Monthly Archives: August 2014

Nothing but nothing is ever forgotten (3)

The next statement to the affect that that’s so because nothing is even forgotten before His Throne of Glory is self-evident. But the Petach’s concluding remarks — that at the end of the entire cycle there will be an utter repair that would be based on everything that was done, good or God forbid bad — call for some explanation as they’re rather esoteric.

 

(c) 2014 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”.

Nothing but nothing is ever forgotten (2)

It comes to this, and it’s based on reward and punishment, and on God’s ultimate agenda.

As has been indicated in very many places as well as in many of Ramchal’s own works, we’ve each been granted the capacity — and responsibility — to rectify things, the entire universe included. And the means given us to do that is the mitzvah system. Follow that system and thus help rectify the universe, and you’re to be eternally rewarded; breach it and you’re to be penalized. It stands to reason then that God judges each one of our deeds in the light of what we’d contributed to or denied from universal rectification.

But as Ramchal indicates, His judgment is based on the whole of one’s deeds — on past, present, and future ones, and on the past, present, and future of each specific deed. Here’s how he explains that in another work, using much of the same terminology that he uses in our Petach.

God judges each deed, but “there’s no comparison between a rectified deed that follows (on the heels of) a blemished one, or a rectified deed that follows (on the heels of) one or even two other blemished acts, etc.” and an ordinary rectified or blemished deed. Indeed, “God observes all (of that) and takes it all into account when He judges us for reward or punishment [1].

So, the statement in our Petach to the effect that each deed’s outcome continues to exist even when the deed itself is gone refers to each deed’s past, present, and future components being a part of its makeup and contributing to the judgments made upon it. And the remark that a flaw that has been repaired, still exhibits the trace of the original flaw and it doesn’t disappear — it remains a flaw that has nonetheless been repaired, etc., is identical to the statement that “a rectified act that follows (on the heels of) a blemished one, or a rectified act that follows (on the heels of) one or even two other blemished acts, etc.”, in that its past, present, and future all matter at one and the same time when being judged.

At bottom his point is that nothing is solid or fixed: everything is an ever-spinning brew of past, present, and future, of change, and of progression and regression, and will judged accordingly. That is, God observes and judges us much the way we’re to observe and judge a sweet, shiny red tomato’s present makeup by taking into account its hard dull green immature past, as well as its decimated, mulch brown future as well.

 

Footnotes:

1. Klallim Rishonim 34 (towards the end). Also see Da’at Tevunot 170 and Ma’amar HaChochma (on Zichronot in the Mussaf of Rosh Hashanah).

 

(c) 2014 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”.

Nothing but nothing is ever forgotten (1)

The contents of Petach 78 (the first in this section) are discussed at more length and frankly more clearly elsewhere in Ramchal’s works, but he makes a couple especially cogent points here that he doesn’t make there, so let’s explore the lot of them.

Here’s the Petach itself: Each action’s outcome continues to exist even when the action itself is gone. So when for example a flaw has been repaired, the trace of the original flaw doesn’t disappear — it remains a flaw that has nonetheless been repaired. The opposite is also true, God forbid, that is, a merit that has become a flaw is still a merit, but it’s now a flawed merit.

That’s because nothing is even forgotten before His Throne of Glory. And at the end of the entire cycle there will be an utter repair that would be based on everything that was done, good or — God forbid — bad.

What we’re presented with here is a daunting remark that nothing is ever forgotten or utterly rectified, and that everything will be judged in the end for what it was as well as what it had become. Let’s see those other discussions to clarify his points.

(c) 2014 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”.

Intro. To Section 14

“Having discussed the Partzuf of Attik in general terms” in the previous section, Ramchal begins, “we must now examine Attik’s function in (God’s) overall governance” of the universe. And we’ll “begin by explaining those fundamental aspects of (Divine) governance that require Attik” and what it’s comprised of and implies.

We’ll thus wax philosophical again here before laying out some more of the Kabbalistic details.

 

(c) 2014 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”.