Monthly Archives: September 2012

And a lot is said indeed about mankind’s exalted status in the Zohar. We’re told, for example, that “When the Holy One, blessed be He, created the world, He … created man over everything… for man sustains the world” (1, p. 205b); that “The Holy One, blessed be He, wanted to make man superior to all creatures so that he might be as unique in this world as He is in the realms above (Zohar Chadash, p. 10a, Midrash Ne’alam)”; and that “Everything in the world came into being for man’s sake alone, and everything continues to exist for his sake alone…. When man was created, everything was set right, above and below, and everything was incorporated in him” (3, p. 48a).

Ar”i and the other Kabbalists spoke at great length about just how primal mankind is to it all, and filled in the details about just where in man this occurs (both literally and as representative of where it occurs in the Sephira and Partzuf system) and how exactly man affects the heavens and the earth. But let’s see next just what Ramchal said elsewhere about this before we record his remarks in Klach.

We’ll take this opportunity to wish you all a k’sivva v’chassima tovah and to take a break till the end of the Yom Tov season.

(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”.

But long before the dissemination of the Zohar others have alluded to mankind’s pivotal role in the universe. Rambam (1135-1204) said “One should consider himself as well as all the world as half meritorious and half culpable all year long. And [he should believe that] if he were to commit just one sin, he would incline himself and the entire world toward guilt and bring about destruction; and, contrarily, that if he were to fulfill just one mitzvah he would incline himself and the entire world toward merit and bring about salvation and redemption” [1]. And R’ Yoseph Gikatilla (1248-1323) spoke of the righteous as having “the ability to unite all the emanations, thus making peace between the upper and lower worlds” and of wrongdoers having the ability to “destroy the world and ruin the order of creation” [2].

Notes:

[1]       Hilchot Teshuvah 3:4; also see Kiddushin 41b.

[2]       Sha’arei Orah 2.

(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 famous depiction of humankind in the Torah lies in the statement that “God created man in His image” (Genesis 1: 27). With all of its lofty and ennobling implications it’s at once the most challenging, the most potentially accusatory, and the most inspiring portrayal. Less well known, far more humbling, and less challenging is the rhetorical statement, “what is man that You (God) are mindful of him, the son of man that You (even) care for him?” (Psalms 8:4).

The sages recognized our complexities and characterized us as standing somewhere between angels and animals, with our combination of biological needs and spiritual promise [1]. More discouraging, though, were their ruminations about whether we should have been created in the first place [2], of course. They ultimately decided in the negative (after arguing back and forth for two-and-a-half years!), and thus apparently hadn’t much confidence in us. But the Zohar and the Kabbalists were decidedly optimistic about our potential, as we’ll see.

Notes:

[1]       See Breishit Raba 8:2 for example.

[2]       See Eiruvin 13b where the usual implication is that they were arguing as to whether it was to our own best interests to have been created or not, but where it might also be read as we do above.

(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”.

And finally, quite a lot is said here about the aforementioned and counter-intuitive usefulness of the “necessary evil” that is rah [1].

Ramchal makes the point in Petach 39 that everything in creation exists only for the glory of the Creator…. In this are included all created beings — good and bad — as the whole of it is a single system and a single phenomenon of a creation that implements the revelation of the sovereignty and glory of Ein Sof.

That is, everything contributes to the eventual revelation of God’s utter sovereignty, including rah. Consequently, rah is good, too — if we understand “good” to mean contributing to the ultimate goal [2], which it does.

After all, “if God had so wanted,” Ramchal points out, He could certainly have produced the universe “rectified from the first, without rah at all. But He wanted rah to exist and … to not be rectified until the end, when all that was withholding perfection (i.e., rah and its offshoots) was removed” (comments to Petach 36).

Here are some other statements to the effect that rah simply had to be so as to no longer be in the end, and so as to thus prove God’s greatness for having thwarted so mighty a seeming threat to His sovereignty.

“Everything linked in any way to rah must return to good so that through this overall return, the veracity of God’s Yichud will be revealed and made manifest. Thus, if any aspect of these details is missing, then the overall intention — the revelation of this Yichud — would remain unfulfilled…. For God’s Yichud will be revealed through the good created entities when the good in them is strengthened, and it will likewise be revealed through the ‘bad’ ones, when despite the fact that they are bad, they will have returned to good” (comments to Petach 39).

“Despite the great power of rah, it’s (nonetheless) one small matter that God wanted to display in order to demonstrate His perfection” when it’s to be undone by the revelation of His Yichud (comments to Petach 41).

And, “rah thus has two aspects. The first is when it first appears, when it brings about all sorts of blemishes and it functions as a ‘stain on the glory of the King’, so to speak, since it restricts the flow of His blessing…. The second aspect, though, is after it has already existed but God’s Yichud takes control over it…. Rah then evidences the glory of the King’s great sovereignty, as if to say, ‘This is what the King prevailed against by His great perfection!’” (comments to Petach 49).

That’s all to say that, according to Ramchal, rah was set up as a sort of straw-man — a false premise — which was to have its day, to thrive, and to seem a potent nemesis, but which will eventually be undone. And it’s having been undone will underscore and prove God’s sovereignty, as if to say that if so rampant, noxious, malignant, and potent a phenomenon can apparently be allowed to hold sway but then be undone, it’s having been undone in fact adds luster onto the face of its Undoer, Almighty God.

Note:

[1]       See 1:5 and 4:3.

[2]       See Moreh Nevuchim 3:13.

(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”.

            We’ll offer a couple more paragraphs to the middle of this post below.

For now, though, he makes a number of other points about the nature, meaning, and purpose of rah. Referring once again to the source of wrong and injustice lying in the upper realms, Ramchal notes here that it couldn’t have derived from a higher point than the world of Nikkudim. Since “higher up than that there’s nothing that can be relevant to any feature of the other side whatsoever. In Nikkudim, though, something’s revealed that does bear some relation to the function of the other side” (comments to Petach 44).

He also addresses its roots in a couple of Petachim in our section, offering that rah started to come about when the light of Atzilut and its offshoots, which is from Ein Sof, had to … wait for its vessel to be complete, since that’s where the root of evil lies. Only afterwards will the light shine within it, i.e. join with it, after which everything will be completed. And it’s also explained here that the light wasn’t originally joined with the vessels in the world of Nikkudim, but remained hidden above in Adam Kadmon until the vessels completed their task in order to provide a place for wrong to rule and to complete its rule (Petach 41).

He informs us that wrong was in fact rooted in nothing other than in the mystical notion of the “garments” of Atzilut, i.e., Briah, Yetzirah and Assiyah … which had to be separated into all their component elements … to first provide an environment for wrong(Petach 43).

            And continuing to make the point about how tenuous the connection between God Himself and wrong is (which necessitated the Breaking of the Vessels) Ramchal then says that the aforementioned slender trace of a root for the “other side” only manifested itself in the very lowest aspects of the vessels, i.e., in the lower seven Sephirot of Nikkudim(Petach 45).

(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”.