Petach 2 (Preview)

"The Emanator wants only (to do) good [1], so nothing but (manifestations of) His goodness will endure. Hence, all that's initially wrongful does not emanate from another sphere of influence that could oppose Him; instead it will undoubtedly (prove to) be good in the end, thanks to which it will be known that there's no sphere of influence apart from Him."

I'm working with three source-books: Rabbi Chaim Friedlander and Rabbi Yoseph Spinner's editions of Klach as well as Rabbi Shalom Ulman's Kitzur Klach Pitchei Chochma. Needless to say, Rabbi Ulman presents the work in short (from his own reading of it), but Rabbi Spinner also presents a (very) short encapsulation of each petach. Here are both short versions (in my own words) with a couple of notes to start us off.

Ulman:

G-d only wants to do good things, so things or beings that aren't good simply can't endure, and they certainly can't hold dominion or thwart His will. Hence, since wrongdoing goes against G-d's will to do only good it can't exist forever just as wrongdoing can't exist in a person's being forever. So wrongfulness was only allowed to come about so as to enable humankind to realize G-d's true sovereignty -- by first seeing things go on that seem to contradict His sovereignty, and then seeing them come undone.

Spinner:

Had G-d wanted us to grasp His sovereignty by means of a revelation from above, we'd have come to understand His sovereignty right away, and effortlessly. But since He wanted us to have free choice and to serve Him (on our own), He allowed for wrongdoing in the world. As a result of that, a fallacious axiom arose to the effect that one can only grasp something in contradistinction to its extreme opposite. And so if it were proposed that there were an all-beneficent G-d, there "had" to be a polar opposite all-wrongful G-d [2], otherwise there couldn't be an all-beneficent one. Those who thought that way believed that there were two sovereigns: one all-beneficent and another all-wrongful. G-d allowed for that thought despite its latent sacrilege for the sake of free will and our Divine service.

There thus came to be a need to prove G-d's dominion another way. And that was that wrong should be allowed to hold sway for a while, after which it would be subjugated and undone by G-d's beneficence. Once that would come about we'd understand that wrongfulness doesn't have any inherent power and permanence, but is in fact subject to G-d's willingness for it to hold sway.

As a consequence of that, not only would goodness become apparent within wrongfulness and would we recognize G-d's sovereignty – it will also become clear that wrongfulness is nothing other than a creation of G-d's that's sustained by Him for as long as it's needed. And G-d's sovereignty will become clear by virtue of the fact that He can create something that is His complete opposite.

_____________________________________________________________

Notes:

[1] See Arimat Yadi (Ginzei Ramchal p. 226) about the fact that G-d is certainly not beholden to this principle which is only one option among an infinite number of them, it's just that He elected to subjugate Himself to it for His own ends.

[2] See Da'at Tevunot p. 14 (Friedlander edition, paragraph beginning "Min
Shaini").

A New Ashlag Sefer

... a new version of Shamatti. See what I wrote about it at ravashlag.blogspot.com .

"Fundamentals of the Jewish Faith" (Chapter Two, Part 4)

"Fundamentals of the Jewish Faith"

An adaptation of Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto’s Ma’amar HaIkkurim

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

__________________________________________________

"Fundamentals of the Jewish Faith"

Chapter Two: The Spiritual World (Part 4)


Let’s dwell upon the makeup and function of the Transcendent Forces first.

We’re told that they’re utterly supernatural entities that are removed from all physicality and beyond our experience, and they’re said to be merged with G-d’s own being. Ramchal depicts them as being “closest to G-d Presence” over which He “manifests Himself all the time”. He points out that depending on their context they’re sometimes termed “Wheels of the (Divine) Throne” (to indicate the central role they play in G-d’s interactions with the world), “Ophanim” (a type of Archangel like Cherubim and Seraphim), or the like.

(They’re also known as the “Sephirot” in Kabbalistic literature, and subsequently as “Partzufim”, “Olamot” and more, but Ramchal doesn’t use those terms or any other such expressions in this work because Fundamentals of the Jewish Faith isn’t intended for experts so much as for the rest of us. He terms them “transcendent” to express their complete otherworldliness, and “forces” to underscore the fact that they’re what G-d uses to empower everything.)

We’d tend to think the Transcendent Forces have no connection with this world as a result, but in fact they do and could be said to be the points at which heaven and earth meet. They’re sort of like the soul of the physical universe, for like souls they too are removed from all physicality yet they’re connected to it by virtue of the fact that they’re manifest here.

In truth, the idea of things being flanked by both heaven and earth plays itself out in various ways in the Jewish Faith. We’re taught that only G-d Almighty is pure and simple, wholly Himself and nothing else. Everything else is a mix of this and that, a marriage of heaven and earth. For even “pure” evil isn’t entirely so, since it’s animated by G-d’s will and thus tinged with the smallest amount of goodness.

It’s that perspective, by the way, that has us accord the human body its due respect and to not despise it as others do. For it too straddles heaven and earth. Understand of course that all things vary in their particular permutation of heaven and earth, with some nearly one hundred percent “heaven” and others nearly one hundred percent “earth”, but the point is that everything other than G-d Himself is alloyed to some degree.

(c) 2007 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"

Tanya Ch. 17

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

"Eight Chapters" (Chapter Eight, 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 Eight (Part 3)

“No!” Rambam reiterates. No one compels anyone to do anything. “The truth of the matter,” he says “is that you’re free to do as you will”, period. “If you want to do something, you can; and if you don’t want to, you don’t have to. There’s nothing forcing you one way or the other”. You and I are as free as birds – to be the sort of birds we want to be.

Now, on one side of the equation that seems to say that we’re utterly unrestricted and we need answer to no one. We can do as we will and live the life we’d like to, thank you very much. But as anyone with an inner sense of right and wrong – to say nothing of a dream of spiritual excellence – would know, that can’t be. Are we indeed given carte blanche? Isn’t more expected of us, and aren’t there rules?

Of course there are rules; and yes, there’s a higher call. The point is that we’re free to be the moral beings we’d like to be … or to not. We decide. And that’s what “makes mitzvot compulsory”, Rambam says. Because if we weren’t free to choose, there’d be no point in our being charged with doing this or that on our own: it would have already been determined whether we’d do it or not from the first.

So, the very fact that we’re impelled to follow a system underscores the freedom granted us, as only someone free can comply or not; the preordained haven’t any options.

And so G-d said, “Behold, I have placed life and goodness, death and evil, before you today... therefore choose life“(Deuteronomy 30:15, 19), and thus offered us a choice that we’re expected to follow through on, but which we may decide not to. The entire mitzvah system hinges upon this.

There seems to be a hitch, though. Our sages taught us that “Everything is in the hands of Heaven but the fear of Heaven“(Berachot 33A), which seems to deny much of free choice. Where does that fit in? We’ll soon see.
(c) 2007 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman and Project Genesis

(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"

Kitzur Ashlag 5

Kitzur Ashlag 5

Based on paragraphs 8 & 9:

We’ll now contend with the third inquiry: the notion that “our souls are a part of G-d much the way that a stone is a part of the mountain that it’s hewn from, the only difference between them being that one is a ‘piece’ while the other is the ‘whole’”. What in heaven’s name could ever have “hewn” us from Him?

Ashlag contends that the only thing that could have would be the sort of things that sets all people apart from others: conflicting personalities (disparate tsurot, as Ashlag terms it). After all, what attaches us onto G-d are things we have "in common" with Him. It follows then that when we no longer share certain traits with Him that He and we are set apart from each other.

Hence it’s the ratzon l’kabel just spoken of that sets us apart and separates us from G-d, since He doesn’t have one and we certainly do.

(c) 2007 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"

Petach One of Klach Pitchei Chochma

Has been completed and can now be found on 138gates.blogspot.com/ .

Klach Pitchei Chochma -- Petach 1 (Part 2)

Klach Pitchei Chochma -- 138 Openings to Wisdom

By Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto

As adapted by Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Petach 1 (Part 2)

2.

Ramchal then goes on to address the place of Kabbalah in all this. He asserts that Kabbalah “is first and foremost meant to exhibit the truth of the [Jewish] faith”. His point is that what Kabbalah does so well is to explain why we believe what we do, and by implication, why we do what we do.

He adds that “it (also) comes to illustrate how all … (of creation) materialized out of the Supreme Will” rather than out of sheer nothingness and at random. It likewise “demonstrates how everything is governed as it should be” rather than haphazardly, and “by G-d” alone; it provides us with “in depth understandings of all the rules and processes of Divine governance”; and it comes to illustrate the fact that what G-d wants most of all is “to bring the entire cycle of creation to perfection in the end.” This last point will be discussed later on [2].

(c) 2007 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

Feel free to contact me at feldman@torah.org

__________________________________________________________

Notes:

[2] Elsewhere Ramchal explains that the Kabbalistic system serves three purposes, all of which are spoke of in this section: to illustrate how the various names and depictions of G-d’s “traits” apply (which he terms its most “superficial” role); to demonstrate the fact that G-d will eventually exhibit His abiding beneficence which will then lead to the undoing of wrong and the ultimate reward of the righteous; and (it’s most significant role, he makes clear) to reveal G-d’s Yichud and ever-presence, and to indicate how everything will eventually return to its Source (see end of Iggrot Pitchei Chochma v’Da’at). This last, decidedly recondite point is the “the truth of the [Jewish] faith” cited above that Kabbalah is meant to reveal.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

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"

"Fundamentals of the Jewish Faith" (Chapter Two, Part 3)

"Fundamentals of the Jewish Faith"

An adaptation of Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto’s Ma’amar HaIkkurim

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

"Fundamentals of the Jewish Faith"

Chapter Two: The Spiritual World (Part 3)

Now, while the wide variety of life-forms that encompass the spiritual realm each have their own boundaries and properties, the one thing they all have in common is the fact that their makeup is utterly beyond our grasp.

We know they exist; we’re aware of some things about them and about what some of them can do and have done; but we really can’t grasp their beings. So we’re forced to depend upon the tradition, which is to say, upon prophetic revelation, for substantive information about them. (For unlike things of the natural world, spiritual phenomena haven’t elements that can be charted, scrutinized, prompted, or altered, so neither science nor speculation can be applied to them.)

And so while a lot has been written in popular literature about angels, spirits, and all sorts of small and large spiritual entities, the great preponderance of what’s claimed about them is rooted in raw conjecture alone. Indeed, whatever we think we know about them on our own is as accurate at best as what we’d imagine we know about the thoughts of someone in the south of France right now or in Congo.

In any event, we’re taught that there are three broad categories of spiritual entities: Transcendent Forces, angels, and souls.

(c) 2007 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"

Klach Pitchei Chochma -- Petach 1 (Part 1)

Klach Pitchei Chochma -- 138 Openings to Wisdom

By Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto

As adapted by Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Petach 1 (Part 1)

The Infinite One’s Yichud implies that only His will functions and no other will functions other than through it. Hence, He alone reigns (supreme) and no one else’s will does. And the entire structure is built on this foundation.

1.

Ramchal’s primary concern in this work is to define and underscore the importance of G-d’s Yichud, and to use the Kabbalistic system to accomplish that. Before he gets to all that, though, he sets out to explain a couple of other points that we’d need to understand beforehand.

As such, he says at a certain point in this first petach that it’s important that we understand “that we’re not discussing G-d unto Himself” in this work “whatsoever”, since we may not, for a number of reasons. (Most significantly, we’d offer, because whatever we’d say about Him unto Himself is incorrect, since all the words, symbols, and references we’d draw from are human or superhuman at best, are thus rooted in things created, and hence un-God by definition.)

So whatever is said here in Klach Pitchei Chochma only touches upon God’s will, since “we are permitted to speak of it”. (As it’s the point at which G-d’s Being first touches upon creation and the human experience.) Yet even this has its restrictions since “even here there’s a limit as to how far our minds can go” as far as that’s concerned (given that His will is the very first and hence most tenuous point at which His Being and creation converge) [1]. So while we will indeed be discussing G-d’s will, we should recall that we’re still-and-all limited in what we can say.

(c) 2007 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

Feel free to contact me at feldman@torah.org

__________________________________________________________

Notes:

[1] See Ramchal’s Adir Bamarom p.59A, Ma’amar HaVichuach 44, and Ma’amar Yichud HaYirah; also see Vilna Gaon at the end of his commentary to Sifra D’tzniutah, “Sod Hatzimtzum”; the beginning of HaRav m’Fano’s Yonat Elim, as well as Ramban’s introduction to his comments to the Torah.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

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"

New Blog ....

I'm transfering whatever was done so far for Klach to this new blog, http://138gates.blogspot.com/ and we'll go on from there.

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

Some people insist that we’re impelled by birth, circumstance, upbringing, or makeup to do one thing or another: that we’re wired from the first to follow through on only certain, limited options. But Rambam insists that we’re not. We’re more likely to do this or that, to be sure; but we’re never pressed to do anything, as he’d explained.

Now, many today would argue against that and say that we’re indeed very likely, even fated to act certain ways. After all, they argue, we’re born with specific genes and a particular chemical makeup, and we follow a long line of family-related “givens”, so we’re surely going to come to this or that.

Don’t think, by the way, that this line of reasoning is completely original; astrologers had long thought like that. (In fact, astrology was once considered to be quite sophisticated and insightful, and was taught *as a science* in universities for centuries.) It had been thought in the past that the “star” we were born under fated us to do things. As Rambam explained it, astrologers “imagined that a person’s birth date determines whether he’ll be lofty or flawed and that one is compelled to act accordingly”.

Not true, Rambam insists; *nothing* we do or don’t do is preordained. We’re bound to have a certain hair color and to be of a certain body type, but none of our actions are predetermined from birth. In truth, “your actions are in your own hands, no one compels you to do anything, and nothing other than yourself ever inclines you toward a character virtue or flaw”.

He then goes on to explain how problematic it would be to argue that we’re impelled to act one way or another. After all, “if you were compelled to act the way you do, then all the Torah’s imperatives and prohibitions would be in vain and utterly meaningless, since you wouldn’t be free to do as you wish”. That is, how could you be charged to do or not do anything if you had no choice in the matter?

The other point is that if our actions were indeed beyond us, then “all study, education, and practical training would be in vain, too, since something other than yourself would be compelling you to do something in particular, to be familiar with a particular subject, or to exhibit a particular trait”.

All reward and punishment for things we’d done “would be utterly unfair” Rambam adds. “For if a person killed another because he was forced or had to kill, and his victim was forced or had to be killed, then why should the killer be punished?”

“And how could it ever be said that G-d, who is just and fair, punished someone for doing something he was compelled … to do?” Besides, “any precautions we’d take, like building houses (against the elements), procuring food, running away when frightened, etc. would be meaningless” he adds, “since what was decreed to be simply had to be”.

The idea that were forced to act one way or another is thus “nonsense, utterly meaningless, counter-intuitive and illogical” Rambam concludes. We’re free to do as we see fit – and thus held responsible for all that we do. At bottom it comes to this: G-d has authorized us to be adults, morally speaking, with all the freedom and responsibility associated with that. If we’re wise, we’ll bask in the rights and privileges of our adulthood and avoid the snares.

(c) 2007 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman and Project Genesis

(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 Preview of Part 3 of Tanya Ch. 17

As I'd said a while back, I've caught up to where I'd gone in my work on Tanya, and I have to go on from here chapter to chapter. That's slow going, so it occured to me to do the following. Every once in a while, as when I come upon a more complex section like this one, I'll provide a simple reworking of the context in my own words like the one below, then I'll round it off with my own inisghts and those of the meforwhim when I can. So here's the gist of section 3 of ch. 17.

_______________________________________________________

3.

Now, this breakdown between the optimal and second-best means we’d spoken of above is only true for outright benoni’im, not for those of us who have either never achieved benoni-ism, or who have but faltered.

After all, rashai’im are said to be controlled by their heart (Bereishit Rabbah 34:10) rather than to be in control of it; so the advice would be fruitless. That’s not say by the way that a rasha is born that way necessarily, for the most part their inability to control their hearts are a natural consequence of their sins, and is an outcome of the principle that “one sin brings about another one” (Pirkei Avot 4:2).

In any event, rashai’im are considered to be “dead” while alive anyway (Berachot 18B), since they’re not doing what they were born to do and thus aren’t living for all intents and purposes. So the advice offered is irrelevant to them on that level as well, as the Torah is only helpful for the living.

The point is that what rashai’im would have to do in order to benefit from the advice offered above first off would be to do teshuvah what they’d done. That would break off the husks that separate them from G-d so severely (see Isaiah 59:2).

For when one’s heart is broken, the husks associated with his sins are then broken too (see Zohar 3:240, 3:8, and 3:5A according to the comments of the Rabbi Moshe Zacuto there). As what that does, kabbalistically speaking, is hoist up the lower letter “heh” from its descent into exile into the peripherals, in keeping with the mystical notion of the “Exile of the Shechina”. For we’re taught that “when they (the Jewish Nation) were exiled to Edom, the Shechina was (exiled) with them” (Megilla 29A).

What that means to say is that when someone acts like an “Edomite”, he drags the G-dly sparks that animate the three soul-elements within his animalistic spirit down to that level, where they remain as long as he’s a rasha. His heart rules over him as a consequence, and his soul is “in exile” then, so to speak. But when his heart is broken, the unholy husk is broken, too, the forces of evil are dispersed, and the lower “heh” then ascends.

(c) 2007 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

Kitzur Ashlag 4

Based on paragraphs 6 & 7:

But we already know the ultimate goal of creation, according to the Ari: “The only reason G-d created the world” he avow, “was to grant pleasure to His creations” (Eitz Chaim, Sha'ar HaKlallim, Ch. 1). So it only makes sense that we concentrate on that over-all, Ashlag declares. And so we will.

Given that G-d meant to grant us pleasure as we’re told, it follows that He had to have granted us “a great desire to accept what He wanted to grant us” as well, since we derive a lot more pleasure from things we really want than from things we don’t. So, He granted us a “vast enough amount of willingness to accept” things to correspond to the “vast amount of pleasure (He) meant to bestow upon us”.

And that fact helps to answer our second inquiry, about what it is that wasn’t found in Him originally that was created by Him out of sheer nothingness.

The point is that the only thing that needed to be created anew was our “willingness to accept things”, our ratzon l’kabel in Hebrew -- our willingness, wish, or intent to accept, receive, or take things. It’s a rather selfish and self-serving aspect of our being for the most part, and we're called upon to transcend it. Mostly because it's what sets us apart from G-d, who needs nothing and grants everything.

It's still and all true though that G-d purposefully created the ratzon l’kabel, so it obviously contributes to the fulfilling of the goal of creation (which brings us back to the point made at the beginning).

“Thus … all of creation, from start to finish, is nothing other than (the creation of) the ratzon l’kabel.”

(c) 2007 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"