Monthly Archives: March 2011

Building a fire, one sephira after another

“The first principal (to consider) regarding the (system of) … structure of the Sephirot” Ramchal offers in Petach 14,is (a consideration of) the makeup of the structure and its gradations, the makeup of the gradations themselves, and the makeup of their parts, properties, and of their interactions”.

So he offers in his comments there that we’d need to know that the entire structure is comprised of “613 lights which parallel the (248) limbs (and 365 organs) of the human form”; that they function in ways that “parallel the natural laws that govern humanity” and the natural world, though of course they only seem to do that in the eyes of the prophet, since they’re not material in fact; and that they interact by assuming different relative positions as when they’re “encased” (i.e., subsumed) one within the other when one’s functions are overt while another’s is covert, as we saw in Section 3 and will discuss later on [1].

The other important thing to keep in mind, he insists, is the fact that the “recipe” needs to be exact, with neither too much nor too little of anything, which it is in fact, since God “knew just what was needed, no less and no more, to bring about the full system of governance that would achieve His goal for creation” and so that humans would be free-willed enough to make their own moral and spiritual choices.

And he compares God’s purposeful setting-up of the components of this structure to our building a fire. For just as the fire needs to be made just-so to function, with neither too much nor too little wood or else the fire will extinguish, this structure likewise needs to be made just-so in order for it, too, to function.

What’s interesting about his analogy is that one would obviously need to be making a very small fire for it to be affected by such subtle variations in its fuel-source. That’s obviously a reference, then, to the tininess of the cosmos from God’s own perspective.

Notes:

[1]       See 3:4 and note 39 there.

(c) 2011 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”.

Ramchal’s final words on reward and punishment

Ramchal offers a fundamental statement at a number of junctures, which is that everything is heading toward one thing alone: “(universal) rectification … (and) universal perfection” (comments to Petach 69, also see Da’at Tevunot 47, 170 and elsewhere). That’s to say, everything is contributing toward the aforementioned revelation of God’s Yichud.

But he then raises the point that that seems “to contradict reward and punishment, and free will” (Da’at Tevunot 44). After all, if universal perfection is sure to come about, come what may, what then do our actions matter?

So he goes on to offer that there are various and many ways of bringing universal perfection about, many of which are unfathomable to us (Da’at Tevunot, 170), but that at bottom it will surely come about; in the meanwhile, though, the system of reward and punishment, which “is (God’s) overt form of governance”, does indeed play itself out in the world (Ibid.). In the end, though, “the governing system of (i.e., that will eventually bring about universal) rectification will eventuate”. But it will follow on the heels of “the ways of reward and punishment” (Ibid., and Da’at Tevunot 53), which functions in the meanwhile (Ibid., 56).

According to Ramchal, then, that’s to say that there are two systems at play at the very same time: the overt one of reward and punishment (i.e., of universal progression and regression, depending on our moral and spiritual standing), and the covert one of oncoming perfection (i.e., of universal progression, come what may). It’s nonetheless true that the two systems interact, as he’ll go on to explain later on in Klach Pitchei Chochma; so our moral and spiritual standings do matter.

Let’s return to the Sephirot now.

(c) 2011 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”.

Ramchal on reward and punishment

Ramchal is most explicit about the dynamics of reward and punishment in his Ma’amar HaIkkurim (“A Discourse on Fundamentals”) in the section entitled Hashgacha (“Providence”).

His first point there is that “God oversees everything He created” with an eye toward “the purpose for which it was created”. That’s to say that God is aware of everything that happens and makes sure that adjustments and alterations are made to accomplish His goal when necessary. Given that humans are the only free and independent agents whereas everything else simply follows course, it’s clear that it’s our deeds and their consequences that need to be adjusted. That’s why Ramchal then offers that “the providence that applies to humankind must be different from that of other beings”.

Given that we’re free-agents it also follows that some of what we do “results in merit”, i.e., our “good deeds”; while some “result in liability”, i.e., our “sins”; and that each is recompensed, which is to say — they’re reacted to and are either “rewarded” because they further God’s goal, or “punished” or adjusted because they don’t.

The things we do that are neither good deeds nor sins per se, however are allowed to follow the natural course of things simply because our free-agency has no bearing on them, and God just naturally makes sure they suit His goal (regardless of whether we understand how they do, or not).

And finally we’re taught that the “reward” or “punishment” is either administered in the course of one’s life or afterwards, but the point of the matter is that God is well aware of everything and is sure to see to it that everything is prearranged or adjusted retroactively to suit His goal (which, as we learned, is the revelation of His Yichud).

But there’s more, of course.

(c) 2011 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”.

Reward and Punishment

The ideas that goodness and obedience to God’s charges are to be admired and rewarded, and that wrongfulness and disobedience are to be condemned and punished are axiomatic to the faith. It’s asserted, for example, in the second paragraph of Sh’ma Yisrael (Deuteronomy 11:13-21) that goodness will facilitate the bringing on of “the rain of the land in its seasons” and that wrongfulness will encourage God to “stop up the heavens (so) that there be no rain and (so) the land will not yield her fruit”; in the Ten Commandments, where dutifully honoring one’s parents will ensure that “your days will be long upon the earth” (Ex. 20:12); and at many other points.

And the Tradition points to reward and punishment in the Afterlife and in the ultimate World to Come at quite a number of junctures as well — both explicitly as in Pirkei Avot 2:2 which speaks of merit “enduring forever”, and implicitly as in Pesachim 54b where it’s pointed out that despite the fact that one cannot fathom the depths of God’s judgment, Divine Justice does prevail.

We’ll see how Ramchal understands the concept next.

(c) 2011 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”.

Free Will

We’ve already spoken a lot about free will in Section One. See especially this, from note 14:

Ramchal discussed our free will in a number of other places in Klach. See for example Petachim 27 (p. 76), 29 (p. 87), 30 (p. 93), and 81 (pp. 260, 262). Also see Da’at Tevunot 14, 158; Derech Hashem 1:3:1, 1:5:4; Ma’amar HaIkkurim, “BaHashgacha”; etc.

Also see Deuteronomy 30:15–19; Pirkei Avot 3:15; Emunot v’ Deot (Ch. 4); Chovot Halevovot (3:8), Moreh Nevuchim (3:17), Hilchot Teshuvah Ch. 5, and the statement that “All is in the hands of Heaven but the fear of Heaven” (Berachot 33b), which is to say that humankind is free to offer any sort of ethical response to whatever Heaven offers.”

And this, from note 22 there:

Ramchal enters into a rather protracted discussion of the seeming contradiction between the idea of mankind’s God-given free-will and God’s over-arching will in Petach 1. If, as we’re taught, we’re each utterly free to make the ethical choices we deem fit and we’re thus seemingly capable of “foiling” God’s wishes in the process, then how could God’s will be absolute? As such, some might argue that indeed “Originally, God may have been alone” i.e., independent and hence omnipotent, but “He then chose to create beings … with wills of their own,” which then made it “possible … for them to thwart His will … and go against it”. After all, they’d argue, didn’t God also “create the Other Side” – i.e., wrongfulness and ungodliness, which apparently goes against His will all the time. And don’t we also see that “the Nation of Israel has sinned, and there is (apparently) no salvation for them”, so how could He, who chose them to be the purveyors of His will, be said to be omnipotent?

Ramchal’s response is simply this: Whatever seems to thwart His will only does so because “He allows it to, for His own inscrutable reasons” (Petach 2). So the point is that at bottom God is in utter command of everything, “nothing can thwart His wishes”, and all other wills are in fact “subservient to Him” and His wishes (see below as well).

We’d now add these Ramchal references: Klallim Rishonim 28, where he discusses the implications of free will being rooted in Nesirah, to be discussed later on; Adir Bamarom p. 414 where he discusses it in terms of man’s natural versus his “post-Adamic” state; and Ibid. p. 456 where its place among the Sephirot is discussed.

We’d also add these references now which seem to deny free will altogether or, at best, to relegate it to an apparent, very conditional, temporary, or perhaps ineffective or effete status: “Man only does what God wants (to have done)” (Adir Bamarom p. 416); other wills “are subservient to His” (Petach 1, p. 3); our so-called “free will” is merely a product of our ignorance of God’s own will (Petach 81, p. 262); we all wind up following God’s wishes ;“even when it appears that we’re doing the opposite” (Tiktu Tephillot 40), and the fact that so-called “free will” will be undone in the end anyway (Da’at Tevunot 40).

We’ll get to reward and punishment next.

(c) 2011 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”.

With heart and mind

As we pointed out above, though, Ramchal was of the opinion here that it’s the intellect that enables one to overcome the yetzer harah [1]. As he put it elsewhere as well, “realizing the truth (of things by means of your intellect) strengthens the soul and distances it from the yetzer harah, as there is nothing that makes the soul more susceptible to the yetzer (harah) than lack of knowledge” (Derech Eitz Chaim). In fact, he goes on to offer there that “if one’s knowledge was broad enough and stood (firmly enough) upon his heart, he’d never sin”. Thus Ramchal seems to hold that it’s the mind alone that resists the yetzer harah.

He does acknowledge elsewhere, though, the role that the emotions play in that process. He pointed out that “the more one reflects upon the exalted nature of God, the infinite nature of His perfection, and the great and unfathomable difference between His greatness and our lowliness, the more will he be filled with trembling and reverence before Him”. And that “when one reflects as well upon the great goodness He has provided us with … an intense and powerful love will arise within you, and you will want nothing but to attach yourself to Him” and to avoid sin (Messilat Yesharim Ch. 21).

So he seems to be of the opinion that one can best resist the enticements of the yetzer harah when both heart and mind are focused upon God and one’s goal in life [2].

Notes:

[1]       Also see Derech Hashem 1:4:6 which while cited earlier in explanation of the yetzer harah also makes the point that man was “placed in this world to overcome his yetzer (harah) … by means of his intellect”.

[2]       Rabbi Yisrael Salanter (19th Century), the founder of the modern Mussar movement, stressed other phenomena including the chanting of pertinent verses and teachings about a particular sin one is tempted by in order to avoid it, or in order to foster a particular trait one is pursuing. His theory was that one thus “mesmerizes” himself that way and bolsters his fortitude from within (much the way reciting a national anthem reinforces one’s love of country, reciting poetry and the like affirms one’s emotions and convictions, and the like).

(c) 2011 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”.

Ramchal on the existence of the yetzer harah

Ramchal himself seems to take a more utilitarian attitude toward the existence of the yetzer harah and to side with the “necessary evil” approach. He first acknowledges the existence of evil in the human heart (aside from goodness) by saying simply that man is “equally inclined in two (ethical) directions” given that he was “created with a yetzer hatov and a yetzer harah” (Derech Hashem 1:3:1). And he offers that, given the reality that “mankind was created with a yetzer harah and a yetzer hatov” it’s consequently “impossible for there not to be some good and some bad” among us (Derech Hashem 2:2:2); or put another way, “the world was created with (both) good and bad elements” (Derech Hashem 2:3:1), so wrong and injustice are to be expected.

But as he put it elsewhere, he holds that the yetzer harah is to man’s advantage in that, inasmuch as “something that needed to be rectified was created within man so that he could earn merit” by rectifying it in fact (Klallei Pitchei Chochma V’Da’at 1).

At bottom, though, he states that man was in point of fact “only placed in this world to overcome his yetzer (harah)” (Derech Hashem 1:4:6), and that it’s important to understand that “you will only be the full man worthy of clutching onto your Creator if you are … victorious in your battles” to overcome your yetzer harah (Messilat Yesharim Ch. 1).

(c) 2011 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 yetzer hatov and the yetzer harah

Other than the very best and worst of us, we humans are morally, psychologically, and existentially complex and incongruous beings. But given that “the imaginings of a man’s heart are wrongful from his youth” (Genesis 8:21) along with the fact that “God created man in His image” (Genesis 1:27) and that “God the Lord (Himself)… breathed into his nostrils the soul of life” (Genesis 2:7), our complexity is understandable [1].

Our complexity could also be said to be the natural course of things, given that “God saw all that He had made,” when He created the whole of the universe, and He determined that “behold it was very good” en toto, notwithstanding — or perhaps for the reason that — the day and life itself was comprised of both “evening and… morning”, light and darkness, good and evil (Genesis 1:31).

In any event, we’re taught that our goodness is a product of the promptings of our yetzer hatov, while our wrongfulness comes from the promptings of our yetzer harah [2].  And while the yetzer harah is inborn, the yetzer hatov doesn’t take effect until one is of bar- or bat-mitzvah age and thus more mature and reflective [3]. Don’t make the mistake of assuming that the yetzer harah is all wrong, though; it’s in fact a “necessary evil” for without it much good wouldn’t come about [4].

We’ll see next what Ramchal adds to that.

Notes:

[1]       In fact, it’s those very best and worst of us we’d spoken of who are harder to explain, other than to depict the worst of us as aberrations and the best of us as exceptions.

[2]       See Berachot 61a.

[3]       Kohelet Rabbah 9:14.

[4]       See Breishit Rabbah 9:9.

(c) 2011 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 yetzer harah and yetzer hatov, reward and punishment, and free will

Ramchal introduced the idea of morality (as well as free will and the system of reward and punishment) at the beginning of this section, in his very first comments to Petach 14. Explaining the structure of the Sephirot, Ramchal introduces the idea that God granted humankind “an intellect and a yetzer hatov (i.e., an “inclination toward goodness”) and a yetzer harah (i.e., an “inclination toward wrongdoing”) that he could control” with that intellect. He went on to say there that God also granted humankind “a means of serving (Him or not serving Him) as a result of which man would earn (either) merit or punishment (in the Afterlife) until he becomes purified”, and He likewise “granted him an eternal reward (in The World to Come)” once he is purified.

Bringing this all back to the subject of the Sephirot, though, Ramchal then adds that “each one of these things involves many details,” and that we’re obliged to understand “just how many gradations were needed to attain this”, meaning to say that we need to study the makeup and interplay of the Sephirot if we’re ever going to understand how Divine Justice plays itself out in the world.

The point is that were it not for the system of multifarious and sequential Sephirot man wouldn’t have free will, and there’d be neither reward nor punishment. The logic seems to be that if sequence and hierarchy weren’t in place, then all of God’s beneficence would emanate evenly from His single Being without regard to the worth, merit, or standing of the recipients given that everyone would stand on the same moral and spiritual ground [1]. But that couldn’t be, since we’re to be free moral agents and to deserve reward or punishment.

Let’s see how Ramchal put it elsewhere: “God created the world through the (sequential and hierarchal) system of ten Sephirot, and so the world is … (hence to be) governed according the dictates of these ten Sephirot. And (because) God wanted man to have free choice He ‘decreed’ (i.e., decided) that He (Himself) wouldn’t function according to His own full being and will (which is beyond sequence and hierarchy, and is utterly benevolent), but rather according to how His recipients (i.e., according to how we, the recipients of His benevolence, who do indeed function according to sequence and hierarchy) would establish things” through their free will [2].

So we’ll now spend some time explaining the classical ideas of a yetzer harah and yetzer hatov (and their relationship to the intellect which Ramchal alluded to above), of reward and punishment, and of free will, and we’ll compare and contrast them with Ramchal’s understanding of those things.

Notes:

[1]       See Kinat Hashem Tz’vaot.

[2]       See the work that R’ Friedlander published as “Da’at Tevunot 2”, p. 22.

(c) 2011 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”.

God purposefully created a world of relativity, opposites, multiplicity, and nuance

As Ramchal laid it out elsewhere, “among the fundamental things that God instituted” when He created the world “were the factors of ‘measure’ and ‘dimension’”, which is to say sequence and the subsequent reality of relativity, “… because He wanted (the world) to function sequentially, … (so that) one (thing) would be beneath another one, and so on down the line” or some other thing would be above another. The point is that God created sequence so that things would compare and contrast with each other positively or negatively, both physically and morally, as we’ll discuss below (Da’at Tevunot 118).

We’re thus told that God purposefully created a world of relativity, opposites, multiplicity, nuance, and — the truth be known — doubt. For “thanks to” measure and dimension we have the ability to catch sight here and there of God’s intention, but we’ve nevertheless been forbidden entrance into God’s own realm of unity and absolute truth in the process. That affects our thoughts, utterances, and actions; it influences our inner beings very, very deeply; and it too has great bearing on our moral and spiritual standing.

Before we discuss Ramchal’s view of human morality though, let’s see his other major point about God’s usage of sequence.

As he points out at a certain juncture, “sequence is what allows for time” to exist (comment to Petach 121). That’s a very important point, needless to say, given that we depend on time for our knowledge of the world and ourselves. Yet he points out elsewhere that “time … won’t exist in the World to Come” (Adir Bamarom 1, p. 107) indicating that it’s a temporary phenomenon. Still and all it is indeed a vital factor, for as Ramchal says elsewhere, the sort of universal perfection we’re promised with the revelation of God’s Yichud “won’t occur in one fell swoop but rather sequentially” and in the process of time (comments to Petach 42).

(c) 2011 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”.