Not following the order of the Petachim themselves, we’re going to be delving into the following in this section, God willing:
A. What occurs before the appearance of the Sephirot? That will touch upon the idea of the Sephira of Malchut (9, 11) which is said to be the root of the lower realms (11), and thanks to which one can “ascend” to higher worlds and “derive things” (11).
B. All of creation as a single entity in human shape known as Adam Kadmon (12).
C. The whole array of God’s governance constituting a Merkava, a “chariot”, (Ramchal’s comments to 7), which has all sorts of associations in Kabbalistic and Rabbinic literature.
D. The idea of “circles” and “straight lines” in God’s governance (9, 13).
E. The Sephirot (as well as everything else) as interdependent, sequential, interwoven phenomena that follow specific rules (10); and the idea of certain Sephirot being “encased” in or “emerging” out of others (10).
F. All that having been explained we can then speak to the assumed “appearance” of the Sephirot, including the idea that the Sephirot only assume shapes in visions — that they don’t really have them (7); that those shapes can be self-contradictory (8); and that we gain our knowledge of God’s governance as well as of the upper realms from those “shapes” (11). This subject also touches on Ramchal’s controversial idea that the Ari’s depictions of things are all metaphors and not to be taken literally which we’ll discuss.
G. The significance of the fact that each “viewer’s” makeup affects his perception of the Sephirot (8).
(c) 2011 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman
Feel free to contact me at feldman@torah.org
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