Ramchal

On the face of it, evil, injustice, wrongdoing and the like are all taken to be “necessary evils” if you will — unavoidable by-products of human free-will. After all, if I’m to be free to make ethical decisions, I have to be liable to make available bad ones.

Now, while evil and the like and its mechanism, the yetzer harah or sitra achra, are all despicable in the eyes of the tradition since they draw us away from God [1] and distract our attention from our life’s goal, they’re also recognized as being contributory on some level. For were it not for such inclinations we “wouldn’t build homes, marry, have children, conduct business” or the like (Breishit Rabbah 9); it’s acknowledged as oftentimes functioning as a servant of God who must conduct His “dirty business” so to speak (Zohar 2, 163a); and it’s accepted that at bottom it isn’t all-bad, since it’s animated by some sparks of holiness and Godliness or else it simply couldn’t exist (Eitz Chaim, Sha’ar HaKelallim 2, 19:3).

But Ramchal has a very different view of it. His point is that wrong actually serves to bolster God’s goals and will actually be transformed into good in the end.

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Notes:

[1] That’s one explanation for it being referred to as “a foreign (i.e., alternative) god” so to speak (Shabbat 105b).

(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”.

We’ll turn now to the ideas of right and wrong in relation to God’s Yichud, and to the eventual undoing of all wrong which we alluded to above, all of which have tremendous ethical and theological ramifications [1].

The big question is, how can God be said to hold absolute sway over everything, and to be the only being whose wishes can never be thwarted when there are countless instances of ungodliness and wrong that do indeed seem to thwart God’s wishes?

Ramchal’s response to that is that while they do seem to deny God’s sovereignty and Yichud they actually do not; in fact, they will be undone just to illustrate how absolute God’s reign actually is.

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Notes:

[1]       As we said above, there are three aspects of God’s Yichud: first, His being the only entity who simply must exist if anything else is to; second, His desire to have everything return to the pristine state of Yichud; and third, His being the sovereign Ruler who holds absolute sway over everything, and whom nothing and no one can thwart. We’ll be concentrating on this latter aspect now.

(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”.

In point of fact, we matter very much in the functioning of the universe [1]. At bottom, we were created as free agents — as Ramchal put it in Petach 1, God “created independent creatures possessing their own will” [2] — who were charged by God to do His bidding in this world, to execute His plans, and to experience His Yichud.

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Notes:

[1]       Mankind’s key role in creation was discussed widely: arguing for it, aside from the Kabbalists, was R’ Saadia Gaon in Emunot v’De’ot (end of Part 1 and beginning of Part 4); arguing against it include Ibn Ezra (near the beginning to his comments to Genesis) and at Exodus 23:20 (in his condensed commentary), Maimonides in The Guide for the Perplexed (3:12-13), and R’ Y. Aramah in Akeidat Yitzchak (Gate 5).

[2]       Ramchal discussed our free will in a number of other places in Klach. See for example Petachim 27 (p. 76), 30 (p. 93), and 81 (pp. 260, 262). Also see Da’at Tevunot 14, 158; Derech Hashem 1:3:1, 1:5:4; Ma’amar HaIkkurim, “BaHashgacha”; etc.

Also see Deuteronomy 30:15–19; Pirkei Avot 3:15; Emunot v’ Deot (Ch. 4); Chovot Halevovot (3:8), Moreh Nevuchim (3:17), Hilchot Teshuvah Ch. 5, and the statement that “All is in the hands of Heaven but the fear of Heaven” (Berachot 33b), which is to say that humankind is free to offer any sort of ethical response to whatever Heaven offers.

(c) 2010 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”.

So at bottom God created the cosmos en toto so that you and I can encounter His Being out and out.  It stands to reason that would be so, Ramchal asserts in Petach 3, since God is good and “good beings want to do good things”, by definition and to give of themselves [1]. Ramchal’s point then is that God’s beneficence is utterly, boldly altruistic on His part without any thought of Himself.

But there’s a snag. We’re not inclined to accept out-and-out benevolence, because of a uniquely human inability to accept a favor without being embarrassed by our benefactor’s largesse. As our sages put it, “One who eats what is not his is ashamed to look in his (benefactor’s) face” (J. T., Orlah 1:3) [2].

So in order to avoid this, we’re told, and to assure the fact that we wouldn’t be “ashamed to accept” his benevolence (Petach 4), God saw to it that humankind would “have a way of doing something to earn the good that they’d receive” (Ibid.). That way we’d enjoy what had come to be ours through our own efforts, and we’d thus be willing participants in the process He wants us to be [3].

In order to facilitate that effort God set out to create the system of good and evil (to allow for our good and bad choices), of reward and punishment (to affirm the seriousness of each one of our choices), and free will (to in fact allow us our own input).

With all that in place, God will indeed then be able to “express utter and complete benevolence in such a way that its recipients wouldn’t be ashamed to accept it” — since we would have earned it and would be willing to accept it.

All that goes to explain our raison d’être, as we’ll see.

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Notes:

[1]         See Da’at Tevunot 18 as well as Petach 3.

The idea that God is sure to do good by virtue of the fact that “good beings want to do good things”, is curious and almost seems to suggest that God is compelled by a kind of law of nature to that affect.

But as R’ Chaim Friedlander’s points out (see his note 2 on p. 4 of his edition of Da’at Tevunot), it’s absurd to suggest that God is compelled to do anything by nature. It’s best to say instead that He simply willed that such a rule be in place which He then chose to abide by (see Friedlander’s note 19 on p. 51 there as well).

Also see Shomer Emunim (1:53) for the same idea, though he doesn’t address the subject at hand per se there.

This solves another quandary: the idea that God created the world to offer His largesse seems to suggest that creating beings somehow fulfills God, which is of course absurd. But the point once again is that God simply willed there to be an apparent “need” for the world to exist.

Also see Leshem, Chelek HaBiurim, Drushei Iggulim v’Yosher 1:1.

[2]       This notion, known as Nahama D’kisufa (“The Bread of Shame”), which has taken on a life of its own in contemporary Kabbalistic and Chassidic thought and has assumed the role of a near principle of the Faith, is also cited in Tosephot to Kiddushin 36b, “Kawl Mitzvah”; R’ Yoseph Karo’s Maggid Maisharim (Breishit, “Ohr Layom Shabbat 14 Tevet”); R’ Menachem Azariah De Fano’s Yonat Elim(beginning); and the anonymous Orchot Tzaddikim’s Sha’ar HaBusha. But its sure standing in contemporary thought is one of Ramchal’s many unique contributions to our understanding of traditional Jewish philosophy. Also see Derech Hashem 1:2:2

See R’ Shriki’s note 7* on pp. 13-14 of his edition of Da’at Tevunot, and his  note 29 on pp. 16-17 of his edition of Derech Hashem where he raises the question as to why God couldn’t have just undone this anomaly.

[3]       Recall that Ramchal’s point has been that everything created — every single item, person, phenomenon, and process — is part of a great and splendid “device”, if you will, whose sole aim is to serve as a recipient of God’s largesse. The implications of that are of course quite stunning, breathtaking, even undoing, since it implies that nothing has a life or raison d’être of its own so much as a role to play in the revelation of God’s sovereignty. Yet we’ve also been taught that we have free will, which would clearly affirm our own personal reality as well as our importance in the makeup of the universe. So what role do we play in the end? Significantly, since it’s we alone who allow for the revelation of God’s Yichud in the world we clearly matter infinitely much.

(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”.

Ramchal offers us this astounding remark in the Mishna of Petach 3: The world was ultimately created so that God could be beneficent … (and) to bestow utmost goodness upon the universe. Contained in that statement are answers to two of the most vexing existential questions of all: why God created the universe, and (by extension) what the meaning of our lives is. Let’s tread lightly into those eternal topics now [1].

While Ramchal discusses God’s reason for having created the universe in a number of places, his point here is that it comes down to the fact that God did so in order to bestow goodness upon it [2]. Elsewhere though he famously offered that we were created to “delight in God and enjoy the radiance of His Divine presence” (Messilat Yesharim Ch. 1) [3]. But what that seeming contradiction speaks to is the fact that while God does indeed want us to experience goodness, nonetheless since the greatest goodness we can experience in fact is His own presence, then our having that experience is His ultimate goal for us [4].

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Notes:

[1]       In fact, Ramchal adjured us (in the work that serves as an introduction to Klach in some editions, which is otherwise known as Derech Eitz Chaim) to make a point of setting aside time to ask ourselves who we are at bottom, why we were placed in the world, what God requires of us, and what will be our end.

[2]       See Derech Hashem 1:2 (beginning); Sod HaYichud (Ginzei Ramchal p. 265); Da’at Tevunot 18; Ma’amar HaChochma, “V’omek Shel HaInyan”; and Iggerot Pitchei Chochma v’Da’at, “Yediah Sheniya”.

God’s overarching benevolence was discussed in earlier classical works: see for example Emunot v’De’ot (Introduction to Section 3), Ohr Hashem 2:6:5 (and elsewhere there), Sefer HaYashar (1), and Eitz Chaim, Sha’ar HaKlallim (beg.).

[3]       He actually wrote there that indeed “we were created to delight in God and enjoy the radiance of His Divine presence”, but he added that “the means to bring you to this goal are the mitzvot that God has commanded”, and thus “the main purpose of our having been placed in this world was to observe the mitzvot, to serve God, and to withstand spiritual trials” (Ibid.). The point of the matter, though, is that while we were placed in this world in order “to observe the mitzvot, to serve God, and to withstand spiritual trials”, since all of that will contribute to our earning a place in the World to Come, in truth our ultimate reason for having been created was to “delight in God and enjoy the radiance of His Divine presence”, and that can only be experienced in the World to Come.

That distinction also explains his statement elsewhere that “the universe was created so that “God’s Yichud can manifest itself before everyone” (Da’at Tevunot 34, 36, 44,48, 116, 158; also see Petach 4 where he writes that The Infinite One wanted to express utter and complete benevolence … so He set out to (eventually) reveal His Yichud), which we’ll discuss in detail below. The point is that God wants us to delight in His presence in the World to Come. See the next note as well.

[4]          See Petach 4 (p. 13) and Derech Hashem 1:2:1.

(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”.

Hence we learn that the term Yichud alludes to God’s sovereignty and omnipotence, to the fact that only His existence is imperative and that He alone is the Creator, and to the conjunction of Creator and creation (or, better said, it alludes to the eventual undoing of creation).

We’ll turn to the ideas of right and wrong, free-will, to God’s reason for having created the universe, and to the eventual undoing of all wrong which we alluded to above (all of which have tremendous ethical and theological ramifications) in the next few entries.

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, the notion that God’s Yichud is “the underlying truth” behind everything as noted above touches upon some very profound phenomena — including the fact that all of creation will implode upon itself once His Yichud will be revealed. It’s not laid out in Klach itself, though it’s alluded to here, yet it is stated outright in some of Ramchal’s lesser-known works.

As Ramchal puts it in Sod HaYichud [1], “God was as perfect (from the first) as He is now and as He will be in the World to Come without any change (in between). It’s just that His perfection wasn’t actually made manifest at first, while it will be later on”.

That’s to say that God stands apart from space and time as an inherently existent, independent, perfect entity, who has been so from before space and time came about, who remains so in the course of space and time, and who will continue to be so after space and time will cease to exist [2].

Ramchal then offers that “since God wanted this manifestation to come about, there are thus three matters (under discussion when it comes to God’s Yichud): a Beginning, End, and Middle. ‘Beginning’ refers to (that epoch in which) His original perfection was there in a state of potentiality (i.e., what we might term “The Deep Past”); ‘End’ refers to (that epoch in which) His perfection will actually be made manifest (i.e., what we might term “The Deep Future”); and ‘Middle’ refers to (that epoch) before His perfection is to be made manifest” (i.e.., what we might term “The Deep Present”).

It’s important to understand that one of Ramchal’s points here is that what we refer to as “Deep Past” and “Deep Future” are nearly identical in that they’re both comprised of pure Godliness, but that “Deep Past” will only be truly synonymous with “Deep Future” later on, after the great Tikkun spoken of next comes about.

For as Ramchal then adds, “the (eventual all-encompassing) Tikkun will ultimately involve the attaching of the lower and higher (realms, worlds, beings, phenomena) to each other, after which everything will be attached to God, and it will be said that everything is one. That will entail the perfection of the Middle and the conjoining of the Beginning and End”.

Thus, God’s Yichud is also the experience of the ultimate conjugation — Yichud — of Creator and created; the moment when “everything will return to its Source” including “all of the Sephirot” (Iggerot Pitchei Chochma v’Da’at p. 404) [3].

As Ramchal rightly offers there, this concept “this isn’t grasped all that well in our day and age”. In fact, few speak of it at all [4] and many would deny it because of its implications. But Ramchal clearly regarded it as an essential albeit esoteric phenomenon to know about God, creation, and about the relationship between the two.

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Notes:

[1]          The complete essay is contained in Ginzei Ramchal pp. 264-271.

[2]          Also see Ramchal’s Ma’amar Reisha v’Sofa (found in Adir BaMarom 2, pp. 35-60) and his Peirush Ma’amar Arimat Yadi (Ibid. pp. 61-92) for his discussion of everything returning to pure Godliness.

[3]          Is Ramchal actually referring to “God Himself” here or to “God’s Will” as referred to in section 2? It seems this is an allusion to God Himself. See R’ Shriki’s Introduction to Siddur HaRamchal (p. 31, end of note 25) where he points out that even the original primordial Tzimtzum will be undone then! See Shriki’s citation of a statement in R’ Moshe Cordevera’s HaPardes 11:6 on p. 31 note 29 there. And also see Klach 27 p. 155 which speaks of the Tzimtzum as the hiding of God’s Yichud thus implying that it will be undone once God’s Yichud is no longer hidden, also implying that we are referring to God Himself when we discuss His Yichud in this context.

[4]          Though see R’ Yehudah Ashlag’s treatment of it in his Introduction to the Zohar, and The Leshem at various points (as well as Cordevera, as cited in the note). See the statement made at the end of the R’ Friedlander’s Introduction to his edition of Klach (p. 37 in the Western pagination) that Ramchal derived this notion from the teachings of the Brit Menuchah rather than that of the Ari (who post-dated the Brit Menuchah but regarded the latter as truly inspired and legitimate). While we can’t attest to that and have found no other reference to it elsewhere, it would explain Ramchal’s statement that “this isn’t grasped all that well in our day and age” which is highly influenced by the teachings of the Ari.

(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”.

Ramchal defines God’s Yichud later on in Klach as “the underlying truth (of all of reality) which God hid away … in order to (eventually) reveal it in stages before humankind’s eyes”. And he informs us there that God only concealed His Yichud at first and will eventually reveal it in order to “then disclose (the fact that) His Yichud had already reigned from the first” [1].

That’s to say, God had reigned supreme from the first but He hid that fact (in order to allow us free-will so that we might play our part in the great perfection, as Ramchal says elsewhere there); but that fact will eventually become known and manifest. And as a consequence of that revelation, “there will be eternal delight (in the world), which is the delight that the souls will experience by the demonstration of this truth”, as a result of which humankind will be raised “to greater and greater heights as had been planned from the beginning” [2].

As such let it be said that Ramchal’s point is that there has always been one single underlying truth: the fact that, despite appearances to the contrary, God’s will alone governs the cosmos and nothing else. Though we’d always been taught that, it has not been clear; once it will be clear we will revel in that fact and ascend ever upward in our appreciation of it.

This process will begin with the onset of the Messianic Era, but God’s Yichud will only be revealed in its entirety by the end of the sixth millennium, after the Great Day of Judgment [3].

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Notes:

[1] Petach 49, p. 187 (Friedlander’s edition).

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid. p. 188. See Sanhedrin 97 for the chronology. For Ramchal’s references to the six and seventh millennia see Derech Hashem 1:3:9, 4:4:11; Adir Bamarom p. 188; Iggerot Ramchal 4; and Pitchei Chochma v’Da’at 97. Also see Ma’amar HaIkkurim, ”B’Geulah”.

(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 actually three things being said here: that God’s Yichud will eventually be revealed, it will disclose God’s true omni-presence and immortality, and it will contribute to wrong being turned to right. This is a major statement that calls for expansive analysis which space precludes us from offering, but we’ll certainly need to touch on each point before we can go on with our analysis of Klach in its entirety [1].

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Notes:

[1]       Ramchal discussed God’s Yichud in the following Petachim: 1, 4, 16, 30, 39, 47-49, 79-80, 92, 113, and 138.

Refer to the following for in-depth discussions of God’s Yichud in Ramchal’s thoughts: R’ Shriki’s Rechev Yisrael pp. 167-228 and his essay HaYichud in his edition of Da’at Tevunot pp. 61-66; R’ Yoseph Avivi’s Zohar Ramchal pp. 178-191, 213-216; and R’ Friedlander’s edition of Klach pp. 35-37.

(c) 2010 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”.

This last aspect — the fact that God is utterly in control of everything — is addressed in this section of Klach as well, as when Ramchal says right at the beginning of Petach 1 that “The Infinite One’s Yichud” implies that only His will functions (fully) and that no other will functions other than through it. Hence, He alone reigns (supreme) and no other (being’s) will does”, and when he points out in his comments there that “everything that we see” and experience “has but one Lord”, God Almighty; that He “alone carries everything out, and controls everything”.

So there are two aspects of God’s Yichud — which we’d define as His “uniqueness” in these contexts: first, His being the only entity who simply must exist if anything else is to; and second, His being utterly in control of everything.

But there’s a third and rather arcane aspect to God’s Yichud as well which Ramchal alludes to at the very end of this section where he says that in the end “God’s Yichud will thus be revealed, (the experience of) which will in fact be the delight of the souls. As we’ll see, this alludes to another definition of Yichud, utter “oneness”, but not in terms of His being the only God.

He referred to this elsewhere when he said that “God wants to reveal His Yichud and to thus show that ‘I (God) am first, yea I am last’ (Isaiah 48:12), that … all curses will be turned into blessings and all wrong will return to right” [1]. Let’s follow this trend of thought.

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Note:

[1]       Iggrot Pitchei Chochma v’Da’at p. 404.

(c) 2010 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”.