"The Duties of the Heart" Gate 8, Ch. 3 (Part 8)

"In Search of Spiritual Excellence"

-- A Reworking of Classical Mussar Texts

Rabbi Yaakov Feldman's series on www.torah.org
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"The Duties of the Heart" Gate 8, Ch. 3 (Part 8)

Then we're to dwell on how often we lay all our hopes and dreams on the few, lean years we're given in this world rather than on the eternity that can be ours. "Try to extract the love of this world from your heart" we're advised, "and replace it with a love of the world to come". For not a single one of us can love both life in the here-and-now and life in Heaven's bosom. But that's not to say that we're to abandon the here-and-now entirely, G-d forbid, as we'll see.

The best way to live, we're taught, is to discipline our drives, use our faculties to concentrate on G-d's Torah, and reject the raw and brutish. Yet we're also to enjoy "healthful, appetizing foods and drinks, ... and (to) be sensitive to what's good for us and what we need". For the point needs to be made (again and again) that we're not to abandon the physical or to despise it -- just to not spoil our bodies silly. And to balance the body's appetites with the soul's.

For "if you mean to improve your body by paying attention to it alone, you're bound to overlook the betterment of your soul; while if you mean to keep your soul alive by paying attention to *it* alone, then you're bound to overlook your body's needs". So, "pay attention and be sensitive to the body and don't neglect what's important for it", but provide your soul with the nourishment it needs, too.

We're then asked to dwell on how seriously we take the fact that we stand in G-d's presence all the time. After all, we tend to disregard Him despite His supreme sovereignty, while we'd never disregard a powerful and prestigious mortal we were standing in front of. But our values are skewed, for what person with any wisdom whatsoever doesn't "realize how unable a king (or anyone else of authority and power) is to fully enforce his decrees, how slow he is to recompense, how remote he is from (his charges), how unable he is to notice them and how thoroughly preoccupied he is with his own affairs to care about them?" unlike G-d who's omnipotent, just, immanent, omnipresent, and compassionate.

So, Ibn Pakudah challenges us to truly become aware of G-d's presence in our lives. After all, "how long can a person rebel against Him" by avoiding Him, "when he knows that G-d is watching over ... him, outside and in?".

Now touching on a subject most of us don't really bear well, Ibn Pakudah then suggests we reflect upon how we contend with trials and tribulations. And he suggests that we somehow learn to "happily accept things as being from G–d, and (to) resign ourselves willingly to G–d's judgment" rather than resent them. But he then offers that we're also only to "resign ourselves to things *when it's appropriate to*", which is surprising, since we'd have expected him to say that we're to resign ourselves to *every* circumstance. So, let's explore his point here.

He contends that there are different sorts of resignation to sad circumstances, and that it's important to know the difference. For there are instances in which we draw closer to G-d by submitting ourselves to those sorts of sad circumstances, and others in which we draw *away* from Him by doing that.

For sometimes we suffer as a consequence of our misdeeds. And if we simply resign ourselves to *those* sorts of trials and tribulations, then we're bound to draw away from G-d. After all, if we're comfortable with what goes wrong with us because we've strayed from G-d, we're hardly likely to do what it takes to draw close to Him.

Yet other times we suffer in order to be challenged to grow (since pain either toughens and strengthens or it wears-down and weakens, depending on your reaction to it). If we *honestly* determine that that's why we're suffering rather than for our misdeeds (which calls for a lot of introspection), then we're advised to indeed resign to that reality. Since both the transcendence we'd have achieved and our resignation to G-d's will itself will elevate us in the end.

(c) 2005 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 by logging onto www.tinyurl.com/49s8t (or by going to www.rowman.com and searching for it). Rabbi Yaakov Feldman has translated and commented upon "The Gates of Repentance", "The Path of the Just", and "The Duties of the Heart" (Jason Aronson Publishers). And his new work on Maimonides' "The Eight Chapters" will soon be available from Judaica Press.
His works are available in bookstores and in various locations on the Web.
Rabbi Feldman also offers two free e-mail classes on www.torah.org entitled "Spiritual Excellence" and "Ramchal".

"The Way of G-d", Ch. 6, Para's 3 & 4

RAMCHAL

-- A Reworking of Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto's "The Way of G-d"

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

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"The Way of G-d", Ch. 6, Para's 3 & 4

But take heart, for there's indeed a way to undo the forces of unholiness that continue to stand their ground in the morning, and to thus greet the daylight with new spiritual vigor.

And though it comes down to the seemingly simple act of handwashing (albeit with a difference), know that this process has been transmitted to us by the Torah and its sages every bit as much as the apparently grander and more solemn ritualistic things we do. The truth be known, though, our morning handwashing comforms to the sort of ablutions that were done in the Holy Temple by the High Priest and others, but that's besides our point.

Thus we proceed to pour water over our right hand, then our left, and back again, three times in a row. And that purifies them and undoes the last vestige of the forces of unholiness left behind on our fingers.

(Many explain, by the way, that the reason why the night's unholiness stays attached to our fingers, of all places, is because the fingers are the outermost ends of our body, which is itself the outermost end of our soul.)

And once our hands are thus cleansed, our whole body becomes ritually clean, and the universe itself is cleansed of the nightime unholiness on an esoteric level, since we're a microcosm of it. This recondite cleansing process also comes into play the other times we cleanse ourselves (as we do after using the bathroom, for example), but on a lower level. For in each instance we not only remove dirt and grime, we also dislodge a lot of the grit and goop of unholiness, and can thus draw closer to G-d.

(c) 2005 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 by logging onto www.tinyurl.com/49s8t (or by going to www.rowman.com and searching for it). Rabbi Yaakov Feldman has translated and commented upon "The Gates of Repentance", "The Path of the Just", and "The Duties of the Heart" (Jason Aronson Publishers). And his new work on Maimonides' "The Eight Chapters" will soon be available from Judaica Press.
His works are available in bookstores and in various locations on the Web.
Rabbi Feldman also offers two free e-mail classes on www.torah.org entitled "Spiritual Excellence" and "Ramchal".

R' Ashlag Ch. 17

Rabbi Yehudah Ashlag's "Introduction to the Zohar"

-- as translated and commented on by Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

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Ch. 17

1.

“With all this in mind we can now respond to our third inquiry".

-- See 1:4.

“For we’d raised the point (there) that when we consider ourselves closely we find ourselves to be as tainted and lowly as can be. Yet (conversely) when we consider our Creator, we (surmise that we) should actually be of the highest order, as only befits (creations of) such a Creator whom no one is more exalted than. After all, it’s only natural (to assume) that a perfect Being (like Himself) would (only) produce perfect beings”.

-- So, why aren’t we perfect?

“But now we can understand why.”

-- For the truth of the matter is ...

“Our body (i.e., our person), with all its meaningless exigencies and trappings, isn’t our real body (person)! (After all, how could it be, since) our real, eternal, and perfect body (person) has already existed in the Infinite’s Being in the first era, where it (has already) assumed the perfect tsurah of bestowance (due it) in the destined third era, where it’s (already) in essential affinity with the Infinite One.”

-- That is, the people we are today, with all our foibles and missteps, woes and pratfalls, are not who we are at bottom. For our real selves are *already* subsumed in the Infinite’s Being and is already without its uniquely human ratzon l’kabel, know it or not. Of course, R’ Ashlag’s aim is to indeed *have us* know that, and to thus embrace the inevitable on our own by assuming a life of Torah and mitzvah observance.

-- But wouldn’t it be reasonable to argue that we really shouldn’t be made to endure the second era after all, in light of the acridness of the struggle and the agony of the obstacles? No, we’re told; for ...

2.

“Our situation in the first era (when we’re already subsumed in the Infinite’s Being) requires us to be conferred in the second era with our husk of a body (person) with its corrupt and flawed selfish ratzon l’kabel which separates us from G-d *so as to rectify it* and to (thus) genuinely experience our eternal body (person) in the third era (on our own)".

"So we really shouldn’t object. Since (we *have* to experience the second era, because) we can only serve G-d in a mortal body (which we only have then), as one can’t repair something he doesn’t already have (see 15:4)”.

-- As such, there’s really no good reason to dismiss the second era, since it’s the only context in which we can purposefully and willfully serve G-d of our own volition, and undo our own very human blemishes when we have them to undo. For we haven’t any in the first era and won’t have them any longer in the third, so “if not now, then when?”.

-- Despite that, the fact remains that ...

“We’re indeed *already* in the (sort of) perfected state that’s appropriate for (entities created by) the perfect Creator; and yet G-d has (indeed) also placed us in our situation in the second era (despite that, for the reasons we indicated)”.

“So, our (present) body (person) doesn’t (actually) blemish us whatsoever, since it’s doomed to die and be undone, and it’s (in fact) only with us for the time it takes to be undone and to assume its eternal (perfect) state.”

(c) 2005 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 by logging onto www.tinyurl.com/49s8t (or by going to www.rowman.com and searching for it). Rabbi Yaakov Feldman has translated and commented upon "The Gates of Repentance", "The Path of the Just", and "The Duties of the Heart" (Jason Aronson Publishers). And his new work on Maimonides' "The Eight Chapters" will soon be available from Judaica Press.
His works are available in bookstores and in various locations on the Web.
Rabbi Feldman also offers two free e-mail classes on www.torah.org entitled "Spiritual Excellence" and "Ramchal".