Ma'amar HaGeulah (The Remembrance, 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

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"The Great Redemption"

The Remembrance: Ch. 2

We're taught here that Tipheret -- which is a far loftier sephira than the ones we've been discussing so far -- will begin to descend and come into play in the course of The Remembrance. In fact, that's the phenomenon that will define this second stage of it.

Recall that we'd said that the less-lofty sephira Yesod would have descended in the course of The Visitation, which would serve as the high point of that era. So the fact that *Tipheret* would now descend and "reveal itself to the Shechina" as well, as Ramchal puts it, corroborates his statement here that "everything will (begin to) be manifest ... rather than hidden (as it had been in The Visitation)" by this point (see para. 25).

As such, the plot will begin to thicken, as the expression goes, and redemption will start to hatch. But only start.

Nonetheless, our people will begin to rise up out of exile by that point, "The Shechina and the King (i.e., Moshiach Ben David) will ... abide in the eternal dwelling-place", "The Divine Chariot will appear", we'll "start to arise and leave the exile with the Moshiach at our lead", our enemies "and their ministering angels will be crushed, cut down, and demolished" and all our political "tribulations will thus cease", and "all the imperfections that the exile had brought about will be emended several times over" (ibid.). So a lot will begin to happen by then.

But that won't be the end of the story by any means, as we'll see. In any event, this stage will only come about with the input of Tipheret as we indicated above, so let's explain the significance of that.

We're taught that "all the sephira-levels that G-d created were (originally) arranged in order, with one under the other. And everything’s in place (ideally) when the more extraneous sephira-levels are below the more exalted ones and are subservient to them" (see para. 26). "But everything was damaged" and all that changed when "the husk rebelled against its Master"; and as a consequence, "the sephirot were no longer joined together, and the Divine Flow diminished" (ibid.), which had terrible, sweeping earthly consequences.

Nonetheless we're assured, there'll come a point when "everything will be inexorably linked to everything else" once again. In fact, "all the Supernal Luminaries will conjoin and attach to each other then, all their offshoots will reattach to their roots and join together", and "everything will be a single, tightly bound entity" once more (ibid.).

Now, the sephirot that will play a major role in all that will be Tipheret, which is the one under discussion, and Malchut (i.e., the Shechina). The point is that Tipheret will help amend Malchut (ibid.).

For, given that "all of existence and all created beings ... emanate downward from *Tipheret*", once it comes into play, "the Shechina (i.e. Malchut) will ... return, and connect everything" together once again (see para. 27). And that's the behind-the-scenes drama that will play itself out in this stage of The Remembrance.

(c) 2006 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman and Torah.org

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

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