Monday, January 09, 2006

R' Ashlag Ch. 45 (Part 1)

Chapter Forty-Five:

Rabbi Yehudah Ashlag's "Introduction to the Zohar"

-- as translated and commented on by Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

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45.

1.

"This Nephesh-light is termed 'the holy light of mineralness of the world of Asiyah' because it corresponds to the pure mineralness of the ratzon l’kabel in the human body."
-- We’d just learned that it’s the point in your heart that’s the mineral aspect of your soul (44:2). Rabbi Ashlag is now terming that point “the holy light of the mineralness of the world of Asiyah” to indicate the fact that despite it’s essential, rank mundanity and mineralness, and its alignment with the basest expression of the ratzon l’kabel, it’s nevertheless holy since it’s an aspect of the world of Asiyah (which, while the lowest world indeed, is inarguably an aspect of pure G-dliness).

"Its light shines (i.e., functions) on a spiritual level much the way mineralness does in the physical world, whose details don’t move about on their own but rather in general and in ways that encompass all of its details equally."
-- That is, just as inanimate objects are .. inanimate ... and only move on a molecular level and perhaps from place to place as a whole, and then only when provoked by external forces, the light of the mineralness of the world of Asiyah likewise only functions to those minimal degrees.

(c) 2006 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

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

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