{"id":417,"date":"2011-02-13T12:10:06","date_gmt":"2011-02-13T16:10:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ramchal.wordpress.com\/?p=417"},"modified":"2011-02-13T12:10:06","modified_gmt":"2011-02-13T16:10:06","slug":"adam-kadmon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/2011\/02\/13\/adam-kadmon\/","title":{"rendered":"Adam Kadmon"},"content":{"rendered":"

The next theme Ramchal offers here is that all of creation is a single entity in human form known as Adam Kadmon<\/em>. As he words it \u201cthe whole on-going process of governance<\/strong> (of the universe) \u2026 and the whole of creation <\/strong>(itself) encompasses one single phenomenon and order<\/strong> \u2026 <\/strong>(that is) the mystic figure of a<\/strong> (single) \u201cperson” with all his body-parts, which are all<\/strong> inter-connected exactly as they would be in a person <\/strong>(Petach<\/em> 12). <\/strong>We\u2019d cited Adam Kadmon<\/em> (\u201cPrimordial Man\u201d) before but let\u2019s now explore it.<\/p>\n

For one thing, this raises the whole issue of anthropomorphism, since Adam Kadmon<\/em> seems to be such a blatant and resolute instance of it. But we\u2019ll return to anthropomorphism below when we discuss Ramchal\u2019s discussion of prophetic imagery.<\/p>\n

The earliest allusion to Adam Kadmon<\/em> is the statement in Breishit Rabbah<\/em> to the effect that God first created the first man, Adam, as an unformed lump<\/em> (see Psalms 139:16); as having been created him before the rest of creation<\/em>; and as having spread him out from one corner of the universe to the other<\/em>\u201d (8:1). As such, Adam Kadmon<\/em> is usually depicted as having been formed out of the unformed non-material stuff that preceded the universe, and as then occupying the entirety of the space devoid of God that He\u2019d allowed for with the Tzimtzum<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The other element of Adam<\/em> Kadmon<\/em> is that it\u2019s also said to be \u201cMacrocosm\u201d or large-depiction of the \u201cMicrocosm\u201d or small-depiction that is the physical universe; and that is illustrated in the Zohar by the idea that Adam Kadmon<\/em> is \u201cin the image of everything that is above and below\u201d (3, 141b). The truth of the matter is that the above Midrash also alludes to that, in that the original, universe-wide Adam can be seen as the source of the eventual earth-bound Adam.<\/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":"

The next theme Ramchal offers here is that all of creation is a single entity in human form known as Adam Kadmon. As he words it \u201cthe whole on-going process of governance (of the universe) \u2026 and the whole of … 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-417","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\/417","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=417"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}