Tag Archives: religion

Chariot — Addendum

I’d forgotten that we’d already gone into the subject of the Chariot in some detail in 3:3 above (see here and here). Suffice it to say that what we’d discussed at this point should be read in conjunction with what’s said there, earlier on. Note, too, that Ramchal also speaks of it terms of Divine governance in Pitchei Chochma v’Da’at 1.

(c) 2013 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”.

Petach 57

עיקר המרכבה הוא אלה הע”ב, שהוא התחזק ד’ הפרצופים בא”א, שהוא נשגב מן הקלקולים. וכאן הכסא נושא את נושאיו.

על כן מכאן הוצרך לרדת רפ”ח ניצוצין, להחזיק ולקיים הכלים היורדים, שלא יעשה חרבן גמור, אלא בדרך שיחזור ליתקן.

וכן הושרשו עניני העולם הזה שיעמוד כך כח אחד, שלא לעזוב העולם ליחרב ח”ו. אלא בכח הזה הנשאר – יתוקן מה שנתקלקל:

These four instances of AV discussed in the previous Petach which bolster the four Partzufim of Abba, Imma, Zeir Anpin, and Nukveh in Erich Anpin, and which are removed from harm, are the essence of the “Chariot”. It’s here that the “Throne” “bears its bearers”.

It thus became necessary for 288 sparks — which equals the value of the four Avs (i.e., 4 x 72 = 288) — of holiness remaining behind after the breaking of the vessels to descend from there so as to bolster and sustain the vessels that were descending in the course of the breaking process so that there wouldn’t be utter annihilation, and so that there’d be the possibility for a way of returning and being repaired instead.

As a result of those 288 sparks, the phenomena of this world came to be such that a single power, i.e., the Shechina, would remain so that the world wouldn’t be destroyed, God forbid, and so that what had been damaged could be repaired through this remaining power.

(c) 2013 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”.

Ramchal on the Shechina in other writings

As we’d expect, Ramchal has a rather unique, poetic understanding of the Shechina in his other writings. He says at one point that “the first thing God wanted to occur in the world was universal governance, which is to say, His own interactions with the world, and His presence in it. This phenomenon is termed the ‘Shechina’”. He goes on to say there that that’s to say that “God is said to ‘dwell’ (shochein) among His created beings because He functions that way in the world” (Sefer Kinat Adonai Tzevaot). In other words, the idea of the Shechina is a representation of the process by which God comes into close and consequential contact with the world.

Elsewhere he says — somewhere along the same lines — that the term Shechina is a depiction of the “space” (or physical reality as we know it) in which the world exists, and in which He bestows upon it (Adir Bamarom p. 293). This also points to the intimacy he associated between the Shechina and God Himself, and with the world itself which the Shechina and God both envelope and interact with.

While these aren’t ways of identifying God Himself with the Shechina, they do underscore just how God and it function together, and how crucial the Shechina is to God’s plans. Let’s see next what he says about it here, in Klach.

(c) 2013 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”.

Why God Isn’t Mentioned in The Book of Esther: A Theory

A “theory” is a logical presumption about what’s going on behind the scenes to explain a continuing confusing phenomenon in the world. Some theories are mere guesses and some are educated guesses that are more likely to be true, though not necessarily so.

Suppose, for example, a friend and I found ourselves in a strange and foreign environment after travelling for a long time (and not knowing where we were going). “Where are we?” one of us would say. “I have a theory,” I might say. “Everyone around us seems to have Eastern features, they seem to be eating foods favored by Chinese people, and they seem to be engaged in Chinese practices. I’m thinking we must be in China.” So my theory would be that based on what we see all around us, we’d come to be in China in fact.

“Wait a minute,” my friend might say. “Maybe we’re in Chinatown in San Francisco?” After all, most people there have Eastern facial features, eat Chinese food, and are engaged in Chinese practices, too. “My theory is we’re in Chinatown” he says.

Well, both would be reasonable theories, except for the fact that no matter how far we went we couldn’t see a sign of anything that San Francisco is famous for. So it seems that my theory — that we were in China after all — is the more reasonable one. Besides, I happen to read Mandarin, and I read about everyday things that would be typical of life in China going on there day after day, so based on my expertise, my educated guess would be more conclusive, though not absolutely certain, since, who knows, maybe we were whisked off to Japan in an area where a whole swath of Chinese people lived and still spoke and wrote about home a lot. We were simply not privy to all we’d need to arrive at the absolute truth.

Along the same lines, suppose a large number of things were simply and entirely inexplicable in life, and a friend and I were trying to explain what lie behind them. “My theory is that what’s going on is all circumstantial and by chance,” my friend might say, “since that often happens”. I have a hunch that things aren’t so chancy, based on my studies and years of ruminations, and I offer the idea that there’s “someone” behind all of this who’s purposeful, omniscient, and omnipotent. I could be wrong, but I really believe that, so I’m sticking to it. My friend offers no other theories, and no one else knows for certain (since one would have to be omniscient himself to know after all), so we’re left in that position.

The holiday of “Purim” itself is named after the lots (purim in Akkadian) that were cast to determine the fate of the Jews (see Esther 3:7). As such, by not mentioning God it seems to offer proof for the theory that life — its political machinations, its causes and effects, its outcomes, etc. — is chancy, and is rooted in “the throw of the dice”. After all, there doesn’t seem to be a purposeful, omniscient, and omnipotent being anywhere to explain it.

What we people of faith believe, though — based on the thinking and ruminations of the best of us, to say nothing of direct revelation — is that the best theory of all behind everything that happens here is in fact the existence of just such a Being, God, who, while hidden, is still behind it all. So while not offering that theory itself the Book of Esther was included in Tanach to underscore the idea that God does indeed control life’s machinations, and that belief in Him is in fact the most viable theory of all.

(c) 2013 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 Lower Seven (5)

Along other lines, we’re taught that there are two overarching forms of interaction: attraction and repulsion or, in Kabbalistic terminology, Chessed (kindness) and Gevurah (judgment). There are very many points in between, of course, which are all brought about through the “middle pillar” that lies between these two extreme poles, but that will be explained at another point.

In any event, were told that “by its nature, Chessed is like a welcoming right arm” that reaches out to embrace. “So when it reigns” at any given point in the world, “created beings behave toward each another fraternally and smile at each other”, literally and figuratively. Contrarily, by its nature “Gevurah distains and rejects”, so when it reigns at any given point, “faces express anger, and everything is weighed down with sadness”, literally and figuratively, Ramchal says in his comments to Petach 52.

As such, as he expresses it in Petach 52 itself, because of its, i.e., judgment’s, makeup each light, i.e., each of the six Sephirot of Chessed, Gevurah, Tipheret, Netzach, Hod, and Yesod, came to exist separately rather than together with the others. For by nature judgment doesn’t exhibit “brotherly love” but rather “sorrow” and “severity” so to speak, and is thus inclined toward encouraging separateness rather than unity.

The point of the matter is that separateness, distain, rejection and the like would have held sway over the world, but they didn’t, thanks to Imma as we’ll see.

(c) 2013 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 Lower Seven (4)

While Erich Anpin governs through kindness and allows for mitigation, “mitigation can be removed from Zeir Anpin”, our subject of concern, “leaving (harsh) judgment in (its stead, and in) full force, which can (even) cause total devastation, God forbid”.

The point of the matter here is that this judgment-aspect of Zeir Anpin derives from Imma and its own judgment-aspects specifically. And that’s because while “the root of judgments lies above (Imma), it isn’t clearly discernible there, given that kindness holds sway there“. It’s just that “when it reaches (the) Yesod (aspect) of Imma, it reaches a level where it can be revealed’’.

That’s to say that Zeir Anpin’s judgment derives from a very high point, but it only becomes manifest from a lower point — from Imma (“even though Imma isn’t intrinsically connected to judgment” Ramchal adds in his comments) — because that’s the point at which it can manifest itself.

It’s clear then that while harsh judgment (and rah, its this-word “partner-in-crime” one might say) doesn’t manifest itself in the higher reaches, it’s still and all derived from there and expresses itself here. It’s thus analogous to the way lower emotions express themselves in the body while originating in the mind: as when anger, for example, expresses itself in pursed lips, squinted eyes, dilated nostrils and the like, while actually being rooted in one’s thoughts and attitudes.

(c) 2013 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 Lower Seven (1)

We then begin to focus on the seven lower Sephirot which touch upon the function of our world.

As Ramchal said in Petach 17, a Sephira is one of the ten generic forces that serve as the foundation upon which the entire structure … is built, while a Partzuf is the full, detailed expression of each Sephira.

Thus, the ten original — what’s often termed the ten “universal”, perhaps “big picture” — Sephirot are the main building blocks of the cosmos; Partzufim are thus enlarged and more fully configured versions of Sephirot; and yet (and this is where it gets complex) each “universal” Partzuf is comprised of sub- or “particular” or “small picture” Sephirot of its own, just as each sub- or particular Sephira is comprised of sub-sub- or particular-particular Partzufim of its own, ad infinitum.

The ten “universal” Sephirot are, of course

1. Keter,

2. Chochma,

3. Binah,

4. Chessed,

5. Gevurah,

6. Tipheret,

7. Netzach,

8. Hod,

9. Yesod and

10. Malchut, while some Kabbalistic configuration systems substitute Da’at for Keter and vice versa.

And the five “universal” Partzufim are

A. Erich Anpin, often equated with Reisha d’la Ityada

B. Abba,

C. Imma,

D. Zeir Anpin, and

E. Nukveh,

Sometimes the Kabbalists break it down to yet other “universal” Partzufim and thus speak of Attik Yomin as appearing above A. Erich Anpin; of Abba Ila’ah and Yisrael Saba as appearing above B. Abba; of Tevunah as appearing below C. Imma; of D. Zeir Anpin as having two subsets termed Yisrael and Yaakov; and of E. Nukveh having its own two subsets termed Leah and Rachel.

And the worlds in which all of this plays itself out are of course termed

I. Atzilut,

II. Briah,

III. Yetzirah, and

IV. Assiyah (given that Partzufim didn’t come into play in the world of Adam Kadmon).

(c) 2013 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”.

Mankind’s role in it all (1)

We’re told that the ultimate reparation of the cosmos depends on human input, for humanity is meant to strengthen the power of holiness throughout it(Petach 48). So we’ll now offer some classical views on the role of humankind in the workings of it all, some of Ramchal’s remarks elsewhere, and then his insights in this section.

(c) 2012 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”.