ON THE OCCASION OF RAMCHAL'S 300th BIRTHDAY

[This is being mailed out on my behalf to my torah.org subscribers.You're welcome to subscribe, though the series will run here, too. YF]

Monday, May 14th 2007 (the 26 of Iyar 5767) is being celebrated as the 300th birthday of Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzutto, known as Ramchal. There will be special celebrations in Jerusalem, Israel; in Padua, Italy where he was born; and on various on-line sites.

Rabbi Yaakov Feldman, who conducts Project Genesis's "Ramchal" series (as well as "Spiritual Excellence") and has written extensively on Rabbi Luzzatto's works, will be offering a special four part weekly series entitled, "A View of the Tzaddik and His Works: in Celebration of the Ramchal's 300th Birthday" in celebration.

The first installment will be mailed out on May 14th 2007 itself and will be comprised of a biography of Ramchal, the second will offer a short description of his many works, and the third and fourth will focus in succession on two lesser known works of his: Klach Pitchei Chochma ("138 Gates of Wisdom") and Da'at Tevunot ("Knowing The Reasons") by describing them and granting us insight into them.

Those already subscribed to "Ramchal" and "Spiritual Excellence" will automatically be sent the series, while all others who want to can receive it by sending a blank e-mail to subscribe-ramchal@torah.org .

"Fundamentals of the Jewish Faith" (Ch. 1, Part 1)

"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
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"Fundamentals of the Jewish Faith"

Chapter One: G-d (Part 1)

It goes without saying that we rely on our mind and its perceptions for nearly everything. So if something doesn't quite jibe with our sense of what's rational, reasonable, and explicable we tend to reject it.

Yet it's also true that our minds haven't an infinite capacity (even when they're aided by the greatest of computers and joined by the finest of other minds). So it's clear that we can't always depend on our minds to arrive at the truth. In fact, there's a whole realm beyond our abilities to reason that's far richer and more varied than our own that's simply inexplicable, known as the realm of faith. And it's the one we enter into when we discuss G-d as well as all things spiritual.

For G-d unto Himself is utterly, utterly unfathomable since He's far removed from our experience and occupies an inscrutable domain that's devoid of space, time, and all the qualities of reality we know of. So we depend on our faith and our holy tradition for depictions of Him. Given the chance we could draw many analogies to Him and derive proofs for His existence from the natural world, but all of that would fall flat in the end because we'd always wind up facing the fact that G-d Himself is simply inscrutable.

We'd thus be wise to accept the fact, as Ramchal puts it, that G-d's "actual essence and makeup cannot be fathomed whatsoever", that there's absolutely nothing analogous to Him "in all of creation or in anything our minds could conceive of or imagine", and that "no words or depictions" could capture His essence.

Now, you might argue that the Torah uses all sorts of analogies for Him and depicts Him in many, many ways and you'd be right. But suffice it to say that the Torah doesn't speak of G-d Himself when it describes Him to us: it refers to Him as He presents Himself to us in *our* realm and in terms that we could understand and draw upon to understand what He requires of us.

It's been said that that's analogous to the way great geniuses present their ideas to lesser souls. If they'd lay out their thoughts as they themselves understand them, their listeners would miss the whole point, and their effort would have been in vain. But if they'd present their ideas in terms that others far less advanced than they could understand and relate to, then their ideas would be grasped for all intents and purposes. And while the latter explanations wouldn't be "true" from the genius's perspective, they'd nonetheless serve his ends, and would thus be "true enough" under the circumstances. (Understand this point well, as it helps to explain many otherwise unfathomable things.)

(c) 2007 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman and Torah.org

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

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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"

Da’at Tevunot (Sect. 2, Ch. 1, Part 4)

"Knowing the Reasons"

A Kabbalistic Laying-Out of Who, What, When, Where, and Why

Based on Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto’s "Da’at Tevunot"

by Rabbi Yaakov Feldman
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Sect. 2, Ch. 1

4.

In order to understand why body and soul join together in the first place at conception it would help us to recall G-d's ultimate aim in creating us. It was to shower us with His Presence as a reward for all we'd done to advance ourselves and our world.

Ironically, though, He granted us one vital element of our being, a body, that's simply incapable of advancing itself spiritually, since it's so self-absorbed and in constant contact with unholiness [5], which then apparently stymies G-d's plan. So He granted us another vital element, the soul, that was hewn from the inchoate "stuff" just beneath G-d's very Throne of Glory, and is by its very makeup capable of purifying our body and making it holy.

In fact, purifying our body is the soul's major function on earth. As it itself requires no purification as it is, for it’s already pure, as we ourselves affirm each and ever day when we recite, "My L-rd! The soul you have granted me is (indeed) pure!" (Morning Prayers) [6].

In any event, the soul's purifying our body allows the body to indeed eventually bask in G-d's Presence and to thus fulfill its own raison d'etre, and thereby to be of great ultimate importance [7].
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Notes:

[5] The "body" in this context includes one's mind, personality, memories, and the like -- not just one's rank physicality.

[6] This is a vitally important point that helps explain the soul's place in this world. For as Ramchal pointed out in "The Path of the Just", "G-d ... breathed into us a soul so exalted and distinguished -- a soul greater than the angels themselves" that it's manifestedly out of place in this world. What it's meant to do then, in fact, is to ready the body for the place in the World to Come that both will enjoy.

Hence, the soul isn't sent here to perfect itself, as many mistakenly believe, but rather to better the body (and its other elements cited in note 5 above).

[7] We raised this question early on, "Since we’re imperfect to begin with -- what is it that enables us to perfect ourselves? ... there must be something somewhere in the system that enables us to achieve perfection" (the end of 1:1:5), and we can now answer it. It's our soul's ability to purify us (i.e., our body, etc.) that enables us to perfect ourselves and to achieve ultimate perfection (see R' Friedlander).

It's essential to realize that this ability that we can draw upon -- the soul's ability to purify the body -- is actually a function of the "body", i.e., the self, when we make conscious choices to better our souls through Torah and mitzvot. Hence, it's a function of both body and soul and the beginning of the union of the two.

(c) 2007 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

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

********************************
Rabbi Feldman's translation of "The Gates of Repentance" has been reissued and can be ordered 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"