There have been three main areas of concentration among the earlier and later Kabbalists: the Sephirot, the Partzufim, and the Names of God. Ramchal has been concentrating upon the Sephirot until now and will continue to do so here in this section, but he’ll also begin to discuss the Partzufim in this section’s final Petach, and will then begin to concentrate upon the names of God in the next section.
And so we’ll delve here into the structure of the Sephirot including a discussion of the makeup of the structure and its gradations, the makeup of the gradations themselves, and the makeup of their parts, properties, and of their interactions (Petach 14). We won’t be discussing the first Sephira, Keter, which is rooted in the Divine Will itself, but we will be delving into whatever come after that, from Chochma and onward including the gradations and about how they function in the governance of the universe (Petach 15). We’ll focus first on the “forward” and “backward” movements of the Sephirot, from Keter to Malchut and back again, with some emphasis on the implications of all that (Petach 16). Then we’ll introduce the Partzufim, each of which is a full, detailed expression of the Sephirot (Petach 17).
And we’ll also spend some time discussing the yetzer harah and the yetzer hatov, reward and punishment, and creation by gradation.
(c) 2011 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman
Feel free to contact me at feldman@torah.org
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