{"id":315,"date":"2011-01-09T10:45:11","date_gmt":"2011-01-09T14:45:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ramchal.wordpress.com\/?p=315"},"modified":"2011-01-09T10:45:11","modified_gmt":"2011-01-09T14:45:11","slug":"ramchal-on-the-sephirot-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/2011\/01\/09\/ramchal-on-the-sephirot-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Ramchal on the Sephirot (3)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Recall that Ramchal likened the Sephirot<\/em> to a \u201cpersona\u201d that God assumes when He interacts with the world which conceals His actual \u201cpersonality\u201d. In other words (as Ramchal explained it elsewhere), the Sephirot<\/em> are like \u201cproperties that God assumed for Himself for the sake of creation which aren\u2019t intrinsic to Him\u201d (Klallim Rishonim<\/em> 1), and which only \u201ccome into play (literally, are \u201crevealed\u201d) when Ein Sof<\/em> (i.e., God Himself) is restricted\u201d (Ma\u2019amar HaVichuach<\/em> 126) or, in keeping with the persona theme, when His personality is over-covered by His persona.<\/p>\n

Ramchal also likens the Sephirot<\/em> to \u201cpipes\u201d or \u201ccontainers\u201d (Klalei Chochmat HaEmet<\/em> 3), to \u201ca supernal shaft of light\u201d and to a series of \u201coutpourings of holiness\u201d that shine downward (Klallim Rishonim<\/em> 1), and to a representation of \u201cthe mystery of the human form\u201d (Klallut Shorshei HaChochma<\/em>). The latter refers to the Kabbalistic subject known as Adam Kadmon<\/em> or \u201cPrimordial Man\u201d which we\u2019ll discuss later, but for our purposes now it speaks to the fact that the Sephira<\/em> configuration in its entirety serves as a single \u201cbody\u201d of phenomena which, like a human body, accomplishes things with all its separate parts working in tandem.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, we\u2019re also to know that despite any depictions, \u201cthe Sephirot<\/em> are spiritual and arcane phenomena, which, like their Creator, cannot be fathomed\u201d (Klallei Pitchei Chochma v\u2019Da\u2019at<\/em> 2).<\/p>\n

Now, as far as what they do<\/em>, they \u201ccarry along an emanation from God\u201d (Klallei Pitchei Chochma v\u2019Da\u2019at<\/em> 1). We addressed God\u2019s emanations above and pointed out how important it is for us to understand the whole notion, so we\u2019ll now see what Ramchal says about it.<\/p>\n

(c) 2011 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":"

Recall that Ramchal likened the Sephirot to a \u201cpersona\u201d that God assumes when He interacts with the world which conceals His actual \u201cpersonality\u201d. In other words (as Ramchal explained it elsewhere), the Sephirot are like \u201cproperties that God assumed for … 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-315","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\/315","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=315"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}