Now, the notion that God’s Yichud is “the underlying truth” behind everything as noted above touches upon some very profound phenomena — including the fact that all of creation will implode upon itself once His Yichud will be revealed. It’s not laid out in Klach itself, though it’s alluded to here, yet it is stated outright in some of Ramchal’s lesser-known works.
As Ramchal puts it in Sod HaYichud [1], “God was as perfect (from the first) as He is now and as He will be in the World to Come without any change (in between). It’s just that His perfection wasn’t actually made manifest at first, while it will be later on”.
That’s to say that God stands apart from space and time as an inherently existent, independent, perfect entity, who has been so from before space and time came about, who remains so in the course of space and time, and who will continue to be so after space and time will cease to exist [2].
Ramchal then offers that “since God wanted this manifestation to come about, there are thus three matters (under discussion when it comes to God’s Yichud): a Beginning, End, and Middle. ‘Beginning’ refers to (that epoch in which) His original perfection was there in a state of potentiality (i.e., what we might term “The Deep Past”); ‘End’ refers to (that epoch in which) His perfection will actually be made manifest (i.e., what we might term “The Deep Future”); and ‘Middle’ refers to (that epoch) before His perfection is to be made manifest” (i.e.., what we might term “The Deep Present”).
It’s important to understand that one of Ramchal’s points here is that what we refer to as “Deep Past” and “Deep Future” are nearly identical in that they’re both comprised of pure Godliness, but that “Deep Past” will only be truly synonymous with “Deep Future” later on, after the great Tikkun spoken of next comes about.
For as Ramchal then adds, “the (eventual all-encompassing) Tikkun will ultimately involve the attaching of the lower and higher (realms, worlds, beings, phenomena) to each other, after which everything will be attached to God, and it will be said that everything is one. That will entail the perfection of the Middle and the conjoining of the Beginning and End”.
Thus, God’s Yichud is also the experience of the ultimate conjugation — Yichud — of Creator and created; the moment when “everything will return to its Source” including “all of the Sephirot” (Iggerot Pitchei Chochma v’Da’at p. 404) [3].
As Ramchal rightly offers there, this concept “this isn’t grasped all that well in our day and age”. In fact, few speak of it at all [4] and many would deny it because of its implications. But Ramchal clearly regarded it as an essential albeit esoteric phenomenon to know about God, creation, and about the relationship between the two.
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Notes:
[1] The complete essay is contained in Ginzei Ramchal pp. 264-271.
[2] Also see Ramchal’s Ma’amar Reisha v’Sofa (found in Adir BaMarom 2, pp. 35-60) and his Peirush Ma’amar Arimat Yadi (Ibid. pp. 61-92) for his discussion of everything returning to pure Godliness.
[3] Is Ramchal actually referring to “God Himself” here or to “God’s Will” as referred to in section 2? It seems this is an allusion to God Himself. See R’ Shriki’s Introduction to Siddur HaRamchal (p. 31, end of note 25) where he points out that even the original primordial Tzimtzum will be undone then! See Shriki’s citation of a statement in R’ Moshe Cordevera’s HaPardes 11:6 on p. 31 note 29 there. And also see Klach 27 p. 155 which speaks of the Tzimtzum as the hiding of God’s Yichud thus implying that it will be undone once God’s Yichud is no longer hidden, also implying that we are referring to God Himself when we discuss His Yichud in this context.
[4] Though see R’ Yehudah Ashlag’s treatment of it in his Introduction to the Zohar, and The Leshem at various points (as well as Cordevera, as cited in the note). See the statement made at the end of the R’ Friedlander’s Introduction to his edition of Klach (p. 37 in the Western pagination) that Ramchal derived this notion from the teachings of the Brit Menuchah rather than that of the Ari (who post-dated the Brit Menuchah but regarded the latter as truly inspired and legitimate). While we can’t attest to that and have found no other reference to it elsewhere, it would explain Ramchal’s statement that “this isn’t grasped all that well in our day and age” which is highly influenced by the teachings of the Ari.
(c) 2010 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman
Feel free to contact me at feldman@torah.org
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