to do them in fact)" -- unlike those of us who brood when our plans fall through and our best of intentions are waylaid.

Those who truly love G-d "forsake worldly affairs and the more rank concerns of their bodies ... , and only involve themselves in them when they have to" and they "apply their souls and hearts to Torah study and to the service of G–d in order to honor and aggrandize Him instead, and in order to observe His mitzvot."

How do such individuals appear to others? Are they otherworldly and odd looking? Not at all, we're told. "They may seem shy" at first, because they're more contemplative and focused than most of us, "(but) if you were to speak to them they'd prove to be sages. For they'd know the answer to whatever you might ask them", since they commune with G-d. And "you'd find them to be uncomfortable with and baffled by worldly matters, since their hearts are full of the love of G–d and they want none of the things others desire", but they'd certainly be welcoming and lucid.

There's even more to be said about them, though.

(c) 2005 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 from here
Rabbi Yaakov Feldman has also translated and commented upon "The Path of the Just", and "The Duties of the Heart" (Jason Aronson Publishers). His new work on Maimonides' "The Eight Chapters" will soon be available from Yashar Books.
Rabbi Feldman also offers two free e-mail classes on www.torah.org entitled
"Spiritual Excellence" and "Ramchal"

"The Great Redemption" (29)

... can be found at ...

Toras Ramchal

"The Way of G-d" Part 4, Ch.9, Paragraph 1

RAMCHAL

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

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

__________________________________________________

"The Way of G-d" Part 4, Ch.9, Paragraph 1

There would also have to be ways to serve G-d under unremarkable, matter-of-fact circumstances of course. After all, not everything we do is magical or embellished with religious aura. We're far more often eating and drinking, wearing clothes, walking or riding and the like than praying or studying Torah. So we'd obviously need to know how to worship G-d then, too. This chapter will dwell on that.

We actually encountered the principle behind the solution to this a long while back, when we spoke of our immortal souls being thrust into a material world and having to learn to contend with the inherent conflict (see 1:4:4). A lot of it comes to this.

Absolutely *nothing* is without its place and purpose; everything matters in G-d's wide world and contributes toward the ultimate goal of universal perfection. There's no denying the fact, though, that each and every person, place, and thing has fixed conditions under which it operates and a unique character, and that all of them have to somehow fit into the great pattern and makeup of the celestial forces that influence the cosmos.

And so specific mitzvot had to have been ordained for us for those times when we're not engaged in specifically spiritual activities that take all of this into account, that also anchor all of those activities onto the side of right rather than wrong, and that benefit and rectify things.

Know, too, that the effect our mundane actions have on the cosmos not only depend on their makeup, they also depend on their relationship to all earthly and otherworldly circumstances, and on the fact that everything is indeed progressing toward perfection. So obviously only G-d in His infinite wisdom could have provided us with mitzvot that take all of that into account.

(c) 2005 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 from here
Rabbi Yaakov Feldman has also translated and commented upon "The Path of the Just", and "The Duties of the Heart" (Jason Aronson Publishers). His new work on Maimonides' "The Eight Chapters" will soon be available from Yashar Books.
Rabbi Feldman also offers two free e-mail classes on www.torah.org entitled
"Spiritual Excellence" and "Ramchal"

R' Ashlag Ch. 34

... can be found at ...

Toras Rav Ashlag

"The Great Redemption" (28)

... can be found at ...

Toras Ramchal

R' Ashlag Ch. 33

... has been completed and can be found at ...

Toras Rav Ashlag

How To Fear And Revere G-d

-- This is the whole of the 25th chapter of "The Path of the Just" (Messilat Yesharim). It's not well known, probably because it's near the end and it's my sense that most readers are so (mistakenly) overwhelmed by the book that they never get all that far in it. In any event,to my mind this is the best statement of the why's and wherefore's of Yirat Hashem. I present it as something to ruminate about in your Yom Kippur preparations.
-- May the Ribbono Shel Olam grant us all a G'mar Chassima Tova; we'll meet again after Yom Tov (if not sooner) ...

"The only way to acquire this sort of fear is to contemplate two truisms: that G-d's Presence is found everywhere, and that He involves Himself in everything, great and small.

"Nothing is hidden from Him, either because of its vastness or its insignificance. Whether a thing is great or small, scant or imposing, He constantly sees and understands it. This is what the Torah refers to when it says, (Isaiah 6:3) "The whole world is full of His Glory"; (Jeremiah 23:24) "Do I not fill heaven and earth?"; (Psalms 113:5-6) "Who is like G-d our G-d, who dwells on high -- who lowers Himself to look upon the heavens and the earth?"; and, (Ibid. 138:6) "Though G-d is high up, He nonetheless notices the lowly ..."

"When it will become clear to you that wherever you are, you are standing before the Divine Presence, you will arrive at the fear and dread of stumbling in actions that would not be fitting before G-d's profound Glory. This is what is indicated by the teaching, (Avot 2:1) "Know what is above you -- a seeing eye, a hearing ear -- and that all of your actions are recorded in a book." Since the Holy One (blessed be He) involves Himself in everything, and He sees and hears everything, you can be sure of the fact that all actions make an impression and are recorded in a book for merit or blame.

"But this only touches you personally if you constantly reflect upon and observe it. This sort of thing is beyond our ordinary perceptions, and the mind can only grasp it after much meditation and contemplation. And even after it will have made an impression, that impression will be easily lost if you do not constantly work at it. Just as a lot of contemplation is the only way to attain constant fear of heaven, diversion of attention (either purposeful, or because of external interference) or lack of concentration is the way to lose it. And all diversion of attention is a taking away from the state of constant fear of heaven.

"This is why the Holy One (blessed be He) commanded all kings of Israel (Deuteronomy 17:19) to have the Torah "with him and to read it all the days of his life so that he might learn to fear G-d his G-d." This comes to teach that fear of heaven can only be learned with constant study. A careful analysis of the verse further indicates that it reads, "so that he might *learn* to fear G-d his G-d" rather than, "so that he might fear G-d his G-d." That is so because the fear of heaven does not come naturally.

"In fact, it is very unnatural to us, because of the limited, this-worldly nature of our senses. It only comes to us with study. And the only kind of study that brings it to us is constant diligence in Torah and its path, which involves reflecting and meditating upon this at all times -- when you are relaxing, traveling, lying down, and awakening."

The veracity of this -- that the Divine Presence is everpresent, and that we stand before G-d each and every moment -- must be set in your mind. Only then can you truly fear and revere G-d. King David would pray for this and say, (Psalms 86:11) "Teach me Your ways, G-d, so that I may walk in Your truth; unite my heart so that I might fear Your Name."

Translation (c) 1996 Yaakov Feldman

"The Great Redemption" (27)

... can be found at ...

Toras Ramchal

"The Gates of Repentance" continued

I began offering parts of "The Gates of Repentance"'s Gate Three here and continued here

"The Duties of the Heart" Gate Ten, Ch. 6

"In Search of Spiritual Excellence"

-- A Reworking of Classical Mussar Texts

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

"The Duties of the Heart" Gate Ten, Ch. 6

We can usually tell when you're in love with someone else -- but how can anyone tell when you're truly in love with G-d? There are ways. You'd be known to truly love G-d, to begin with, if you're always caught "renouncing things ... that distract you from (Him)".

You'd also be known to love Him when "the look of fear and dread of G–d is on your face" all the time, we're told. But don't get thrown by that, though, and ask how "fearing" or "dreading" G-d would indicate that you love Him, because there are two sorts of fear when it comes to G-d: "the fear of punishment and tribulation", which is a rather low and primitive one, and then there's "revering His glory, exaltedness and might", and it's the highest level one could ever attain to, as well as "the most profound form of longing for Him" there is. It's the latter that's closely tied-in with truly adoring G-d (see the introduction to this gate).

There are many other signs of such love. One is "it being one and the same to you whether people praise or insult you for fulfilling G–d's will"; another is your willingness to sacrifice everything in order to fulfill His wishes; another is "your having the name of G–d on your lips in praise, gratitude, and exultation all the time"; another "is your making everything you do or say ... contingent upon G-d's will"; another "is your guiding and instructing others in how to serve G–d", which is so important because "if you only improve your own soul, your merits will be small, but if you improve your soul and the soul of others as well" you'd have done something momentous; another sign "is the fact that your (only) source of happiness and joy is the merits you'd have accrued" and the closeness to G-d that would result; and another "is your prostrating yourself at night in deep devotional prayer", for after all, isn't nighttime an occasion for "lovers to devote themselves to the one they love"?.

And, finally, a clear sign of your loving G-d "is your joy and glee in G–d Himself, in the knowledge of Him, in the longing to please Him, in your delight in His Torah, and in your affinity with all (others) who worship Him".

(c) 2005 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 from here
Rabbi Yaakov Feldman has also translated and commented upon "The Path of the Just", and "The Duties of the Heart" (Jason Aronson Publishers). His new work on Maimonides' "The Eight Chapters" will soon be available from Yashar Books.
Rabbi Feldman also offers two free e-mail classes on www.torah.org entitled
"Spiritual Excellence" and "Ramchal"

R' Ashlag Ch. 33 (sect. 1)

Chapter Thirty-Three:

Rabbi Yehudah Ashlag's "Introduction to the Zohar"

-- as translated and commented on by Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

__________________________________________________


1.

"That now leaves us with the sixth inquiry to explain."
-- See 3:4.

"(As we'd stated), our sages said that all the upper worlds as well as this corporeal world were created for man’s sake alone. But isn’t that strange? After all, why would G-d bother to create all that for man, who’s so insignificant and hasn’t a hair’s-breadth of worth in comparison to all we see before us in this world -- to say nothing of the upper worlds. And besides, why would man need (for there to be) such august and hallowed worlds?"

(c) 2005 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 from here
Rabbi Yaakov Feldman has also translated and commented upon "The Path of the Just", and "The Duties of the Heart" (Jason Aronson Publishers). His new work on Maimonides' "The Eight Chapters" will soon be available from Yashar Books.
Rabbi Feldman also offers two free e-mail classes on www.torah.org entitled
"Spiritual Excellence" and "Ramchal"

"The Way of G-d" Part 4, Ch.7, Paragraph 6

[Note: I haven't been including this series here for a while because I was sending out things to Torah.org that had already been sent and were only being resent to keep things in chronological order. This completes Ch. 7; we're drawing near to the end of "The way of G-d".
And yes -- I finally got how to do links. Have mercy on the simple minded ...]

RAMCHAL

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

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

__________________________________________________

"The Way of G-d" Part 4, Ch.7, Paragraph 6

A distinct and unique cast of light shines upon each Holy Day that sets it apart from the others on a spiritual level; and each Holy Day likewise commemorates an important event that sets it apart historically too, as we'd seen (see 4:7:6). We're thus enjoined to read-out special selections from the Torah each Holy Day that touch upon all that -- aside from the regular Torah readings we do on Shabbat and on certain weekdays.

For we're to read-out from the Torah on a regular basis because it was granted to us to be studied both publicly and privately, and to thus be made an integral part of our lives; and we also read it out so as to be nourished by its great light (see 4:2:2). So we recite the relevant readings on the Holy Days to bolster our connection to the Torah, to bask in the light that irradiates from the words, and to recapture the spirit of the days involved.

And so on Passover we read about the events surrounding the redemption, on Shavuot we recount the granting of the Torah, on Sukkot we retell how we'd lived in booths on the way to the Land of Israel, and the like.

(c) 2005 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 from here
Rabbi Yaakov Feldman has also translated and commented upon "The Path of the Just", and "The Duties of the Heart" (Jason Aronson Publishers). His new work on Maimonides' "The Eight Chapters" will soon be available from Yashar Books.
Rabbi Feldman also offers two free e-mail classes on www.torah.org entitled
"Spiritual Excellence" and "Ramchal"

'The Great Redemption" (26)

... can be found at ...

Toras Ramchal

"The Gates of Repentance"

I've begun offering the second gate of "The Gates of Repentance" (Shaarei Teshuvah) at
Der Alter

R' Ashlag Ch. 32

... has been completed and can be found at ...

Toras Rav Ashlag

R' Ashlag Ch. 32 (sect. 1)

[Once again, I'll transfer the whole thing over to ravashlag.blogspot.com once its finished.]

Chapter Thirty-Two:

Rabbi Yehudah Ashlag's "Introduction to the Zohar"

-- as translated and commented on by Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

__________________________________________________

32.

1.

"The third stage (encompasses the period of time in which) we serve G-d by (observing His) Torah and mitzvot with the intent to bestow rather than be rewarded. Doing that purifies our selfish ratzon l’kabel and transforms it into a ratzon l’hashpia -- a willingness to bestow. And the more we purify our ratzon l’kabel, the more worthy and ready will we be to receive the five parts of the soul termed N. R. N. C. Y. (in their entirety)."
-- N. R. N. C. Y. stands for Nephesh, Ruach, Neshama, Chaya, and Yechida, the five parts of the soul in ascending order. Though Rabbi Ashlag often explains them in another context, in general terms the Nephesh is that part of the soul that's most proximate to the body and is what keeps it alive at bottom. The Ruach is where our sense of self lies, and it's associated most especially with the emotions. The Neshama is the root of the above and their source, and it's tied-in most especially with the mind. The Chaya is the root and source of the Neshama and is out of our experience; it binds "heaven" to "earth" in that it's the intermediary between Nephesh-Ruach-Neshama and the utterly G-dly Yechida. And the Yechida is the point at which all the elements of the soul and G-d's presence join together ("b'yachad").
-- While we've all been granted a Nephesh and Ruach from the first, not everyone has a Neshama, Chaya, and/or Yechida. In addition, we'd need to merit an "inner" Nephesh and Ruach aside from the "outer" ones we're all born with if we're to succeed. All that depends on how we fulfill the mitzvah-system in this life and to what degree we're selfless about it.

"For those five levels are only applicable to the willingness to bestow and they can’t be attired in our body as long as the ratzon l’kabel in it holds sway. For it’s different from it and indeed its opposite. For the notions of being attired (in something) and having affinity with it go hand in hand."
-- When some one thing is "attired" in another one, the two are intimate with each other as a consequence and thus share an affinity. If you recall, we spoke of affinities above (see Ch. 8). In short it comes to this: when two entities are so identical that each loves what the other loves and hates what the other hates, they in fact love and are “attached” to one another, and thus share an affinity. Rabbi Ashlag's point is that once we earn a willingness to bestow, our conjoined body and soul come to love and hate the same things and are in synch, and we're able to earn a full N. R. N. C. Y. as a consequence.

"So, when you achieve a complete willingness to bestow without the need for anything for yourself (in return), you’ll have attained an affinity with your sublime N. R. N. C. Y., which extend from their roots in the Infinite in the first era, then extend through the Holy A.B.Y.A. to then become attired in your being by degrees."
-- See Ch's 10, 12, 14, and 15 most especially for an explanation of this.

(c) 2005 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 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 Great Redemption" (25)

... can be found at ...

Toras Ramchal

On This Crisp, Early Elul Morning ...

An early crisp Elul morning like this one moves me to teshuva. But not teshuva for things done wrong, though they're there; and not for insensitivities, though they're there, too; but rather for my overarching error of always forgotting the point of it all, my tachlis. For as I'd word it in the spirit of the anonymous sefer B'levavi Mishkan Eboneh, "Tachlis d'chayi, deveikus b'Bori" -- My whole raison d'etre is to adhere onto and fully sense G-d's Presence.

So I present this translation of Rabbeinu Yonah's prayer for teshuvah in that vein.

"G-d Almighty, I’ve been sinning accidentally, deliberately and rebelliously from the day I was born to today. But my heart has now propelled me upward, and my spirit has persuaded me to return to You honestly, with the best of intentions and completely; with all my heart, soul and might. In order to 'admit and let go', to cast off all my acts of defiance; and to restore heart and soul, and be earnest in my devotion to You.

"G-d Almighty, You who open Your arms to accept tshuvah and help those who come to cleanse themselves: Please open Your arms to accept my full tshuvah. Help me be firm in my devotion to You, to resist the Antagonist who confronts me cunningly and wants to kill me, and to defy his command over me. Keep him from the whole of me, fling him into the depths of the sea, and order him never to set himself against me to antagonize me. See to it that I go in Your ways by replacing my stone heart with one of flesh.

"G-d Almighty, hear out Your servant’s prayers and pleas, and accept my tshuvah. Don’t let any of my accidental or deliberate sins obstruct my tshuvah or prayer. And allow a sincere Advocate to offer my prayers to You, at Your place of honor. But if because of the number and seriousness of my sins I haven’t a sincere Advocate, then dig down from beneath Your place of honor Yourself and accept my tshuvah. See to it that I never return wanting from before You, Who hears out prayers."

(c) 2005 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

R' Ashlag Ch. 31

... has been completed and can be found at ...

Toras Rav Ashlag

"The Duties of the Heart" Gate Ten, Ch. 5

"In Search of Spiritual Excellence"

-- A Reworking of Classical Mussar Texts

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

"The Duties of the Heart" Gate Ten, Ch. 5

"Very many things prevent us from loving G–d" we're warned," including -- though not limited to -- our not meeting the requirements for it we'd cited before.

For there's something else that foils the dream of loving G-d "so very mightily and powerfully that (your) soul so affixes itself to the love of Him that (you're) as absorbed in Him and (are) as love-sick (for Him) as someone who ... couldn't stop thinking of a woman (he was) in love with" (Maimonides, Hilchot Teshuvah 10:3).

What ultimately prevents us from loving Him so are any aversions we might have "to those who (themselves) love Him" and any respect we'd have "for those who hate Him", as Ibn Pakudah describes it. That's to say that if we either admire wrongdoers for whatever reason, or somehow or another are repelled by people who serve Him well and love Him truly, then we're unlikely to love G-d Himself, who's displeased with wrong and loves righteousness.

But don't minimize how real those feelings are. For as the sensitive soul knows only too well, there are times when something deep in the untoward part of our beings is somehow bothered by good people for one small reason or another and all but enamored with bad ones. Those who want nothing better than to love G-d would root that out of their systems and realize that -- despite any minor failings -- those who love G-d should be our heroes, and that we should deplore those who "hate" (better said, dismiss or ignore) Him.

(c) 2005 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 Great Redemption" (24)

... can be found at ...

Toras Ramchal

"The Great Redemption" (23)

... can be found at ...

Toras Ramchal

"The Great Redemption" (22)

... can be found at ...

Toras Ramchal

“The Point of It All”

To my mind, one of the more pithy and fecund statements of our raison d’etre is Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto’s following remark.

“The root of Divine service lies in your constantly engaging yourself with your Creator” he says, “and comprehending that you were created to attach yourself onto G-d, and were placed in this world to prevail over your yetzer harah, subjugate yourself to G-d through reason, overturn your physical cravings and inclinations, and to apply all your activities to this end without ever wavering from it” ("The Way of G-d" 1:4:6).

I maintain that it’s worthwhile reading this Jewish “mission statement” again and again, and to use it as a gauge for our being on or off the mark in our life. So I thought I’d offer these insights into just what we’re being told here in the hope that we’ll indeed draw from it regularly and grow accordingly.

“The root of Divine service lies in your constantly engaging yourself with your Creator...” Something very, very deep in the human soul somehow finds great satisfaction in *serving* -- in being subordinate to something or someone, in fulfilling another’s wishes, and in being relieved of authority. Something else very, very deep in the human soul, though, is only happy in fact when it seizes authority. Ironically, though, the part of the soul that seeks power is often *over*-powered by the part that runs from it. And the whole of our beings is best satisfied (both in Heaven and on earth) when the need to serve holds sway.

The struggle between those two forces, though, is real. And it goes to the very core of every ambivalent feeling anyone has ever had. The greatest resolution of all human ambivalence thus lies in our *allowing* our power-hungry side to acquiesce to our need to serve. And the greatest Entity we could ever subordinate our beings to is G-d. The realization of that leads to the sort of “Divine service” spoken of here.

As it’s said, that service “lies in your constantly engaging yourself with your Creator“. How stunning a revelation! We’re to “engage”, i.e., experience, interact with, and subject ourselves to G-d Almighty. This, too, is a very deep and latent human dream hardly spoken of in our day and age. Few among us dream of engaging with G-d in our day-to-day life; and fewer yet are those who have dreamt that since they were young, and thus tally their successes and failures in life on that basis.

Nonetheless you and I were “created to attach ... onto G-d“ at bottom. And to thus enjoy the sort of familiarity just alluded to -- and then some. For being *attached* to G-d doesn’t just come to “encountering”, “interacting” with, and “subjecting” yourself to Him in the sort of ways we indicated. It also involves being His confidant, if you will; and accepting Him alone as your confidant (which goes even deeper yet).

Our quote then goes on to say that it’s important to realize in light of the fact that your deepest aspirations actually hinge upon such a degree of intimacy with the Creator that “you were placed in this world” specifically, with all its noise and clutter, in order “to prevail over your yetzer harah“. That calls for explanation.

What characterizes our lives in this world is one struggle after another followed by one more-or-less-of a resolution after another. We’re taught, though, that that’s not only true of the *outer* world, which is to say, life “out there”. It’s also true of our *inner* world, where we experience other sorts of struggles and quasi resolutions. That inner struggle-resolution paradigm is coined the battle between one’s “yetzer harah” and “yetzer hatov”.

Our “yetzer harah” is usually taken to be our untoward, feral impulses; while our “yetzer hatov” is usually taken to be our G-dly, devout impulses. But in the context of our quote, our yetzer harah is our above-mentioned need to take control, and our yetzer hatov is our need to acquiesce. And while the need to acquiesce (our yetzer hatov) often overpowers the need to take control (our yetzer harah) on its own, as we said above, it’s up to us to set out to *consciously* “prevail” over that need to take control. We were thus “placed in this world” of discord and conflict (control and acquiescence) to do just that. For by doing that we manage to “subjugate (ourselves) to G-d” rather than try to have Him subjugate Himself to *us*, if you will, as we all do.

We’re then told that we’re to do that “through reason“ rather than through brute determination and resolve. For “reason” doesn’t only entail conscious thoughts and conclusions. It also includes solid and heartfelt realizations of what’s holy and what’s not; what serves one’s ultimate aim in life, and what thwarts it. Thus Luzzatto’s point is that we’re to strive for such realizations and act on them.

He then goes on to say that we only manage to do *that* by “overturn(ing our) physical cravings and inclinations“ and replacing them with G-dly, holy ones. That again suggests that we’re to consciously prevail over our need to take control, as spoken of before. But his point now is that not only are we to do that consciously within our beings. We’re also to do it on a practical level, in the world. By teaching ourselves to yearn to succeed at G-dly things just as much as we now yearn to succeed at unG-dly ones.

And the only way to do *that*, we’re then taught, is to “apply all (our) activities to this end” alone “without ever wavering“. Which is to say, to make holiness our aim and greatest dream. May G-d grant us the capacity to do just that -- and may we take Him up on the offer!

(c) 2005 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

"The Duties of the Heart" Gate Ten, Ch. 4

"In Search of Spiritual Excellence"

-- A Reworking of Classical Mussar Texts

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

"The Duties of the Heart" Gate Ten, Ch. 4

"But is it actually humanly possible to love G–d?" Ibn Pakudah asks at this point, despite the instructions he'd given us in the last chapter. The question is certainly legitimate. After all, we and He are utterly disparate; and while it's said that "opposites attract", it doesn't seem true of such utter opposites as ourselves and G-d Almighty. Yet Ibn Pakudah affirms that it's indeed plausible for us to say that we can love Him -- as much as is humanly possible.

He posits that there are actually three degrees to which we humans can fully love G-d to the best of our abilities: with what we own, with what we're comprised of, or with what we are. For we can dedicate everything we own to His service, we can imperil our health and well-being for His name's sake, or we can be willing to relinquish our very lives if that's somehow appropriate (though it's vitally important to recall that that's only very rarely called for by our faith; and any willingness to go so far is more a gauge of one's love rather than a requirement of it).

And indeed some rare souls were willing to do all of that if they had to, to mark how much they loved G-d. In fact, our forefather Abraham demonstrated as much, as well as others of his stature. So we see that it *is* humanly possible to truly love G-d. But it calls for G-d's direct and outright intercedance, since it's normally beyond human capacity and all but unnatural, so few of us have what it takes.

Hence it's clear that loving G-d isn't simply yearning for Him or venerating Him affectionately as we might imagine (though that's certainly laudible). It's far more comprehensive than that. But most of us can express a great degree of love for G-d by being generous with our means and by extending our spiritual reach, as well as by taking advantage of the following.

For as Ibn Pakudah informs us, "even if we express a love for G–d ... in the expectation of getting something in return for it, or because we fear (retribution) in this world or the world to come (if we don't) ... but we (still and all) try to fulfill mitzvot all the time, then G-d will strengthen us and help us arrive at true love."

(c) 2005 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 Great Redemption" (21)

... can be found at ...

Toras Ramchal

R' Ashlag 31 (sect. 1)

[Note: I'll transfer the whole chapter over to Ravashlag.blogspot.com once it's completed. This is only section 1 of two sections.]

__________________________________________________

Chapter Thirty-One:

Rabbi Yehudah Ashlag's "Introduction to the Zohar"

-- as translated and commented on by Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

__________________________________________________

31.

1.

-- Rabbi Ashlag now cites a dictum that seems out of place on the surface. But as we’ll quickly see, it lends credence to what’s to follow.

"It’s written in Tikkunei Zohar regarding the verse, 'The leech has two daughters (named) Give (and) Give’ (Proverbs 30:15), that 'the leech stands for Gehennom where all the wrongdoers stranded there cry out Give! Give! like dogs; Give us all the riches of this world and The World to Come!' (Tikkunim Chadashim 97B)".
-- That’s to say, since our sages argue that it’s greedy, lowly, and wrongful to want to be fulfilled on both a worldly and otherworldly level, it would seem wrong to foster both a material and a spiritual ratzon l’kabel as spoken of in the last chapter, wouldn’t it?

"And yet it’s a very much higher level than the first."
-- That is, even though acquiring a spiritual ratzon l’kabel is an amplification and expansion of our inborn material ratzon l’kabel, and would thus seem to be an even more inherently selfish and lowly desire, it’s actually loftier.

"For aside from acquiring a full measure of ratzon l’kabel and using it for all the material things we’d need to engage in, in our Divine service (as we're asked to do), (we're also asked to realize a spiritual ratzon l’kabel because achieving) that level is what leads us to (achieving) the level of (doing things) altruistically."
-- We're taught here that while we've indeed been created selfish and self-serving, that's not necessarily a bad thing. What's asked of us is to use that inclination for good ends, though, and to thus set out to accrue things as we're prone to for *G-dly purposes*. And so we'd do well to set aside the fine foods we crave for Shabbat, when we serve G-d by purposely eating well and heartily. We're then asked to transcend that, too, by acquiring the spiritual ratzon l’kabel we spoke of before. But, how do we get from one to the other?

"As our sages said (about doing that), 'one should always (initially) observe Torah and Mitzvot for self-serving purposes (literally, 'not for its name’s sake'), since by doing that we (eventually) come to observe it for altruistic reasons (literally, '*for* its name’s sake') (Pesachim 50B)."
-- Our sages had long grappled with the tension between the very-human inclination to do things -- both holy *and* profane -- for self-serving purposes, and the Torah ideal of being altruistic. Accepting the reality of the tension, they decided that the solution lies in using the flawed inclination to achieve the ideal one -- in observing Torah and Mitzvot for self-serving purposes at first *so as to eventually observe it for altruistic ones*. It's often equated with rewarding a child with a trinket when he or she does something important and noble on the assumption that the child will continue doing those sorts of things later on, on his own, once he understands how inherently important it is to be principled.
-- In our context that comes to this. As we've learned, it's vitally important for us to foster a willingness to bestow (which is the ideal; see 11:2), yet we're born with a contradictory very human ratzon l’kabel. So, how do we achieve a willingness to bestow? Again, by using the flawed inclination to achieve the ideal one: by indeed observing Torah and Mitzvot for self-serving purposes, but with an eye toward eventually observing it for altruistic ones. And by then striving to only want to bestow.
-- Understand though, as Rabbi Ashlag emphasizes any number of times, it’s actually impossible for us to turn our natures around like that on our own. The only way we could ever achieve a willingness to bestow is with G-d’s direct intercedence. What’s asked of us to do is to pray for that to happen, and to fulfill His Mitzvot and learn His Torah for that end, and for no other.

“That explains why this level which we (only) achieve after we’re 13 is deemed holy.”
-- ... even though it would seem at first to be inherently selfish. For while it’s indeed a ratzon l’kabel, it’s still rooted in holiness and it will eventually lead to an altruistic willingness to only bestow (see 30:2).

(c) 2005 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 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 Great Redemption" (20)

... can be found at ...

Toras Ramchal

Elul and "The Gates of Repentance"

Please follow my postings of part of Rabbeinu Yonah's Shaarei Tshuvah.

Der Alter

"The Duties of the Heart" Gate Ten, Ch. 3

"In Search of Spiritual Excellence"

-- A Reworking of Classical Mussar Texts

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

"The Duties of the Heart" Gate Ten, Ch. 3

But, honestly now -- how do we ever come to love G–d sincerely and altruistically on a day-to-day level?

There are a number of prerequisites, we're taught (each one of which is a virtual career onto itself, the truth be known). We'd first need to acknowledge G-d's existence in our lives in a heartfelt way, dedicate everything we do to Him, serve Him for His name's sake alone, and to surrender ourselves to Him as well as to those who know and worship Him.

We'd then have to be introspective about our obligations to G–d and about how often He conceals our iniquities from sight, and about how patient and forgiving He is; and we'd then need to delve into the books of the prophets and the ancients to see how they came to love Him, then to reflect upon G-d's wonders in the world.

Once we'd done all that, we're told, "as well as having abstained from the pleasures and desires of the world; having fathomed the Creator's greatness, essence, veracity and exaltedness; having reflected upon our own relative worthlessness, insignificance ... in the face of G-d's abounding goodness and great kindness" –– we'll come to love Him "wholeheartedly and with genuine purity of soul, and to long for Him vigorously and ardently".

One sure and more practical way to arrive at so exalted a level, we're told, is to foster a sense of awe of Him in our daily lives, and to constantly remind ourselves that He oversees everything we do from the inside out, guides us mercifully, and draws near to us in love.

Do that, we're assured, and "you couldn't help but turn to Him in your heart and mind genuinely, and in perfect faith", and "you'll never desert G–d in your thoughts". Do *that*, "and He'll never depart from your eyes. He'll be with you when you're alone, and dwell with you" wherever you are. "A room full of people would seem empty to you" since you'd be facing G-d, "and an empty room would seem not to be" because you wouldn't be alone at all.
(c) 2005 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 Great Redemption" (19)

... can be found at ...

Toras Ramchal

Another new blog -- RAMCHAL.BLOGSPOT.COM

I'm also happy to report that I've moved some of the work I've done on R' Moshe Chaim Luzzatto (RAMCHAL) to the citation below (another new blog), for ease of reference. You'll thus find "The Great Redemption" (18) there. The other chapters will follow, please G-d, and you'll be informed here about them when they're posted.

Toras Ramchal

My New Blog -- RAVASHLAG.BLOGPOST.COM

I'm happy to report that I've moved all of the work I've done on R' Ashlag to the citation below (a new blog), for ease of reference. You'll thus find the end of Ch. 30 there. The other chapters will follow, please G-d, and you'll be informed here about them when they're posted.

Link: Toras Rav Ashlag

I Take Nothing For Granted I Take Everything For Granted: Tisha B'Av 5765

______________________________________________________

I'll be on vacation until the week of August 29th.

______________________________________________________

Some of the best among us can and have seen the effulgent future in a shady present. For once Rabban Gamaliel, R. Eleazar ben Azariah, R. Joshua and R. Akiba "were coming up to Jerusalem together ... (when) they saw a fox coming out of the Holy of Holies. Rabban Gamaliel, R. Eleazar ben Azariah, and R. Joshua wept but R. Akiva seemed happy. Why are you happy, they asked him?"

"He then said to them, But why are you weeping? They said, A place about which it was said, 'And the common man that draws near will be put to death' (Numbers I, 51) has become the haunt of foxes, so should we not weep?"

"Said R. Akiva to them: That's why I'm happy!"

"For it's written, 'And I will take to Me faithful witnesses to record, Uriah the priest and Zechariah the Son of Jeberechiah' (Isaiah VIII, 2). Now what connection has Uriah the priest with Zechariah? (After all,) Uriah lived during the times of the first Temple, while Zechariah lived during the second Temple; yet Scripture linked the (later) prophecy of Zechariah with the (earlier) prophecy of Uriah. In the (earlier) prophecy (in the days) of Uriah it is written, 'Therefore shall Zion for your sake be ploughed as a field' (Micah III, 12). In Zechariah it is written, 'Thus says the L-rd of Hosts, There shall yet old men and old women sit in the broad places of Jerusalem' (Zechariah VIII, 4).

And then R. Akiva makes his point which is this: "as long as Uriah's (threatening) prophecy hadn't been fulfilled, I had misgivings lest Zechariah's prophecy might not be; (but) now that Uriah's prophecy *has* been fulfilled, it's quite certain that Zechariah's prophecy also is to be!" (Makkot 24b, Soncino Translation, with emendations).

More than seeing the proverbial cup half-filled rather than half-empty, Rabbi Akiva was able to envision a cup where none stood, and to somehow or another have the wherewithal to be certain it was there. He was able to live with the irony of beingness within nothingness, life within death.

The psalmist was able to live with a different sort, but an irony notwithstanding. "What is man, that You (G-d) are mindful of him? And the son of man, that you visit him?" he asked, given man's limitations. He knew the ironic answer: man is not only incidental and petty, he's also great and commanding, for indeed G-d had "made him a little lower than the angels, and crowned him with glory and honor; (had) made him to have dominion over the works of (His) hands; (and had also) put all things under his feet: all sheep and oxen, and the beasts of the field; the bird of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatever passes through the sea's courseways" (Psalms 8: 5-9).

Jeremiah was able to live with irony after he depicted this dark and horrible scene we shudder at when we recite Eicha on Tisha B'Av:

"How the L-rd has covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in His anger, cast down from heaven to the earth the beauty of Israel, and remembered not His footstool in the day of His anger! The L-rd has swallowed all the habitations of Jacob without pity; He has thrown down in His wrath the strongholds of the daughter of Judah; He has brought them down to the ground; He has profaned the kingdom and its princes. He has cut off in His fierce anger all the horn of Israel; He has drawn back His right hand from before the enemy, and He has burned against Jacob like a flaming fire, which devours its surrounding. He has bent His bow like an enemy; He stood with His right hand as an adversary, and He has slain all that were pleasant to the eye in the tent of the daughter of Zion; He has poured out His fury like fire."

'The L-rd was like an enemy; He has swallowed up Israel, He has swallowed up all her palaces; He has destroyed His strongholds, and has increased in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation. And He has broken down His booth, as if it were a garden; He has destroyed His place of the assembly; the L-rd has caused the appointed feasts and Sabbaths to be forgotten in Zion, and has spurned in His angry indignation king and priest. The L-rd has cast off His altar, He has loathed His sanctuary, He has given to the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces; they have made a noise in the house of the L-rd, as in the day of an appointed feast. The L-rd has determined to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion; He has stretched out a line, He has not restrained His hand from destroying; He has caused the rampart and the wall to lament; they languish together. Her gates are sunk into the ground; He has destroyed and broken her bars; her king and her princes are among the nations; the Torah is no more; her prophets also did not find a vision from the L-rd. The elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground, and keep silence; they have cast up dust upon their heads; they have girded themselves with sackcloth; the virgins of Jerusalem bow down their heads to the ground. My eyes are spent with tears, my bowels are troubled, my liver is poured upon the earth, because of the destruction of the daughter of my people; because the children and the babies faint in the streets of the city. They say to their mothers, Where is grain and wine? When they faint like wounded men in the streets of the city, when their soul was poured out on their mothers’ bosom" (from Lamentations 2).

For Jeremiah wrote later on in Eicha, "This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope. The grace of the L-rd has not ceased, and His compassion does not fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. The L-rd is my portion, says my soul; therefore will I hope in him. The L-rd is good to those who wait for him, to the soul that seeks him. It is good that a man should quietly hope for the salvation of the L-rd. It is good for a man that He bear the yoke in His youth. Let him sit alone and in silence, because He has taken it upon him. Let him puts His mouth in the dust; there may yet be hope. Let him offer His cheek to him who strikes him; let him take His fill of insults. For the L-rd will not cast off for ever; but though He cause grief, yet will He have compassion according to the abundance of His grace" (from Lamentations 3).

Somehow he was able to encompass death and life, gloom and glee in one moment. But, how?

The anonymous author of a stunning and remarkable contemporary work, "Kol Demama Daka" seems to have the answer.

He declares that we Jews have to learn to live with a constant ironic mix of certainty and doubt in our religious lives: to be confident that G-d has His plans and knows what's right, but to doubt the details because man -- with all his greatness and meaness intact -- will invariably interfere with them, given his free choice, and muddy up the works.

For while everything that happens, happens for the good indeed (see Berachot 60B), we can never be quite sure in the moment.

May G-d grant us all the means to live with the irony that is our times; and to see the radiant, throbbing, undulant red, red light in the black, black darkness before our eyes.

(c) 2005 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman