The specter of a new, sticky, and torrid ruach hatumah in the world at large, the Jewish world, and in myself, stewing away and gnawing at the pot

Sometimes the heart is distracted enough from itself to actually be inspired to think of G-d and want to return to Him in love. Other times though, from quite another angle, it's drawn to itself so much that it's also inspired to think of G-d and wants to return to Him in love.

In any event, I'm sorely aware of the specter of a new, sticky, and torrid ruach hatumah in the world at large, the Jewish world, and in myself, stewing away and gnawing at the pot. In light of that, and in anticipation of our being freed from bondage soon and getting set to receive G-d's Torah, I thought I'd offer an intermittent detailed meditation on the Introduction to Moshe Chaim Luzzatto's Messilat Yesharim ("The Path of the Just") to help us along the road of teshuvah.

This is written in the spirit of the statement made by HaRav Eliyahu Lopian zt"l to the effect that Mussar is the art of enabling "the heart (to) feel what the mind understands (already)" (Lev Eliyahu, vol. 2 , p. 287).

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A Slow Reading of The Introduction to "The Path of the Just"

1.

"I have not written this text to teach people what they do not already know, but rather to remind them of what they do know and are well aware of. For what will be found in the great majority of what I have to say are things that are already known, and about which there is no doubt; but because they are so well-known and the truth of them is so self-evident, they are often hidden or completely forgotten."

-- There's nothing so bold ... yet so humdrum ... as truth said outright. After all, there are only a handful of truths, so when they're simply declared and set out verbatim we're thunderstruck and thrown by them at first, but then distracted, and easily bemused and made groggy by them. Ramchal noticed that, but needed to say the truth of who we are and what's expected of us again (as it must be said in every generation), so he dared to say it pointblank.

-- Many commentaries have been written in Hebrew on "The Path of the Just" by now and they all try to explain what Ramchal meant and how his comments compare and contrast with what he himself or others before and after him said about the same thing. But that's all a diversion, to my mind. The only things needed to be said about "The Path of the Just" are the very things that will make it come alive to each generation (which I tried to do in my own work on it, and which this meditation will expand upon).

-- His point now is, then, that we're to sit ourselves down now again and listen closely: to take in anew what we cannot deny.

Translation of text (c) 1996 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman
Original comments (c) 2005 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman