{"id":552,"date":"2011-03-31T05:58:33","date_gmt":"2011-03-31T09:58:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ramchal.wordpress.com\/?p=552"},"modified":"2011-03-31T05:58:33","modified_gmt":"2011-03-31T09:58:33","slug":"building-a-fire-one-sephira-after-another","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/2011\/03\/31\/building-a-fire-one-sephira-after-another\/","title":{"rendered":"Building a fire, one sephira after another"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cThe <\/strong>first principal <\/strong>(to consider)\u00a0regarding the<\/strong> <\/strong>(system of) <\/strong>\u2026 structure of the<\/strong> <\/strong>Sephirot\u201d Ramchal offers in Petach 14,<\/em> \u201c<\/strong>is<\/strong> <\/strong>(a consideration of)\u00a0the makeup of the structure and its gradations, the makeup of the gradations themselves, and the makeup of their parts, properties, and of their interactions\u201d.<\/strong><\/p>\n

So he offers in his comments there that we\u2019d need to know that the entire structure is comprised of \u201c613 lights which parallel the (248) limbs (and 365 organs) of the human form\u201d; that they function in ways that \u201cparallel the natural laws that govern humanity\u201d and the natural world, though of course they only seem<\/em> to do that in the eyes of the prophet, since they\u2019re not material in fact; and that they interact by assuming different relative positions as when they\u2019re \u201cencased\u201d (i.e., subsumed) one within the other when one\u2019s functions are overt while another\u2019s is covert, as we saw in Section 3 and will discuss later on [1].<\/p>\n

The other important thing to keep in mind, he insists, is the fact that the \u201crecipe\u201d needs to be exact, with neither too much nor too little of anything, which it is in fact, since God \u201cknew just what was needed, no less and no more, to bring about the full system of governance that would achieve His goal for creation<\/strong>\u201d and so that humans would be free-willed enough to make their own moral and spiritual choices.<\/p>\n

And he compares God\u2019s purposeful setting-up of the components of this structure to our building a fire. For just as the fire needs to be made just-so to function, with neither too much nor too little wood or else the fire will extinguish, this structure likewise needs to be made just-so in order for it, too, to function.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s interesting about his analogy is that one would obviously need to be making a very small<\/em> fire for it to be affected by such subtle variations in its fuel-source. That\u2019s obviously a reference, then, to the tininess of the cosmos from God\u2019s own perspective.<\/p>\n

Notes:<\/p>\n

[1]\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 See 3:4 and note 39 there.<\/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":"

\u201cThe first principal (to consider)\u00a0regarding the (system of) \u2026 structure of the Sephirot\u201d Ramchal offers in Petach 14, \u201cis (a consideration of)\u00a0the makeup of the structure and its gradations, the makeup of the gradations themselves, and the makeup of their … 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-552","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\/552","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=552"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}