But that’s just the end….

There are four less exalted epochs of human development all-and-all than that one. And as we’ll see, the lower the stage of development, the greater will be the body’s assertions of itself, and the more profound will the soul retreat into the background.

The first step downward from the highest level will involve the body et al being more conspicuous and in control than above, but only on a broad, sweeping level still and all. Yet, it certainly wouldn’t play a detailed role in our lives (as it does now, for instance).

Interestingly, Ramchal compares the experience of the body at this lower stage to that of “someone who’s grief-stricken and unhappy” in some sort of “vague sense, and for no a specific reason”. That’s to say that the experience of the body and self then would be rather vague and hazy like the memory of something uncomfortable in the past that somehow whispers in the distance.

This all serves as an explanation of the relationship between Adam Kadmon and its “ears”, and it depicts their interactions. It will occur in the era of the Resurrection of the Dead. And the lower steps that we’ll come to touch upon Adam Kadmon’s other “apertures”, and will plays themselves out in the course of the Messianic Era or will have already come about in human history.

(c) 2012 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”.

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