{"id":194,"date":"2010-12-06T07:04:12","date_gmt":"2010-12-06T11:04:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ramchal.wordpress.com\/?p=194"},"modified":"2010-12-06T07:04:12","modified_gmt":"2010-12-06T11:04:12","slug":"a-quick-aside-god-and-the-meaning-of-life-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/2010\/12\/06\/a-quick-aside-god-and-the-meaning-of-life-2\/","title":{"rendered":"A Quick Aside: God and the Meaning of Life (2)"},"content":{"rendered":"

So at bottom God created the cosmos en toto<\/em> so that you and I can encounter His Being out and out. \u00a0It stands to reason that would be so, Ramchal asserts in Petach<\/em> 3, since God is good and \u201cgood beings want to do good things<\/em>\u201d, by definition and to give of themselves [1]. Ramchal\u2019s point then is that God\u2019s beneficence is utterly, boldly altruistic on His part without any thought of Himself.<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s a snag. We\u2019re not inclined to accept out-and-out benevolence, because of a uniquely human inability to accept a favor without being embarrassed by our benefactor\u2019s largesse. As our sages put it, \u201cOne who eats what is not his is ashamed to look in his (benefactor\u2019s) face\u201d (J. <\/em>T.,\u00a0Orlah<\/em> 1:3) [2].<\/p>\n

So in order to avoid this, we\u2019re told, and to assure the fact that we wouldn\u2019t be \u201cashamed to accept\u201d<\/strong> <\/strong>his benevolence (Petach<\/em> 4), God saw to it that humankind would \u201chave a way of doing something to<\/em> <\/em>earn <\/em>the good that they\u2019d receive<\/em>\u201d (Ibid.). That way we\u2019d enjoy what had come to be ours through our own efforts, and we\u2019d thus be willing participants in the process He wants us to be [3].<\/p>\n

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).<\/p>\n

With all that in place, God will indeed then be able to \u201cexpress utter and complete<\/strong> <\/strong>benevolence<\/strong> <\/em>in such a way that its recipients wouldn\u2019t be ashamed to accept it<\/strong>\u201d — since we would have earned it and would be willing to accept it.<\/p>\n

All that goes to explain our raison<\/em> d\u2019\u00eatre<\/em>, as we\u2019ll see.<\/p>\n

————————————————–<\/p>\n

Notes:<\/p>\n

[1]\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 See\u00a0Da\u2019at Tevunot<\/em> 18 as well as\u00a0Petach<\/em> 3.<\/p>\n

The idea that God is sure to do good by virtue of the fact that \u201cgood beings want to do good things<\/em>\u201d, is curious and almost seems to suggest that God is\u00a0compelled<\/em> by a kind of law of nature to that affect.<\/p>\n

But as R\u2019 Chaim Friedlander\u2019s points out (see his note 2 on p. 4 of his edition of\u00a0Da\u2019at<\/em> Tevunot<\/em>), it\u2019s absurd to suggest that God is compelled to do anything by nature. It\u2019s best to say instead that He simply\u00a0willed<\/em> that such a rule be in place which He then chose to abide by (see Friedlander\u2019s note 19 on p. 51 there as well).<\/p>\n

Also see\u00a0Shomer<\/em> Emunim<\/em> (1:53) for the same idea, though he doesn\u2019t address the subject at hand\u00a0per<\/em> se<\/em> <\/em>there.<\/p>\n

This solves another quandary: the idea that God created the world to offer His largesse seems to suggest that creating beings somehow\u00a0fulfills<\/em> God, which is of course absurd. But the point once again is that God simply\u00a0willed<\/em> there to be an apparent \u201cneed\u201d for the world to exist.<\/p>\n

Also see Leshem<\/em>, Chelek<\/em> HaBiurim<\/em>, Drushei<\/em> Iggulim<\/em> v\u2019Yosher<\/em> 1:1.<\/p>\n

[2] \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 This notion, known as\u00a0Nahama D\u2019kisufa<\/em> (\u201cThe Bread of Shame\u201d), 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\u00a0Tosephot<\/em> to\u00a0Kiddushin<\/em> 36b, \u201cKawl Mitzvah<\/em>\u201d; R\u2019 Yoseph Karo\u2019s\u00a0Maggid Maisharim<\/em> (Breishit<\/em>, \u201cOhr Layom Shabbat 14 Tevet<\/em>\u201d); R\u2019 Menachem Azariah De Fano\u2019s\u00a0Yonat Elim<\/em>(beginning); and the anonymous\u00a0Orchot Tzaddikim<\/em>\u2019s\u00a0Sha\u2019ar HaBusha<\/em>. But its sure standing in contemporary thought is one of Ramchal\u2019s many unique contributions to our understanding of traditional Jewish philosophy. Also see Derech<\/em> Hashem<\/em> 1:2:2<\/p>\n

See R\u2019 Shriki\u2019s note 7* on pp. 13-14 of his edition of Da\u2019at<\/em> Tevunot<\/em>, and his\u00a0 note 29 on pp. 16-17 of his edition of Derech<\/em> Hashem<\/em> where he raises the question as to why God couldn\u2019t have just undone this anomaly.<\/p>\n

[3]\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Recall that Ramchal\u2019s point has been that\u00a0everything<\/em> created — every single item, person, phenomenon, and process — is part of a great and splendid \u201cdevice\u201d, if you will, whose sole aim is to serve as a recipient of God\u2019s largesse. The implications of that are of course quite stunning, breathtaking, even undoing, since it implies that nothing has a life or\u00a0raison d\u2019\u00eatre<\/em> of its own so much as a role to play in the revelation of God\u2019s sovereignty. Yet we\u2019ve 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\u00a0do<\/em> we play in the end? Significantly, since it\u2019s we alone who allow for the revelation of God\u2019s\u00a0Yichud<\/em> in the world we clearly matter infinitely much.<\/p>\n

(c) 2010 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman<\/p>\n

Feel free to contact me at feldman@torah.org<\/a><\/p>\n

———————————————————-<\/p>\n

AT LONG LAST! Rabbi Feldman’s translation of Maimonides’ “Eight Chapters” is available here<\/a> at a discount.<\/p>\n

You can still purchase a copy of Rabbi Feldman’s translation of “The Gates of Repentance” here<\/a> at a discount as well.<\/p>\n

Rabbi Yaakov Feldman has also translated and commented upon “The Path of the Just” and “The Duties of the Heart” (Jason Aronson Publishers).<\/p>\n

Rabbi Feldman also offers two free e-mail classes on www.torah.org entitled “Spiritual Excellence<\/a>\u201d and \u201cRamchal<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So at bottom God created the cosmos en toto so that you and I can encounter His Being out and out. \u00a0It stands to reason that would be so, Ramchal asserts in Petach 3, since God is good and \u201cgood … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=194"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}