{"id":679,"date":"2011-06-12T12:12:43","date_gmt":"2011-06-12T16:12:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ramchal.wordpress.com\/?p=679"},"modified":"2011-06-12T12:12:43","modified_gmt":"2011-06-12T16:12:43","slug":"more-on-ari-about-the-letters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/2011\/06\/12\/more-on-ari-about-the-letters\/","title":{"rendered":"More on Ari about the letters"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ari introduces one other illuminating factor about the Aleph-Bet<\/em> that we\u2019d need to explore before going on to Ramchal\u2019s treatment of it. He says in Sha\u2019ar<\/em> HaHakdamut<\/em> (1) that as is well known, \u201cthere\u2019s no \u2018body\u2019 or any \u2018bodily function\u2019 up above, God forbid\u201d and that all the imagery and symbolism used to seemingly express the details of a body or a function of it don\u2019t signify that they exist there, but they\u2019re only meant to \u201cassuage the ear\u201d — i.e., to sound right and to make sense in context — \u201cso that one might understand supernal and spiritual phenomena\u201d as best as possible. As such, \u201cpermission has been granted to speak in metaphor and symbolism (that suggest bodily phenomena)\u2026 throughout the Zohar and the Torah itself\u201d. After all, he goes on, isn\u2019t reference made to God\u2019s \u201cseeing\u201d, \u201chearing\u201d, \u201csmelling\u201d, \u201cspeaking\u201d, in the Torah? And aren\u2019t we taught that we were created \u201cin God\u2019s image\u201d which would all have us believe that there are physical phenomena and functions above? The truth of the matter, though, is that there are only \u201cfine and utterly spiritual (i.e., abstract) Lights up above\u201d, and that goes to explain the depiction of the Sephirot<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Then he offers the following there which goes to explain the use of the Aleph<\/em>–Bet<\/em> in Kabbalistic symbolism. \u201cThere\u2019s another way to explain what lies up above metaphorically and symbolically, which is by means of the makeup and shape of the (Hebrew) letters<\/em>\u201d, as \u201ceach and every letter alludes to a supernal Light as does its form\u201d. We\u2019re never to forget, though, that there \u201caren\u2019t any actual \u2018letters\u2019, \u2018points\u2019 (etc.) up above\u201d and that they\u2019re also only used to \u201cassuage the ear\u201d.<\/p>\n

The point of the matter is that nothing in the upper realm is physical and thus it\u2019s all largely inexplicable to us. But there are a couple of things that we can fall back upon to understand it: our own situation, given that we were somehow or another created in God\u2019s image, and can thus understand something about Him and His realm in light of that; and the Aleph<\/em>–Bet<\/em>, given that \u201cthe heavens were made through the word of God\u201d (Psalms 33:6), and so we can understand this world and the forces that went into its creation and maintenance by examining the elements of God\u2019s \u201cword\u201d, the letters.<\/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":"

Ari introduces one other illuminating factor about the Aleph-Bet that we\u2019d need to explore before going on to Ramchal\u2019s treatment of it. He says in Sha\u2019ar HaHakdamut (1) that as is well known, \u201cthere\u2019s no \u2018body\u2019 or any \u2018bodily function\u2019 … 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-679","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\/679","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=679"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}