{"id":322,"date":"2011-01-11T07:10:17","date_gmt":"2011-01-11T11:10:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ramchal.wordpress.com\/?p=322"},"modified":"2011-01-11T07:10:17","modified_gmt":"2011-01-11T11:10:17","slug":"petachim-5-and-6-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/2011\/01\/11\/petachim-5-and-6-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Petachim 5 and 6 (1)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Many were put off by Ramchal\u2019s assertion that the Sephirot<\/em>\u2026 were allowed to be envisioned<\/strong>, since that seems to concretize them and to somehow demean God. But Ramchal never meant the idea to be taken literally, as he\u2019ll explain in Petachim<\/em> 7-8 [1]. In fact, it\u2019s been said that one shouldn\u2019t study Petachim<\/em> 5 and 6 until first studying 7 and 8, or to skip 5 and 6 altogether [2], but we\u2019ll do our best to explain the issues involved.<\/p>\n

Ramchal first makes a few remarks to differentiate the Sephirot<\/em> from God Himself (though he asserts that the Sephirot<\/em> are in fact \u201cGodly\u201d) in order to explain their being capable of being \u201cenvisioned\u201d [3]. He terms the Sephirot<\/em> \u201cEmanated Light\u201d as opposed to God\u2019s own \u201cSimple Light\u201d, as we\u2019ll explain.<\/p>\n

———————<\/p>\n

Notes:<\/p>\n

[1] \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 That\u2019s why we placed \u201cenvisioned\u201d in parentheses.<\/p>\n

[2]\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 See the statement to that effect at the end of a short (and very useful) treatise entitled Klallei Hatchalat HaChochma<\/em> (found on p. 44 in the addenda section of Sha\u2019arei Ramchal<\/em>).<\/p>\n

[3] \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 See Ramchal\u2019s commentary to part 1 of Petach<\/em> 5, and see Petach<\/em> 25 below for a discussion of it.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a long and storied disagreement among the earlier Kabbalists about what the difference is, but this is not the place to discuss that. See Pardes<\/em> 4:1, and Shomer Emunim <\/em>(Kadmon<\/em>) 1:57.<\/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":"

Many were put off by Ramchal\u2019s assertion that the Sephirot\u2026 were allowed to be envisioned, since that seems to concretize them and to somehow demean God. But Ramchal never meant the idea to be taken literally, as he\u2019ll explain in … 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-322","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\/322","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=322"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}