{"id":422,"date":"2011-02-14T06:17:25","date_gmt":"2011-02-14T10:17:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ramchal.wordpress.com\/?p=422"},"modified":"2011-02-14T06:17:25","modified_gmt":"2011-02-14T10:17:25","slug":"but-where-did-adam-kadmon-come-from","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/2011\/02\/14\/but-where-did-adam-kadmon-come-from\/","title":{"rendered":"But, where did Adam Kadmon come from?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Let\u2019s backtrack a bit. No one before Ari spoke of Adam Kadmon<\/em>; in fact, it was one of his greatest innovations. Ezekiel the prophet saw \u201con the likeness of the throne \u2026 a likeness like the appearance of a man upon it above\u201d (Ezekiel 1:26) which does seem to allude to it, but most declare that it refers to God\u2019s presence or governance.<\/p>\n

The Zohar refers to Adam, the first human, as Adam<\/em> Kadma<\/em> (\u201coriginal man\u201d), which while related to the term Adam Kadmon<\/em>, is nonetheless not identical with it, and the Zohar simply does nothing to expand on the theme whatsoever there (3, 279b). But the Tikkunei Zohar<\/em> does speak of an Adam Kadmon<\/em> (p. 42a), a first Adam; but then it speaks of a second, and a third Adam as well. Still and all, it\u2019s fairly clear in context there (as the commentators point out) that it\u2019s referring to Adam the man himself and his position in the various worlds.<\/p>\n

Yet elsewhere the Tikkunei Zohar<\/em> does indeed cite an Adam Kadmon<\/em> that seems to be exactly what Ari was referring to (p. 120a). It\u2019s said there to refer to Keter<\/em>, the highest Sephira<\/em>, but the verse \u201cAnd God said, \u2018Let us make man in our image, after our likeness\u2019\u201d (Genesis 1:26) is cited there, the text speaks of the various \u201cimages\u201d and \u201clikenesses\u201d that Adam Kadmon<\/em> assumes which goes at the heart of Ramchal\u2019s theme here, it speaks of Adam Kadmon<\/em>\u2019s \u201cbody-parts\u201d the way Ari does, and it speaks of it in other \u201cAdamic\u201d terms. So this seems to be a clear precedent for Ari\u2019s Adam Kadmon<\/em> indeed [1].<\/p>\n

Note:<\/p>\n

[1] \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Also see Sefer Bahir<\/em> 82, 172 for accounts of man\u2019s body-parts as refection\u2019s of the Divine form<\/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":"

Let\u2019s backtrack a bit. No one before Ari spoke of Adam Kadmon; in fact, it was one of his greatest innovations. Ezekiel the prophet saw \u201con the likeness of the throne \u2026 a likeness like the appearance of a man … 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-422","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\/422","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=422"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}