{"id":148,"date":"2013-11-03T06:40:49","date_gmt":"2013-11-03T15:10:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/derechhashem.wordpress.com\/?p=148"},"modified":"2013-11-03T06:40:49","modified_gmt":"2013-11-03T15:10:49","slug":"derech-hashem-125","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/derechhashem\/2013\/11\/03\/derech-hashem-125\/","title":{"rendered":"Derech Hashem 1:2:5"},"content":{"rendered":"

The class can be found here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Human beings, who will assume the central role in the playing out of eternity and of G-d\u2019s intentions for it, who will be the focus of the remainder of this work, and to whom all other entities both more mundane and more celestial than they are subservient, are in that position because of two propensities [1].<\/span><\/p>\n

First, because we can grasp exalted things that no other entity can [2]; and second, because we can acquire far loftier characteristics [3]. That is what enables us to perfect ourselves and to draw close to G-d. Their opposites — concentrating on more mundane things, and settling for lesser character traits — are what limit us and draw us away from G-d.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve thus been placed in a world that enables either propensity so that we\u2019d (hopefully) choose the loftier one [4].<\/p>\n

Notes:<\/p>\n

[1] Many would be struck by the fact that Ramchal designated all of humanity<\/i> as the center of concern rather than the Jewish Nation which, after all, has been chosen to observe G-d\u2019s Torah and to thus fulfill His wishes in this world. He seemed to evidence that same sympathy at a couple of other points. He said that \u201call souls in their entirety are (in fact) one soul\u201d (Klallei Pitchei Chochma v\u2019Da\u2019at<\/i> 4), Jew and Gentile alike; and similarly, that \u201call souls were incorporated in the soul of Adam\u201d (Derech Eitz Chaim<\/i>, based on Shemot<\/i> Rabbah<\/i> 40:3).<\/p>\n

Nonetheless Ramchal explained in the fourth chapter of Section 2 below, there came to be a point when this was longer true. Indeed, had Adam and Eve not sinned, then all of humanity would have been capable of drawing close to G-d equally; and had later generations not sinned either, the same would have been true. But he underscores the fact that since that didn\u2019t come to fruition then only the descendants of Abraham — the Jewish Nation — has that ability.<\/p>\n

The point of the matter is that we\u2019re still at the beginning of Ramchal\u2019s study of human potential; and so far in this work, all of humanity has the ability to draw intimately close to G-d Almighty. But as we\u2019ll discover, that\u2019s simply no longer true; only the Jewish Nation can ultimately do so — and only by fulfilling the conditions presented below.<\/p>\n

[2] See Rambam\u2019s Iggeret<\/i> Taimon<\/i>; Moreh<\/i> Nevuchim<\/i> 3:54; and Sh\u2019mone Perakim<\/i> Ch\u2019s 2, 7 (where he discusses good character traits, too). Also see Avodat<\/i> HaKodesh<\/i> 3:13.<\/p>\n

[3] As most would understand by now, the more exalted things we\u2019re encouraged to grapple with and try to grasp include G-d\u2019s being and His intentions for the universe, and His Torah-based requirements of us. It\u2019s not yet clear what personal characteristics he\u2019s referring to, though. But that comes to this.<\/p>\n

We all know very many “nice” and “good” people who go out of their way to be kind and friendly, who can take a joke, who like other people, and who think it’s good to be good, and bad to be bad. Yet they may be utterly childish at home, selfish, grumpy, rude, and even heartless; they may lose their temper easily, sulk, berate people behind their backs, cheat in small but nettlesome ways, respect hardly anyone, etc. That\u2019s to say that they’re not truly “good” people so much as fairly average individuals who want to please and be liked, but who drop all that when they’re home and in safe quarters. Faced with the delicious prospect of drawing close to G-d Almighty, such individuals would certainly be “nice” to Him, too, but they’d probably complain about something He said once they’d left His presence.<\/p>\n

Only the sort of person who’s good to the core, who’s driven by an electric and driving urge to be good, do good things, help, give, and excel in his or her being could ever hope to achieve the sort of laudable<\/i> character<\/i> we’d need to grow close to G-d.<\/p>\n

Ramchal most famously laid out the character traits one should strive for in his Messilat<\/i> Yesharim<\/i>, but also see 2:3:1 below for some discussion of this.<\/p>\n

[4] Many of these ideas will be reiterated later on this in this work, in 1:4:4, 4:4:1, 4:5:1, 4:9:1-2, etc. Also see Ma\u2019amar HaIkkurim<\/i>, \u201cb\u2019Torah u\u2019Mitzvot<\/i>\u201d.<\/p>\n

(c) 2013 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman<\/p>\n

Feel free to contact me at feldman@torah.org<\/a><\/p>\n

———————————————————-<\/p>\n

AT LONG LAST! Rabbi Feldman’s translation of Maimonides’ “Eight Chapters” is available here<\/a> at a discount.<\/p>\n

You can still purchase a copy of Rabbi Feldman’s translation of “The Gates of Repentance” here<\/a> at a discount as well.<\/p>\n

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

Rabbi Feldman also offers two free e-mail classes on www.torah.org entitled “Spiritual Excellence<\/a>\u201d and \u201cRamchal<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The class can be found here. Human beings, who will assume the central role in the playing out of eternity and of G-d\u2019s intentions for it, who will be the focus of the remainder of this work, and to whom … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2,3,4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-jewish-thought","category-kabbalah","category-ramchal","category-torah"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7iqof-2o","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/derechhashem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/derechhashem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/derechhashem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/derechhashem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/derechhashem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=148"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/derechhashem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/derechhashem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/derechhashem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/derechhashem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}