Ramchal

Petach 8

יכולות הספירות ליראות בדמיונות אפילו הפכיים זה לזה, כמו ממש הרואה בחלום, שמתחלפים הנושאים לפניו ברגע אחד. רק שבכל דמיון שנראה – מדע כח אחד ומדה אחת. והמדות והכחות נודעים בסדר אמתי ונכון, כמו שהם מסודרים ונעשים והדמיונות – כמו שיכולה הנשמה לקבל:

The Sephirot can even appear in contradictory images, exactly the way things in a dream can reverse themselves in a moment. It’s just that each likeness seen in the prophetic vision provides information about a (specific Divine) element or attribute. And while the attributes and elements (themselves) become known (to the prophet or soul envisioning them) in the actual order in which they’re arranged and function, the images (appear to the prophet or soul) in accordance with the (prophet or) soul’s ability to receive (them).

(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”.

We’re now entering the 3^rd section entitled “The Images in which the Sephirot Appear” which covers Petachim 7-13. What we’ll do first is present one Petach at a time, in Hebrew and in English, then go back to analyze the entire section.

Petach 7:

הספירות אפשר שיאירו בהארה רבה או בהארה מועטת. אפשר להם ליראות בכמה מיני ציורים ודמיונות, מה שבהם לא יש באמת שום צורה ודמיון, רק נראות בדרך צורה ודמיון. והמסתכל בהם באמת יראה שאין הדמיון והצורה אלא מקרית לפי הרואה בם, והיינו, “וביד הנביאים אדמה”. אך בעצמם אינם אלא התפשטות כחות, מסתדרים בסדר מה שהם צריכים להסתדר, נתלים החוקים אלה באלה, ונמשכים זה אחר זה, לפי שלמות הסדר המסודר:

The Sephirot can be envisioned as shining brightly or dimly. And they can be pictured as assuming different forms and figures, though they don’t really have forms or figures and only seem to assume them. For as anyone who would truly scrutinize them could see, the forms and figures (they seem to assume) are accidental and dependent on whoever is observing them, as in (the verse that reads) “through the prophets I was imaged (i.e., I was portrayed)” (Hosea 12:11).

In essence, though, the Sephirot are actually an array of (Divine) capacities that are organized a specific way, and which are interdependent and sequential so as to ensure that things are organized just so.

(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”.

Let’s sum-up what Ramchal offers about the Sephirot in this section. He depicts them here as emanations or illuminations and attributes of God’s will that suddenly and purposely came into play when He wanted them so as to create the various esoteric and concrete worlds, and which He now uses to govern them.

And he offers that unlike God’s own simple light or presence which is utterly unfathomable, and in contrast to certain other extraordinarily sublime phenomena that also don’t share this trait, these illuminations were each allowed to be “envisioned” as a single, mystical “illumination” by prophets and other exalted souls [1].

The Sephirot were granted that capacity, we’re told, for our sakes alone — so we might understand each attribute itself as well as understand what would be taking place in the governing process “down here, on earth” through that attribute “up there, in the heavens” at that time.

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Notes:

[1]       The “other extraordinarily sublime phenomena” cited here refer to certain Partzufim discussed below, including Reisha d’la Ityada (“The Head that cannot be Fathomed”) and others. They and their functions cannot be envisioned or “read”.

(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”.

We’d made the point that it seemed to be very bold of Ramchal to say that the Sephirot could be “envisioned”, but that in fact others had said so as well or spoke of other very sublime visions some were privileged to have had, so let’s explore some of that.

Several sources address the sublime visions that many have had. Sefer Bahir (47) speaks of the celestial phenomena that our people observed at Mount Sinai, which another source refers to as the moment when God Himself appeared to them, albeit covered over by a tallit (Rosh Hashanah 17b) [1]. We’re taught that the very humblest of our people “saw (mystical visions) at the Red Sea that even Isaiah, Ezekiel and all the other prophets weren’t able to see” (Mechilta); and that Moses as well as Nadav and Avihu  were able to see the Shechina (which is itself a depiction of the Sephira of Malchut) at the dedication of the Tabernacle (Shemot Rabbah 3:2) as were all who entered into it afterwards (Pesikta D’Rav Kahana), and as the entire Jewish Nation was able to do all together at the dedication of the Holy Temple (Mo’ed Kattan 9a).

Weren’t we told outright that Daniel caught sight of “the Ancient of Days (sitting upon His throne with) His raiment as white as snow, and the hair of His head like clean wool” (Daniel 7:9)? And haven’t we been taught that all the prophets saw celestial phenomena indeed, though through a translucent glass, while Moses saw greater things himself as if looking through a transparent glass (Vayikra Rabbah 1:14)?

Hence, a lot has been seen. Finally, as to prophets envisioning the Sephirot themselves, the Tikkunei Zohar says explicitly that Ezekiel perceived them (p. 2a; also see Zohar 3, 226b). And the Zohar itself alludes to the possibility of perceiving the Sephirot once they draw closer to the physical universe [2], much the way one is only able to take hold of water that’s spilling down from up above once it falls to the ground (Zohar 2, 42b) [3].

So we see that Ramchal’s claim isn’t all original; it seems that it was simply the explicitness of the claim that shocked some.

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Notes:

[1]       That itself is a clear reference to envisioning the Sephirot or some other representation, given that God Himself isn’t visible.

[2]       I.e., once the Sephira of Malchut comes into play, as Ramchal himself explains in Petach 9.

[2]       Also see Zohar 2, 270b; and 3, 239a. See Adir Bamarom pp. 37-38 where Ramchal discusses rare individuals who are able to see great visions while in deserts and in fields.

(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.

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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”.

We’d learned last time that “God wanted the Sephirot to be known of so that we can understand the attribute itself … and so that we might understand what would be taking place in the governing process … at that time”.

This raises a number of serious questions which we’ll pose but only offer a limited response to since no one seems to address this, other than indirectly.

If God wanted us — our people and humanity eventually, select individuals right now — to envision His Sephirot and to know “which way the wind is blowing”, so to speak, at any given moment, then why aren’t we? Why isn’t this focused on, and why didn’t Ramchal tell us how to do it himself?

Some might say that this speaks to the need to study the physical sciences since they address present reality all the time; or perhaps political science, sociology, psychology, and the like. But I don’t think so.

Ramchal himself has no particular objection to studying those things, given his acknowledgment in his introduction to Messilat Yesharim of the fact that “the great majority of intelligent, enlightened, aware, and informed people expend a great deal of their energies on reflection upon and examination of the minutia of the various sciences, and upon subtle scholarship, each according to his own inclinations and personal bents …. (including) cosmogony or physical science,… astronomy or mathematics and … art”. And his acceptance of that is also alluded to by his statement near the end of the same book that “the path to piety for the one whose whole occupation is Torah scholarship is different from the one for the laborer, which is itself different from the one for the professional person”, which acknowledges the legitimacy of other intellectual and professional paths (and we’d also cite Ramchal’s learned statements in his Sefer HaHigayon cited in note 22 of this section, as well as his work on Hebrew grammar and more for allusions to such acceptance).

But we can’t claim that those are the ways he’d maintain that one is to train himself to envision the Sephirot. Because while the various sciences enable us to see “the situation on the ground” if you will — how God’s governance plays itself out in the physical world — they don’t enable us to catch sight of the movements in the heavens which is the implication of envisioning the Sephirot.

Our studying Klach Pitchei Chochma and other Kabbalistic works are certainly meant to teach us how and where to “look up into the skies” so to speak, as they provide us with the “maps” we’d need beforehand, they don’t end up teaching us how to do what needs to be done if we’re to do what we must, which is to take those maps and set out to see the Sephirot for ourselves.

One answer suggested by Ramchal’s statements further on in Klach is that we must then become either prophets or the sorts of exalted souls who can indeed discern the movement of the Sephirot as he’ll point to later. But he doesn’t tell us how to. R’ Aryeh Kaplan z”l was of the opinion that Messilat Yesharim is itself a preparatory text for that (see “Meditation and the Bible” pp. 20-21), but few others say as much.

Some rare individuals recite the various Yichudim that are laid out in the Kavvanot of the Ari, which do enable them to read and affect the heavens, as Ari lays it out there, But the great, great majority of us haven’t any association with that.

Our only consolation (and it’s scant at that) lies in the fact that Ramchal often refers to the idea that once God’s Yichud becomes manifest we’ll all understand God’s governance in retrospect (as cited at the end of Section 1; see sources cited there and in note 45 there). Thus the point is that while we might never catch sight of the Sephirot now, we eventually will, and that itself is priceless.

(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”.

We’d also need to understand that the Sephirot “were brought about specifically for the sake of creation”, as Ramchal puts it in his comments. That’s to say that just as God has no need for the process of creation per se, He likewise has no need for the existence of Sephirot. For, while they’re an intrinsic and essential part of the universe itself, they aren’t intrinsic to what preceded creation — God’s own existence. He could very easily do without them Himself. But He allowed for them because He wanted the universe to exist, and the Sephirot fill a vital role in that.

In any event, God wanted them to be known of so that we can understand the attribute itself [1], since we’d need to do that in order to draw close to Him and determine His will for us. So He made it possible for prophets and other exalted souls to “envision” the Sephirot and to thus decipher their makeup and implications; all so that we might understand what would be taking place in the governing process … at that time”.

We’ll reiterate the point though that it seemed to be very bold of Ramchal to say that the Sephirot could be “envisioned”. But in fact, others had said so as well; and we’d need to understand what he and they meant by envisioning sublime phenomena.

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Notes:

[1]       See Da’at Tevunot 180.

(c) 2011 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

Feel free to contact me at feldman@torah.org

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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 differentiates between the Sephirot and Ein Sof Himself by referring to the Sephirot as “Emanated Light” as opposed to God’s own light which is “Simple” or pure and unchanged. We’ll explain that shortly, but first why use the term “light” when referring to such intangible entities? Wouldn’t it be better to avoid using material terms altogether?

For one thing, we refer to it by a term “only to give it some sort of name”, as he puts it. That’s to say, we simply can’t study God’s workings in this world as we’re expected to without reference-points and names, so we use the term “light”. It’s most appropriate because “light is the finest and most subtle of all physical things” as he points out.

Again, the point is that in order to depict the Sephirot and to contrast them with God’s own being, which is indescribable (as we said in 1:2), we’d need to contrast their light-nature with His. As such, the Sephirot are termed “Emanated Light”, which means to say, light that had been extruded and derived from a light-source which is God’s own, which is itself “Simple”, for lack of a better term [1].

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Notes:

[1]       For more on “Emanated Light” see Petach 25, Klallei Ma’amar HaChochma 4, Ginzei Ramchal pp. 297, 307, and Eitz Chaim 1:3. For more on “Simple Light” see Ginzei Ramchal p. 297 and Sha’arei Ramchal p. 50.

(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”.

Many were put off by Ramchal’s assertion that the Sephirot… were allowed to be envisioned, since that seems to concretize them and to somehow demean God. But Ramchal never meant the idea to be taken literally, as he’ll explain in Petachim 7-8 [1]. In fact, it’s been said that one shouldn’t study Petachim 5 and 6 until first studying 7 and 8, or to skip 5 and 6 altogether [2], but we’ll do our best to explain the issues involved.

Ramchal first makes a few remarks to differentiate the Sephirot from God Himself (though he asserts that the Sephirot are in fact “Godly”) in order to explain their being capable of being “envisioned” [3]. He terms the Sephirot “Emanated Light” as opposed to God’s own “Simple Light”, as we’ll explain.

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Notes:

[1]       That’s why we placed “envisioned” in parentheses.

[2]       See the statement to that effect at the end of a short (and very useful) treatise entitled Klallei Hatchalat HaChochma (found on p. 44 in the addenda section of Sha’arei Ramchal).

[3]       See Ramchal’s commentary to part 1 of Petach 5, and see Petach 25 below for a discussion of it.

There’s a long and storied disagreement among the earlier Kabbalists about what the difference is, but this is not the place to discuss that. See Pardes 4:1, and Shomer Emunim (Kadmon) 1:57.

(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”.

He actually says quite a lot about emanation and its cohort Divine Providence throughout the second section of Derech Hashem. He speaks there of it occurring on various levels, and of this-world versus other-worldly applications of it (including its role in reincarnation); the place of reward and punishment, human responsibility and potential, Divine Justice, the Jewish Nation, and of Adam and Eve as well as other early Biblical personalities in it; the mechanics of it and its non-human participants; the place of God’s Yichud in the process; human history in light of Divine Providence and the emanation process; and more.

In short it comes down to the fact that while “it’s God alone who maintains the existence of all of creation, both at large and in particular [1]…. (yet) there many and various sorts of emanators” (Derech Hashem 3:2:5) [2].

While many are aware of the place of the angels and constellations in the process, as we laid out above, not many are aware of the role of the Torah.  As Ramchal puts it, “the greatest emanator of all and the one with the loftiest and most valuable makeup … which God apportioned from His own Glory … is the Torah” (Derech Hashem 4:2:2) [3]. We won’t delve into the particulars here about this important albeit mystifying statement other than to offer that on one level it simply alludes to the power inherent in our Torah-study and Torah-sanctioned actions to change God’s reactions to us and thus change the course of history, but a lot more could be said about it [4].

We’re also taught that God’s emanations vary from person to person, moment by moment, and day by day (Petach 138; Da’at Tevunot 160, 174), and that they largely depend on our actions (Da’at Tevunot 130, 168). At bottom, though, “All of God’s emanations … are rooted in and dependent upon His Yichud … so as to bring (everything) to true perfection” (Derech Hashem 4:4:7) [5].

We’ll begin our actual discussion of Petachim 5 and 6 next time.

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Notes:

[1]        See Da’at Tevunot 116, Midrash Tehillim 119: 89.

[2]       Also see Derech Hashem 2:5:3, 2:6:2, 3:2:1, 4:6:10; and Da’at Tevunot 156, 158.

[3]       As it’s written, “God peered into the Torah to create the world” (Breishit Rabbah 1:2). Also see Adir Bamarom pp. 110-111.

[4]       This is partially based on the sublime source of the Torah; after all, the quote just above refers to the Torah as an entity “which God apportioned from His own Glory”. Also see Petach 30 below, and R’ Chaim Volozhin’s statement in Nephesh HaChaim (4:10).

[5]       Also see Da’at Tevunot 116.

See Klalei Pitcha HaChochma v’Da’at 6 on the process itself; and see Petachim 72, 73, 125 for more esoteric references to it.

(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”.

Recall that Ramchal likened the Sephirot to a “persona” that God assumes when He interacts with the world which conceals His actual “personality”. In other words (as Ramchal explained it elsewhere), the Sephirot are like “properties that God assumed for Himself for the sake of creation which aren’t intrinsic to Him” (Klallim Rishonim 1), and which only “come into play (literally, are “revealed”) when Ein Sof (i.e., God Himself) is restricted” (Ma’amar HaVichuach 126) or, in keeping with the persona theme, when His personality is over-covered by His persona.

Ramchal also likens the Sephirot to “pipes” or “containers” (Klalei Chochmat HaEmet 3), to “a supernal shaft of light” and to a series of “outpourings of holiness” that shine downward (Klallim Rishonim 1), and to a representation of “the mystery of the human form” (Klallut Shorshei HaChochma). The latter refers to the Kabbalistic subject known as Adam Kadmon or “Primordial Man” which we’ll discuss later, but for our purposes now it speaks to the fact that the Sephira configuration in its entirety serves as a single “body” of phenomena which, like a human body, accomplishes things with all its separate parts working in tandem.

Nevertheless, we’re also to know that despite any depictions, “the Sephirot are spiritual and arcane phenomena, which, like their Creator, cannot be fathomed” (Klallei Pitchei Chochma v’Da’at 2).

Now, as far as what they do, they “carry along an emanation from God” (Klallei Pitchei Chochma v’Da’at 1). We addressed God’s emanations above and pointed out how important it is for us to understand the whole notion, so we’ll now see what Ramchal says about it.

(c) 2011 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

Feel free to contact me at feldman@torah.org

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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”.