"The Great Redemption" (57)

... can be found at ...

Toras Ramchal

Ma'amar HaGeulah (The Visitation, Ch. 5)

Ma'amar HaGeulah

-- "The Great Redemption", a reworking of Ramchal's "Ma'amar HaGeulah"

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

__________________________________________________

"The Great Redemption"

The Visitation: Ch. 5

It's important to realize that only the *inner* aspect of things will begin to heal in the course of The Visitation -- not the everyday and tangible parts of things. For as Ramchal put it, "there are inner and outer aspects" of the Supernal Luminaries under discussion, which are "termed their 'body' and 'soul'" (see para. 19).

The point is that while a lot will have gone on internally and on a soul-level in the course of The Visitation, not a lot would have been accomplished yet "on the ground" so to speak. And as we know, it's only by means of a fusion of body and soul that anything everlasting can be accomplished (as will be the case in The Resurrection of the Dead, though that's beyond the subject at hand).

That explains why we'll get discouraged after the initial stirrings of hope and teshuvah will have subsided, and why we'll lose the inspiration, spirit, and drive that had come upon us for a time. For what we we're hoping for wouldn't have come to full flower.

In any event, Ramchal explains what will set off those inner-reparations alone by that point in Kabbalistic terms. As he put it, while "The Visitation will emanate from (the sephirah of) Yesod, ... The Remembrance (which will come later on) will emanate from (the Sephira of) Tipheret" (see para. 20).

What that means to say is that Yesod, the Sephira that's right above Malchut (the last Sephira, and the one associated with the Shechina), will indeed be reconnected to the Shechina by that point, but that's all. Tipheret -- which is appreciably higher and deeper than Yesod -- will only have been *stirred* rather than activated.

Nonetheless, Ramchal offers that despite the limitations of the above, certain important things will indeed be activated by this, the fifth, stage of The Visitation. Let's see what.

The Zohar (2:95b) tells us that at a certain point in time some auspicious souls were filched by the forces of evil who "refused to set them free" (see para. 22). They have dwelt on certain hills and mountains since then. Ramchal informs us that they'll be set free in the course of The Visitation "with the help of the upsurge of light that will shine upon them" then (ibid.).

That upsurge will be generated by the first messiah, Moshiach Ben Yoseph, we're taught. For he'll "leap over all the mountains and hills those souls are found in" and grant them -- as well as other very great souls (see para. 23) -- the capacity to leave, "in order to be amended and repaired ... so the world can (eventually) bask in great and mighty light" (ibid.). Those recondite hills and mountains are said to be "the husk’s dark mountains and pitch black hills" (see para. 21) -- regions that no good soul would ever want to be left behind in.

Moshiach Ben Yoseph won't stay around for long, though; as "he’ll have to leave before the husks sense" his presence (ibid.). But he'll be there long enough to accomplish that task, and he'll reappear later on.

(c) 2006 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.
Rabbi Feldman also offers two free e-mail classes on www.torah.org entitled
"Spiritual Excellence" and "Ramchal"

"The Great Redemption" (56)

... can be found at ...

Toras Ramchal

"The Great Redemption" (55)

... can be found at ...

Toras Ramchal

Tanya -- Ch's 2 & 3

... can be found at ...

Sefer Tanya

"Eight Chapters" (Chapter Four, Part 5)

“Spiritual Excellence” with Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

Our Current Text: Moshe Maimonides's (Rambam's) “Eight Chapters”

-- Rabbi Feldman's on going series for Torah.org

**********************************************************

"Eight Chapters"

Chapter Four (Part 5)

There's another sort of extreme that Rambam is opposed to, as well. We'd depict it as the tendency to react weakly and tepidly to character faults disguised as virtues.

People guilty of that might for example "refer to an indifferent person as 'tolerant'", a "lazy person as 'content'", or they might take "someone who’s ascetic simply because he’s lethargic by nature (to be) 'temperate'", in Rambam's words.

The truth is that indifferent people *aren't* tolerant or easy going; they're simply apathetic and reticent to change; truly tolerant people are so because they believe that that's a character ideal and they work hard at maintaining it. Lazy people aren't content with their lot, they simply don't want to bother bettering themselves (either materially or spiritually). And lethargic people only avoid excesses because they don't want to expend the effort to get them; but they'd surely acquiesce to them immediately if those things was right in front of them.

(But, why do we misread character failings like that? Oftentimes because we're only too willing to settle for spiritual mediocrity.)

Rambam then makes the point that "it’s important to realize that we only acquire virtues and flaws ... when we repeat the deeds associated with them over and over again for a long period of time". He's thus clearly challenging us to do as many good things as we can in the course of the day in order to absorb and internalize goodness.

(c) 2006 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.
Rabbi Feldman also offers two free e-mail classes on www.torah.org entitled
"Spiritual Excellence" and "Ramchal"

"The Great Redemption" (54)

... can be found at ...

Toras Ramchal

Ma'amar HaGeulah (The Visitation, Ch. 4)

Ma'amar HaGeulah

-- "The Great Redemption", a reworking of Ramchal's "Ma'amar HaGeulah"

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

__________________________________________________

"The Great Redemption"

The Visitation: Ch. 4

As a consequence of all that, a great wealth of light will flow from above that will grow mightier and mightier. Don't forget, though, that Heaven and Earth would only have been *temporarily* reconnected at that point. Since we'd only be in midst of The Visitation -- the fourth stage of it, by this point -- rather than in the more advanced Remembrance epoch.

Nonetheless, "Don’t think ... that The Visitation itself won't have accomplished anything because it would have been so brief and ephemeral", as Ramchal puts it, for you'd be selling it short (see para. 18). It will indeed have its aftereffects. For one thing, the sorts of "stirrings for redemption and repentance among the Jewish Nation" (ibid.) we'd cited earlier on will come into play in this fourth stage.

Something will be touched off in the Jewish heart at that point. For "the soul ... would have escaped from its prison" (ibid.) for a time. And that will inspire us all to look forward to redemption and to drawing close to G-d.

A certain inexplicable inner incandescence will come to the fore, and all our most lofty, most inherently, essential Jewish hopes will be regenerated. We'll dream of holiness and of experiencing the sort of true freedom that the angels enjoy in the heavens, rather than the kind we know of here. Odd and inscrutable longings for holiness will come upon us which we'll have no rational explanations for, and a curious sense of homesickness will overtake our beings for a time.

In fact, all that will come about because the Shechina will have heard a "voice" in the distance at that point -- “The voice of my Beloved ... leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills” (Song of Songs 2:8), coming to the rescue, if you will (see para. 20).

But those sorts of deep, close-to-the-bone reactions will close off on their own soon enough, sad to say. And a certain "darkness (will) follow it, in the course of which the Torah will come to be forgotten more and more, every hand will weaken, and each arm will become feeble" (see para. 19). For "the remediation and repair will not (yet) have come in full" (see para. 21). And the spirit's heart will have broken, so to speak.


(c) 2006 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.
Rabbi Feldman also offers two free e-mail classes on www.torah.org entitled
"Spiritual Excellence" and "Ramchal"

"The Great Redemption" (53)

... can be found at ...

Toras Ramchal

"Eight Chapters" (Chapter Four, Part 4)

“Spiritual Excellence” with Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

Our Current Text: Moshe Maimonides's (Rambam's) “Eight Chapters”

-- Rabbi Feldman's on going series for Torah.org

**********************************************************

"Eight Chapters"

Chapter Four (Part 4)

Some think that spiritual excellence comes down to spiritual overkill, frankly. They honestly, earnestly believe that one would have to resign him-or herself to a life of deprivation and abstinence to realize his or her spiritual potential. And that anyone who'd settle for any less "less" is a rank hedonist at bottom.

But Rambam is quite against that sort of thinking. He'd consider it extremist, and he opposed all sorts of extremism -- most especially when it came to this sort. We'll touch upon this in detail later on. But as we'll now see, he was also against extremism when it comes to other elements of our character.

As he put it, "people often mistakenly believe that an extreme is good and a virtue" when it comes to character traits. And so for example they'd take "*daring* to be a virtue" and they'd "call daring people 'brave'” and "praise someone who’d do something extremely daring" when what he actually was, was excessive, too ardent, and foolhardy.

We're indeed encouraged to be *courageous* as we'd seen before, but no one asks us to be reckless. And to think we're expected to be is off-the-mark, other than in extraordinary and rare circumstances.

One lesson we could draw from this, though, is that that while we'd all be expected to summon up our courage when we encounter ethical challenges and try our best to plunge ahead spiritually rather than backward, we're *not* expected to confront temptation head-on, and threaten our moral well-being in the hope that we can resist. Because the challenge might very well set us back. There are many other examples of spiritual foolhardiness, to be sure.

While Rambam doesn't expand on it here, we'd have to assume that he'd be against people being impressed by acts of extreme charity (which is usually uncalled for, unless the time or issue demands it, and is usually rooted in ego-satisfaction rather than charity per se); and being all right with brashness, arrogance, audacity, and boastfulness (which they might see as being healthily self-assertive when it's rarely that) and with so-called "righteous indignation" (which is seldom righteous, and not indignation so much as insistence).

For while he contends that a lot is asked of us as humans, given our potential, we're nonetheless not expected to be clamorous blithering idiots in our honest struggles to be good.

(c) 2006 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.
Rabbi Feldman also offers two free e-mail classes on www.torah.org entitled
"Spiritual Excellence" and "Ramchal"

"A Meditation on Gate One of Sha'arei Tshuvah"

... has been ongoing all this time at Der Alter. I simply haven't updated it here. We're now up to paragraph 40 (out of 50). I invite you to read the past entries there, too (as well as things others have written).

Ma'amar HaGeulah (The Visitation, Ch. 3)

Ma'amar HaGeulah

-- "The Great Redemption", a reworking of Ramchal's "Ma'amar HaGeulah"

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

__________________________________________________

"The Great Redemption"

The Visitation: Ch. 3

Recall that the exile is the consequence of a sort of cosmic "disconnect" (see The Visitation, Ch. 1). And as a consequence of it, the highest reaches of G-dliness became disconnected from the lower ones, and there came to be a breakdown in the workings of the magnificent and teeming cosmic waterfall that is the source of all life, power, and sustenance.

And while there'd been an orderly, elegant, rhythmic, and broad rush of water downward along the steps of this waterfall, the interlacing steps suddenly went off-kilter in the course of the exile as they started to disconnect. And the water began to plummet down chaotically. But what had been disconnected and had run amok in the exile will be reconnected and set in order in the course of the great redemption.

So we're told here that after the Shechina will have arisen from the dust in the previous stage of The Visitation, there'll come a point when "Chochma's light" will begin to flow downward (see para. 17), without which nothing more could be done (see para. 13).

Now, recall that Chochma is a very exalted level of illumination; in fact, it's the second highest of the ten, as we indicated. Thus the downpouring of its light will be a very significant event.

But the flow of Chochma's light is likened to a slow, unctuous drip of myrrh (an exotic aromatic gum resin). Thus it will descend slowly, but it will eventually and surely touch upon the sephira of Yesod, which is the next-to-last one and is related to the coming of the Moshiach. And that will allow for the next stage.


(c) 2006 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.
Rabbi Feldman also offers two free e-mail classes on www.torah.org entitled
"Spiritual Excellence" and "Ramchal"

"The Great Redemption" (52)

... can be found at ...

Toras Ramchal

"The Great Redemption" (51)

... can be found at ...

Toras Ramchal

"Eight Chapters" (Chapter Four, Part 3)

“Spiritual Excellence” with Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

Our Current Text: Moshe Maimonides's (Rambam's) “Eight Chapters”

-- Rabbi Feldman's on going series for Torah.org

**********************************************************

"Eight Chapters"

Chapter Four (Part 3)

Let's spell out some of the finer distinctions among these traits.

While it might be good to be "stingy" (better yet -- given that our choice of terms is fairly arbitrary -- "thrifty" or "frugal") when you're truly short of funds and need to save whatever you have for essentials, and it might be good to be "extravagant" with praise or love, it's most often best to be simply but wholeheartedly "generous".

Though it would do us well sometimes to try to be more "daring" (or "venturesome") with some life-choices and more "cowardly" (or "extra-cautious") when it comes to our investments, for example, it's best to be "courageous" (or "bravehearted") about things.

In as much as "brashness" has us seem self-assured and clever at first but proves to be crass in the end, and since being "dull" (or "humdrum") anesthetizes the soul, we'd do well to strive for even-keeled "simple happiness".

Given that "arrogance" is almost always loathsome and "meekness" is inglorious and off-putting, simple and guileless "humility" is best.

Knowing that blow-hearted "boastfulness" and its counterpart, feigned and contrived "humbleness", are always distasteful, we're encouraged to be honestly "earnest" instead.

Since "indulgence" always implies a lack of decent self-restraint, and "sloth" is actually rooted in too little self-respect, we should strive for simple "contentment".

As "wrath" is dangerous, and "indifference" is selfish and lazy, we're advised to foster "composure".

And finally, because "audacity" in the face of our wrongdoings signifies out-and-out hubris while "bashfulness" is just too diffident, we're to exhibit "shamefacedness" when we're wrong or wrong-headed.

(c) 2006 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.
Rabbi Feldman also offers two free e-mail classes on www.torah.org entitled
"Spiritual Excellence" and "Ramchal"

"The Great Redemption" (50)

... can be found at ...

Toras Ramchal

Ma'amar HaGeulah (The Visitation, Ch. 2)

Ma'amar HaGeulah

-- "The Great Redemption", a reworking of Ramchal's "Ma'amar HaGeulah"

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

__________________________________________________

"The Great Redemption"

The Visitation: Ch. 2

This second stage of The Visitation centers on the resurfacing of the Shechina up out of the dust, so to speak. It's alluded to by the brave proclamation, “Do not rejoice for my sake, my enemy! For though I fell, I arose” (Micha 7:8), and by the prophet's rousing call to “Shake off the dust, Jerusalem (and) arise!” (Isaiah 52:2).

For while, as Ramchal put it, "the Jewish Nation had (indeed) been in darkness and dimness, and there was no one to comfort them for all their sorrows and troubles" in the course of the exile, and they had gotten to the point where "their spirits plummeted to the ground", that will start to come to an end. For "the Shechina will arise from the dust and regain her strength" (see para. 11).

The implication of something "arising from the dust" of course is that it gets up on its own, wipes itself off, and moves on. But how does that fit in with the concept of the Shechina as G-d's presence in our midst? It's meant to imply the idea that *G-d's rule would begin to reassert itself* in the world after having been "foiled" by the forces that sent off His people to exile. And His original intentions for the world would begin to go back on track. For as Ramchal terms it in our text, the Shechina "will take the (Celestial) light of rule upon herself" -- albeit only demurely, subliminally, and discretely at this stage, and without "yet display(ing) it openly" (see para. 11).

But what will enable the Shechina to dust herself off? The fact that "the Shechina has a great Source" which she never ever "veers from" despite circumstances, that "has never fallen into the deep sleep of exile" (see para. 13). (We, too, have such a "great Source" which we likewise never ever "veer from" despite our having been cast into exile, by the way.)

The truth is, the Shechina will have begun to arise not a moment too soon. For our people would have been "in the thick of the great darkness and pitch black" of exile, had been "overpowered and ... as far away from the Source as (we) could" (see para. 13), had had "a huge vale and terrible barrier (placed) between them and their Father in Heaven" (see para. 15), and would have had the sense that "so much darkness has overtaken (us)" (see para. 14) for far too long.

Indeed, though, there'll come a time when enough will be enough; when we can no longer deny the angst of exile and when the sensation that the more attuned among us have had that we've been suspended in spirit all this time will overtake the rest of us, too. G-d will have mercy on us by then, we're assured, and "the light of holiness will grow stronger" and will "rip at the barrier" between us and Him "at many points", which will then "act as windows, as lattices upon the barrier" (see para. 15) and enable us to begin to see "lights" -- to experience hope and anticipation -- once again.

In fact, those lights will radiate so intensely and will bestow so high a degree of "great and mighty light upon each and every individual of the Jewish Nation" that we'll "be moved to return to G-d ... and to seek Him" at that point (see para. 16).

(c) 2006 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.
Rabbi Feldman also offers two free e-mail classes on www.torah.org entitled
"Spiritual Excellence" and "Ramchal"

"The Great Redemption" (49)

... can be found at ...

Toras Ramchal

"The Great Redemption" (48)

... can be found at ...

Toras Ramchal

"Eight Chapters" (Chapter Four, Part 2)

“Spiritual Excellence” with Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

Our Current Text: Moshe Maimonides's (Rambam's) “Eight Chapters”

-- Rabbi Feldman's on going series for Torah.org

**********************************************************

"Eight Chapters"

Chapter Four (Part 2)

Let's offer some examples now of the sort of "balanced" traits that Rambam suggests we strive for. But we're going to be running into a significant rhetorical problem.

For you see, Rambam drew from others' examples here, as he indicated he would in his introduction if you recall -- most especially from Aristotle's. As such, the terms used for these traits were originally Greek ones. Those terms were then translated into Arabic by Aristotle's Medieval translators whom Rambam quoted from (in fact, Arabic was the language "The Eight Chapters" was written in). The edition of "The Eight Chapters" we ourselves are quoting from is in Hebrew, and we're about to (try to) present English equivalents.

Hence, Rambam's statement that "we needn't offer exact terms for what we’re referring to, as long as we can be understood" makes our task far easier, but understand that these terms are inexact. So here are our best efforts. (Perhaps the lesson for us all here is that not everything written can be expressed otherwise, and not every effort to explain something can be utterly true to its source.)

In any event we're advised to strive for "temperance", "generosity", "courage", "simple happiness", "humility", "earnestness", "contentment", "composure", "shamefacedness", and others.

Rambam depicts our first example of a good, balanced trait -- temperance -- as "a trait that lies midway between indulgence and asceticism", both of which are extreme and thus wrongful. For while we're certainly encouraged to enjoy G-d's great bounty (within ethical and halachic bounds) indulgence would be hedonistic or at least self-destructive, and asceticism is beyond the pale.

So let that serve as a paradigm for the other traits under discussion as well. We're to foster "generosity" because it "lies midway between stinginess and extravagance; "courage" because it "lies midway between daring and cowardice"; "simple happiness" because it "lies midway between brashness and dullness"; "humility" because it "lies midway between arrogance and meekness"; "earnestness" because it "lies midway between boastfulness and humbleness"; "contentment" because it "lies midway between indulgence and sloth"; "composure" because it "lies midway between wrath and indifference"; "shamefacedness" because it "lies midway between audacity and bashfulness", and the like.

(c) 2006 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.
Rabbi Feldman also offers two free e-mail classes on www.torah.org entitled
"Spiritual Excellence" and "Ramchal"

"The Great Redemption" (47)

... can be found at ...

Toras Ramchal

Ma'amar HaGeulah (The Visitation: Ch. 1, Part 2)

Ma'amar HaGeulah

-- "The Great Redemption", a reworking of Ramchal's "Ma'amar HaGeulah"

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

__________________________________________________

"The Great Redemption"

The Visitation: Ch. 1 (Part 2)

We're taught that when G-d finally "decides to (begin to) redeem the Shechina and the Jewish Nation" in the course of The Visitation, "a certain capacity will emit from Him and begin to descend downward, level by level, throughout the various levels" (para. 8). This "capacity" will emerge from two extraordinarily high, august Luminaries that "stand at the very summit of the universe" (ibid.), we're told. They're so august, in fact, that we dare not expand upon them here. Let's just reiterate the fact, though, that a magnificent, incomprehensible capacity will begin to "descend downward, level by level" once The Visitation is set in motion.

We're told that the first thing to result is that the Sephira of Yesod will descend and appear "before the Shechina, its mate" and will grant the Shechina "a capacity she hadn’t been granted from the time the Jewish Nation was exiled to then" which will then "give Moshiach Ben Yoseph and Moshiach ben David the ability to ... form an army for the redemption that’s to come" (see para. 9). Let's try to spell out this quizzical statement.

In short, it comes to explain how the disconnect between us and heaven we'd cited is going to start to be repaired.

If you recall, we'd pointed out that G-d interacts with the world by means of ten cosmic building-blocks known as the Sephirot or Luminaries (see Exile: Ch. 10). In descending order, they're termed: 1. Keter, 2. Chochma, 3. Binah, 4. Chessed, 5. Gevurah, 6. Tipheret, 7. Netzach, 8. Hod, 9. Yesod, and 10. Malchut.

The point is that there'll come a time, right at the outset of The Visitation, when the Luminaries will once again turn toward and illuminate each other. But only gradually; that is, "level by level", as Ramchal put it.

For G-d will see to it that Yesod (the 9th Luminary or Sephira) will turn toward and "nourish" Malchut (the 10th Sephira, which is synonymous with the Shechina), so to speak. There'll be a great, albeit silent, shifting of the gears on-high; a wondrous celestial about-face. And the Shechina will enjoy "a capacity she hadn’t been granted from the time the Jewish Nation was exiled to then", in that something of the flow from on high will begin to trickle down to her (and to us as well as a consequence) once again.

And that in itself will start off the process of the revelation of G-d's Presence *for the meanwhile*, which will also allow for the appearance of the two Moshichim (plural of Moshiach) who will bring about the redemption. We'll delve into the two Moshichim in the course of this work, to be sure; but suffice it to say for now that the ball would have begun to roll.

(c) 2006 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.
Rabbi Feldman also offers two free e-mail classes on www.torah.org entitled
"Spiritual Excellence" and "Ramchal"

"The Great Redemption" (46)

... can be found at ...

Toras Ramchal