{"id":602,"date":"2011-05-03T11:13:35","date_gmt":"2011-05-03T15:13:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ramchal.wordpress.com\/?p=602"},"modified":"2011-05-03T11:13:35","modified_gmt":"2011-05-03T15:13:35","slug":"ramchal-on-all-this-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/2011\/05\/03\/ramchal-on-all-this-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Ramchal on all this (1)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Let\u2019s look at Petach<\/em> 16 again and intersperse some of Ramchal\u2019s own comments there.<\/p>\n

The Sephirot<\/em> express two sorts of \u201cforward\u201d and \u201cbackward\u201d <\/strong>(movements of) light <\/strong>\u201cin the prophetic vision\u201d he adds, underscoring that this doesn\u2019t actually happen<\/em> but is envisioned as such.<\/strong><\/p>\n

His next point is that \u201cEin<\/em> Sof<\/em> encompasses the Sephirot<\/em> \u2026 both above and below\u201d. Thus (like ourselves) Ramchal understands Sefer Bahir\u2019s<\/em> statement that \u201cjust as the Shechina<\/em> is below, it\u2019s likewise above\u201d as referring to Ein Sof<\/em>.<\/p>\n

He then goes into details about the mechanics, telling us that as a whole the phenomenon \u201clooks exactly \u2018like the appearance of lightning\u2019\u00a0(Ezekiel 1:14) as a flash of lightning appears to come from one side and to travel over to the other, then it appears to turn from the other side back to the side from which it came\u201d.<\/p>\n

And he then dwells on the implications of the phenomenon. As such, the fact that it\u2019s Ein Sof<\/em> that surrounds the whole phenomenon spoken of illustrates the utter sovereignty of the Ein Sof<\/em> and <\/strong>(the fact) that everything<\/strong> (manifestly) emanates from Him, and that He is the end-point of everything, as it\u2019s written: “I am first, and I am last” (Isaiah 44:6). <\/strong>And it likewise illustrates that He is<\/strong> revealed at the beginning as well as at the end.<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong>Ramchal thus underscores the idea (in his comments here) that the whole phenomenon of light emitting from God\u2019s being on the outside of the circle and returning to it after passing through and becoming the roiling, grand and subtle contents of the circle illustrates the facts that \u201cwhat emerges from Ein Sof<\/em> returns to Ein Sof<\/em>\u201d, that \u201cwhat was within Him from the beginning, as it is now, \u2026 will be (revealed to be within Him) in the end\u201d, and that \u201cHe comprises everything\u201d.<\/p>\n

Thus he understands it as functioning and shining forth as a grand and bold metaphor for the eventual revelation of God\u2019s Yichud<\/em>, or better said, for its restoration <\/em>(as discussed in Section 1).<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s more.<\/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 look at Petach 16 again and intersperse some of Ramchal\u2019s own comments there. The Sephirot express two sorts of \u201cforward\u201d and \u201cbackward\u201d (movements of) light \u201cin the prophetic vision\u201d he adds, underscoring that this doesn\u2019t actually happen but is … 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-602","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\/602","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=602"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}