R' Ashlag Ch. 18 (sect. 2)

Rabbi Yehudah Ashlag's "Introduction to the Zohar"

-- as translated and commented on by Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

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2.

“And (we can now understand too that) it's our eternal nature that (actually) made it necessary for the husk that is our body (i.e., self) which was granted us (as the means) to serve (G-d) to be mortal and ephemeral. For had it remained in a state of eternity -- G-d forbid! -- we'd have been separated from the Eternal forever!”

-- Now, the notion that we'd have been separated from the Eternal forever had our essences remained in its primal state in the first era for eternity seems odd. After all, wouldn't we have just remained conjoined with Him?

-- But as we learned in Ch. 15, all three era are interdependent; so, again, era one needed era two in order to eventually bring about era three.

“For as we said in Ch. 13, the tsurah of our body (i.e., our self) which is (at bottom nothing but) the willingness to accept things for our own purposes (as opposed to our essence, which is conjoined with G-d's Being and thus above that), wasn't part of the (ultimate) intentions for eternity. For we're already in the state we'll be in, in the third era”.

(c) 2005 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

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

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