Ramchal

Here’s the metaphor we cited last time, as set out in Klallei Ma’amar HaChochma. Ramchal asks us to imagine “a sage who came to a particular community and who, for some reason, didn’t want to be known to be as wise as he truly was but to be taken as just like the others instead. So he’d speak and interact with them in ways that would guarantee that he wasn’t recognized (as a sage) or lauded for wanting to live among them. And he adapted whatever he said or did toward that end accordingly”.

His point is that that’s how we’re to conceptualize God’s interactions with us via the Sephirot. For like the sage’s assumed persona which hides his actual personality, God likewise assumes a “persona” when He interacts with the world which covers over His own “personality”. For, He “talks to us” and “acts like us” by functioning within space and time by means of the Sephirot which can do that (among other things) [1].

The implications, of course, are that while some think the Sephirot are actually God, they’re woefully mistaken and have fallen for appearances; also that the wise will always catch sight of God in the world by looking behind the “persona” and noting the Sage’s personality [2].

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Notes:

[1]        Here’s the point at which we can discuss a seldom spoken of characteristic of Klach Pitchei Chochma, its wordiness and over-analytical style, which has turned many away from it. The style was undoubtedly affected by Ramchal’s study of formal logic (see his Sefer HaHigayon) but it does not sit well with modern sensibilities or tastes. We’ll take pains to avoid that throughout this work, but we’ll take this opportunity to illustrate it by presenting nearly the whole of what Ramchal offered in this wonderful metaphor which we contend he over-explained. Here is what’s said immediately after the metaphor is offered with our explanations and remarks.

“Now, if we were to analyze this sage’s situation just then, we’d first need to determine what he really was; second, what he seemed to be to those around him; third, what he wanted to accomplish by being (i.e., by appearing to be) of that stature; fourth, how his being considered that way agreed with and helped accomplish his goal; and fifth, how what he said and did agreed with his general principle and how they managed to accomplish that. But to do that correctly, we’d need to evoke all sorts of physical and sensory-based images, and to treat those images as separate phenomena so as to understand them on their own and together.”

That is, we’d need to think of the sage’s assumed persona as a sort of cloak over-covering his real one, or a “body” over-covering his “soul” or real self.

Then we’d need to describe “what brought this false impression about, and how it did that”, and whether it came about “because the sage wanted it to, or because it was inevitable”. We’d have to “analyze the various elements of the false impression” and to break that down further yet and to see how the parts all work together. Then we’d have to determine “how those (smaller) elements connected to the entire false impression, and then how all the various parts and the entire false impression relate to the desired end” of convincing the people that the sage wasn’t a sage in fact”.

He then offers this vitally important part of the equation: “In truth,” despite the very many elements involved in the process, “this doesn’t represent a large number of phenomena” since it’s really only a breakdown of one thing — the sage’s wish to misrepresent himself; and it doesn’t suggest “a change in the person of the sage himself”, as he’s the same person whether he’s being himself or hiding his qualities. All it does is show that “his persona was altered to the degree he wanted it to be in the eyes of the people, and in order to accomplish what he set out to”.

“Thanks to this parable you can understand the Sephirot” Ramchal now offers. “God Himself as He truly is, is never revealed (i.e., He never presents Himself) to humankind outright,” he says, “He is only revealed (i.e., He only presents Himself) to the degree He wants to be, and for a particular purpose which He has in mind”.

Ramchal now offers that in order to go ahead with our explanation of how God interacts with the world through this parable, “we’d now need to analyze (the difference between) His true Being and the way He reveals (i.e., presents) Himself. We’ll treat them as if they were two separate phenomena (for analytical purposes) and we’ll thus declare that God Himself is ‘sequestered’ within the way He wishes to reveal Himself (i.e., His true Being is over-covered by the persona He wishes to present).

“We’d term the revelation itself (i.e., the persona that God assumed) ‘Emanated (i.e., Separated) Light’ and its component parts we’d term Sephirot. We’d speak of them as if they were separate phenomena which were nonetheless inter-related and connected, and we’d set out to determine the purpose of the whole of them and of each one, their causes and effects of each, and each one’s precedents and antecedents —  as we would do with all sensory-based phenomena (that we’d analyze in order to understand).”

“We’d term God’s actual Self Ein Sof and say that Ein Sof was sequestered and can be discerned within the Sephirot” just as the sage himself is over-covered by the persona he assumes, though his true personality can be detected within it if one looks deeply.

He now begins to focus on the Sephirot themselves and says that “If we were analyze the relationship between the Sephirot and creation, between the various Sephirot themselves to each other, and between the Sephirot and Ein Sof, then (we’d offer that) none of this represents a change in Him” — meaning, the fact that there are Sephirot doesn’t indicate a change God’s own personality.

“For if, as we indicated, an individual (who assumes a persona that’s not a true reflection of himself) can be discerned (within the persona nonetheless) doesn’t experience change (i.e., his essential personality doesn’t change just because he assumes that persona), that’s all the more so true of God, who is Omnipotent and can (thus) do whatever He wants without any constraints”.

Ramchal then concludes by saying that we should explain God’s governance by means of the Sephirot in light of this metaphor (as we did above).

[2]       To use another metaphor, the Sephirot can be seen as the “gloves” that God “wears” while interacting with this world. Because of them He seems to have “hands” just as we do and to be like us, since we can see the outline of His “hands” within the gloves. Yet unbeknownst to us He doesn’t have hands whatsoever; and in fact, He’s doing the “task at hand” an entirely different way that has nothing to do with hands.

(c) 2011 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

Feel free to contact me at feldman@torah.org

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We’re going to have to do this in stages, since Ramchal says a lot about the Sephirot. What we’ll do first, though, is present a remarkable metaphor he offers that isn’t well known but should be. Then we’ll quote some other things he says about the Sephirot from various works and either go back to interweave them within this metaphor, or we’ll cite additional unrelated insights of his, depending.

The metaphor is found in Klallei Ma’amar HaChochma 4 [1] and it sets out to explain the relationship between God Himself and the Sephirot; it goes as follows.

He asks us to imagine “a sage who came to a particular community and who, for some reason, didn’t want to be known to be as wise as he truly was but to be taken as just like the others instead. So he’d speak and interact with them in ways that would guarantee that he wasn’t recognized (as a sage) or lauded for wanting to live among them. And he adapted whatever he said or did toward that end accordingly”. We’ll soon see how this goes to explain how God interacts with the world through the Sephirot.

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Notes:

[1]        Found in R’ Friedlander’s edition of Da’at Tevunot – Sefer HaKlallim pp. 309-310.

(c) 2011 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

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The first thing to point out in fact is that there are higher forces than the constellations and angels in the governing process, but that’s beside our point here [1].  In any event, it’s taught that the Sephirot are closest to the Source of all three, and then come the angels followed by the constellations.

In terms of the five spiritual “worlds” spoken of above, according to the Ari the most sublime world of all, Atzilut, is the realm of the Sephirot; the less sublime world of Briah is the realm of the higher angels known as Seraphim; the even less sublime world of Yetzirah is the realm of the class of  lower angels termed Michael, Gabriel, Uriel, Raphael, and Metatron; and the lowest world of Assiyah is the realm of the constellations (R’ Chaim Vital’s Sha’arei Kedusha 3).

And as Ramchal depicts it, “The Supernal Forces (i.e., the Sephirot) … are closest in proximity to the Shechina (i.e., God’s Presence) which always hovers over them…. And the angels (beneath them) are the spiritual beings that were created to carry out whatever God wishes in the world….  (But know that) there is nothing in the lower world … that hasn’t a corresponding element up above in the Supernal Forces; likewise, there is nothing below that hasn’t angels assigned to it that govern it and bring about various phenomena and circumstances that God decreed. The phenomena that the Supernal Forces manifest are termed ‘emanations’.  Now, all emanations that pass from up above down below pass through the constellations. As such, the constellations are the ‘emanators’ that are in closest proximity to the lower phenomena, but their emanations only manifest themselves according to what proceeds up above” (Ma’amar HaIkkurim, “BeRuchni’im”) [2].

Having gone through all of this it’s now time to discuss Ramchal’s own understanding of the makeup and function of the Sephirot, to be followed by an analysis of Petachim 5 and 6 which comprise this second section of Klach.

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Notes:

[1]       See Petachim 18, 31; Tikkunim Chaddashim 39; and Adir Bamarom 2, p. 93.

[2]       See the end of Ramban’s introduction to his commentary on The Book of Job for a discussion of the relationship between angels, constellations, “satan” (who is an angel, at bottom), and more.

(c) 2011 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

Feel free to contact me at feldman@torah.org

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It’s thanks to the stars and constellations that the various phenomena are “carried along through (the system of God’s governance) and transformed” from their spiritual essence to their eventual physical manifestations (Derech Hashem 2:7:1). That means to say that the constellations function as a sort of way-station along the way from pure Godliness to utter materiality.

But rather than being passive ports-of-call along the way if you will, they play very active roles in the governing process. For they actually have a lot of input into the various experiences and circumstances those material things will experience (Derech Hashem 2:7:2; also see Ibid. 1:5:3 and 2:1:2). In fact, we’re taught that the physical phenomenon under their sway are also granted “the ability to continue to exist” by the constellations (Derech Hashem 2:7:1) — which is no mean feat to be sure [1].

Understand that the constellations also touch upon humanity, not only inanimate objects; that’s to say, we’re all personally and intimately effected by their input on some level or another (Derech Hashem 2:7:3). Their function is one of the reasons why things sometimes seem unfair, and why “bad things happen to the righteous and good things happen to the wrongful” (Petach 82).

But that’s because one’s stellar influence (i.e., mazal) isn’t based on his or her moral standing but rather on “what’s intrinsically needed to perfect the world”, which is to say it’s rooted in God’s ultimate intentions rather than our own selves. As such,  it “doesn’t have anything to do with a person’s free choice or his merits” and “it only functions in this world, and not in (relation to one’s standing in) the world to come which is dependent on one’s merits and deeds” (Da’at Tevunot 168) [2].

But know as well that the influence of the constellations can be undone at any time if and when God deems that necessary (Derech Hashem 2:7:3), and that we cannot depend on our knowledge of them to understand things about the world despite their vital role here (Derech Hashem 2:7:4).

Now let’s see the connection between the Sephirot, constellations. and angels.

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Notes:

[1]       This touches on the whole subject of Divine Providence, which will be discussed in Petachim 13, 114 below; in Da’at Tevunot 136,190; and at length in the entire second section of Derech Hashem.

[2]       See Klallim Rishonim 34 where this and more is explained at length Kabbalistically and theologically, and where it touches upon things discussed in Petachim 85-89 below. Also see more esoteric references to this in Petachim 105, 111, 114 below.

(c) 2011 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

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The first thing that becomes clear from his explanation of the constellations in Derech Hashem 2:7:1-4, where he lays out most of its main points, is that the subject of the constellations harkens back to a couple of vitally important themes in Klach as well as in so much of Kabbalah and Jewish Thought in general — Divine Providence (hashgacha) and Emanation (hashpa). For when God governs He does so by means of both. Suffice it to say for our purposes now, though, that both come into play in Ramchal’s understanding of the role of the constellations.

Let’s follow his train of thought here because it will enable us to not only understand the constellations, but also the interplay between all the instruments of God’s governance.

Ramchal says that “everything material has its roots in the Supernal Forces (i.e., the Sephirot)” and that the process of bringing about material things and phenomena from such lofty spiritual sources has to follow a certain hierarchical order from highest up, to next highest, to lower, to lowest, by degrees. Only then can material things assume their proper form (Derech Hashem 2:5:3).

While we aren’t privy to the reasons behind their “quantity, quality, or component makeup”, since “the Highest Wisdom (alone) determined that” still and all we do have traditions about their makeup and function (Derech Hashem 2:7:1) which we’ll now explore.

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Ramchal peers deeply into the stars at a number of points, both esoterically (in Klach itself, Klallim Rishonim, and Adir Bamarom) and exoterically (in Derech Hashem, Da’at Tevunot, and Adir Bamarom).

We’re going to take a short break here ourselves to delve into Derech Hashem 2:7 and Klallim Rishonim 34 where he goes into all this at length and come back with a short synopsis.

(c) 2010 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

Feel free to contact me at feldman@torah.org

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We’re also taught that “there is not a blade of grass” among all other natural things in the universe “that doesn’t have its mazal in the heavens to strike it and say to it ‘Grow!’” (Breishit Rabbah 9:6). And that every person “has a mazal that is his guardian from conception and birth” (Shabbat 53b) and oftentimes perceives things that he himself cannot (Meggilah 3a) [1].

The Zohar is quite emphatic about the rule of the constellations. It said that “the stars and constellations in the heavens were appointed to be rulers and governors over the entire world” (2, p. 171). Some of our sages argue, though, that our people aren’t influenced by the constellations while others say otherwise (Shabbat 156a) [2]. And some maintain that we can rise above the constellation by dint of our righteousness while others disagree (Shabbat 129b).

So we see how important constellations are in God’s governance of the world. Let’s explore what Ramchal says about them.

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Notes:

[1]       See Moreh Nevuchim 2:10 for a full discussion of the role that the constellations (and other celestial entities) play.

[2]       It’s stated in the Zohar, though, that prior to the granting of the Torah everyone was beholden to the constellations, whereas after the revelation God exempted those of us who study and observe the Torah from their rule, while the unlearned and heretics were not absolved from the constellations’ influence (3, p. 216b).

The Zohar discusses the constellations at length at a number of points including 1, pp. 188b-189a; 2, pp. 171a-172a, 188a, 232a; 3, pp. 251a-251b; and Zohar Chadash, Breishit p. 15a.

(c) 2010 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

Feel free to contact me at feldman@torah.org

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The most extensive Talmudic statement about the constellations is found in Tractate Shabbat (p. 156a). Known as mazalot in Hebrew, the constellations are depicted there as having direct influence on one’s makeup and direction in life (for the good or the bad). There’s a discussion there, by the way, about whether the constellations themselves have that effect or the day of the week one is born in [1]. In any event, we’re told that someone born under the sign of the Sun, for example, will be radiant and self-sufficient, and will hold no secrets; that someone born under the sign of the Moon will suffer, will destroy and build, will build and destroy, will live off of others, and will have secrets; etc.

Elsewhere we’re told that certain months of the year influence us (see Ta’anit 29), and that what’s most especially affected by the constellations are one’s progeny, income, and life-span (see Moed Kattan 28a) [2].

But there’s a lot more.

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Notes:

[1]       The Tikkunei Zohar says it’s the hour of the day that matters (p. 139).

[2]       The Zohar contends that everything depends on the constellations (1, p. 198).

(c) 2010 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”.

Now let’s see how Ramchal depicts angels in his many of his works, Klach included.

At bottom he terms them “God’s emissaries who bring all of His commands to fruition” (Da’at Tevunot 160; also see Derech Hashem 1:5:10, 2:5:3-4), but there are other things we’d need to know about them for our purposes.

We learn that while the actions of some angels are set, those of others vary widely according to circumstances (Pitchei Chochma v’Da’at 111) — either for good or bad. That’s not to imply that angels can do bad things on their own, as they’re too holy to have a yetzer harah (Ginzei Ramchal p. 35). So while there are indeed “angels of destruction” (i.e., malevolent angels) (Derech Hashem 3:1:6) who do harm in the world, still and all angels cannot rebel against or countervail God’s orders (Da’at Tevunot 36).

There are ten main species of angels (Pitchei Chochma v’Da’at 110) with many sub-species (Ibid. 108), and all of them occupy four “camps” (Ibid. 111) [1].  The lot of them are under the command of various “Princes” (Ibid. 108-109) commonly termed Archangels. And we’re told that they “derive all of their satisfaction by what’s bestowed upon them by and their attachment to their source” in the upper worlds (Ginzei Ramchal p. 132).

That last point begins to explain their relationship to the Sephirot (which is our actual subject at hand, remember). At bottom, the angels are products of and subsidiary to the Sephirot. As Ramchal words it, “The illuminations (i.e., Sephirot)…. produce angels” (Ginzei Ramchal p. 131); and “the Sephirot decree, and the angels carry those decrees out” (Assarah Perakim 9:1; also see Derech Hashem 1:5:10, 2:5:3-4 and Pitchei Chochma v’Da’at 125). He says much the same, though much more arcanely here in Klach [2].

What role do the constellations play in God’s governance then? We’ll soon see.

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Note:

[1]          We’ll need to present a Kabbalistic theme here which we’ll go into great detail later on in order to offer more about them here: the idea of there being various spiritual realms or “worlds” (also termed “camps” here). The Ari speaks of five of them, though we needn’t be concerned about the terminology at this point, which in descending order are termed Adam Kadmon, Atzilut, Briah, Yetzirah, and Assiyah.

Ramchal offers that three of the ten main species of angels are centered in Briah, six in Yetzirah, and the other species is in Assiyah (Pitchei Chochma v’Da’at 108). And thus while angels are commonly said to be located in Yetzirah, he maintains that while they’re centered there, they also touch upon Briah and Assiyah (Pitchei Chochma v’Da’at 104, 109).

[2]       Angels are said to carry out the commands of the Shechina (Petachim 38 and 137; also see Da’at Tevunot 160), which represents the last of the Sephirot; and we’re told that they “derive their power from the illuminations”, i.e., the Sephirot (Petach 23).

For further discussion of angels in Ramchal’s works see Derech Hashem 2:5:3-4; 2:6:3; 3:1:6; 3:2:4, 7, 9; 4:4:1, 7, 11-12; and 4:8:5. Also see Da’at Tevunot 115, 118, 160; Ginzei Ramchal pp. 27, 33, 35, 41, 131-132, 153, 277; Derech Eitz Chaim; Messilat Yesharim Ch. 6; and Adir Bamarom pp. 2, 9, 111, 260.

(c) 2010 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”.

There are a few more points to be made about the angels’ makeup and their role in God’s governance, though, before we can go on to Ramchal’s remarks about them.

They haven’t physical bodies [1]; they often function as God’s “entourage” (Shir HaShirim Rabbah 8:11) aside from being His agents and consultants; there are “good” and “bad” ones (Shabbat 119b); and despite their functions they’re still and all subordinate to man (Sifre, Ha’azinu 306).

Now Ramchal’s view of them.

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Note:

[1]          Rambam depicts them as “having no body” but as still being “forms that are distinct from each other” despite the fact that they haven’t bodies, which would ordinarily distinguish them from each other (Yesodei HaTorah 2:3). It’s clear that one of the reasons why he made that point was to differentiate angels in their natural state from how they appear in Tanach in human form (Ibid. 2:4). Cordovero remarks, though, that they’re spiritual entities indeed, but they’re also comprised of “subtle, spiritual material (substance)”, which is to say that they’re physical “while in the physical realm, but spiritual in the spiritual realm” (Shiur Koma 16).

(c) 2010 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”.