Monthly Archives: August 2011

I’ll be taking several days off for a summer break. I rescind the statement made that I won’t get into Ramchal’s ideas on the origin of wrong, evil, and injustice; we’ll dive into all that once we come back on board.

The final and most fulsome series of statements about the makeup and purpose of the Tzimtzum is offered in Petach 30. They hearken back to remarks made earlier on in this work about why one should study Kabbalah [1], and about God’s intentions for the universe. But Ramchal adds other elements.

Rooted in the Tzimtzum is the principle that everything in the created world would follow a natural course until the end. He’ll soon explain it to mean something else, but part of the idea of things “following a natural course” has to do with the notion that offered in his comments that “the first thing to be understood about the governance of the universe”, which is our aim here in this work of Kabbalah, is that the governance of the universe “depends on (the existence of) levels and measurements” — on finitude, definition, and limitations, which are all lacking in God’s presence, and which were only established by reality of the Tzimtzum. His remark here in the body of the Petach about things following a natural course, though, is this one.

That’s to say, that flaws would exist in the course of things but that in the end — when God’s Yichud will be seen (or “exposed” if you will) for what it is — everything would return to its ultimate perfection. We’d addressed that major theme before, too [2]. In other words, God saw to it that there’d come to be a system of right and wrong, and that a hard-fought and intense struggle between the two would go on until the end — but that there would be an end, indeed, and that right will ultimately triumph [3]. (He thus understands the term “a natural course” as referring to a so-very-human and imperfect state of being that will ultimately give way to a Divine state.)

But there’s more.

Notes:

[1]       See our extended discussion of this in 1:1 and in note 2 there. His statement here, in his comments, is that “the science of Kabbalah in its entirety is intended to (help us) understand the governance of the Supreme Will, God’s purpose for having created all the various creature phenomena, what He expects of them, what will come about at the end of all the sequences of the universe, and how to explain all of these odd sequences of events”.

[2]       See 1:4 and the various notes there, and see Ramchal’s many remarks about this in his comments to this Petach.

We’d add that Ramchal also engages in a long-enough analysis of the source, make-up, and role of evil and wrongdoing in his comments here that the reader would do well to study. This theme became eminently important to Kabbalists and Chassidic thinkers in Ramchal’s time and soon afterwards (and continues to be now, to some degree) because of the statements of disciples of the notorious Sabbatei Tzvi. But a full discussion of all that would take us far afield so we’ll mostly avoid it in this work; but we’ll touch on some of it.

[3]       See 1:5 and the various notes there. We’d again advise the reader to see Ramchal’s many remarks in his comments here about this.

(c) 2011 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

Feel free to contact me at feldman@torah.org

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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 then indicates that the Tzimtzum also enabled God’s light and radiance to be envisioned in the first place. For before the Tzimtzum occurred — and even now in the case of those extraordinarily sublime and inscrutable Godly levels which the Tzimtzum doesn’t affect — God’s light and radiance couldn’t be envisioned or grasped at all (Petach 25).

The point here seems to be that it’s God’s having hidden His presence (by means of the Tzimtzum) that has made it possible for us to see an aspect of His presence (His light and radiance). The analogy that’s often cited for this is that of shadows (a hiding away of light) that shield our eyes from the harmful effects of the sun’s stark light, without which the eyes would be blinded by overexposure.

(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 then moves on to its import, by depicting the Tzimtzum of the Ein Sof as the act by which the Ein Sof purposefully set aside His infinitude and adopted the mode of finite action i.e., of finitude, instead (Petach 24). That’s to say that Ramchal understands the Tzimtzum as a purposeful act of Self-suppression on God’s part, rather than a stepping aside or an act of physical diminution of some sort: he saw it as an act of God’s only functioning out of one aspect of His Being rather than the whole of It.

That’s to say that if, as we indicated above, God was and is “certainly capable of (creating or doing) much more (than He did); (but) He (simply) didn’t want to”, then the Tzimtzum was simply the sign that He indeed chose not to create more than He did.

For, God wanted the universe to function on a relative basis — relative to His intentions for us and our reality — not on an absolute, God-based basis. So (as Ramchal said in his comments to Petach 24), “His act of Tzimtzum prepared the way for the creation to come into being in a way that’s suited to the nature of the created realms and beings” rather than His own infinite nature.

He then adds a couple of other points in his comments there: first, that “the Tzimtzum isn’t only a matter of the absence of infinitude” and thus just a negative phenomenon. He underscores the fact that it serves a very positive role, in that it sustains the relative universe that we experience and “maintains the boundaries and limitations in being” that define our world.

Second, he adds that by having allowed for this human-centered relative universe the Tzimtzum manifested “the roots of Din (judgment)”. In short (because this is a very loaded statement that touches on many themes including reward and punishment which we’ll discuss below, and more), having chosen to limit His capabilities to create the universe God introduced the entire phenomenon of limitation, which is the heart of Din. For, while Chessed (loving-kindness), its polar opposite, is exemplified by expansion and bypassing boundaries, Din is exemplified by restriction and staying within boundaries. The point of the matter is that while God is inherently expansive, He stifled that, and thus allowed for Din which functions in our boundary-laden universe alone for good reasons.

(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 begins his “solution” of the actual makeup of the Tzimtzum by first tying it in to the Sephirot which we’d focused on at length above.

He offers that the Sephirot are what came forth from the mystical space that occurred at the time of the Tzimtzum (Petach 29). We’ll discuss this “space” later on; suffice it to say that it came into being after and as a consequence of the Tzimtzum. In any event, this statement implies that without the Tzimtzum neither the Sephirot nor the universe they helped create and continue to govern could have existed outside of God’s own Being (Petach 24) which was the only existent until then.

(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 how Ari described what he’d envisioned about the state of things before creation, based on his close readings and deep knowledge of the traditional sources and on his own intuitive, prophetic grasp of things: “Before any emanations were emanated or creations were created, a most supreme, simple light filled the whole of existence. There was no vacant place, no aspect of empty space or void, but rather everything was filled by that simple, infinite light …. (But) when it arose in His pure Will to create (the universe) … Ein Sof contracted Itself (i.e., it brought about a Tzimtzum) at its midpoint, in the exact center of its light. And … It left a vacant space — an empty, hollow void” within which everything could be created [1].

Based on his readings and knowledge of Ari’s and others’ statement as well as on his own intuitive, prophetic grasp, Ramchal depicted it in his own terms. Obviously knowing that his readers already knew Ari’s depiction he merely said in his comments to Petach 24 that: “In terms of what was ‘envisioned’ (as opposed to its ‘solution’, to be discussed below), the Tzimtzum appears in one place, while all around it is Ein Sof”. But he expanded on that elsewhere and said, “Before the world was created, (while) ‘He and His name were one’ [2] (and nothing else existed) Ein Sof willed (creation) and (thus) constricted His light in order to create all of the created phenomena, (and thereby) gave them space (i.e., an independent environment in which to exist)… (while) Ein Sof (Itself still) surrounded the space from all sides” (Klallot HaIlan 1:1).

Notes:

[1]       From The Tree of Life by Donald Wilder Menzi and Zwe Padeh (Arizal Publications, Inc. NY, 2008) pp. 11-13 (with slight changes).

[2]       Pirkei D’Rebbi Eliezer 3.

(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”.

Let’s back-track a bit and speak of what preceded the Tzimtzum, which was God alone. We already determined in the first section that we’re neither able nor allowed to speak of God’s essential Being itself; but we will delve a bit into something quite stunning that Ramchal offers in his comments to Petach 24 relevant to the pre-cosmic reality and its relationship to God’s Being. Let’s first draw closer into our reality as it stands now, though.

We’re privileged to see far, far deeper down and up, within and without, than we ever could. Thanks to extraordinarily sophisticated and complex tools we’re able to see the smallest of things and the grandest, the simplest and most complex. It has become clear to us that the universe — better, the lot of universes, both those “out there” and the one “in here” — is magnificently huge and tiny, and stunningly variegated. The thought that all of that was created by a single Deity is itself dazzling. But the following notion is nothing if not astounding and utterly humbling.

Ramchal declares here that “we mustn’t think that God created only what He was capable of creating and that He wasn’t able to create anything else. God forbid! He’s certainly capable of (creating or doing) much more; He (simply) didn’t want to.”

That’s to say that, despite what we imagine, it did not take everything that God “had in Him”, so to speak, to create this vast and multifarious universe: He could have created far more, and many utterly different phenomena than what even we know of today, but He didn’t.

For, as Ramchal went on to say, God Himself “encompasses all sorts of infinite capacities”. So, when we address His creation of the universe, “we aren’t referring to His infinitude…. Rather, we’re to that particular capacity among His infinite number of them that He (happened to have) used to create us”.

In fact, as one of his students put in a certain unpublished work, “the capacity (God used to create the universe) is simply a single small” capacity of His. As such, “everything (in the universe) emanates from this single (small) capacity alone” (from Ma’amar Mar Yenukah, quoted in R’ Y. Spinner’s edition of Klach pp. 63-64) [1].

The point to be made is that not only do few of us understand God as He manifests Himself in this universe — few even appreciate the limitations of our understanding of Him! For, He is not only far greater than our universe — He’s far greater than any notion we might have of any possibility in or out of this universe!

Note:

[1]       Also see Ramchal’s Peirush l’Arimat Yadi, Ma’amar Harautin, and Sod HaYichud.

(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”.

Where did the notion of a Tzimtzum originate? Many suggest it comes from a couple of renditions of the pre-cosmic condition as found in the Zohar (1:15a) and in Zohar Chadash (V’etchanan, Kav HaMiddah). The latter more easily lends itself to that suggestion; and in fact Ramchal himself cites it as a reference [1].

Some find a source for it in a parable in Ramak’s Pardes (4:9) [2]. But already Nachmanides cited the notion in his opening remarks of his comments to Sefer Yetzirah in the 13^th Century, and Shem Tov Ibn Shem Tov spoke of it in the 15^th Century.

But the idea first presents itself in Shemot Rabbah to Exodus 25:10, where God was said to restrict and foreshorten (l’tzamtzaim) His presence to a small specific area of the Tabernacle [3].

It seems, though, that two other early sources allude to the need for a Tzimtzum before there could be a creation: the idea that “God yearned for a home among the lower beings” (Midrash Tanchuma, Naso 16) which He obviously could not have had, had He not allowed for the environment that the lower beings would need; and the idea that God appeared in various “guises” at different times — as a warrior at the Red Sea, a sage at the giving of the Torah, etc. — depending on the needs of the time and circumstances (see Rashi to Exodus 20:2), which suggests that that He needed to assume the “guise” of a non-presence before the universe was created.

That having been said, it’s nonetheless true that it was Ari alone who made Tzimtzum a major component of his explanation of things, and it’s his understanding of it that calls for explanation and analysis.

Notes:

[1]       See his comments to Petach 30 (beginning of section 2 there). But also see the 3^rd comment in Ari’s Derech Emet to Kav HaMiddah, and Eitz Chaim p. 11d.

[2]       See R’ M.Y. Veinshtock’s Shulchan HaMa’arachot b’Sitrei HaChochma (Vol. 1 p. 133).

[3]       Gershom Scholem famously declared that Ari turned the Midrash’s image on its head, for while the latter spoke of God narrowing and focusing His Presence into only one area, Ari referred to Tzimtsum as a setting aside or moving away of God’s presence. But the truth of the matter is that both refer to the unexpected “plasticity” of God’s presence, if you will, which is the main point.

 (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 next thing to consider is something we’d also brought up earlier which most especially comes into play from here onwards — Ramchal’s contrasting what was “envisioned” by the prophets and certain exalted souls, as spoken of in 3:6, and what that was understood to represent, as we indicated there. As we put it (based on Ramchal’s comments to Petach 9), those “rare individuals who were able to ‘envision’ the Sephirot” and  the like, “knew that they were experiencing ‘visions’ all along, and … they understood the import of those visions as well”.

But this isn’t merely an abstruse statement about prophecy: it’s actually Ramchal’s method of explaining Kabbalah. For the sages in the Zohar and those Kabbalists who followed their system were also able to “envision” things, and they too  were able to understand what lie behind what they were privy to. Now, most people aren’t aware of what those individual’s envisioned unless they’re students of Kabbalah; and very few of the latter indeed are aware of the import of those visions (most especially Ari’s). So Ramchal took it upon himself to explicate both what was seen (which he terms “the vision”) and what was meant (what he terms its “solution”).

As Ramchal said in Ma’amar HaVichuach, many of the people who studied Ari’s works, “took them literally and shallowly, which doesn’t amount to much of an understanding at all”. All they had in the end were “names of certain phenomena” which thus served them as “tables of contents”. They didn’t understand “the intention behind all those things or what they were referring to”, and they were merely “memorizing text (girsah) without (understanding the) logic (behind it)” [1].

The point of the matter is that while one should know all the nomenclature when studying Kabbalah, the various “events” depicted , the interrelationship between the parts, as well all the major and minor themes, one should wind up also knowing the point of it all — the various “solutions” to the puzzles that comprise Kabbalistic knowledge [2].

As such, we’ll be offering both the “visions” as Ramchal depicts them here and in other works and his own “solutions” of them. We’ll work “chronologically” if you will (which is an anomalous term, given that we’ll be presenting phenomena that came about before time itself), and we’ll begin with the Tzimtzum.

Notes:

[1] See Sha’arei Ramchal pp. 36-37)

[2] See Ibid. pp. 38-39.

 (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”.

Perhaps the best way to begin this section is to quote from Ramchal’s own comments to Petach 30.

“As you’ve already learned,” he says, alluding to the statements we referenced in the first section of this work about the reasons why we’re to study Kabbalah, “the science of Kabbalah is wholly based on (or it’s meant to further) our understanding of the Supreme Will’s governance (of the world), His purpose for having created all the various beings, what He wants from them, what will come at the end of the process, and on explaining all these very curious worldly phenomena. For the Supreme Will already designed the entire governing process that’s to end with utter perfection (beforehand). (In fact) It’s all of these designs that we’re explaining (here) when we speak about the Sephirot and the worlds” [1].

The point of the matter for our purposes here, though, is his next remark — that “the Tzimtzum was the very first thing designed (and set into motion) by the Supreme Will in order to create all His creatures”, so that is the subject at hand.

While we’d depicted the Tzimtzum process earlier on [2], we’ll concentrate on it and its attendant elements most especially in this section.

Notes:

[1]       See 1:1 and the notes there.

[2]       See sections 1, 3, and 4 (along with their notes) for discussions of Tzimtzum.

 (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”.