Category Archives: Kabbalah

As to our surroundings and circumstances, they and everything that goes on in them is physical and murky, too. Yet we’re forced by our makeup to partake in all that; after all, we have to eat and drink, earn a living, etc.

As such, we’re stuck in the muck and mire by virtue of our physical makeup, our environment, and our concerns. So we would need to work very hard at transcending our situation, given all that [1].

Notes:

[1]       The gist of this chapter so far is that each one of us is in the thick of a terrible conflict, inside and out, between the essential parts of our own being (i.e., our body and our soul), on the one hand; and between our beings and the world’s demands of us and its makeup, on the other. (In fact, the way we resolve those conflicts defines who we are in the end, but that’s not our concern here.)

Thus, we’re each a brew of clashing forces and proclivities, caught between physicality and its “partisans” who want this and that, and spirituality and its own partisans who want that and the other thing. And we’re each thick in the mire of a subtle, often intangible battle-field of self-contradictions, conflicts of interest, and compromises.

And beside all of that, Ramchal also makes the daunting point that physicality is in fact at a distinct advantage. For it’s able to assert itself from birth and to gnaw away at our spirituality, the late-comer, our whole lives long. After all, the greatest, most manifest partisan of physicality we have is our body, which is always right there. While the greatest partisan of spirituality we have, the soul, is utterly intangible and it only manifests itself in the mind and its elusive thoughts. Hence, the soul is essentially stymied and frustrated as long as it’s in this world.

In fact, some would reason that, given all that, we should utterly stifle our physicality and try as hard as we can to deny its demands. Rambam cites the decision of some non-Jewish ascetics who thought as much and decided that “one should separate oneself from (all material things) and go to the opposite extreme, so that one wouldn’t eat meat, drink wine, marry, live in a nice house or dress in fine clothes, but dress only in sackcloth and hard wool, etc.” (Hilchot De’ot 3:1). But as he said elsewhere, they believed that “that was how a person draws close to G-d” — as if “G-d is the enemy of the body, and wants to destroy and annihilate it!” (Eight Chapters, Ch. 4), which is not at all true!

The question is, then, is there somehow or another a way to make use of the world’s physicality to our spiritual advantage? There is, and the rest of this chapter and the majority of what will follow in this work, will in fact expand upon that.

(c) 2014 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”.

The class can be found here.

1:4:1

Ramchal termed this chapter “Man’s Standing in This World, and The Specific Ways Available to Him” [1]. It begins with the point that at bottom, man’s standing in this world is dependent on two things: his own makeup, and his surroundings and circumstances [2].

Notes:

[1]       … to achieve his ultimate goal, which will be focused on in 1:4:6 and 1:4:11.

It could be said that we’re now approaching the more practical core of Derech Hashem since rather than dwelling on abstract notions of G-d’s makeup, the purpose of creation, and our future life, we’ll now be concentrating on the means we have to live out and fulfill our life’s purpose and how some of the above touches on that.

As to our standing being dependant on our makeup and circumstances, it’s important to underscore the fact that G-d’s own will and plans obviously play a role in our station as well, oftentimes despite our makeup and situation. But that is a vast and numinous subject that’s far beyond the scope of this discussion.

[2]       See 1:4:2 specifically for a discussion of man’s makeup and 1:4:3 for his surroundings, though both will be discussed throughout the chapter.

Our makeup touches upon our inner life while our circumstances, of course, touch upon our outer lives. The two are often in conflict, as we’ll discuss below, but they needn’t be. In fact, the greatest among us are characterized by the harmonious interplay of the two.

The greatest classical paradigm of one’s makeup and surroundings affecting his standing would be the situation that Adam and Eve found themselves to be in before their sin, while they were of the greatest caliber and lived in the Garden of Eden, as opposed to their lesser stature subsequent to that when they were no longer in the Garden.

(c) 2014 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”.

The class can be found here.

1:3:13

In fact, by all rights the soul should actually and quite naturally purify the body to a truly supernatural degree when an individual is born, whether he’s worthy of that or not, given how inherently pure the soul is.

But the point is that G-d purposefully disallowed for that [1], and keeps the soul at bay, if you will, in the course of one’s life, so that His intentions [2] can be fulfilled. So the soul does what it does while it is in the body, and no more, where it otherwise sits stifled and withdrawn, so to speak [3].

It’s also true that the soul should likewise be able to expand and irradiate as the individual engages in good deeds in his life, and to purify the body then to a degree. But that, too, was denied the soul in life.

But those restraints will all be removed in the course of the Resurrection of the Dead, when the soul will purify the body in one fell swoop [4]. And the combination of body and soul will grow higher and higher [5] to the degree that accords with the sort of person that individual had come to be in life [6], until they become worthy of the World to Come where they can continue to grow [7].

Notes:

[1]       Because of Adam and Eve’s sin.

[2]       That humans be subject to free will.

[3]       And it “expresses itself” to a degree in The Soul World as we said in 1:3:11-12. Also see 1:4:2 below and Da’at Tevunot 72.

[4]       Also see Da’at Tevunot 72, 146-148.

[5]       See Berachot 17a; Zohar 2:83a, 1:135b; Sha’ar HaGemul.

[6]       See the end of Ch. I of Messilat Yesharim.

[7]       Thus it’s written that “Sages have no rest, neither in this world nor in the next” (Berachot 64a). See Emunot v’De’ot 9:10.

See Klallim Rishonim 23 for a lying out of what will happen to the body and soul step by step in the course of the 7^th, 8^th, 9^th, and 10^th millennia.

(c) 2014 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

Feel free to contact me at feldman@torah.org

———————————————————-

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”.

Unfortunately, the class isn’t yet posted on torah.org

1:3:12

The soul enjoys a couple of other advantages in the Soul World which will ultimately benefit it and the body when they’re rejoined [1].

Since it was decreed that one could only achieve perfection after having experienced death, it follows then that even if someone actually earned it while he was alive (which is in fact the only environment in which one could earn it [2]), he’ll have to wait for it.

What that implies is that the soul has to be exposed to sin and wrongfulness to one degree or another while the individual is in this world [3], and to become darkened and dimmed [4] as a result of that exposure. It also implies that the soul can’t express its full inherent luster while the individual is still alive [5], having been tinged that way.

Consequently, the body which could have benefitted and been purified from the soul’s luster can’t experience that in this world. And the soul suffers from the fact that it can’t manifest its luster in life too, since it can’t fulfill its raison d’être then, which is to purify the body, given that “things only achieve perfection when they fulfill their G-d-given purpose” [6]. It’s clear then that both the soul and the body lose a lot in life.

Ramchal’s point, then, is that the soul attains some of what it lacked for in life while in The Soul World. It can radiate fully there, and its ability to purify the body is bolstered there, too [7].

Notes:

[1]       In the text Ramchal makes two points about the soul at this point: that it “rests” in The Soul World — i.e., it remains in a state of suspended animation there; and that it also “looks for the body” there. That is, despite the spiritual advantages it will enjoy in The Soul World described below, at bottom the soul sits motionless awaiting its reunion with the body and wishes it could be with it in The Soul World, too. That comes to underscore the partnership and the love of body and soul rather than the sort of antagonism between them that others would posit.

[2]       “This world is like a vestibule before the World to Come; prepare yourself in the vestibule, so as to enter into the banquet hall” (Pirkei Avot 4:16); “‘You are to do (the mitzvahs) today, and not postpone them for tomorrow; since (while you can) do them today (in life), tomorrow (i.e., The World to Come, is set aside) for receiving the reward for (having done) them” (Eruvin 22a). Also see 1:3:3.

[3]       Which is so abhorrent and foreign to the soul.

[4]       I.e., demoted and demeaned.

[5]       I.e., it cannot be itself.

[6]       Along the same lines, Rambam contends that something is termed “good” only when it fulfills its life purpose (Moreh Nevuchim 3:13).

[7]       And it can thus “be more of itself” there. That is, like a bird that had been kept cooped up then set free, the soul’s release from the body enables it to fly, preen, and breathe freely. But the soul will not achieve its full capacity until The World to Come.

(c) 2014 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

Feel free to contact me at feldman@torah.org

———————————————————-

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”.

The class can be found here.

1:3:11

Body and soul each go their own way at death. The body returns to the dust from which it was made [1], and the soul goes to The Soul World [2].

That is, the soul doesn’t just passively anticipate its true and infinite reward in The World to Come while the body decomposes, is purified, and then returns to the soul [3]. It enjoys something of the delight it will enjoy in The World to Come [4], according to the merits it will have earned in the physical world there in The Soul World (just as the delight it will experience in The World to Come will correspond to its merits) [5]. Nonetheless, as we said [6], true and fulsome reward and delight will ultimately be experienced by the body and soul together.

Notes:

[1]       “For you are dust, and you will return to the dust” (Genesis 3: 19).

[2]       In fact, the soul returns to its source as well: it revisits the Soul World from which it actually originated. See Tanchuma Pikudei 3 for the details of the soul’s experience before birth, also see Zohar 1:91b.

As to the posthumous experience of The Soul World, also known as “The Garden of Eden” or “Heaven”, there are several Traditional discussions of it. See Emunot v’De’ot 6:7, Moreh Nevuchim 1:70, Ikkarim 4:30, Torat HaAdam (Sha’ar HaGemul). Also see Shabbos 152b, Chagigah 12b, Tosephot (Rosh Hashanah 16b, “leyom hadin”), Vayikra Rabbah 18:1, Kohelet Rabbah 12:7.

The point, though, is that this Soul World isn’t the ultimate reach or the definitive end — The World to Come, which is far more arcane and profound an experience, is. The idea that there is something beyond the death experience and its mysteries is one of the points that sets Judaism apart from many other religions and world-views.

[3]       The body doesn’t just decompose in the dust, though: it has other experiences there. See Da’at Tevunot 72 and Adir Bamarom pp. 123, 198 where the cleansing process is discussed, and Derech Eitz Chaim (as well as Ari’s Sha’ar Hagilgul 23:3 and Reishit Chochma, Sha’ar HaYirah Ch. 12) for reference to Chibut HaKever (“the purgatory of the grave”).

[4]       See Ramchal’s Ma’amar HaChochma, “B’gemul”.

[5]       See 1:3:10.

[6]       See 1:3:7, 10.

(c) 2014 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

Feel free to contact me at feldman@torah.org

———————————————————-

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”.

Class not up yet on www.torah.org

1:3:10

Thus, true reward [1] will come about after the Resurrection of the Dead, and after the world would have been undone and redone — when body and soul would have been reunited, after the soul would have purified the body, and when both could then enjoy the great goodness of that reward [2].

Not everyone there would enjoy the same degree of reward, though, even when there. The more one struggled in this world to grow and perfect himself, the greater would his reward (and experience there) be [3]. Since those efforts would determine the degree to which his body (and its associated aspects) would have been purified by his soul [4], and would also determine how “close they (i.e., body and soul in combination) would merit drawing to G-d, to basking in the light of His countenance, and to enjoying His true goodness” as Ramchal words it [5].

Notes:

[1]       As opposed to the relatively short-term reward in the Afterlife (see 1:3:3 above and 1:3:11 just below).

[2]       The idea that perfection will only be achieved when both body and soul experience The World to Come is accepted by the great majority of Traditional thinkers, including but not limited to Emunot v’De’ot 7:8; Ra’avad on Hilchot Teshuvah 8:2; Torat HaAdam at end of Sha’ar HaGemul; Yam Ramah, Chiddushei HaRan, and Bartinuro on Sanhedrin 10:1; etc, Also see Sanhedrin 91a, Zohar 1:114a, 3:216a, and Tikkunei Zohar 10b.

But see Rambam who argues that the ultimate reward will be enjoyed by the soul alone and that the Resurrection of the Dead will be impermanent in Hilchot Teshuvah 8:2, Moreh Nevuchim 2:27, and Iggeret Techiyat HaMeitim. Also see Kuzari 1:115, 3:20-21; Chovot HaLevovot 4:4:6; Ikkurim 4:30, 33; Ohr HaShem 3:4:2; etc.

[3]       This principal is enunciated at quite a number of points in the Tradition. See for example Baba Batra 75a, Vayikra Rabbah 30:2, Pirkei Avot 5:23, T.Y. Chagigah 2:1, Midrash Tehillim 11:7, Sifri (10) on Deuteronomy 1:10, Emunot v’De’ot 9:7, Sefer Chassidim 166, 365, etc.

Also see 2:2:7 below, and Messilat Yesharim Ch. 4.

The point is underscored because one might think that all would be equal and conjoined by that point, when all sins would have been expunged by death and the experience of Gehenom, but that’s not actually so. There will always be distinctions between one soul and another.

That also speaks to the existence of individuality in death and thereafter, and it underscores the idea that everyone will not meld and lose his or her personality and separate selfness (as some fear and others contend).

[4]       It’s important to realize that not only will the body itself be purified by the soul, but the personality, inclinations, etc. associated with the person inhabiting that body will also be purified.

There’s another important point to be made here. The soul had a “life” — i.e., a presence, purpose, and wherewithal — even before it entered the body. And it enjoyed a high degree of intrinsic perfection and brilliance then. That perfection was already powerful enough to transform the combination of body and soul into a superhuman entity. Nonetheless, G-d saw to it that the soul’s intrinsic perfection be suppressed, and that it not accomplish its goal — yet. That is, before the World to Come.

As such, the soul had to stay in place, if you will, and sit silently and alone by the waysides before it could enter a body, until its time would come, when it would indeed be allowed to express itself fully, and nothing and no one would hold it back. That’s when it will enter the body in all its glory and might, and will immediately begin to purify it. It would be the moment that the soul had been waiting for, for so very long, which it had been honed for, which it could finally experience.

[5]       … so movingly. As, nothing would be as splendid or wondrous to the righteous than “drawing to G-d,… basking in the light of His countenance, and … enjoying His true goodness”!

(c) 2014 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

Feel free to contact me at feldman@torah.org

———————————————————-

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”.

The class can be found here.

1:3:9

Our having to experience death — and the universe itself having to go through a form of it too — is also due to Adam and Eve’s sin. For neither any one person nor the universe in its entirety can attain perfection while wrongfulness prevails over goodness as it does now. That state of affairs has to be transcended through (each individual’s) death and (the universe’s) destruction [1].

It’s also true that the soul can’t purify a body [2] until it’s first separated from it at death and the body decomposes. Only then can a new edifice [3] that can achieve perfection be set up. That explains the need for The Resurrection of the Dead, and for the eventual destruction of the physical universe and its own “resurrection” in the course of the seventh millennium [4].

Notes:

[1]       Ramchal is clearly drawing an analogy between the body-soul combination and the universe. But, what is the universe’s “soul”? There’s a rather erudite answer to that which is far beyond our concerns here, put let’s offer a short explanation here.

We depicted how the Kabbalists describe the pre-creation stages (see our first note of 1:3:8). The point here is that at a certain moment G-d then projected a “line” of His Being back downward toward what would eventually be the space within which the universe would be created so as to animate it. That “line” (kav in Hebrew) is the soul of the universe, as it animates the universe and gives it “life”. Ramchal speaks about this in a number of places: see Klach Pitchei Chochma 27-29 and Klallim Rishonim 6 for example.

[2]       See 1:3:7 above.

[3]       I.e., a new combination of body and soul.

[4]       See Sanhedrin 97 a-b as well as Rosh Hashanah 31a; also see Ramchal’s Ma’amar HaIkkurim (“b’Geulah” and “b’Gemul”), Adir Bamarom (p. 188), Da’at Tevunot 92, and Klallim Rishonim 9 for a full explication of the events involved.

(c) 2014 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

Feel free to contact me at feldman@torah.org

———————————————————-

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”.

The class can be found here.

1:3:8

All in all, Adam and Eve’s sin had tremendous and catastrophic consequences that we’re still contending with.

While they were purposefully created imperfect [1] so that they could fairly contend with the choice between doing the right or wrong things as we indicated [2], and to achieve perfection on their own [3], that imperfection was further aggravated by their sin. They and everyone else were demeaned in the process [4]. And it has thus become harder for us, their descendants, to achieve perfection.

For, G-d had originally seen to it that it would have been easy enough for us to make the right choices and to achieve perfection. But it became that much more difficult for us to achieve it to this very day. And humanity has sunk deeper and deeper yet in the mire, as yet another step has been added to the process: we must not only go ahead and achieve perfection on our own, but we also have to backtrack and achieve what Adam and Eve didn’t.

Notes:

[1]       This calls for a thorough explanation of the creation of the universe. That would necessarily draw us far afield, so let’s offer the following inadequate but terse explanation.

In the very beginning (before all beginnings), all there was, was G-d Almighty Himself. At a certain point He decided to create reality, but in order for it to exist it would need to somehow be separate from Him (otherwise it would be subsumed in His Being, and couldn’t exist after all). So G-d allowed for a supernal “empty space” to come about that would be devoid of Him, so to speak, which is the first instance of un-G-dliness and imperfection. (See the beginning of Eitz Chaim for this recondite idea known as Tzimtzum, as well as Ramchal’s Klach Pitchei Chochma 30 for its connection to humankind).

Like everything else, humankind is an offshoot of this phenomenon, and it’s thus intrinsically un-G-dly and imperfect. Ramchal is thereby underscoring the fact that Adam and Eve (like everything else other than G-d Himself) suffers from an intrinsic imperfection — aside from the ones they brought upon themselves with their sin.

[2]       See 1:3:2 above.

[3]       See 1:2:2 above.

[4]       See note 1 to 1:3:6.

Ramchal and many others speak of the negative matter accrued upon us as a result of Adam and Eve’s sin as a kind of spiritual “filth”. See Da’at Tevunot 72 and Adir Bamarom 2, p. 54.

(c) 2014 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

Feel free to contact me at feldman@torah.org

———————————————————-

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”.

This hasn’t appeared on torah.org yet.

1:3:7

While we’re aware of our soul only thanks to our vitality and our consciousness [1], it has another, more clandestine function. The soul purifies and uplifts our body and physicality, step by step. In fact, it even elevates it to the point where the body can bask in spiritual perfection just as the soul itself will in the World to Come [2].

In any event, Adam and Eve would have achieved that instantaneously had they not sinned, and would have brought themselves and the entire universe to that point. But they didn’t.

Notes:

[1]       That is, we experience our soul when we realize that our being animate and aware isn’t simply a fact of life, but actually a product of a higher force beyond it. Otherwise we don’t tend to experience it. It can be experienced, though, through fervent prayer and devotional music, and the like, but that’s beyond the scope of this discussion.

See last paragraph to note 1 of 1:3:2 above for the various parts of the soul. Also see 1:3:12 below regarding the soul’s effect on the body; and Zohar 1, p.80,

[2]       This purification process will take place in the course of the Resurrection of the Dead (discussed in 1:3:9, 11, 13; 1:4:2; and 2:2:4 below) and come to full fruition in the World to Come (discussed in 1:3:4, 9; 2:2:-2; 2:4:6; and 2:8:4 below).

See Da’at Tevunot 88 for an analysis of the process and Klallim Rishonim 9 for a more esoteric explanation.

(c) 2014 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

Feel free to contact me at feldman@torah.org

———————————————————-

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”.

Class can be found here.

1:3:6

Indeed, Adam and Eve’s gross misjudgment caused a vast and central change in the cosmic reality. For while humankind was to have been comprised of a body and a soul with commiserate leanings toward either righteousness or wrongfulness; and whereas each person was to have been evenly drawn toward both, and given the ability to choose righteousness and align himself with the soul overall and achieve eternal perfection as we’d learned above, that changed when Adam and Eve sinned [1].

Their having chosen wrongfulness affected themselves, us, and the world to a frightening degree [2].

Notes:

[1]       See Da’at Tevunot 40 and 126 for an analysis of Adam and Eve’s status before and after their sin, and what would have happened had they not sinned.

[2]       Let’s not cluck our tongues at them, by the way, and be surprised at how “asinine” they must have been, for they are us. We, too, settle for something that seems to be good at the moment, but which clearly proves not to be that in the end. We accept that in ourselves, simply because we’re “merely human” and “imperfect”, as we put it. Yet, they too were merely human — in the manner in which we depicted it — and proved to be imperfect; and they too thought they were right. It would thus obviously do us well to step back the next time we’re faced with a moral choice.

Nonetheless they erred, and as a consequence of it the original equibalance of good versus evil tipped toward the side of evil. And it became easier to err, and harder to rectify.

Evil took on a life of its own, it began to grow accustomed to the power it had attained, and has since become entrenched in the world. What would have seemed clearly wrong now seems de rigueur, normal, and just part of human nature. And it has therefore become much more difficult to choose to be good; much harder to abandon our faults and earn perfection.

And whereas once all humanity would have needed to do was to conquer its own tendency for wrong and go on from there, now it must work twice as hard as a consequence of Adam and Eve’s cosmic error. It must not only fight its own battles and win — it must also fight Adam and Eve’s. This is the crux of the human condition.

(c) 2014 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

Feel free to contact me at feldman@torah.org

———————————————————-

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”.