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
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