Ma'amar HaGeulah (The Remembrance, Ch. 11)

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 Remembrance: Ch. 11

Moshiach Ben Yoseph will continue to blossom by this point and play an even more vital role in the expanding redemption. But it seems that the above-mentioned fruit-tree will need to be not only "pruned" but cut off, and Moshiach Ben *David* -- the ultimate Redeemer -- will be the one to do that. In fact, the thickets surrounding the Jewish Nation "will (need to) be utterly cut off in the end of days" so that "the pure ones can remain pure"(para. 48).

What this all refers to is the "great war between holiness and impurity" (para. 49) that will be played out in the universe at this juncture, and the subsequent defeat of unholiness.

In any event, Isaiah indicated that “a rod will (eventually) come forth from the stem of Yishai" (Isaiah 11:1), which refers to Moshiach Ben David, who’ll begin to turn up some time in the course of the events to follow, thanks to the actions of Moshiach Ben Yoseph.

In the meanwhile, Moshiach Ben Yoseph will “cut down the thickets of the forest with iron”, which is to say that on some arcane and mystical level, he’ll see to it that the ministering angels of the other nations will "rot away" (para. 48) so that unholiness will no longer feed off-of holiness as it had been doing to that point.

As a consequence, "impurity will no longer have any power" over us, and we could be redeemed even further. There'll then come a point when "holiness will return and reassemble at home where it belongs", and when "the Jewish Nation will garner strength from within, and the power of the husks will ... wither away" (para. 48).

At a certain point beforehand, though, impurity will begin to "garner strength ... and will become very powerful" once again, and things will become precarious for a while. But rest assured, we're told, because holiness will have "prepared for that beforehand" and will react accordingly (para. 49).

The forces of unholiness "won't be able to summon the strength needed to ascend" by that point, but the good within it (since everything in this world is a combination of good and evil, by degrees) will "leap upward, ascend, and draw closer to holiness", while its remaining unholy aspect "won’t be able to", and holiness will have prevailed. And finally, "all the ministering angels of the idolatrous nations will fall", and Moshiach Ben Yoseph will have been victorious both on heaven and on earth (para. 49).

(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"

R' Ashlag Ch. 67

... has been completed and can be found at ...

Toras Rav Ashlag

R' Ashlag Ch. 66

... has been completed and can be found at ...

Toras Rav Ashlag

R' Ashlag Ch. 66 (Part 1)

Chapter Sixty-Six:

Rabbi Yehudah Ashlag's "Introduction to the Zohar"

-- as translated and commented on by Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

__________________________________________________

66.

1.

"Now, when a Jew fortifies and enhances his interior (aspect), his inner “Jewish Nation”, rather than his exterior (aspect), his inner “Gentile Nations”, by concentrating most of his efforts on fortifying and cultivating his interior (aspect) and bettering his soul, while only (dedicating) a few, essential efforts on sustaining his (inner) “Gentile Nations”, i.e., his bodily needs -- in keeping with the statement, "Make your Torah (study) permanent and your (worldly) efforts transient" (Pirkei Avot 1) -- both on an interior and exterior level, ... "
-- That is, when an individual Jew truly hones and enlarges his inner Jewishness while tempering and diminishing his Gentileness, inside and out, ...

"... he then enables the (actual) Jewish Nation to soar higher and higher upward, and (enables) the (actual) Gentile Nations, who are the world’s exterior (aspect), to recognize and acknowledge the value of the Jewish Nation."
-- ... he hones and enlarges the entire Jewish Nation inside and out."

c) 2006 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. 65

... has been completed and can be found at ...

Toras Rav Ashlag

"Eight Chapters" (Chapter Five, 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 Five (Part 2)

We're then offered a marvelous piece of advice. "Don’t let your goal be to simply enjoy yourself" when you eat, drink, and do other such things, "and thus choose only appetizing foods, drinks, and the like." Instead, "strive for what’s edifying" -- that is, to aim for what will ennoble us, hone our inner being, and bring us closer to our ultimate goal of comprehending G-d, rather than what will merely tickle our senses.

If what we're partaking of "happens to be gratifying, too, then so be it" Rambam adds; since there's nothing inherently wrong with that. But the other side of the coin is that if that same thing "happens *not* to be gratifying, then so be (that)" too, and we're to partake of it with aplomb with the idea that what matters most is that it will enable us to better ourselves.

There's an instance or two in which we'd be encouraged to choose something just because it was tasty, though: for medical reasons -- if we'd somehow lost our appetite and would need to eat something distinctively good in order to get it back; or if we'd grown depressed and would need to "ward it off by listening to poems and music, by strolling in gardens and among alluring structures, or by sitting before attractive works of art and the like".

The same goes for accruing wealth, by the way (which isn't at all wrong as long as we do it with halachic and legal guidelines). We may certainly do it, but only "to acquire edifying things, to maintain our well-being, and to extend our life long enough to comprehend G-d and know as much about Him as we can."

In the end, though, our "goal in all that should be our physical (and emotional) well-being" rather than the experience itself, so that we might achieve our ultimate goal with full vigor.

(Rambam ends here with an interesting bit of advice which still holds true today. "In point of fact," he adds, "the practice of medicine has a lot to do with virtues, knowing G-d, and comprehending what true bliss is", and it thus allows one to pursue a life of virtue and intelligence, he says from personal experience, having been a physician himself.)

(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"

R' Ashlag Ch. 64

... has been completed and can be found at ...

Toras Rav Ashlag

R' Ashlag Ch. 63

... has been completed and can be found at ...

Toras Rav Ashlag

R' Ashlag Ch. 62

... has been completed and can be found at ...

Toras Rav Ashlag

Ma'amar HaGeulah (The Remembrance, Ch. 10)

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 Remembrance: Ch. 10

Everything is comprised of an outer shell and inner core. Fruits are overcovered by peels and shells; our body serves as the outer shell of our inner core, the soul; and so forth. We learn here that Jewish history is likewise comprised of a shell and core. It's core is redemption and the rectification of everything gone wrong because of the exile; and our exile state, despite its wearying length, is merely the hard outer shell of our experience.

Eventually, though, all outer shells will need to be peeled off if one is ever to get to the fruit as we'll see, as we begin to turn a corner in The Remembrance. For, to this point we'd been discussing all the great emendations that will occur in the redemption, like the rising up of the Shechina out of the dust, the appearance of both Moshiachs, the ingathering of the exiled, and more; but we'll now discuss the undoing of the influences of exile.

Ramchal cites an allegory that depicts what will happen. After "the leaves of the Holy Tree will become stronger on each side ... seventy branches" will attach themselves to it, "then an infinite number" of them. Then "seventy other trees" will surround the original one, whose many branches "will (begin to) intertwine with the branches" of that original tree. (see para. 47).

What that comes to this. The original tree alludes to the Jewish Nation, and the seventy branches and trees cited refer to the seventy other core nations that were originally established. We're told that those original seventy will eventually expand into a very large number of nations, and that those nations will eventually begin to cover-over the Jewish Nation -- like shells -- and to hold sway over us in the exile. We learn that they'll grow stronger and stronger, and that they'd eventually stop "acknowledging their Master", G-d. In fact, things will get to the point where "holiness could not rule" (ibid.), and something would have to be done.

That's when Moshiach Ben Yoseph will "lop (them) off ... and pluck them from the boughs in which they sit", the way shells would have to be cut off. That way the nations that had overcovered us with their mistaken beliefs will no longer hold sway over us and we could savor the sweet fruit of redemption in full glory.

(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"

R' Ashlag Ch. 62 (Part 1)

Chapter Sixty-Two:

Rabbi Yehudah Ashlag's "Introduction to the Zohar"

-- as translated and commented on by Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

__________________________________________________

62.

1.

"We can now understand why even though the people of the earlier generations were of an immeasurably greater caliber than those of the latter ones (they weren’t privy to the Zohar or Kabbalah). For the rule regarding partzufim is that, be they partzufim of entire worlds or of souls, the subtler (elements) are fashioned first. And so the CHaBaD vessels are (always) fashioned first, whether it comes to the world at large or to souls."

"So while the individuals living in the first two millennia were of a much higher caliber than those of the latter ones, they nonetheless couldn’t partake of the full light (entailed in the revelation of the Zohar and Kabbalah) because they lacked the lower vessels of CHaGaT- NeHYM both on a personal and a universal level.'

(c) 2006 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. 61

R' Ashlag Ch. 61

... has been amended and completed, and can be found at ...

Toras Rav Ashlag

By the way, the work ends with ch. 70, so we're approaching the end of this series. I plan to finish this off and continue on with Sefer Tanya (to its end, please G-d). I may have a couple of surprises to offer after that.

R' Ashlag Ch. 61 (Part 6)

Chapter Sixty-One:

Rabbi Yehudah Ashlag's "Introduction to the Zohar"

-- as translated and commented on by Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

__________________________________________________

61.

6.

"But in the course of his lifetime, which was near the end of the era of the completion of the vessels below the 'chest', ... "
-- ... corresponding to the beginning of the NeHYM era, when the sublime Chochma-light was allowed to be revealed (see 5 above) ...

"... the G-dly Ari’s soul started to clandestinely reveal the light of the sublime Chochma,"
-- ... in fact ...

"... since he was ready to receive that great light. He (consequently) uncovered (and explained) the underlying themes (laid out) in the Zohar and in Kabbalah (in general), and (it became clear that he’d) usurped all his predecessors.

"But, since the (NeHYM) vessels weren’t yet completed -- as he’d died in (the course of the 5th millennium, in) 5332 (i.e., in 1572 CE) -- the world wasn’t yet worthy of discovering his teachings, and his holy words were only exposed to a chosen few who were (themselves) prohibited from revealing them to the world."

(c) 2006 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. 61 (Part 5)

Chapter Sixty-One:

Rabbi Yehudah Ashlag's "Introduction to the Zohar"

-- as translated and commented on by Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

__________________________________________________

61.

5.

"That’s true of each specific partzuf as well: when it comes to the CHaBaD and CHaGaT vessels down to the 'chest', the lights (there) remain covered over and don’t begin to exhibit out-and-out mercy -- i.e., they only exhibit the high Chochma-light from the 'chest' downward, i.e., from the NeHYM (level)."
-- We’d learned that the grand partzuf that is the universe is comprised of a beginning, middle, and end which are termed CHaBaD, CHaGAT, and NeHY, and that there was so little manifest light in the course of the CHaBaD aspect that it was like a head without a body.
--Rabbi Ashlag’s point here is that what’s true of reality en toto is also true of each segment of it: the higher or CHaBaD aspect exhibits very little light, and as such, it too seems to be “like a head without a body” -- and by extension, the ChaGaT aspect (which will be expanded on below) exhibits more light but not all that much.
-- (The “M” at the end of NeHYM stands for Malchut. That isn’t discussed much here, as we’d indicated above, but suffice it to say that it represents the recipient or end-product of all that’s offered by CHaBaD, CHaGAT, and NeHY.)

"That’s the reason why the Zohar itself and Kabbalah in general weren’t revealed to the world before the vessels of NeHYM in the universe’s single partzuf, which represent the last two millennia, manifested themselves."
-- That’s to say, Kabbalah wasn’t promulgated until near-modernity (though it was studied within small circles of scholars) because the earlier eras simply couldn’t endure the degree of light that Kabbalah study would have manifested.

(c) 2006 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"

"Eight Chapters" (Chapter Five, Part 1)

“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 Five (Part 1)

Perhaps the most vexing problem we have today is not knowing what to focus on. There's just so much we can do and so much that we'd like to, that there seem to be parts of ourselves peppered all over the landscape. So, what in fact should we concentrate on if we hope to achieve spiritual excellence, and what comes second, third, etc.?

We're told pointblank here that we're "to place a single goal before our eyes", one overarching aim and objective: "to comprehend G-d Almighty as much as a human being can".

But how awesome a goal that is, how almost unthinkable! Can anyone comprehend G-d, in fact? Aren't we taught that “His greatness can't be fathomed” (Psalms 145:3), that “There’s no searching out His understanding” (Isaiah 40:28), and “If you search (for) G-d could you find Him?” (Job 11:7)? Hasn't G-d Himself said "My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways" (Isaiah 55:8)?

The truth is G-d *can* be grasped to some degree (don't forget we're charged to comprehend Him "as much as a human being can", not as much as an angel can; for they too can only understand Him to a degree). Rambam doesn't expand upon this much in this work, but he lays out a lot of what we'd need to know elsewhere (mostly in Yesodei HaTorah 1:1-7 and Moreh Nevuchim 1:28, 54, 57) which we'll now cull from.

We’re to understand that G-d existed before everything else and created it all; that His existence is a prerequisite for the existence of everything else; that He would continue to exist even if nothing else did, for He’s utterly self-reliant and unique; that He’s eternal; that He’s one in a unique sense; and that He’s utterly incorporeal and thus undergoes none of the things that corporeal beings undergo. We’re also to understand that He provides everything for His creations, and that He influences creation moment to moment.

Thus, we're to make the awareness *and absorbtion* of all that our life's goal, and to "direct all our actions, movements, and utterances to that end, so that nothing we do is arbitrary or tends to thwart that goal". That's to say that we're to make everything else secondary to that and use it only as a means to foster our goal of understanding G-d.

"So, for example," we're told, "when you eat, drink, sleep," and the like, we're to "let our only aim be our health" alone -- rather than an outright relishing of what we're eating or drinking, or of sleeping unto itself. But even health shouldn't be an end unto itself, we're to "let our goal in being healthy be to remain robust and well enough to acquire the knowledge and the personal and intellectual virtues we’d need to reach that goal" of comprehending G-d. We'll explore some of the ramifications of this next.

(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"

On This Crisp Elul Morning

... a parable

R' Ashlag Ch. 61 (Part 4)

Chapter Sixty-One:

Rabbi Yehudah Ashlag's "Introduction to the Zohar"

-- as translated and commented on by Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

__________________________________________________

61.

4.

"But in the course of the world’s second two millennia, which is comprised of CHaGaT vessels, ... "
-- ... that are lower than the CHaBaD vessels present in the first two millennia, discussed above ...

" ... Ruach-light ... "
-- ... which is higher than the Nefesh-light present in the first two millennia ...

"... descended upon and was engarbed in the world, which is (i.e., touches upon) the secret import of Torah. And that’s why the middle two millennia are referred to as (the epoch of) Torah."
-- Ruach-light touches upon the secret import of Torah (meaning that it most especially corresponds to the essence of Torah) because Torah serves as the mediator -- the Tifferet -- between the pure Chessed and Gevurah of the CHaGaT triad, in that it’s Torah’s rulings that settle the differences between those two opposing litigants. So the second epoch is termed Torah because it “mediates” between the Tohu and Messianic epochs.
-- The point is that while there was more actualization then, in the middle epoch, than there had been before, there was still not enough to allow for the publication and circulation of the Zohar, to say nothing of an explanation of it. This will soon be expanded upon.
-- (Rabbi Ashlag is also saying that while what the Talmudic sages meant by the phrase "2,000 years of Tohu, 2,000 (years) of Torah, and then 2,000 (years) of the Days of the Messiah” was that the world will be characterized by moral and spiritual chaos and formlessness before we’d have received the Torah, nonetheless the granting of the Torah will allow for the Messianic Era, that can all be understood otherwise from a Kabbalistic perspective, as Tohu and Torah in that context have whole other connotations.)

"And in the course of the final two millennia, which are comprised of NeHYM vessels, Neshama-light -- which is the greatest light -- engarbed in the world. And that’s why they’re referred to as the Days of the Messiah."
-- Being the greatest light, Neshama-light automatically harkens to the Days of the Messiah, when illumination will abound.

(c) 2006 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. 61 (Part 3)

Chapter Sixty-One:

Rabbi Yehudah Ashlag's "Introduction to the Zohar"

-- as translated and commented on by Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

__________________________________________________

61.

3.

"(But to understand that, and to see how that explains why the earlier generations weren’t granted the Zohar or a non-materialistic commentary to it that removes one of the major stumbling blocks to a proper understanding of it, we’d need to examine the following.) Our sages explained (that the 6,000 years of this world was to be divided thusly from the start: there would first be) "2,000 years of *Tohu*(formlessness, as in “And the earth was formless and void” [Genesis 1:2], then there’d be) 2,000 (years) of Torah, and then 2,000 (years) of the days of the Messiah” (Sanhedrin 97A) ... "
-- The Talmudic sages agreed that history -- the goings-on in the single partzuf that comprises the universe as we know it -- would be comprised of a beginning, middle, and end stage; but rather than designate them by their partzuf-specific names CHaBaD, CHaGAT, and NeHY, they categorized the three epoch periods of time as one of formlessness, another of Torah, and the third as that of the Messianic Era.

"... (which illustrates the following). Throughout the course of the first (two) millennia, which correspond to the “beginning” or “CHaBaD” (or “formless” element of the partzuf and of its history), the lights (manifest there) were very slight, and were considered (to be like) a head without a body, with Nefesh-light alone."
-- Toggling back and forth between terms, we’d depict Rabbi Ashlag as saying that the first, topmost course of history and its beginning was rather dark, formless and all potential. But why would that be so, given how close it was to pre-creation's all-G-dliness?

"(That’s so) because there’s a converse relationship between lights and vessels."
-- “Lights” are the spiritual content of things that are themselves termed “vessels” or “containers”. The classic analogy is that of the relationship between the soul and the body, where the soul is dubbed the body’s “light” and the body is taken to be the soul’s “vessel”. Being the integrated cosmic configuration that it is, the single partzuf that makes up all that we know is a combination of lights and vessels in various lay-outs.

"For when it comes to vessels, the rule is that the higher vessels grow first in the partzuf, whereas when it comes to lights, the opposite is true -- the lower lights become engarbed first in the partzuf."
-- It’s simply a given that this single partzuf’s higher vessels grew in size and capacity before its lights did, and that its lesser lights were “engarbed” -- stored-away, and set aside for later use -- within the partzuf before its higher lights were.

"Thus, as long as only the higher parts of the vessels existed, meaning the CHaBaD vessels, then only the Nefesh-light could be engarbed in the partzuf, which are the lowest lights. And that’s why the first (two) millennia are referred to as *Tohu*."
-- That’s to say that the reason the first historical epoch didn’t have the Zohar, though they seemingly should have, was simply because only the higher vessels (CHaBaD) and the lower lights (Nepesh) were in place there and then. So, while the people there (the vessels) were greater, the illuminations (the lights) were dimmer; hence the whole epoch was rather formless and only all-potential.

(c) 2006 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"