Category Archives: Kabbalah, Jewish Thought, Ramchal, Torah, Hashkafa

כל מיני הקלקולים שהיו יכולים להמצא, היו מושרשים בב”ן. וכל מיני תיקונים לכל הקלקולים האלה מושרשים בחיבורים שנתחבר מ”ה עם ב”ן. ונמצא שכל מה שהיה ושיהיה – הכל כבר הושרש כאן, והוא בסוד הידיעה. ובסוף הכל, הרי נודע שבכל זה נשלם כל השלמות בסוד היחוד:

 All the various sorts of defects that could possibly exist are rooted in BaN. And all the various sorts of repairs for those defects are rooted in the conjunction of MaH and BaN. As such, everything that was and will be was rooted there from the first, which is connected to the mystical notion of God’s foreknowledge. And in the end it will be understood that all of this served to bring about the overall perfection through the mystical phenomenon of God’s Yichud.

(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”.

יום הדין הגדול – בו יהיו נסדרים כל מעשה העולם לפי סדריהם כמו שנעשו, מראשית העולם ועד סופו. ועל פי כל זה, יהיה השלמות בהוודע יחודו יתברך שמו. ולפי השלמות הזה שיהיה אז, יהיה נקבע הנצחיות לנצח נצחים, ולעולמי עולמים, עד אין קץ ותכלית:

At the time of the Great Day of Judgment all the deeds of the world will be arranged and evaluated in the order in which they were carried out from the beginning of the universe until its end. Perfection will come about as such through the knowledge of God’s Yichud which would be revealed through the arrangement and evaluation of all those deeds. And eternity will be established forever and ever and to all eternity, ad infinitum, in accordance with the perfection that will exist then.

 (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”.

 כל המעשים – נשאר תולדתם קיימת, אף על פי שהמעשה חלף כבר, והיינו קלקול שנתקן – אין רושם הקלקול אבד, אלא נרשם כך, קלקול שהיה לו תיקון. וכן להיפך ח”ו. והיינו כי אין שכחה לפני כסא כבודו. ובסוף כל הסיבוב יהיה התיקון השלם על פי כל מה שנעשה, אם טוב ואם רע ח”ו.

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 a utter repair that would be based on everything that was done, good or — God forbid — bad.

(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”.

Section 14 is termed “The Source of (Divine) Covert Governance” and it’s comprised of Petachim 78-84.

We’ll first present each Petach then we’ll delve into the lot of them.

(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”.

This section’s final Petach (77) is clear-cut and acts as a summation. It reads, the connection, i.e., the conjunction, of these “male” and “female” aspects of Attik is literally like two powers joined together within a single body. “That’s to say,” Ramchal explains in his comments here, “that their joining with one another is what completes Attik”.

That likewise implies that while Attik is indeed a snug blend of “male” and “female” it’s nonetheless comprised of two subtlety but distinctly separate elements.

That completes Section 13.

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”.

The next point is that not only are aspects of Attik conjoined and co-equal side-by-side, as we saw just above in relation to MaH and Ban as “male” and “female” — they’re conjoined “fore” and “aft” as well.

The “fore” aspect is termed Attik’s “face” while its “aft” is termed the face’s “back”.  At bottom, Attik’s “aft” is utterly subsumed to its “fore” and Attik is a thorough unity in all dimensions. There is some seeming aspect of an “aft”, technically speaking, but that turns out not to be a true “aft” so much as a relative and inconsequential one. Here’s how that’s worded in Petach 76.

The phenomenon of the “back (of the ‘head’, as opposed to its ‘face’ or ‘front’)”, which is defined as being symbolic of the instance where the lights are darkened and don’t irradiate [1](as opposed to the “face”, which is symbolic of the instance in which lights irradiate fully — as if being projected outward “full-face”), isn’t found in Attik. For, instead, Attik manifests a full “face” or “front” on each side.

Its aspect of a “back”,suchasitis, is subsumed under the aspect of the “face” side there that governs. It’s just that there’s a “face” when it comes to the MaH there and a “face” when it comes to the BaN there, but the BaN’s “face” is considered MaH’s “back” relatively speaking, while it’s really not a “back” at all [2].

Note:

[1]       See Pitchei Chochma v’Da’at 42.

[2]       See Klallei Chochmat HaEmet 46, “v’al yikshe”.

(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”.

Petach 75 relates that like the other Partzufim beneath it, the Partzuf of Attik is likewise comprised of a MaH and a BaN, which are its “male” and “female” aspects. But  unlike the lower instances of MaH and BaN, they, i.e., those of Attik, literally function as a single entity and as one body, such that it is impossible to assign either a separate and independent place, and to call one “right” and the other “left”. Rather, they’re literally joined together as a single entity that‘s comprised of a single body [1].

What that means to say, in short, is that unlike the “male” and “female” of the lower Partzufim (i.e., Erich Anpin, Abba and Imma, etc.), the “male” and “female” aspects of Attik are of the order spoken of in the verse that reads, “male and female He created them” (Genesis 1:27), which alludes to the fact that Adam/Eve was originally a hermaphrodite (Breishit Rabbah 8:1) — male and female at one at the same time.

The point here is that that state was the prototype and it remains the ideal, so the closer to the Source a Partzuf is the more this holds true. As such, Attik very closely embodies this while the other Partzufim only do so to varying degrees, as we’ll see.

Note:

[1]       Also see Klallot HaIlan 3:1, 3-4 and Klallei Chochmat HaEmes 46.

(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”.

Ramchal makes the point elsewhere that the various arcane phenomena that came about before the world of Atzilut — which are the world of Adam Kadmon and everything connected with it — are all relevant to the World to Come, which will manifest itself after the world as we know it will no longer exist. That’s to say that they’re all quite literally unearthly and Divine.

In fact, so utterly unearthly are those higher worlds that they don’t even touch upon the Afterworld, which is a product of reward and punishment and is thus relevant to this world (while obviously functioning on a different plane). The utterly transcendent World to Come on the other hand is beyond the world of Atzilut and our spiritual efforts in this world that determine reward and punishment.

But he then states that there’s nonetheless a point that acts as a bridge between the otherworldly Adam Kadmon and the more-worldly Atzilut, which is Partzuf Attik [1].

That’s to say that Attik straddles the utterly transcendent and the more mundane; and as such, it serves as a bridge that allows for the creation of the more mundane out of the transcendent, and it’s conversely the one that one would have to cross to go from the more-mundane to the utterly transcendent [2].

Ramchal will now return to the specifics of Attik.

Notes:

[1]       Klallei Milchamot Moshe 5.

[2]       Also see Adir Bamarom p. 390 where Attik is depicted as being an essential element of the Tikkun process and likewise allowing for a return to a more transcendent state.

(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”.

In order to understand Ramchal’s statements we’d need to begin with this. The Kabbalists speak of two sorts of movements in the universe: from Heaven down to earth, known as Ohr Yashar (“Light [that emits] straight [and heads downward]”), and from earth back up to Heaven, known as Ohr Chozer (“Light [that emits] backward [or, heads back up]”}. The point is that while we have been presenting the Ohr Yashar dynamicin our discussions of how the universe derived from the Divine, the Ohr Chozer dynamic also comes into play.

For, put plainly, the world wasn’t only created to remain in the present state forever; it will someday return to the pristine oneness with the Divine Presence it enjoyed before the world was created [1]. And it — as well as we ourselves — will experience certain specific stages along the way.

The point is that all of that will come about through a sort of “implosion” of the Ohr Yashar process that Ari has been laying out for us (and which Ramchal has been explaining in Klach) that is the great Ohr Chozer phenomenon. Let’s see how the Partzuf of Attik and others illustrate all this.

Note:

[1]       See 4:6 above and note 16 there.

(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”.

And we’re told that the Partzuf of Attik clothes itself, i.e., it’s encased and ensconced, in the world of Atzilut by way of the Partzuf of Erich Anpin in order to connect it to the world of Adam Kadmon and to sustain and govern it.

That’s to say that the Partzuf of Atzilut acts a bridge between the two highest worlds, Adam Kadmon and Atzilut, by means its neighbor Partzuf, Erich Anpin, and that it sustains and governs the world of Atzilut that way.

So much for the lay-out and interactions of these upper worlds and Partzufim (which we’ll expand upon and return to below and at various other points in Klach). Elsewhere, though, Ramchal makes a couple of important esoteric points about Attik that touch upon its “bridge” function, as we’ll see.

(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”.