Ma'amar HaGeulah (Exile, Ch. 7)

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"

Exile: Ch. 7

Ramchal now steps back from the end for a while and returns to the beginning -- to the very start of creation. He'll be using Kabbalistic terminology but we'll do our best to bring it all down to earth.

"All the sephira-levels that G-d created" that is, all the non-material building blocks that went into the creation of the world known as the sephirot (plural of sephira), "were (originally) arranged in order, with one under the other". In fact we learn that, "everything's in place (ideally) when the more extraneous sephira-levels are below the more exalted ones and are subservient to them, which is how things will be in The World to Come."

His point is that order and proper hierarchy are the ideal. It had been in place at the beginning and will be in place again in the end. "But everything was damaged" -- everything suddenly changed for the worse -- "when the 'husk' rebelled against its Master.

The "husk" is another name for the yetzer harah (which on both a personal level and a cosmic one is the resistance to G-dliness). It's referred to as a "husk" or "shell" because it comes about before the "fruit" of G-dliness does, because it preserves the fruit (just as the yetzer harah preserves society, for without it there'd be no childbirth, civilization, etc.), and because like all husks and shells the yetzer harah is destined to be cast aside when it no longer serves its purpose (as we'll see).

For "when the husk rebelled against G-d and thus removed itself from the natural order of things, it separated the Jewish Nation (represented by the last of the sephira-levels, which is nourished by the largesse of the lot of them) from G-d by virtue of the fact that things were no longer "in place", as order and hierarchy are the ideal as we said, and "the more extraneous levels" were no longer "below the more exalted ones and ... subservient to them".

Not only that but "as soon as the husk took control of the sephira-levels the supernal light reversed itself", which is to say that G-d's presence hid itself, "the sephirot were no longer joined together, the Divine Flow diminished, and the Jewish Nation's abilities weakened and lessened."

And in fact that spiritual chaos and malnourishment is our situation in exile on an ethereal level.

(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 from Yashar Books.
Rabbi Feldman also offers two free e-mail classes on www.torah.org entitled
"Spiritual Excellence" and "Ramchal"

"Eight Chapters" (Chapter Two, 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 Two (Part 1)

Let's now tie-in some more of what we'd learned about our makeup to our search for spiritual excellence. We'll find that there's a lot more to be said, and that much of it has to do with our free choice -- our sovereign right to make ethical and mitzvah-based decisions on our own.

"It’s important to know" Rambam says, "that all acts of disobedience and obedience mentioned in the Torah" that is, all the sins and mitzvot cited there which we can choose to act on or not, "actually apply to only two parts of your Spirit: your senses and emotions" and not to "your digestive system or imagination" (though they also apply to our minds to some degree, as we'll see).

What that means to say is that, despite what’s commonly thought and widely rationalized, we can indeed decide to adhere to G-d's wishes for us when it comes to our five senses and our emotions. We can truly learn to quash feelings that run counter to G-d's requirements of us by managing to control our anger, squelch our pride, or by becoming magnanimous, for example. And we can likewise manage to avert our eyes or close off our ears in order not to look at or listen to things we shouldn't be concerned with. Even when those things seem to go against the grain.

None of that's beyond us, and most of it comes down to finally and consciously deciding to do it.

We're not free to make ethical choices when it comes to our digestive system or imagination, though. Simply because we can't *decide* to digest one way or another, as those kinds of things tend to happen despite us (though we can in fact help them along medicinally, mechanically, and the like, but that has little to do with ethics per se). Understand of course that we can choose what to eat and drink, which indeed touches on sins and mitzvot, but that's not the point at hand, since those are emotional and sensual decisions, which we learned we have control of.

And we can't decide what thoughts or images are going to occur to us all of a sudden. We can, though, decide to reject or quell the ones that the Torah disallows us, like idolatrous thoughts for example. (The operative point here is that oftentimes in fact "bad thoughts occur to good people", to coin a phrase, but that we can then reject them out of hand, and not at all be blamed for them.)

"There’s some confusion, though, when it comes to the intellect", Rambam avers. Nonetheless he contends that personal choices apply to it as well. Since we can consciously and freely decide to adopt what he terms "sound or unsound" (i.e., good or bad) ideas which then touch upon sins or mitzvot.

As such, we can decide that eating kosher isn't a good idea and fall into that trap easily enough; or contrarily we can decide that it's a good idea and follow through on that. It's just that "the intellect (itself) can’t do anything per se that can be said to be either a mitzvah or a sin", so on that level the intellect itself can't be culpable for anything, only the person who uses his or her intellect to do wrong.

(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. 49 (Part 2)

Chapter Forty-Nine:

Rabbi Yehudah Ashlag's "Introduction to the Zohar"

-- as translated and commented on by Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

__________________________________________________

49.

2.

"And then, thanks to the great power of those lights, you’re able to go on to purify the verbal aspect of your ratzon l’kabel and to transform it into a willingness to bestow. And the point of Chayah-Light which is engarbed in your 248 spiritual organs and 365 spiritual tendons is then able to bolster itself correspondingly."

"Indeed, when the point of Neshama-Light (eventually) becomes an entire partzuf (unto itself) it then ascends upward and is engarbed in the sephira of Chochma in the spiritual world of Asiyah, which is an unfathomably subtle vessel. It then extends a great and mighty light from the Infinite that’s termed Chayah-Light (referred to above) or the 'Neshama of Neshama'".
-- As was explained in Ch. 41, there are five supernal lights which correspond to the five levels of the soul that are termed Nephesh, Ruach, Neshama, Chaya, and Yechida. Rabbi Ashlag has expanded upon Nephesh, Ruach, and Neshama so far. The "Neshama of Neshama" cited here corresponds to the Chaya which is the arcane root -- or “soul” -- of the more empirical, lower soul levels of Nephesh, Ruach, and Neshama. (We won’t be referring to the Chaya’s own “soul”, however, because as we also learned there, it’s utterly beyond our ken.)

"Then all the details of Asiyah -- all its mineralness, vegetableness, and animalness that correspond to the sephira of Chochma -- help it take in the Chochma-light in full, along the lines we explained in regard to Nephesh-Light (see Ch’s 46-47). And it’s then also termed 'Holy Verbalness' because it corresponds to the pure level of human verbalness."

(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"

Ma'amar HaGeulah (Exile, Ch. 6)

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"

Exile: Ch. 6

If the redemption is the "end of the story" of our long and wearying exile, then let's continue doing the job of reading from that conclusion as we'd begun to do in Ch. 4. For a writer once remarked that he always reads the end of any book he was reading first, so that he could follow how things eventually got there; and we want to do just that when it comes to the redemption.

So in order to do that we'll offer a translation of the 26th section of "Ma'amar HaGeulah", our source text, in the next few chapters. It presents what's to come about as a consequence of the redemption. It also touches upon one of the most important themes in all of Ramchal's writings -- the revelation of G-d's "Yichud" (His sole, utter, and cosmic sovereignty), when "everything will (prove to) be inexorably linked to everything else" under G-d's rule. But it's vital to realize that that glorious revelation will only come about after our redemption.

The section we'll be citing begins with the statement that "the consummate goodness and peace that G-d promised the Jewish Nation in the ultimate future is expressed by the verse, 'And G-d will become as a king over all the earth' (Zacharia 14:9)." Ramchal then asks us, though, to "notice that the verse doesn't read, 'And G-d will be king' but rather that G-d will be *as* (or, like) a king." We'll expand upon this last point later on, but for now let's explain those aspects of G-d's sovereignty that are relevant to our reading.

An axiom that Ramchal presents over and over again to us is that G-d's ultimate wish for humanity is that we benefit from His goodness, and that the ultimate expression of that goodness will be the revelation of His sovereignty (see Da'at Tevunot).

The idea comes to this. The goodness that the revelation of G-d's sovereignty will present us with will be the outright display of the fact that *despite appearances to the contrary* G-d's presence and rule is real, and that His will to express love and goodness has always been carried out.

But aren't there always things that seem to thwart that will? Don't evil and un-G-dliness seem to contradict it? So, it will also become clear when G-d's sovereignty is revealed that evil and wrongdoing were *also* fulfilling G-d's will, and that they were merely a means to His end. For when evil and wrongdoing will be undone -- which will indeed come about when G-d's sovereignty will be revealed -- goodness will abound *measure for measure* in contradistinction to all the evil that had been.

That's to say that the world will then be as glorious, bounteous, and G-dly as it had been coarse, circumscribed, and un-G-dly up to that point. And the contrast between what had been and what will be will prove G-d's sole authority. After all, the sole (apparent) contradiction of G-d's authority -- evil and unG-dliness -- will have been undone.

So the point is that our experience of all that glory and bounteousness will be "the consummate goodness and peace that G-d promised the Jewish Nation in the ultimate future" spoken of above.

Now, that's no mean feat, you realize. For it also implies that the entire immense, variegated, fraught-with-struggle 6,000 year-long allowance for evil that characterizes our exile will come to an end -- and that it will prove to have been a mere stop along the way. For once the redemption begins we'll start to ascend ever upward and to luxuriate in the Divine Presence.

Let's continue now with our citations from section 26 and see how that will begin to happen.

(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 from Yashar Books.
Rabbi Feldman also offers two free e-mail classes on www.torah.org entitled
"Spiritual Excellence" and "Ramchal"

R' Ashlag Ch. 49 (Part 1)

Chapter Forty-Nine:

Rabbi Yehudah Ashlag's "Introduction to the Zohar"

-- as translated and commented on by Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

__________________________________________________

49.

1.

-- We’re approaching our end-point now -- final insights into just how we grow from harboring souls to bestowing ones.

"Then, once you earn this great light which is termed “Neshama-Light”, ... "
-- That is, once a “point from the light of holy-Chayah” referred to at the end of the last chapter, “extends outwards” and precipitates the appearance of a “partzuf of Neshama” ...

" ... (which is) the partzuf in which each of the 613 organs radiates fully and separately like an independent partzuf, ... "
-- You then earn a human-like partzuf that has command over each of its elements, unlike a mineral one, which has no command over its elements, ostensibly; a vegetable one, which has only some; and an animal one, which has a decidely larger amount of command over its elements but hardly as much as this human-like one.

" ... then the means to observe each mitzvah with its true intention is provided you. For each organ of the partzuf of Neshama uncovers the path of each mitzvah relevant to that organ."
-- For once you achieve that state and your self is opened-up as never before, organ by organ, you’d have advanced to the point where you can fulfill mitzvot selflessly and for their own ends alone rather than for selfish designs.

(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 One, Part 4)

“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 One (Part 4)

Rambam ends this chapter by declaring rather cryptically that our Spirit is "a sort of matter whose form is reason". And he adds -- quite dauntingly -- that "if the Spirit never achieves its form, then its aptitude to achieve it would have been for naught, and its existence worthless". But, what does that mean?

He allows for the fact "there’s a lot to say about form and matter" and reason, too, but then he contends that "(The Eight Chapters) isn’t the place for it", since none of that has to do with character growth (on the face of it, at least) which is the subject at hand.

Now while we'd have to concede that a lot of this doesn't really matter when it comes to our character traits, nonetheless it's certainly relevant to spiritual excellence. So we'll do what we can to explain it all with that in mind, point by point.

First off, it's important to know that while we ourselves still use terms like "matter", "form", and "reason", nonetheless the ancients whom Rambam is drawing from (like Aristotle and others) understood them differently than we. What we'll try to do is apply them to our experience and understand them in a spiritual context.

"Matter" is the material *stuff* things are made of, and their “form” is some invisible, some might say "magical" element within things that gives them their definition and meaning. A painting's "matter", for example, is nothing more than the host of colors that make up the contents of the canvas. What makes it an actual "painting" in the end is the form and definition that all those color take. In much the same way, we're each little more than a wad of flesh and bones who only become a “real live” person by virtue of our “form” or defining Spirit.

So when Rambam says that our Spirit is "a sort of matter whose form is reason" he means to say that what defines us as humans is our ability to reason -- not our emotions or our actions per se, though they certainly count. And that's so because it's our ability to reason that enables us to choose growth over stagnation, spiritual excellence over spiritual mediocrity. The other parts of our being -- the rest of our matter -- feeds into that; but what gives life to our spiritual choices is our rational mind. (Understand, of course, that Rambam isn't mentioning our immortal soul simply because it too doesn't touch upon the subject at hand.)

And his remark that "if the Spirit never achieves its form, then its aptitude to achieve it would have been for naught, and its existence worthless" implies that if we don't hone our mind and use it toward personal betterment, then we might as well not have been granted the ability to reason. For while the mind certainly allows us to function and grow on many, many levels, at bottom we're to grow in our beings and spirits; and if we don't use our mind's ability to reason toward that end, then our lives would have been tragically ineffectual.

(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"

Ma'amar HaGeulah (Exile, Ch. 5)

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"

Exile: Ch. 5

First off, we’ve always been taught that our people *will* in fact be redeemed -- but under one of two different circumstances: either as a consequence of our having repented ... or simply because the time had come despite our hesitations, and what must be done will be done (see Sanhedrin 98A). We wanted to point that out from the first because many of us lose heart from time to time and wonder if we’ll ever be redeemed. But know that we surely will; for geulah is our destiny, and it’s a major factor in G-d’s plans for us and the world.

Now let’s lay out the process step by step. The first phenomenon to set it off will be “The War of Gog and 'M’gog”.

The prophet Ezekiel depicted it as an awesome time in the future when “Gog would come against the land of Israel” and when “there’ll be a great shaking in the land .... And all the fish of the sea, the birds in the sky, the beasts in the wild, the creeping things moving about the earth, and all people upon the face of the earth will tremble at My presence.” But a lot will precede that. “All the mountains will be cast down ... all the steep places will fall, and every single wall will drop to the ground.” But G-d warns us, though, that He “will call for a sword against (Gog) ... and every man’s sword will be against his brother” (38:18-21).

Some background, though. Gog himself will be the leader of the country M’gog (Ezekiel 38:2; see Daniel 11:2-7), which will have a mighty and noisome army (Ezekiel 38:4,9,15,19). And he’ll gather a great many other nations together to attack Israel (Ezekiel 38:3-7). It’s clear that Gog will be a Western figure, since we’re taught that he’ll also be referred to as “Romulus”, one of the legendary founders of the Roman Empire (along with his twin brother Remus) (Sefer Chavlei Moshiach cites many sources for this; also see Ramak’s commentary to Zohar 1, p. 119, the classical commentaries to Isaiah 11:4, and Saadia Gaon’s comments there).

We know that Gog will attack modern-day Israel since it’s reported that he’d fight against “the land that is brought back by the sword and is gathered from many peoples, ... which had always been a wasteland; but which will be brought out from the (other) nations” (Ezekiel 38:8, see 39:23-29). And we know too that his attacks will signal the beginning of the end --- “the latter days” (Ezekiel 38:16); and that G-d’s wishes will begin to come to fruition then, for as He Himself put it, “I will magnify and sanctify Myself (then); I will make Myself known in the eyes of many nations and they will then know that I am G-d” (Ezekiel 38:23).

But the latter will only come about after a fierce and all-encompassing series of battles (see Ezekiel 39: 5-6) which Israel will win (see Zachariah 12:9,13:1-9). Peace will finally reign, and the full redemption will begin to actualize in the end (see Zachariah 14:6-9,20; Jeremiah 30:3,8,16,22; Daniel 12:1-4,10; Joel 4:1-2,17-18). A major misfortune of that battle, though, is the fact that Moshiach ben Yoseph (who will appear before Moshiach ben David, the ultimate redeemer) will die in that battle (Midrash V’Yoshia as cited in Sefer Shomer Emunim and Sefer Darchei Emunah). In any event, we no longer know which nation is M'gog, and hence we can’t know who Gog, its king, would be either, till it becomes apparent by the fulfillment of the predictions (Malbim’s comments to Ezekiel 38:17 and Radak’s comments to Ezekiel 38:8).

Now, we could legitimately ask what this terrible war would accomplish in the end. For, couldn’t the Moshiach appear outright without it? So we’re told that the war -- and most especially the victory -- will serve to underscore a number of things: First off, that G-d does indeed reign over the earth (see Radak’s comments to Ezekiel 38:4). As it’s said, “You (Gog) will rise up against My people Israel like a cloud overcovering the land ... so the nations will know Me” (Ezekiel 38:16), and “many nations will then know that I am G-d” (Ezekiel 38:23). Secondly, that Divine justice will always have its way in the end, and that the good will indeed be rewarded and the evil punished (see Tanna D’bei Eliyahu Ch. 5; Zohar 3, p. 89). And third, that those who had converted to Judaism for untoward reasons as well as heretical and terribly sinful born-Jews will be weeded out.

But make no mistake about it: the war will be horrendous and fierce. And yet it will prove in the end to have been be for our ultimate good. For all the nations of the world will make a pact to destroy the Jewish Nation and Israel (G-d forbid!), as we indicated above (see Zohar 1, p. 58; see p. 119 there for the role the Arab nations will play, by the way; and see Malbim to Ezekiel 38:2, where he speaks of all this happening after the Jewish Nation will have settled in Israel!).

We’re also taught that at that time G-d will resurrect all the kings that ravaged the Jewish Nation and destroyed both Holy Temples and restore their offices; and that they will then all join together to wage war against the Jewish Nation, too (Zohar 1, p. 98).

And lastly, let it be reported that Rabbi Eliyahu Lopian relates (Lev Eliyahu, Parshat Yitro, p. 172), that he’d been told from Rabbi Elchonon Wasserman himself in London who'd been told by none other than the “Chofetz Chaim” (the great and holy Rabbi Yisroel Kagan, who was Rabbi Wasserman’s mentor) that W.W.I was the first war of Gog and M'gog, that a second world war (which the Chofetz Chaim, who died in 1933, didn’t live to see) would be the second war of Gog and M'gog; and that they will be followed by the third war which would be “a time of sorrow for the Jewish Nation, but which they’ll be emancipated from”.

This then will be the progression of events that will bring on the redemption as reported by our sages. We’ll now present Ramchal’s explanation of both what will have happened and will happen in the future from a mystical perspective.

May we catch sight of the redemption with our own eyes soon, and may G-d have mercy on us all!

(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 from Yashar Books.
Rabbi Feldman also offers two free e-mail classes on www.torah.org entitled
"Spiritual Excellence" and "Ramchal"

A Thing or Tu 'bout Shvat

I wrote this a couple of years back

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

Let’s return now to our subject at hand: an exploration of the parts of the human Spirit in order to know what we're all about and how we can change for the better. As we'd said, our one Spirit is comprised of five component parts: the digestive system, the senses, the imagination, the emotions, and the intellect.

Now, as most of us know, in Rambam's words, "the digestive system encompasses the processes of ingestion, retention, digestion per se, excretion of waste, growth, procreation, and metabolism". We obviously won't be getting into the physiology and biology involved, since that's beside our point. And it's also well known that our senses include the senses of sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch. What *will* concern us about these, though, is the role they play in our free choices, which we'll discuss later on.

What's less known or perhaps less thought about is the make-up of our imaginations. Rambam defines it as "the capacity to retain impressions of experiences (in our minds) when they’re out of range of the senses involved, and to compare and contrast some to others", which is straightforward enough.

But the imagination is also what enables us to "combine certain experiences (we'd) had along with others (we'd) never had nor ever could", which is significant for our subject. Because it's this aspect of our imagination that can get us into trouble. For it sometimes enables us to "imagine" what isn't there, rather than "envision" what very well could be, but isn't yet. The distinction will prove to be vital when it comes to using our imaginations toward personal growth.

Our emotions, as we all know, "encompass the capacity to either love something or despise it", or feel somewhere in between about it. What's especially significant about our emotions, though, when it comes to our spiritual well being is that it’s also "the capacity that enables (us) to seek something out or avoid it, to be sympathetic toward something or have reservations about it, and to become angry or satisfied, fearful or brave, cruel or compassionate, loving or hateful, and the like". That's to say that it's our emotions that have us *react* one way or another to what's before us, and it's often enough under our control. This will matter a lot when it comes to acting out on our impulses or not, as we'll see.

Our intellect also affects the way we react to things, since it encompasses our ability to "reason, speculate, acquire knowledge, and differentiate between good and bad behavior". It's just that, as most of us know, intellect-based reactions tend to be more dispassionate and detached. And this too will play an important role in our search for spiritual excellence.

The intellect, of course, also has more practical applications in that it enables us to "acquire skills like carpentry, agriculture, medicine, or navigation" and the like, and it also allows us to "think about when to do something (we'd) like to do, whether it’s feasible or not, and how to do it", but that's basically besides our concerns here.

Rambam then treads very delicately upon a rather recondite idea about the Spirit, as we'll see.

(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"

This shop is going part-time for a while

I'm doing re-writes on my Derech Hashem series, getting it ready for submission toward publication. So while I'll be continuing to offer "Ma'amar HaGeulah" and "Eight Chapters" here, I won't be doing much on R' Ashlag or "The Great Redemption" for a while

Ma'amar HaGeulah (Exile, Ch. 4)

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"

Exile: Ch. 4

Let’s quote a bit from another one of Ramchal's works, "A Discourse on Fundamentals", in which he presents his vision of the ideal, Messianic world. For with that in hand we'll indeed be able to sense for ourselves just what we're missing in galut. (We'll actually expand upon some of the ideas here later on in this section in another context.)

He says there that "the truly best situation for the world to be in" which will be fulfilled in the Messianic era, "would be for people to cling onto wisdom and to serve their Creator." Which is to say that in the ideal world, we’ll all be drawn instinctively to wisdom and would serve G-d as a consequence.

Now, that’s a curious, even a foreign thought for most of us. Simply because “wisdom” is a hollow term today. For while we admire know-how, acuity, acumen, and grasp, we don’t really admire or even know much about wisdom. And that's because wisdom is rooted in the ability to discern what’s right, true, and of lasting importance; and at bottom our age doubts that anyone can (or even has the right to) do that.

Yet we search for wisdom all the time. It's what we want when we ask for advice, since what we're hoping for in fact insight into what’s indeed right, true, and of lasting importance in our situation. It’s just that we can’t quite sit quietly by when someone makes such decisions about larger issues -- matters that are outside of our small universe of concerns; it vexes us when someone thus dares to make judgments about *ultimate* rightness, truth or importance. But the truth be known, we suffer mightily for our reticence.

In any event, humanity would indeed “cling onto wisdom” in the best of all worlds; and will serve G-d as a consequence as we said, because serving G-d will prove to be right, true, and of lasting importance in fact.

There’s more to it, though. "Truth would be manifest and unambiguous” then, “tranquility and quietude will prevail”, and “there'll no longer be tribulation, pain, or harm” in the best of all worlds. And what’s more, “G-d will openly display His Glory to the world” and He'll “rejoice in His handiwork as His handiwork rejoices in Him."

Now, that's clearly not the state of the world today, which seems the very antithesis of all that. For indeed as Ramchal presents it, we now find ourselves "awash in desires"; the great majority of us do indeed "despise wisdom and are removed from it"; "very, very few if any" of us "tend to serve G-d"; "truth has been dashed to the ground” in our day and age; and consequently "there's hardly any quietude, and no tranquility" for "tribulation and hurt" prevail instead.

Not only that, but as so many of us sense for ourselves, "G-d is hiding His Glory from the world" now, "and everything seems to go about as if by chance, as if entrusted to the laws of nature" alone. "G-d doesn't rejoice in His handiwork, mankind doesn't rejoice in Him, and no one even recognizes or knows what it means for all of creation to rejoice before its Creator." And finally, as one would expect in such a world, "the wrongful are in control while the good are subordinate."

Indeed, that's the very cast and composition of the galut that is our lives now. For our world is ample yet empty; bright yet preposterous; and awash in the sort of perfidy, anarchy, anguish, and murkiness that can only come about when G-d is hidden -- when His very Presence is in galut, if you will.

Now, the Tradition has been addressing galut -- and our redemption from it -- since the inception, as we indicated before. So let’s start off by providing the traditional layout of the how's and wherefore’s of redemption, then go on from there to offer Ramchal’s unique revelations about it from our source-work, "Ma'amar HaGeulah" (A Discourse on The Redemption).

(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 from Yashar Books.
Rabbi Feldman also offers two free e-mail classes on www.torah.org entitled
"Spiritual Excellence" and "Ramchal"

R' Ashlag Ch. 48

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

Toras Rav Ashlag

"Eight Chapters" (Chapter One, 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

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"Eight Chapters"

Chapter One (Part 2)

Let's delve into our beings now by beginning to explore the five parts of our Spirit as Rambam depicts them.

But first it's important for our purposes to understand that we'll be discussing our own, the human, Spirit rather than animals', plants', or other entities' spirits. For while each and every thing has the sort of unique impelling, animating force we're talking about, we're interested in knowing what makes *us* "tick" in order to grow.

Besides, "the human digestive system, for one, isn’t the same as a horse or donkey’s" as Rambam points out, which is also true of the other parts of the Spirit aside from the digestive system. Since we humans "are nourished by the human digestive system, while donkeys are nourished by the donkey digestive system", and other entities are nourished by theirs'.

Now, that's clear enough and no one would argue with the matter, but Rambam then steps aside to make a very important point.

He says that even though "the term 'digestion' is used for all three, ... (nevertheless) the different systems are only analogous to each other and the terms don’t refer to the same thing." That means to say that even though we, animals, and plants are all said to "digest" things in order to function and grow, still and all, animals' and plants' digestive systems are different from ours, and they're all only called by the same name for the sake of convenience. (Have patience, though; we'll soon see what all this has to do with spiritual growth.)

He'd have us compare the three different digestive systems to "three dark rooms, the first of which was illuminated by sunlight, the second by moonlight, and the third by candlelight". The point is that even though all three rooms can be said to be “illuminated”, in fact "the source and generator of light in the first (room) was the sun, the second was the moon, and the third was a flame."

"In much the same way," Rambam continues (while drawing closer to our spiritual well-being), "what generates human senses is a human Spirit, what generates a donkey’s is a donkey Spirit", etc., and "the only thing they have in common is an analogous term" -- i.e., they're all said to be kept alive by a Spirit. Now, this obviously isn't the place to discuss human versus animal or vegetable digestion and nutrition, but suffice it to say that Rambam's overarching statement is that sometimes the very same term is used for two or more very different, though similar things.

But why would Rambam consider it necessary to make that point? It comes down to this: He'll be differentiating between different instances of goodness, (spiritual and ethical) health, piety and the like in the course of this work. For you see, one of his central themes here is the idea that we really don't understand what's good, healthy, and pious; so we'd need to differentiate between good and bad instances of each if we're ever to be truly spiritually excellent. That's also to say that we're not to fall for appearances. For, since our spiritual makeup often isn't what it seems to be, it's essential for us to avoid applying terms lightly.

For while some derive their *so-called* goodness, health, and piety from "candlelight" (to use the above illustration), meaning to say, from synthetic sources; and others from "moonlight", meaning to say, from derivative sources; we're expected to derive true goodness, health, and piety from "sunlight" -- from trustworthy, inspired sources.

We'll determine later on, by the way, that this idea also touches on some intriguing things, like our understanding of G-d, on what in this world matters and what doesn't, and the like.

(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. 48 (Part 1)

Chapter Forty-Eight:

Rabbi Yehudah Ashlag's "Introduction to the Zohar"

-- as translated and commented on by Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

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48.

1.

"By then engaging in the secrets of the Torah and in the reasons behind the mitzvot ... "
-- Which is to say, by then delving into the heart and soul of the Torah and its mitzvah-system by reflecting upon Kabbalistic texts that reveal such things, ...

"... you purify the animate part of your ratzon l’kabel to the degree that you engage in that."
-- For the deeper you delve into the secrets of the Torah and in the reasons behind the mitzvot, the surer will be your realization of the fact that we’re all driven by a lethal and all-consuming willingness to take-in rather than bestow, and the deeper will be your commitment to undo it.

"You (then) build-up the point of your Neshama engarbed in its 248 organs and 365 tendons. When its structure is completed and it becomes a (full) partzuf, it ascends upwards and engarbs the sephirah of Binah in the spiritual world of Asiyah, whose vessel is incomparably finer than the preceding ones, Tipheret and Malchut. And you then spread a great light from the Infinite into it which is termed 'Neshama-Light'”.
-- Refer to 44:2 which speaks of the stages you reach “when you fulfill all 613 mitzvot on a tangible level”; and to 44:3 which addresses the idea of your spiritual accomplishments corresponding to the “extent that (your) soul has (been) schooled” and granted insights, about the “full light (that) then helps you in your Torah and mitzvot efforts and enables you to reach (even) higher levels”, and about the connection between higher and lower levels of spiritual accomplishment.

(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"