Monthly Archives: March 2012

… so there won’t be any posts until afterwards. For Ramchal’s insights into Pesach, see Derech Hashem 4:4:9, 4:8:1; and Ma’amar HaChochma.

Best wishes for a Chag Kosher v’Samaiyach!

(c) 2012 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”.

Here’s how he lays out the combination of light and vessel through the emissions depicted in Adam Kadmon. In the uppermost reaches — in AV — the “vessels” there are utterly subsumed to the light, and thus cannot rightly be termed “vessels” so much as potential vessels. But the vessels that emit from the “ear”, “nose”, etc., become more and more “concrete”, relatively speaking, the farther along they move. It’s at the point when the lights emit from the “mouth” that the “vessels” there are as “concrete” as they can be in this lofty realm [1].

“All of these (phenomena) are the origin of the state of the human body and soul”, Ramchal says, as well as being the root of the various ways they interact with and contradict each other, as we’ll see.

Notes:

[1]       Klallim Rishonim 9; also see Klallei Ma’amar HaChochma 13.

(c) 2012 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”.

Very well, but what does all this mean, as Ramchal understands it? We’ll need to turn to his Klallim Rishonim for that.

The relations between the lights and vessels that emit through the “orifices” of Adam Kadmon’s “face” and Adam Kadmon itself speak to the “system of governance that was set into place after the conjunction of the inner (components) and the external (ones)” [1]. That’s to say that the lights and vessels represent the way God arranged for the human soul (i.e., light) and body (i.e., vessel) to interact in the course of time.

His point is that there are always instances of a combination of a soul and a body; it’s just that sometimes the body is so very subtle and fine that it’s subsumed within the light and invisible and ineffective for all intents and purposes, while at other times it’s more or less visible and effective. This will not only explain all we’d offered above in more accessible terms, it will also speak to the various stages of human spiritual development, as we’ll see.

Notes:

[1]       Klallim Rishonim 9; also see Da’at Tevunot 54, 76-84.

(c) 2012 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 also discusses the intrinsic relation between the lights and vessels to the orifices they emit out of. As he says in Petach 34, the “passageways”, i.e., the orifices known as the “ears”, “nose”, “mouth”, and “eyes” within Adam Kadmon’s “face”, through which the lights pass were specifically chosen because of the way they’re intrinsically connected to the interior of Adam Kadmon in the ways he explains there [1].

Note:

[1]       As Ramchal spell out in his comments there, “it’s clear that the way the light emerges (from Adam Kadmon’s ‘face’) isn’t haphazard. Rather, the passages were specially chosen to match their respective lights…. In fact, each light must pass through its own particular orifice rather than through any other because of the special relationship it has with it, because of which the light experiences a specific change when passing through that specific passageway…. This is what makes it possible for the lights of BaN (which are the lowest configuration) to emerge through the ‘eyes’ (which are obviously higher up on the head) while the lights of SaG (which are a higher configuration) emerge through the ‘ears’, ‘nose’ and ‘mouth’ (which are obviously lower than the ‘eyes’)”.

(c) 2012 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”.

But, there are not only lights at play, but vessels (i.e., more tangible phenomena) here, too. Where do they come from? After all, Ramchal points out in his comments to Petach 33, “the end of this … process is the formation of the vessel, which relates to the lower realms”.

So, in explanation, Ramchal says that each while aspect of Adam Kadmon has “a potential ‘vessel’ absorbed within it” (Klallot HaIlan 1:4), nonetheless, as we learn in Petach 33 (which is then confirmed in Petach 35), the “inner” and “encompassing” lights … come closer together, little by little, until they reach Adam Kadmon’s “mouth”, where a vessel is then brought about in fact.

(c) 2012 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 most important thing to be said about the “worlds” of Akudim, Nikkudim and Verudim is that they aren’t separate world per se, so much as realms — environments — in which the core Sephirot and vessels mature and come into play in the universe. And Adam Kadmon is the very first of them.

(c) 2012 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”.