"The Great Redemption" (73)

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Toras Ramchal

"Eight Chapters" (Chapter Four, Part 9)

“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 Four (Part 9)

Some people were under the mistaken impression that if the pious were going to extremes sometimes, that they should, too, if they want to be pious. Now, if nothing else, this was a noble thought. For those individuals were trying to be especially good and meant only to draw close to G-d in the process. But they were terribly wrong.

(Well, perhaps they weren't *only* trying to be good because, the truth be known, we oftentimes do the right thing for the wrong reasons: to please others, perhaps; to convince them of erroneous things about ourselves; to hide iniquities by eclipsing them with proper appearances; to adapt into a community, and the like. In any event, we'll assume that the people Rambam depicted above were making well-intentioned mistakes.)

So, "they afflicted their bodies in all kinds of ways and believed they ... were doing good, since (they thought) that was how a person draws close to G-d". But that's nonsense, Rambam said, since it assumes that "G-d is opposed to the body, and wants to destroy and annihilate it!" when He doesn't at all. For as we'd indicated, the Jewish ideal is the right mix of body and soul, and G-d no more wants us to harm ourselves bodily than He wants us to contort ourselves psychologically (by going out of the way to frighten ourselves, for example, or setting out to delude ourselves, and the like).

These individuals "never realized that those were in fact *bad* things to do, and that they’d thus acquire flaws that way" since they were going far beyond the pale, and didn't have good reason to, as those (few) righteous individuals had when they followed that path (and only for a while at that).

In fact, Rambam likened those in error to "the fool who knew nothing about medicine, who saw some great physicians giving cathartics to deathly ill patients ... who were thus healed and whose lives were (thus) ... saved", and who then reasoned to themselves that, “If those things can heal a sick person, then they’d certainly keep a healthy person well and even make him healthier!“. So they'd start taking cathartics for no good reasons, and would become sick!

His point is that if your Spirit isn't that off, yet you do extreme things to correct it, then you'll throw it off balance in the process and do yourself far more harm than good.

But some might ask -- Why, aren't we all off-kilter anyway, so don't we all really need remedies? The short answer is, yes, we do. But while we may all need to add some "supplements" on to our religious practice, few of us should go to the lengths Rambam likened to taking "cathartics", which are rather extreme remedies that tend to scourge the body and are only to be used under dire circumstances.

For again, we're to strive for balance and harmony in our spiritual lives, and to only pass the line when seeking true piety -- and only to a point even then.

(c) 2006 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"

Ma'amar HaGeulah (The Remembrance, 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

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"The Great Redemption"

The Remembrance: Ch. 4

If you were to be standing atop a precipice at this point in The Remembrance, overlooking the vista, you'd see a lot of movement and change, a great shifting about and resettling. For whole and massive columns of people would be moving and realigning, moving again and aligning again in yet other ways. Because the great redemption would have begun; the ingathering of the exiled Jewish Nation would have been set in motion. And as we indicated, it would have all been initiated by Moshiach Ben Yoseph.

We're told that that will be brought on as a result of a great surge of love issuing from Heaven, as G-d recalls the plight of His precious children, His joy and delight. For His "innermost parts (will) yearn" for us, and He'll "have (i.e., He'll manifest) mercy" upon His people then (Jeremiah 31:19). And it will begin.

Now, we're told that we'll immediately break into a "song that would begin (a great, univeral) ascent" then (see para. 39), as we arrive at Amanah (see para. 37), Israel's traditional northernmost point (see 2 Kings 5:12, Song of Songs 4:8, Mishna Shevi'it 6:1). And we'll encounter the ten lost tribes, who will be gathered together by Moshiach Ben David, as all twelve tribes are reunited (see para. 39).

Now, there's "a lovely and pleasant mystery involved" in the song that we'll be breaking into then (see para. 38). It's rooted in the fact that it will be inspired by a great and colossal event. But Ramchal eases us into this idea with the following fascinating notion.

He asserts that "whoever is elevated is (in fact) elevated by music" (ibid.) -- that music is capable of lifting us higher and drawing us farther and wider along the spiritual plane than anything else. Now, that's needless to say a curious statement for someone to make who's as scholarly and steeped in traditional texts as Ramchal is. But experience will bear out the truth of music's power, and his remark doesn't in fact belittle scholarship so much as plead the case for supplementing it with music, which the greatest prophets did in order to come to inspiration (see 2 Kings 3:15 and 1 Chronicles 25:3).

In any event, we're told that "at the time of the redemption all the (great cosmic) groupings and lights will experience a great elevation" (see para. 39) which will all come about in conjunction with the song we'll be singing then. And that a plethora of "great goodness and peace will result from this".

For "the (entire) universe will be elevated ... to a very great and robust degree, and things will ... be very much loftier." In fact, "all the gates will open up as well as all the entranceways of blessing. All of creation will experience a great expansion, and there’ll be no lack of anything or poverty; and the verse, 'There will be no poor among you; for G-d will bless you greatly in the land which G-d your L-rd is granting you as an inheritance to possess' (Deuteronomy 15:4) will have been fulfilled" by that point. And "all of creation will grow quantitatively and qualitatively" (see para. 38).

The point is that "all the singing that those who gather together out of exile will be doing when they arrive at Amanah" will be both be a result of and an inspiration for "that ascent" (ibid.).

(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"