Monthly Archives: June 2011

Ramchal discusses Divine names in Derech Hashem, too, though in a whole other context. He addresses the issue of “Theurgy” there –our drawing upon the power inherent in Divine names in order to consciously affect changes in the world, or to draw close to God (3:2:6-7). That’s done by either inscribing specific names onto parchment in the form of kamayot (amulets) or by reciting those names (though Ramchal doesn’t discuss kamayot). He assures us that there are specific rules involved in this as well as of the fact that being capable of it doesn’t enable one to do the impossible (3:2:2). But the point remains that this is a force to be reckoned with. This ability enables its practitioner to “bend” nature, if you will, or to bypass it to one degree or another (3:2:5). Ramchal takes pains, though, to underscore that this ability emanates from God, from His intentions for world, and from the mechanisms that He Himself set in place (3:2:6), and that’s its success often depends on the righteousness of the person utilizing it (3:2:7).

In fact, Ramchal addressed this issue in his comments to Petach 23 where he says that “all actions depend on the (power inherent in and the recitation of the) many Divine names to come about … (specifically) by the various combinations and admixtures of lights (that come into play through those names). And it is from them that the angels receive (their tasks and abilities)”.

(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”.

Here’s a statement by Ramak, by the way, that ties the Sephirot in with the Divine names, most especially to the Tetragrammaton. He remarks that “the Sephirot are (embodied in) the ten (Divine) names that (are actual names rather than depictions, and as such deserve special treatment, so they) may not be erased. (In fact,)t he names and the Sephirot are one and the same, as the spirituality (i.e., the spiritual content) of the names are literally the Sephirot … The aforementioned names are Courtyards (i.e., entranceways) to the spirituality of the Sephirot, and that spirituality is a garment (i.e., a container for) the inner spirituality alluded to by the Tetragrammaton that’s found in each and every Sephira” (Pardes 1:10).

(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”.

Petach 22 expands upon the whole idea of the Aleph–Bet and the Hebrew words that result from them by tying them in to God’s various names (as we suggested above), most especially His ineffable four-letter name and its permutations, and by connecting them to the Sephirot.

As Ramchal words it there, the entire range of functions of the Sephirot is governed by the order of the ten Sephirot, which is (itself contained within) the order of the four letters of God’s Name (Yud, Heh,Vav, and Heh). This is (also) the order that governs the trope, vowels, “crowns” and letters (spoken of above) through the mystical import of those four letters as well as the four names contained in each individual name.

So, what we’ll do here is first cite Ramchal’s ideas about Divine Names exoterically; we’ll then turn back to the above statement and see what Ramchal adds to it in his own comments to Petach 22 where it originates; and we’ll then see what he says about the whole of it exoterically in other works.

He points out in Da’at Tevunot 80 that “the One and only God in all His perfection cannot be named or termed anything, since we can’t grasp His (i.e., Him in His state of) perfection, and it’s impossible to name something you can’t grasp given that a name is the named-object’s definition and one can’t name for something he can’t grasp”. Yet, as we all know, God is called by various names in Tanach and throughout the tradition; how do we explain that? It’s rooted in the fact that the prophets (including and epitomized by Moshe) recognized God as exhibiting certain specific traits in His interactions with the world “such as mercy, sovereignty, power, justice, compassion, anger, strength, and the like”. Based on this we refer to God — despite His unfathomable makeup and our inability to name Him — as “’The Merciful One ’, ‘The Ruler’, ‘The Mighty One’, ‘The Judge’, etc.” And Ramchal goes on by implication to apply those names to the terms for and functions of the Sephirot [1]. There are other names for God, too (including more “name-like” names like the Tetragramaton and the like), that have nothing to do with this phenomenon, though, some of which are actually acronyms of certain phenomenon in the Divine Presence as we’ll see soon. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

Note:

[1] The whole of R’ Gikatilia’s Sha’arei Orah is a treatment of this.

(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”.

Despite the assertion that the letters themselves are of utmost importance, the other elements certainly play a role in governance as well, as we’ll see when Ramchal touches on the combination of trope, vowels, crowns, and letters (known by the acronym TaNTA or טנת”א) later on in Klach in a more esoteric way.

As he puts it in his own comments to Petach 31, “The letters themselves are the Lights of (i.e., are responsible for) the governance of ZuN (i.e., Zachar v’Nekevah, the Male and Female principles) that emanate from Imma (i.e., the Partzuf that corresponds to the Sephira of Binah which is right above ZuN)”. That is, the letters play a direct, hands-on role in the governance of our world, which is defined as the world of ZuN (as we’ll see later on), and they draw upon higher realms.

The crowns “are hovered over by Imma … so as not to be separated from it even when going away from it”. That says nothing about governance per se but rather about the “aloof” nature of the crowns, if you will.

The vowels “are governed by Imma” and they in turn “govern the letters”. That speaks to the subordinate role that the letters play to the vowels, which “drive” them.

And the trope are connected to “governance by means of Abba (i.e., the Partzuf that corresponds to the Sephira of Chochma which is above Imma, depicted above). That means that the trope draw upon even higher realms than the letters.

We’ll explore the significance of all this when we get to Petach 31, as well as elsewhere.

(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 (usually) three special zayin-like flourishes placed on some letters of the Torah, Tephillin, and Mezuzot that are thick on top and have a thin line extending downwards. The  letter that receive the crowns are שעטנזגצ (see Menachot 29b) as well as the final ן and ץ (see Rashi there).

The Machzor Vitry (674–83) includes a copy of Sefer Tagin which addresses the tagin that appeared on the 12 stones which Moshe first set up in the Jordan River and that had been transferred later on to Gilgal (see Joshuah 4:9, 20) on which were inscribed the Torah text with the required tagin (see Ramban to Deuteronomy 27:8).

The point once again is that despite the fact that the trope, vowels, and crowns flesh-out the letters, add nuance and special import to them, enrich one’s reading of them, and despite the fact that each completes an action appropriate to it, they’re not essential, as the essential acts come about through the letters themselves as we indicated above.

(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 classical Hebrew text is comprised of consonants alone, as is well known. While some passages include points over individual letters, words, or parts of words, there are no other marks added to the text of Tanach. But we’re taught yesh em lamasoret (Sanhedrin 4) — that there has long been a tradition as to the pronunciation of the printed text — and that implies the existence of a sort of titular vowel-system.

In fact we find the following stated in Macḥzor Vitry (120), “We’ve never heard it said that the Torah was pointed when it was given to Moshe. The punctuation-system itself wasn’t given on Sinai; the sages introduced it as a sign (i.e., as an aid to reading) afterwards. After all, we would be transgressing the prohibition against adding anything to the Torah (Deuteronomy. 8: 1) if we were to add the punctuation marks to the Biblical text. So, while the division of verses and the trope … have been transmitted (to us) from Sinai to this day, this tradition is, nevertheless, an oral one, and was not given to us by means of punctuation marks” [1].

Nonetheless it’s thought that somewhere between the 8^th and 10^th centuries of the Common Era scribes termed “Masorets” developed the system of marks above, in the middle of, or below the consonants that we term the nekuddot.

Note:

[1]       Also see Kuzari 3:31.

(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 indicates in Petach 21 that the full functioning of the letters depends on (the additional roles played by the following elements:) the trope (musical notations placed above and below the letters), vowels (points placed within, over or under the letters), and the “crowns” (configurations that are joined to the letters at the top) that are attached to the letters (themselves). Each completes an action appropriate to it. But the essential acts come about through the letters (themselves), he underscores, which is obvious given that “the written letters alone are sufficient to allow us to understand” the point being made, as he adds in his comments there.

Let’s examine the makeup of trope, vowels, and crowns.

Trope (also known as “Cantillation Notes”) are special signs and marks used to help in the reading of Tanach in the course of public services. As a rule of thumb, each word of text has a trope mark at its primary accent which is associated with a musical phrase to be used when reciting it, but in point of fact some words have two or no marks, and the musical meaning of some of them depend on context. The trope marks provide insight into the syntactical makeup of the text and often serve as a clue to its meaning. There are two systems of trope: the one used in the great preponderance of the books, and the one that’s used in the Books of Psalms, Proverbs, and Job.

There’s clearly an ancient tradition about the trope, as we see in the Talmud which speaks of a system and masters of it (Berachot 62a, Nedarim 37a).

(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’s principal concern at this point in Klach Pitchei Chochma, though, isn’t letters and words themselves so much as names — Divine Names and their various permutations, as we’ll see. He does make one final point about the Aleph–Bet here, though, which is very important and touches on a lot of his perspective on God’s governance of the universe.

He says in Petach 20 that the mystical import of these orders (of twenty-two letters) lies in and derives from the mystical concepts of Chessed (“kindness”), Din (“judgment”), and Rachamim (“compassion”), (which represent the) “right”, “left” and “center” (columns).

In other words, each letter is comprised of a left, right, and center component. Its right side speaks to its degree of Chessed (“kindness”), its left to its degree of Din (“judgment”), while its center speaks to its degree of Rachamim (“compassion”) which is actually a variegated blend of Chessed and Din. And each component expresses the mystical import of the Aleph–Bet.

This principle often illustrated by the makeup of the letter Aleph, א, which is comprised of a Yod, ‘, (actually an inverted Yod) on its left side, another (not inverted) Yod on its right side, and a diagonal Vav, ו, at its center. Aleph is thus pretty balanced — not as perfectly balanced as the letter H is or a Samech (ס) is, but more balanced than a Bet (ב) for example or (an oversized) Lamed (ל).

And as he points out in his comments to Petach 20, “every action (that eventuates in the physical world) comes about as a result of the force produced by a particular combination of the three qualities of Chessed, Din, and Rachamim”. That’s to say that everything that is either kindly, harsh, or some combination of the two, is actuated by an element of one letter or another or a combination of them.

And they form different (different) combinations (and appear in formations represented as being) “closed” and “compressed” (in shape), or “open” and “expanded” (in shape) which is to say as a “line” or a “point” or otherwise, Ramchal points out in Petach 20.

This phenomenon bears a lot on what happens here in the world, Ramchal maintains elsewhere, given that “the world is governed … by the mystical principle of (the combination of) Chessed, Din, and Rachamim” (Adir Bamarom p. 188). “Each one has its function” in the world: “Chessed emits a lot of (beneficent) light and a lot of (similar) light emanates from it, while Din also emits a lot of light of the opposite sort (i.e., benevolent light), and the lights blend with each other in keeping with the mystical notion of Rachamim (i.e., to form one blend or another or “recipe” of both benevolent and malevolent elements). This combination of one or another is the basis of the Torah’s system of “pure” versus “impure” (i.e., “kosher” and “un-kosher”; “right” and “wrong”; etc.) elements, he goes on to say there, for specific reasons.

But that’s only relevant to the lower realms, he points out. “That’s not the intention in (the loftier realms of) Erich Anpin, where utter Chessed reigns” and where right, left, and center emanate pure Chessed alone. “The (graded and variegated) emanations that come into play in the lower realms, which is the site of (moral and ethical) war against The Other Side” are different from the ones in the higher realms where none of that comes into play.

Thus we see that while the letters and words certainly play a major part in the makeup of the world as we know it, the sort of letters and words that will be found in the higher worlds will be of a whole other order and far purer.

The upper and lower realms, as well as the roles they play in the governance of the universe, will all be discussed at great length later on in this work.

(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”.

Rebbe Nachman agrees with RSZ’s idea but adds a certain tantalizing element to it (see Likutei Moharan 1:64-3-4). He cites the verse, “By the word of the Lord were the heavens made” (Psalms 33:6) as a proof of this phenomenon (which Ramchal himself cited in Petach 18), and he likens speech there to Chochma (both literally as wisdom and as the Sephira by that name as we’ll see) since it’s also written, “How great are Your works, O Lord! You have made them all with Chochma” (Psalms 104:24).

But he points out that there’s a stage higher yet than Chochma, which is silence, as when God counseled Moses to be silent rather than delve into the wisdom of His governance of the world (see Menachot 29). That’s to say that sometimes it’s better to not question or speak, but rather to acquiesce to higher, even more arcane, unintelligible Divine wisdom.

He thus asserts that while the letters do play a pivotal role in creation, they are certainly not primary: the Sephirot, which are epitomized by Keter which is utterly unfathomable, are.

But notice, also, this point by R’ Chaim of Volozhin (see Nephesh HaChaim 3:10). Also agreeing with RSZ’s assertion, he nonetheless adds (without offering a specific source) that the Zohar equates God’s speech with His very Self. Then he adds this element to the mix: “It’s written about the World to Come that ‘the glory of the Lord will be revealed (then), and all flesh together will see that the mouth of the Lord spoke’ (Isaiah 40:5). That’s to say that our understandings will be so purified then that we’ll merit to physically catch sight of God’s words as they appear throughout the world”.

Not only that, he adds, but we’ll actually “catch sight” of God’s presence itself then, when the verse “your Teacher will no longer be concealed from you, for your eyes will see your Teacher” (Isaiah 30:20) will come true, given that we’ll see God’s words all over. This last point fits very nicely of course into Ramchal’s whole theme of the ultimate revelation of God’s Yichud [1].

Note:

[1] See Ramchal’s reference to God’s words playing a role in creation in Da’at Tevunot 158, and also see Ramban’s comments to Genesis 1:4 and 2:17.

(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”.

(For the record: Ramchal discusses the Aleph-Bet on a very esoteric level in Kinat Hashem Tziva’ot “Tseirufei haotiot” and in Pitchei Chochma v’Da’at 30.)

We go now from letters to words, which is to say to intelligible combinations of letters. Now, many early Kabbalistic texts refer to non-intelligible combinations of letters in conjunction with what’s termed “practical Kabbalah” or taken to be “white magic”, but Ramchal and many others steered clear of all that (except when it concerned composing komayot for “medicinal” purposes). And both early and later Kabbalists made reference to non-intelligible terms as illustrations of concepts or as instances of acronyms, gematria, notrikon, atbash, or the like rather than as letter-combination that affect reality. But we won’t discuss any of that.

Understand of course that words can simply be the nouns, verbs, etc. that refer to this and that in heaven and on earth, or they can refer to various Divine names. While the former matter very much, as we’ll soon see, it’s the latter that factor most especially into the Kabbalistic system as we’ll see later.

Chassidic literature focused quite a bit on words as nouns and verbs, most especially the works of R’ Schneur Zalman of Liady and R’ Nachman of Breslov who based their statements on the teachings of the Ba’al Shem Tov.

We’re taught that God’s “word is eternal; it stands firm in the heavens” (Psalms 119:89). Basing himself on a statement made about this verse in Midrash Tanchuma the Ba’al Shem Tov remarks that the words themselves that comprised God’s remark “let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters” (Genesis 1:6) remain firmly fixed in the heavens to this very day (just as the words God used to create everything else remain in place).

R’ Schneur Zalman expanded upon that and actually said that were those words to depart from the heavens (or anything else they were a part of the creation of), then those things would cease to exist, as their very being is bolstered and fixed by the role that the words that went into their creation play from moment to moment (Sha’ar HaYichud v’Haemunah Ch. 1) [1]. He goes on to make the point there that that’s not only true of things created by the Ten Utterances that went into creation in general; it’s also true of everything, in that the (Hebrew) letters that comprise their names maintain them.

This then is an understanding of letters and words as not mere helpmeets of the Sephirot but as the very power-sources that they use in this world.

Notes:

[1]       See RSZ’s Likkutei Torah, Parshat Achrei Mot; also see Ari’s Eitz Chaim 50:2. 

(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”.