Nothing but nothing is ever forgotten (1)

The contents of Petach 78 (the first in this section) are discussed at more length and frankly more clearly elsewhere in Ramchal’s works, but he makes a couple especially cogent points here that he doesn’t make there, so let’s explore the lot of them.

Here’s the Petach itself: Each action’s outcome continues to exist even when the action itself is gone. So when for example a flaw has been repaired, the trace of the original flaw doesn’t disappear — it remains a flaw that has nonetheless been repaired. The opposite is also true, God forbid, that is, a merit that has become a flaw is still a merit, but it’s now a flawed merit.

That’s because nothing is even forgotten before His Throne of Glory. And at the end of the entire cycle there will be an utter repair that would be based on everything that was done, good or — God forbid — bad.

What we’re presented with here is a daunting remark that nothing is ever forgotten or utterly rectified, and that everything will be judged in the end for what it was as well as what it had become. Let’s see those other discussions to clarify his points.

(c) 2014 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

 

Feel free to contact me at feldman@torah.org

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

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