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The best encapsulation of this fulsome section is found in the body of Petach 30.

Rooted in the Tzimtzum i.e., behind God’s having allowed the Tzimtzum to occur when it needn’t have and when nothing whatsoever needed to be created, is the principle that everything in the created world would follow a natural course until the end. That’s to say, that human and situational flaws would exist in the course of things but that in the end — when God’s Yichud will be revealed and thus be seen for what it is — everything would return to its ultimate perfection as it had been before the Tzimtzum was allowed to occur.

It was accordingly established that there’d ultimately be a realm of existence that would be based on, i.e., that the world would function according to the principle of, the mystical implications of right and wrong, and of thesis and antithesis, which would be makeup of the trace environment. That’s to say that the Sephirot would unfold on all their levels and with all that they’re to generate in that environment in order to bestow goodness in the end, while a second, opposite realm was to be brought into being that would allow for the flaws referred to above, and would be termed “the other (i.e., opposite) side”.

The ultimate goal though is that the power to bestow goodness would hold sway, to the point where each flaw would return to a state of repair, and God’s actual Yichud would become realized, all thanks to the entrance of the line which allows for that.

(c) 2011 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”.

There are just a couple of points to underscore about all this before we move on. There’s this statement in Petach 28: This co-existence of two modes of Divine governance: that of the actual and imperfect one of the trace, and that of the potential and perfect one of the line is (i.e., touches upon the idea of) the “internal” and “external” lights of the Sephirot which is (i.e., also touches on) the mystical notion of the vessel.

As Ramchal explains in his comments here, the “internal” and “external” lights refer to God’s “encompassing light” (or, “presence”) as opposed to His “permeating light” (or, “presence”) [1]. God unto Himself, outside of the space created by the Tzimtzum, is termed His “encompassing light”, in that it hovers over and around the place (and all of existence); God’s manifest presence within the place and existence is termed His “permeating light”, in that it’s situated within the space.

Both of these manifestations of God’s presence function as a “light” (or, “as the essential content”) behind and within reality, which itself functions as a “vessel” (or, receptacle”) for that light. This is analogous to the relationship between the “body” and “soul”, in that the body likewise functions as the soul’s “vessel” [2].

The final though vitally important idea to consider about the line itself is that it functions as the central-core to the Sephirot and Partzufim which over-cover them and serves as its tools.

As Ramchal termed it in Petach 29: The Sephirot are what came forth from the mystical space that occurred at the time of the Tzimtzum. But each Sephira is a part of the trace, for within each Sephira lies an inner core that came about by the line of the Ein Sof entering it. This line shines within the inner core of each Sephira with the mystical implications of a soul .… which is, i.e., which functions as, the line’s “garment”.

Notes:

[1]       See Zohar 3, 109b.

[2]       There are also two sorts of souls (five actually): an “encompassing” over-soul and a “permeating” animating soul. But that’s beyond the present discussion. See Ramchal’s comments to Petachim 28 and 29 for some explanation of this dynamic.

(c) 2011 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”.

As we’d said, Ramchal makes the point in Petach 28 that the line’s interactions with the trace are in accordance with the makeup and needs of the trace and everything connected with it.

We’ll explain this by first offering this statement by Ari: “The top of this line extends from Ein Sof and makes contact with Him (there), but the other end, at the other extreme of the line, does not touch the light of Ein Sof” [1]. That’s to say that while the line emanates outward from Ein Sof, as we’d indicated already, it stops at a certain point close to the end of the trace environment without going all the way to the end, and without re-entering into the Ein Sof at the other end.

That’s so because if the line went straight from Ein Sof at point A to Ein Sof at point B (or at any point, for that matter), then the trace environment would be undone and “pierced”, the “bubble” would “burst”, so to speak, and all would be Ein Sof again as at the beginning.

So God could be said to have had the line that pierces through the trace environment end at a certain point so as to insure that it be finite, and to thus allow for reality as we know it. That way all interactions between God and the universe by means of the line are in keeping with the makeup and needs of our reality, not God’s own.

That’s what Ramchal meant when he said in Petach 28 that all of this — i.e., the line’s interactions with the trace environment — is done only in such a way that the line accommodates itself to the makeup and needs of the trace and everything connected with it.

That once again implies that God purposefully created our finite universe, that He interacts with it, and that He only interacts with it in ways that do not threaten the finite universe’s boundaries or existence: that is, He purposely accedes to our needs to allow us our being.

This is likewise explained by this, from, Petach 27:

Whatever God actually brings about within the trace environment is tailored to the needs of created phenomena, even though He Himself acts according to His perfection in the background, if you will.

Ramchal adds another, more obscure point here, which is somewhat tangential: From the perspective of created phenomena, it is the trace, while from the perspective of the line God is acting according to His own perfection.

That’s to say that from our perspective, the trace environment with all its ambiguities predominates; from God’s perspective as He peers down upon through the lens of the line, though, it’s actually the sovereignty environment, without any ambiguities, that predominates.

Notes:

1.         The Tree of Life, p. 15 (with slight changes)

(c) 2011 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 complex relationship between the three elements is expanded upon by the statement in Petach 28 that the line of Ein Sof which entered into the trace is sequestered within it on every level, and is said to govern it the way the soul governs the body (as Ramchal pointed out in his comments to Petach 27). But it also stands outside of the trace and encompasses it, and is said to incorporate its abilities and to observe it from every angle and to thus govern it from within and without.

And Ramchal also offers there in explanation the statement that “The concealment of the line within the trace touches upon “the two sorts of Divine governance we’d discussed earlier: governance according to (the system of) good and evil, and governance according to (the system of) Divine sovereignty”. It implies that the mode of governance according to Divine sovereignty, represented by the line, “is concealed within the manifest mode of governance according to (the system of) good and evil”, represented by the trace. Thus we learn that God’s own “encompassing light is the cause of … the trace. That encompassing light represents the ultimate revelation while the … trace encompasses the root of man’s (Divine) service thanks to which we are able to attain the revelation (of God’s light), which is the (ultimate) reward.”

That implies, of course, that the ultimate revelation of God’s sovereignty will “win the day”, if you will, in the end and will supersede the world of relativity and wrongfulness that is our own, as we indicated.

But Ramchal then adds another element to all this in Petach 28: the fact that all of this — i.e., the line’s interactions with the trace– is (done) only in such a way that the line accommodates itself to the makeup and needs of the trace and everything connected with it.

We’ll touch on that next.

(c) 2011 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 explains some of this dynamic in his comments to Petach 27 where he offers, among other things, that “the Ein Sof has the unique property of possessing ultimate perfection, as a result of which He is entirely good…. Wrong can only exist when His perfection is concealed, and as soon as His perfection is revealed, wrong ceases to exist…. In order to (eventually) reveal His sovereignty in the clearest way, He (first) concealed it and instituted a way of imperfection so as to create and govern imperfect creatures. This is the (essence of the) trace.

“This trace came into being through the concealment of (utter) perfection, and it has many deficiencies and imperfections rooted in it. The truth is that the intention behind these deficiencies is thereby to make it possible for God’s creatures to exist on different, relative levels, and to draw closer to perfection gradually, level by level.

“Reward and punishment indicate a lack of perfection, for in a state of utter perfection, everything would be good. With the concealment of perfection, God’s governance itself hangs in the balance (as it must be decided) whether to confer goodness or its opposite, depending on humanity’s deeds in the lower world. This phenomenon is rooted in the trace, which contains everything connected with reward on the one hand and punishment on the other …. But things could have gone along those lines forever, with the righteous receiving their reward and the wrongful being punished … were it not for the fact that the trace is governed by the Ein Sof.”

(c) 2011 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 line, though, is the gift of relative “perfection that God allowed back” into the environment created by the Tzimtzum “in order to (allow the created entities to) perfect all of their imperfections” to a degree. That’s to say, as he goes on to explain, the “perfection that God brought back” was the kind that was “relative to their (i.e., the created entities’) makeup, and not relative to His own His makeup” which would be utter perfection. The latter refers to the presence of God that remains outside of and surrounds the world’s environment (Klallim Rishonim 6).

In other words, there are three environments: 1. There’s God’s own, which is removed from the world’s and is represented by God’s presence surrounding the “space” created by the Tzimtzum; 2. there’s the imperfect and ambiguous environment allowed for by the existence of the (mere) “trace” of God’s presence; and 3. there’s the sort of relative perfection that the world can achieve in the environment created by the “trace” thanks to God having allowed His presence to shine upon the “trace” environment by means of the “line”.

That’s to say that Ramchal apparently sees Ari’s system as a means of depicting the drama of God’s interactions with reality: of God allowing for it, His granting it its challenges and its possibilities, and His standing at a distance from it while yearning for its success.

Put another way and taking great liberties in the process, we’d suggest that Ramchal could be said to see the Kabbalistic system as a depiction of God’s “parenting” of the universe, so to speak; His leaving it on its own in an imperfect but tenable environment that He supplies and provides for; and His enabling it achieve its potential (without granting it that from the outset — like a wise parent who refuses to spoil his child and wants him instead to reach his potential on his own, along with the parent’s encouragement) [1].

Note:

[1]       Note that the eventual revelation of God’s full sovereignty will undo the image of Him as a loving, hands-off parent in that all prove to have been in God’s hands from the first, but that’s beside the present point. See Adir Bamarom p. 266 for more on the connections between the Tzimtzum, trace, and line.

(c) 2011 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”.

Let’s go in order here: First of all he depicts the “space” left by the factoring in of the Tzimtzum as an instance of God granting a place for existent beings to be and function — a specific environment, as we’d term it. That’s what’s so radically original about this outcome of the Tzimtzum; existent beings simply couldn’t exist without it. But now that this environment has indeed come about there “needs to be existent beings, so the matter can be completed, otherwise the space would be empty”, and there needs to be a connection between them and their Source (Klallim Rishonim 4). That’s to say that God does nothing by mistake or unintentionally, and He never separates Himself from anything He does.

Ramchal then depicts the next factor, the trace, as “a small remnant of what had been removed” with the onset of the Tzimtzum process which nonetheless serves as the “root of the universe’s various phenomena and of its governance”. As he goes on to say, the trace-environment “is the source of the imperfect nature of existence” and of the system of “(relative) good and evil” as opposed to the fully good that would be manifest in a perfect world (Klallim Rishonim 5). In other words, the environment in which we now exist is the basis of all the good and bad, justice and injustice, fairness and unfairness, light and darkness, and the like that comprises the human experience. It’s imperfect to be sure, but purposelessly so.

But the line is a whole other thing, as we’ll see.

(c) 2011 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”.

So much for the makeup of the line; let’s turn now to its place in the grand scheme of things — along with that of the trace — as Ramchal understands it. That is, let’s explore Ramchal’s solution to the enigma of a “line” entering into the “trace” left behind in the reality that was produced by the coming about of the Tzimtzum.

At bottom it comes down to the idea that the line represents God’s unchanging will in the context of the Sephirot and Partzufim which represent changing circumstances within the environment created by the trace.

Ramchal explained this in his comments to Klach as well as elsewhere, but he explains it best in Klallim Rishonim which we’ll draw from most especially.

(c) 2011 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 line is also referred to as a “pipe (line)”, meaning to say that it is three- rather than two-dimensional and has content. Here’s how Ramchal explains it in Petach 29:

The Sephirot are what came forth from the mystical space that occurred at the time of the Tzimtzum as we pointed out. But there’s another element here that can only be explained by the three-dimensionality of the “line” — the fact that within each Sephira lies an inner core that came about by the inner light of the line of the Ein Sof entering it.

As Ramchal explained in his comments here, “when the line entered into the trace, a brilliant light shone from the line … which is the soul of each (Sephira’s) vessel”. Thus each Sephira serves as “a garb (i.e., an encasement) for the line”. As such, “the line shines within the inner core of each Sephira with the mystical implications of a soul to the Sephira’s “body”. There’s thus a dynamic ebb and flow between line and Sephira.

(c) 2011 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”.

While the Yom Tov season had been fulsome and vivid, the world beckons and we respond. Let’s review what we’ve done so far in this section, which is the beginning of the heart of Kabbalah.

We started our sequential analysis with a discussion of God unto Himself — before creation. Then we offered an explanation of Tzimtzum as Ari depicted it (along with a couple of theories of its origin), and Ramchal’s explication of it. That lead to a discussion of the makeup, source and role of rah (evil, injustice, ungodliness).

We then moved along to the next stage with a discussion of the “trace” of Godliness left behind after the Tzimtzum process, which serves as the root of all that’s to follow. Then we began to discuss the “line” (or filament of God’s light) that extends downward to the physical universe. We’ll continue with the “line” next time.

(c) 2011 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”.