Monthly Archives: July 2012

The Zohar offers us some astoundingly picturesque and evocative portrayals of this event which is rooted in Din and is the source of all wrong and evil. It speaks of the formation of “a head lying astride a camel, a head of opaque darkness spreading” and of the fact that “smoke started to emit from the terrible rage … (which) curled outward like a cunning snake to practice evil” which then formulated seven dreadful levels of evil, corresponding to the seven Sephirot that shattered (2, pp. 242b-244b). And it speaks elsewhere of seven (evil) breaths (1, pp. 146b-147a); of the Tohu and Bohu (“astonishing desolation”) spoken of in Genesis 1:2 (1, p. 16a); of the “four husks” that came about by the breakage (1, pp. 19b-20a; 2, pp. 108b, 140b-141a, 203a-b; 3, pp. 227a-b); of the roles played by the snake (1, p. 243b), various monsters (1, pp. 34a-35b, 52a), the ox, donkey, and dog (2, pp. 64a-65a), and more.

(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”.

In any event, as Ar”i depicted it, there came to be a terrible, unholy crashing of vessels in the cosmic order [1]. Essentially, that came about as follows.

It’s known that each vessel compliments and corresponds to its light and vice versa. As such, the lower the potency of the light, the smaller and less durable is its vessel. Thus, when the Infinite Light first entered into Keter’s vessel, the latter was easily able to endure that light and to stay intact, and the same was basically true when it came to Chochma and Binah’s vessels [2]. The vessels of the lower seven lower Sephirot couldn’t endure that light, though, so they shattered in a sort of domino effect.

These seven then came to comprise the world of Nikkudim – dots or points — since they separated into distinct and independent point-like, relatively small “shells” or “shards”. And they became the basis of our world. They represent the kings of Edom who reigned for a time then died we referred to above.

Notes:

[1]       Ar”i’s teachings about this were recorded in many places including Eitz Chaim, Heichal HaNikkudim; Mevoh Sha’arim 2:2:1-11; Sha’ar HaHakdamot, Derush b’Olam HaNikkudim; etc. Ramchal laid out the details in HaIlan HaKodesh Ch. 2; Pitchei Chochma v’Da’at 31- 41; etc.

[2]       … overall, though they did diminish to some subtle degree

(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”.

It’s likely that the prototype for the breaking of the vessels of the original ten Sephirot created by God was the breaking of the tablets with the Ten Commandments that were written by the hands of God. We’re told that “when Moses drew closer to the camp and saw the (golden) calf and the dances (that the Jews were engaged in), his anger was kindled, and he flung the tablets from his hands, shattering them at the foot of the mountain” (Exodus 32:19) as the letters contained there all flew about [1] like sparks of fire. And it undoubtedly also draws upon the themes of the sundering of the human connection to the Garden of Eden, to the destruction of the Holy Temples, and more.

Nonetheless the text that Ar”i drew upon for his depiction was the section of the Zohar known as Idra Rabbah, The Great Assembly (3, pp. 135a-b) which refers to the death of the original kings of Edom (Genesis 36:31-39) and connects their deaths to the creation of worlds that were then destroyed before our known universe came about [2].

Notes:

[1] Avot d’Rebbi Natan 2:11 (also see Avodah Zara 18a and Zohar 1: 216b-217a for flying letters).

[2]  See Midrash Tehillim 90:13, Zohar 1, pp. 24, 154a, 262b.

(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”.

We’re told that the existence of flaws and of their repair is rooted in the issue of the aforementioned “Breaking of the Vessels” (Petach 37). That’s to say that the entire universe of right and wrong, justice and injustice, of things gone awry then gone right (awry again, then right again, etc.), of things being on-course then off-course (etc.) et al is rooted in the mysterious notion of Sh’virat HaKeilim, “The Breaking of the Vessels”.

As one Kabbalist put it, “it is one of the most sublime and arcane mysteries of the Torah and is the underpinning of the entire science of Kabbalah which is itself meant to explain God’s role in creation”. It helps to explain “the mystery of free choice and all the harm that has come about in all the worlds as a consequence of (bad choices)”, as well as the rectification of things that come about through correct choices, the role of Torah in all that, the form and substance of the yetzer harah and yetzer hatov and much more [1].

So we’d clearly need to do what we can to understand it.

Note:

[1]       R’ Y.I. Chaver in Pitchei Sha’arim, Netiv HaSh’virah 1.

(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”.

At one point R’ Chaim Vitale uncharacteristically presented the story behind the story — the circumstances under which Ar”i divulged the notion of “The Breaking of the Vessels” that underlies this entire section and is the second most important theme in Kabbalah behind the formation of the Tzimtzum. Vitale writes in his journal [1] that in the course of the evening of a certain Rosh Chodesh — a new month, when the moon is scant and the night is dark and star-lit — that Ar”i lead his disciples outdoors with torch in hand. (It’s of course clear to the astute reader that the idea of Ar”i leading his disciples through the darkness with his own light is utterly apropos, but that’s not the point here.)

They soon reached their destination, the gravesite of R’ Shimon bar Yochei. Ar”i began to pray fervently, as did the others, and seemed to be quaking and swooning in a sea of starlight. They eventually finished and were surrounded by as vast a wall of silence as the air right before creation. Came midnight and Ar”i began to divulge the secret of how the frail and arcane vessels broke apart, spilled the sparks of light they’d held, and how that we’ve been called upon to rectify all that.

[1]       The journal was subsequently published as Sefer HaChazayonot (The Book of Visions), which is actually a journal or diary in which Vitale recorded his celestial visions as well as his metaphysical encounters, revelations, and the like.

(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”.