Right and Wrong (1)

We’ll turn now to the ideas of right and wrong in relation to God’s Yichud, and to the eventual undoing of all wrong which we alluded to above, all of which have tremendous ethical and theological ramifications [1].

The big question is, how can God be said to hold absolute sway over everything, and to be the only being whose wishes can never be thwarted when there are countless instances of ungodliness and wrong that do indeed seem to thwart God’s wishes?

Ramchal’s response to that is that while they do seem to deny God’s sovereignty and Yichud they actually do not; in fact, they will be undone just to illustrate how absolute God’s reign actually is.

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Notes:

[1]       As we said above, there are three aspects of God’s Yichud: first, His being the only entity who simply must exist if anything else is to; second, His desire to have everything return to the pristine state of Yichud; and third, His being the sovereign Ruler who holds absolute sway over everything, and whom nothing and no one can thwart. We’ll be concentrating on this latter aspect now.

(c) 2010 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

Feel free to contact me at feldman@torah.org

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