Category Archives: Hashkapha

2:3:5

Based on this we can now understand why some people suffer trials and tribulations [1]. A person who’s mostly righteous, or somewhat righteous and somewhat wrongful [2] could be subject to tribulations because he warranted being prodded to examine his ways and to do teshuva [3].

These particular tribulations wouldn’t come to him to atone for his past sins, like those cited before [4] whose aim is to purify a person of his sins while he’s yet alive. These particular tribulations would be meant to stir him to teshuva [5].

After all, people only suffer punishments when they sin and don’t do teshuva [6], as G-d wants us to not sin or to at least do teshuva if we do. But one can still be cleansed if he didn’t do teshuva through tribulations.

So tribulations sometimes come our way to inspire us to do teshuva. If we’re not moved to do that, though, we’re sometimes made to suffer tribulations in order to be cleansed [7]. For as Elihu told Job, “(G-d) opens their ears to discipline and bids them to repent of their sins” (Job 36:10).

Footnotes:

[1]         I.e., based on the idea that our successes or failings in life are often rooted in G-d’s input as cited in 2:3:4.

[2]         It’s clear that the thoroughly or almost thoroughly wrongful won’t experience this.

[3]        See Berachot 5a as well as 2:2:5 above.

Ramchal is touching on why the righteous sometimes suffer which seems so unfair, which we discussed above in 2:2:9 (see note 1 there) and will return to in 2:3:8-9.

Here’s how he explains it. He’d said in 2:3:1 that G-d distributed challenges among us all as a part of His plans for us, and that while we don’t know how things work along these lines (which makes them seem so unfair when they’re really not) we’re nonetheless to realize that in the end everything will function as it must. In 2:3:2 he underscored the fact that G-d Himself decrees what’s to apply to whom based on what’s most fitting (showing that G-d understands the implications of all of this), and he made much the same point in 2:3:3.

Then Ramchal went on to contrast the experience of the righteous and the wrongful as far as that’s all concerned, saying in 2:3:4 that righteous people (often) experience different degrees of Divine assistance, while wrongful people are often held back, but “the point of the matter is that G-d brings all of this about (too) … so as to ultimately benefit humankind” and that “He factors in everyone’s situation when He decides what’s to come about”.

His point here is that sometimes the mostly- or nearly-righteous are tried too which also seems unfair, but that G-d does that also for a very good reason: to encourage them in their righteousness.

[4]         See 2:2:5.

[5]         That’s to say that one who’s righteous for the most part but who has sinned too much for his own good and was potentially fully righteous might be made to suffer a setback in the hopes that he’ll then come to wonder what brought it on, conclude that it was his sins that did, and would decide there and then to repent. And all because G-d cared about his well-being and was willing to prod him on toward righteousness.

See Da’at Tevunot 40 where Ramchal expands upon the fact that there are only three ways to achieve perfection: by being righteous, engaging in teshuva, or suffering tribulation.

[6]         See Messilat Yesharim Ch. 5.

[7]         “Cleansing” will be discussed in 2:3:9 below.

(c) 2016 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

Feel free to contact me at feldman@torah.org

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AT LONG LAST! Rabbi Feldman’s translation of Maimonides’ “Eight Chapters” is available here at a discount.

You can still purchase a copy of Rabbi Feldman’s translation of “The Gates of Repentance” here at a discount as well.

Rabbi Yaakov Feldman has also translated and commented upon “The Path of the Just” and “The Duties of the Heart” (Jason Aronson Publishers).

Rabbi Feldman also offers two free e-mail classes on www.torah.org entitled “Spiritual Excellence” and “Ramchal”.

2:3:4

Sometimes we succeed or fail in life to one degree or another because of our deeds rather than our personality [1]. Some righteous people, for example, might deserve a degree of Divine assistance, others might deserve more, and yet others might be worthy of a great deal of  help [2].

On the other hand, certain wrongful people who don’t rightfully deserve to succeed in life might still-and-all have an easy time succeeding, others might have a harder time, while some thoroughly wrongful people might be completely stymied [3]. Needless to say, there are many other details to depict when it comes to both righteous and wrongful people about all of this, but these are the broad outlines.

On another plain, some righteous people may succeed materially in order to be successful in their Divine service, while others might have to face serious barriers in their pursuit of perfection. And contrarily, some [4] wrongful people might succeed materially in order to be lead to ruin, while other wrongful people might struggle in life so as to be held back from doing a specific wrongful thing which G-d knows shouldn’t come about.

The point of the matter is that G-d brings all of this about by design and great wisdom so as to ultimately benefit humankind. He factors in everyone’s situation when He decides what’s to come about, knowing as He does, for example, that someone who’s successful in life who nonetheless doesn’t strive for perfection is on a different plane from someone who’s unsuccessful who doesn’t strive for perfection, etc.

We’re to accept the fact that He judges each of us individually and in accordance with who we really are, whether we accidentally or purposefully go against His wishes, whether things are beyond our control or not, and more. And we’re also to know that He’s well aware of all of the factors involved, judging us all fairly and appropriately [5].

Footnotes:

[1]         See 2:3:1 for the latter.

[2]         That is, even righteous and good people experience different degrees of help from Heaven in their lives. We’d expect them all to be privy to a lot, since they’d been righteous and good, but that’s not necessarily the case. Why? Because few things on G-d’s earth function on an arithmetic level, where one good deed deserves one favor from G-d, more good deeds deserve more, etc. That fact oftentimes shocks us and has us wonder about the fairness of things, but the truth is that our perspectives are always tainted with self-interest.

The same non-linear reality comes into play when it comes to the success or failure of wrongful people, as the following paragraph will indicate.

[3]         See 2:2:3.

[4]         Thoroughly…

[5]         That’s to say that all of this is done with the sort of meticulous and pinpoint wisdom that only G-d Almighty can exhibit. For He alone knows all the details involved, the secret conversations we each hold in our hearts, and the eternal as well as earthly ramifications of each and every phenomenon.

(c) 2016 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

Feel free to contact me at feldman@torah.org

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AT LONG LAST! Rabbi Feldman’s translation of Maimonides’ “Eight Chapters” is available here at a discount.

You can still purchase a copy of Rabbi Feldman’s translation of “The Gates of Repentance” here at a discount as well.

Rabbi Yaakov Feldman has also translated and commented upon “The Path of the Just” and “The Duties of the Heart” (Jason Aronson Publishers).

Rabbi Feldman also offers two free e-mail classes on www.torah.org entitled “Spiritual Excellence” and “Ramchal”.

2:3:2

As we’d said before, each and everything in this world is drawn downward in a cascade from the Transcendental Forces until it assumes a material form in this world [1].

As such, each aspect of the moral challenges we all face that we’d spoken about [2] likewise begins in the Transcendent Realm, and it assumes a function here based on the role it plays in the world’s “repairs” or “damages” mentioned [3].  It’s also true that the way each challenge is meted out to every particular person in this world  is likewise rooted in the Transcendental Forces. And this meting out is determined by every pertinent detail involved on every level.

It’s also clear from the central role played by the Transcendent Forces and G-d’s interactions with them and everything [4] that G-d Himself scrutinizes the entire process and decrees what’s to apply to whom based upon what’s most fitting.

Footnotes:

[1]         See 1:5:2.

It was said in 2:3:1 that “it was G-d who determined what would go into human nature … along with their causes and effects, and everything else connected to them”; we now delve into the mechanics and structure behind much of that.

[2]         See 2:3:1.

[3]         See 1:5:7.

[4]         See 1:5:3.

That’s to say that everything that goes into our personal challenges, circumstances, makeup, surroundings, and more that somehow or another fits into the growth and perfection of the cosmos is rooted in the highest reaches of Heaven and overseen by G-d Almighty Himself. Dare we wonder whether we and our challenges matter in the course of things?

(c) 2016 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

Feel free to contact me at feldman@torah.org

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AT LONG LAST! Rabbi Feldman’s translation of Maimonides’ “Eight Chapters” is available here at a discount.

You can still purchase a copy of Rabbi Feldman’s translation of “The Gates of Repentance” here at a discount as well.

Rabbi Yaakov Feldman has also translated and commented upon “The Path of the Just” and “The Duties of the Heart” (Jason Aronson Publishers).

Rabbi Feldman also offers two free e-mail classes on www.torah.org entitled “Spiritual Excellence” and “Ramchal”.

Derech Hashem – The Way of G-d 1:5:2

While we’re readily aware of physical phenomena and their properties, we simply can’t fathom spiritual ones all that well because they’re out of our experience ¹. All we can say about them is what we’ve been taught by our tradition ².

One of the most important axioms we have about them, though, is that everything in the physical realm has its counterpart in the Transcendent Forces ³ from which those physical phenomena devolved in the stages that G-d has ordained they must ⁴. Thus, the Transcendent Forces are the roots of all physical phenomena ⁵ and physical phenomena are the offshoots and products of those Forces, and the two are bound to each other like links in a chain ⁶.

We’ve also been taught that everything that happens in this physical realm — both crucial and incidental — is under the rule of the other spiritual phenomenon, the angels ⁷. They allow for and maintain those events and bring about the sorts of innovations that G-d decrees ⁸.

Notes:

¹             We in modernity are privileged to know more and more about the physical realm each and every day right down to the genetic nub. Nonetheless it’s imperative for us to realize that we’ll never be able to examine and portray the properties and laws of the spiritual realm, too. Expecting to is like expecting to sight an idea under a microscope.

See 1:1:5.

²             That’s to say that while spiritual phenomena can’t be seen, touched, heard, etc. they can be “known” and “experienced” on a nonmaterial level by prophets and other holy individuals. And the “data” gathered thereby can then be passed on to others.

See 1:1:2 and Ma’amar HaIkkurim, “Beruchaniyim”.

Kabbalists do speak of other means of discerning the spiritual that aren’t stemmed in a tradition per se, such as revelations of Elijah the prophet and deeply intuitive readings of spiritual texts like the Zohar and the like.

³            See 1:5:1 as well as Zohar 1:156b, Ramban on Genesis 28:12, and Moreh Nevuchim 2:4.

⁴             The process described here is that of the connection of the highest reaches of heaven to the lowest reaches of earth and back by degrees. It functions as “a ladder set up on the earth, the top of which reached to heaven: and (with) … angels of G-d ascending and descending on it.” (Genesis 28:12).

⁵             That’s to say that the Transcendent Forces are the sublime and ethereal counterparts of every single entity and interaction on earth. They’re sort of the nonmaterial germ and kernel of, and concept and notion behind everything we experience in this world.

See 2:5:6 and 3:2:1. Notice that it’s written in 4:6:13 that G-d’s “Throne” is the source of all physical phenomena, but the seeming contradiction is explained by the fact that there are various levels of Transcendent Forces and Sephirot and as such the exalted level known as the “Throne” is the superior one.

⁶             That is, touch one and you’ll automatically affect the other.

See Klallei Pitchei Chochma v’Da’at 4.

⁷             Hence, angels also play a vital role in the aforementioned link between the transcendent forces and the actual physical phenomena that result. In fact, angles can be said to be the intermediaries between the Forces and the material world.

See 1:5:1 and Breishit Rabbah 10:6, Zohar 1:34a. We’re also taught that everyone has his or her guardian angel (Chagiga 16a, Berachot 60b).

⁸             See 1:5:10.

(c) 2017 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

Feel free to contact me at feldman@torah.org

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Rabbi Feldman’s new annotated translation of Rabbi Yehuda Ashlag’s “Introduction to the Zohar” is available as “The Kabbalah of Self” on Kindle here. His annotated translation of Maimonides’ “Eight Chapters” is available here and his annotated translation of Rabbeinu Yonah’s “The Gates of Repentance” is available here.

He has also translated and commented upon “The Path of the Just” and “The Duties of the Heart” (Jason Aronson Publishers).

Rabbi Feldman also offers two free e-mail classes torah.org entitled “Spiritual Excellence” and “Ramchal” that can be subscribed to.