Ramchal

Ramchal’s depictions of rah, which is termed the yetzer harah (“the inclination to do wrong”) when it touches on our personal relationship to it, speaks to its two aspects: as the embodiment of “the other side”, i.e., the utter and unredeemable opposite of Godliness; and, contrarily, as the laudable and redeemable mechanism that will allow for God’s Yichud to be seen and for everything … to return to its ultimate perfection.

We find clear analogies to that bilateral depiction of it in the non-Kabbalistic tradition which speaks of rah as “the greatest thief of all” (Pesichta Rabbati 32b), and as the only phenomenon that God Himself deems evil (Kiddushin 30b) and wishes He hadn’t created (Breishit Rabbah, Breishit 27:4), on the one hand; and as the one thing that enables humankind and society to grow and flourish in this world (Breishit Rabbah, Breishit 9:7) on the other, based on its worldly allurements.

The Zohar is also of two minds when it comes to rah. It discusses its other-sideness a number of times, as when it speaks of the ten “crowns” of holiness (i.e., the ten holy Sephirot) as opposed to the ten “crowns of uncleanness” ( see 3, p. 41b, 70a) which are depicted as ten “monsters” that lurk in ten rivers (see 2, pp. 34a-35b), and when it refers to the configuration of “Worthless Man” as opposed to “Primordial Man” or Adam Kadmon (see 2, pp. 242b-244b). But it also speaks of rah as a servant acceding to its master’s orders so as to fulfill the latter’s agenda (see 1, pp. 146b-147a; 2, 34a; 3, p. 172b) [1].

Let’s explore how Ramchal explains the source of rah.

Note:

[1] See Moreh Nevuchim 3:12 for Rambam’s rationalist view of rah.

(c) 2011 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

Feel free to contact me at feldman@torah.org

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As we’d cited before, Ramchal wrote in Petach 30 that rooted in the Tzimtzum is the principle that everything in the created world would follow a natural course until the end. We’d explained it otherwise above, but as he himself went on to say, that (also) implies that flaws would exist in the course of things but that in the end — when God’s Yichud will be seen for what it is — everything would return to its ultimate perfection.

This raises the question, though, of the place, makeup, and source of these “flaws”, which is to say of wrong, evil, and injustice, which we’ll now turn to.

The ultimate question is how is how it is that God, who’s termed the epitome of goodness and beneficence (הטוב והמיטב), could have allowed for let alone have created what’s termed rah (which is usually translated “evil”, but since that restricts the phenomenon to its most extreme example, we prefer to explicate it as referring it to all instances of wrongdoing, injustice, and evil, which is to say — to all instances of un-Godliness).

As Ramchal also offers in this Petach, God saw to it that as a consequence of the Tzimtzum there would 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. That’s to say that this universe would be characterized by the existence of two polar-opposite systems: one in which the Sephirot would … bestow goodness, and a second one that would allow for flaws (i.e., wrong, evil, and injustice) which would be termed “the other (i.e., opposite) side” or the root of rah. He then assures us, to be sure, that God’s ultimate goal is that the power to bestow goodness would hold sway, that each flaw would return to a state of repair, and that God’s actual Yichud would become realized (Petach 30) in the end, but he doesn’t explain in the body of this Petach the makeup and source of rah. So we’ll turn to his own comments in this Petach for some of that as well as statements he made elsewhere.

Beforehand, though, let’s see how the Zohar characterizes rah.

(c) 2011 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

Feel free to contact me at feldman@torah.org

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I’ll be taking several days off for a summer break. I rescind the statement made that I won’t get into Ramchal’s ideas on the origin of wrong, evil, and injustice; we’ll dive into all that once we come back on board.

The final and most fulsome series of statements about the makeup and purpose of the Tzimtzum is offered in Petach 30. They hearken back to remarks made earlier on in this work about why one should study Kabbalah [1], and about God’s intentions for the universe. But Ramchal adds other elements.

Rooted in the Tzimtzum is the principle that everything in the created world would follow a natural course until the end. He’ll soon explain it to mean something else, but part of the idea of things “following a natural course” has to do with the notion that offered in his comments that “the first thing to be understood about the governance of the universe”, which is our aim here in this work of Kabbalah, is that the governance of the universe “depends on (the existence of) levels and measurements” — on finitude, definition, and limitations, which are all lacking in God’s presence, and which were only established by reality of the Tzimtzum. His remark here in the body of the Petach about things following a natural course, though, is this one.

That’s to say, that flaws would exist in the course of things but that in the end — when God’s Yichud will be seen (or “exposed” if you will) for what it is — everything would return to its ultimate perfection. We’d addressed that major theme before, too [2]. In other words, God saw to it that there’d come to be a system of right and wrong, and that a hard-fought and intense struggle between the two would go on until the end — but that there would be an end, indeed, and that right will ultimately triumph [3]. (He thus understands the term “a natural course” as referring to a so-very-human and imperfect state of being that will ultimately give way to a Divine state.)

But there’s more.

Notes:

[1]       See our extended discussion of this in 1:1 and in note 2 there. His statement here, in his comments, is that “the science of Kabbalah in its entirety is intended to (help us) understand the governance of the Supreme Will, God’s purpose for having created all the various creature phenomena, what He expects of them, what will come about at the end of all the sequences of the universe, and how to explain all of these odd sequences of events”.

[2]       See 1:4 and the various notes there, and see Ramchal’s many remarks about this in his comments to this Petach.

We’d add that Ramchal also engages in a long-enough analysis of the source, make-up, and role of evil and wrongdoing in his comments here that the reader would do well to study. This theme became eminently important to Kabbalists and Chassidic thinkers in Ramchal’s time and soon afterwards (and continues to be now, to some degree) because of the statements of disciples of the notorious Sabbatei Tzvi. But a full discussion of all that would take us far afield so we’ll mostly avoid it in this work; but we’ll touch on some of it.

[3]       See 1:5 and the various notes there. We’d again advise the reader to see Ramchal’s many remarks in his comments here about this.

(c) 2011 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

Feel free to contact me at feldman@torah.org

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Rabbi Feldman also offers two free e-mail classes on www.torah.org entitled “Spiritual Excellence” and “Ramchal”.

Ramchal then indicates that the Tzimtzum also enabled God’s light and radiance to be envisioned in the first place. For before the Tzimtzum occurred — and even now in the case of those extraordinarily sublime and inscrutable Godly levels which the Tzimtzum doesn’t affect — God’s light and radiance couldn’t be envisioned or grasped at all (Petach 25).

The point here seems to be that it’s God’s having hidden His presence (by means of the Tzimtzum) that has made it possible for us to see an aspect of His presence (His light and radiance). The analogy that’s often cited for this is that of shadows (a hiding away of light) that shield our eyes from the harmful effects of the sun’s stark light, without which the eyes would be blinded by overexposure.

(c) 2011 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

Feel free to contact me at feldman@torah.org

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Rabbi Feldman also offers two free e-mail classes on www.torah.org entitled “Spiritual Excellence” and “Ramchal”.

Ramchal then moves on to its import, by depicting the Tzimtzum of the Ein Sof as the act by which the Ein Sof purposefully set aside His infinitude and adopted the mode of finite action i.e., of finitude, instead (Petach 24). That’s to say that Ramchal understands the Tzimtzum as a purposeful act of Self-suppression on God’s part, rather than a stepping aside or an act of physical diminution of some sort: he saw it as an act of God’s only functioning out of one aspect of His Being rather than the whole of It.

That’s to say that if, as we indicated above, God was and is “certainly capable of (creating or doing) much more (than He did); (but) He (simply) didn’t want to”, then the Tzimtzum was simply the sign that He indeed chose not to create more than He did.

For, God wanted the universe to function on a relative basis — relative to His intentions for us and our reality — not on an absolute, God-based basis. So (as Ramchal said in his comments to Petach 24), “His act of Tzimtzum prepared the way for the creation to come into being in a way that’s suited to the nature of the created realms and beings” rather than His own infinite nature.

He then adds a couple of other points in his comments there: first, that “the Tzimtzum isn’t only a matter of the absence of infinitude” and thus just a negative phenomenon. He underscores the fact that it serves a very positive role, in that it sustains the relative universe that we experience and “maintains the boundaries and limitations in being” that define our world.

Second, he adds that by having allowed for this human-centered relative universe the Tzimtzum manifested “the roots of Din (judgment)”. In short (because this is a very loaded statement that touches on many themes including reward and punishment which we’ll discuss below, and more), having chosen to limit His capabilities to create the universe God introduced the entire phenomenon of limitation, which is the heart of Din. For, while Chessed (loving-kindness), its polar opposite, is exemplified by expansion and bypassing boundaries, Din is exemplified by restriction and staying within boundaries. The point of the matter is that while God is inherently expansive, He stifled that, and thus allowed for Din which functions in our boundary-laden universe alone for good reasons.

(c) 2011 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

Feel free to contact me at feldman@torah.org

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Rabbi Feldman also offers two free e-mail classes on www.torah.org entitled “Spiritual Excellence” and “Ramchal”.

Ramchal begins his “solution” of the actual makeup of the Tzimtzum by first tying it in to the Sephirot which we’d focused on at length above.

He offers that the Sephirot are what came forth from the mystical space that occurred at the time of the Tzimtzum (Petach 29). We’ll discuss this “space” later on; suffice it to say that it came into being after and as a consequence of the Tzimtzum. In any event, this statement implies that without the Tzimtzum neither the Sephirot nor the universe they helped create and continue to govern could have existed outside of God’s own Being (Petach 24) which was the only existent until then.

(c) 2011 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman
Feel free to contact me at feldman@torah.org

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Rabbi Feldman also offers two free e-mail classes on www.torah.org entitled “Spiritual Excellence” and “Ramchal”.

Here’s how Ari described what he’d envisioned about the state of things before creation, based on his close readings and deep knowledge of the traditional sources and on his own intuitive, prophetic grasp of things: “Before any emanations were emanated or creations were created, a most supreme, simple light filled the whole of existence. There was no vacant place, no aspect of empty space or void, but rather everything was filled by that simple, infinite light …. (But) when it arose in His pure Will to create (the universe) … Ein Sof contracted Itself (i.e., it brought about a Tzimtzum) at its midpoint, in the exact center of its light. And … It left a vacant space — an empty, hollow void” within which everything could be created [1].

Based on his readings and knowledge of Ari’s and others’ statement as well as on his own intuitive, prophetic grasp, Ramchal depicted it in his own terms. Obviously knowing that his readers already knew Ari’s depiction he merely said in his comments to Petach 24 that: “In terms of what was ‘envisioned’ (as opposed to its ‘solution’, to be discussed below), the Tzimtzum appears in one place, while all around it is Ein Sof”. But he expanded on that elsewhere and said, “Before the world was created, (while) ‘He and His name were one’ [2] (and nothing else existed) Ein Sof willed (creation) and (thus) constricted His light in order to create all of the created phenomena, (and thereby) gave them space (i.e., an independent environment in which to exist)… (while) Ein Sof (Itself still) surrounded the space from all sides” (Klallot HaIlan 1:1).

Notes:

[1]       From The Tree of Life by Donald Wilder Menzi and Zwe Padeh (Arizal Publications, Inc. NY, 2008) pp. 11-13 (with slight changes).

[2]       Pirkei D’Rebbi Eliezer 3.

(c) 2011 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

Feel free to contact me at feldman@torah.org

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Rabbi Feldman also offers two free e-mail classes on www.torah.org entitled “Spiritual Excellence” and “Ramchal”.

Let’s back-track a bit and speak of what preceded the Tzimtzum, which was God alone. We already determined in the first section that we’re neither able nor allowed to speak of God’s essential Being itself; but we will delve a bit into something quite stunning that Ramchal offers in his comments to Petach 24 relevant to the pre-cosmic reality and its relationship to God’s Being. Let’s first draw closer into our reality as it stands now, though.

We’re privileged to see far, far deeper down and up, within and without, than we ever could. Thanks to extraordinarily sophisticated and complex tools we’re able to see the smallest of things and the grandest, the simplest and most complex. It has become clear to us that the universe — better, the lot of universes, both those “out there” and the one “in here” — is magnificently huge and tiny, and stunningly variegated. The thought that all of that was created by a single Deity is itself dazzling. But the following notion is nothing if not astounding and utterly humbling.

Ramchal declares here that “we mustn’t think that God created only what He was capable of creating and that He wasn’t able to create anything else. God forbid! He’s certainly capable of (creating or doing) much more; He (simply) didn’t want to.”

That’s to say that, despite what we imagine, it did not take everything that God “had in Him”, so to speak, to create this vast and multifarious universe: He could have created far more, and many utterly different phenomena than what even we know of today, but He didn’t.

For, as Ramchal went on to say, God Himself “encompasses all sorts of infinite capacities”. So, when we address His creation of the universe, “we aren’t referring to His infinitude…. Rather, we’re to that particular capacity among His infinite number of them that He (happened to have) used to create us”.

In fact, as one of his students put in a certain unpublished work, “the capacity (God used to create the universe) is simply a single small” capacity of His. As such, “everything (in the universe) emanates from this single (small) capacity alone” (from Ma’amar Mar Yenukah, quoted in R’ Y. Spinner’s edition of Klach pp. 63-64) [1].

The point to be made is that not only do few of us understand God as He manifests Himself in this universe — few even appreciate the limitations of our understanding of Him! For, He is not only far greater than our universe — He’s far greater than any notion we might have of any possibility in or out of this universe!

Note:

[1]       Also see Ramchal’s Peirush l’Arimat Yadi, Ma’amar Harautin, and Sod HaYichud.

(c) 2011 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

Feel free to contact me at feldman@torah.org

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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”.

Where did the notion of a Tzimtzum originate? Many suggest it comes from a couple of renditions of the pre-cosmic condition as found in the Zohar (1:15a) and in Zohar Chadash (V’etchanan, Kav HaMiddah). The latter more easily lends itself to that suggestion; and in fact Ramchal himself cites it as a reference [1].

Some find a source for it in a parable in Ramak’s Pardes (4:9) [2]. But already Nachmanides cited the notion in his opening remarks of his comments to Sefer Yetzirah in the 13^th Century, and Shem Tov Ibn Shem Tov spoke of it in the 15^th Century.

But the idea first presents itself in Shemot Rabbah to Exodus 25:10, where God was said to restrict and foreshorten (l’tzamtzaim) His presence to a small specific area of the Tabernacle [3].

It seems, though, that two other early sources allude to the need for a Tzimtzum before there could be a creation: the idea that “God yearned for a home among the lower beings” (Midrash Tanchuma, Naso 16) which He obviously could not have had, had He not allowed for the environment that the lower beings would need; and the idea that God appeared in various “guises” at different times — as a warrior at the Red Sea, a sage at the giving of the Torah, etc. — depending on the needs of the time and circumstances (see Rashi to Exodus 20:2), which suggests that that He needed to assume the “guise” of a non-presence before the universe was created.

That having been said, it’s nonetheless true that it was Ari alone who made Tzimtzum a major component of his explanation of things, and it’s his understanding of it that calls for explanation and analysis.

Notes:

[1]       See his comments to Petach 30 (beginning of section 2 there). But also see the 3^rd comment in Ari’s Derech Emet to Kav HaMiddah, and Eitz Chaim p. 11d.

[2]       See R’ M.Y. Veinshtock’s Shulchan HaMa’arachot b’Sitrei HaChochma (Vol. 1 p. 133).

[3]       Gershom Scholem famously declared that Ari turned the Midrash’s image on its head, for while the latter spoke of God narrowing and focusing His Presence into only one area, Ari referred to Tzimtsum as a setting aside or moving away of God’s presence. But the truth of the matter is that both refer to the unexpected “plasticity” of God’s presence, if you will, which is the main point.

 (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”.