"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"