{"id":702,"date":"2011-06-20T11:37:33","date_gmt":"2011-06-20T15:37:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ramchal.wordpress.com\/?p=702"},"modified":"2011-06-20T11:37:33","modified_gmt":"2011-06-20T15:37:33","slug":"finishing-up-on-letters-and-words","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/2011\/06\/20\/finishing-up-on-letters-and-words\/","title":{"rendered":"Finishing up on letters and words"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ramchal\u2019s principal concern at this point in Klach Pitchei Chochma<\/em>, though, isn\u2019t letters and words themselves so much as names — Divine Names and their various permutations, as we\u2019ll see. He does make one final point about the Aleph<\/em>–Bet<\/em> here, though, which is very important and touches on a lot of his perspective on God\u2019s governance of the universe.<\/p>\n

He <\/strong>says in Petach<\/em> 20 that the mystical import of these<\/strong> orders<\/strong> (of twenty-two letters) lies in and derives from the mystical concepts of Chessed<\/em> <\/strong>(\u201ckindness\u201d), Din<\/em> <\/strong>(\u201cjudgment\u201d), and Rachamim<\/em><\/strong> (\u201ccompassion\u201d),<\/strong> (which represent the) \u201cright\u201d, \u201cleft\u201d and \u201ccenter\u201d<\/strong> (columns).<\/strong><\/p>\n

In other words, each letter is comprised of a left, right, and center component. Its right side speaks to its degree of Chessed<\/em> <\/strong>(\u201ckindness\u201d), its left to its degree of Din<\/em> <\/strong>(\u201cjudgment\u201d), <\/strong>while its center speaks to its degree of Rachamim<\/em> (\u201ccompassion\u201d) which is actually a variegated blend of Chessed<\/em> and Din<\/em>. And each component expresses the mystical import of <\/strong>the Aleph<\/em>–Bet<\/em>.<\/p>\n

This principle often illustrated by the makeup of the letter Aleph<\/em>, \u05d0, which is comprised of a Yod<\/em>, ‘, (actually an inverted Yod<\/em>) on its left side, another (not inverted) Yod<\/em> on its right side, and a diagonal Vav<\/em>, \u05d5, at its center. Aleph<\/em> is thus pretty balanced — not as perfectly balanced as the letter H is or a Samech<\/em> (\u05e1) is, but more balanced than a Bet<\/em> (\u05d1) for example or (an oversized) Lamed<\/em> (\u05dc).<\/p>\n

And as he points out in his comments to Petach<\/em> 20, \u201cevery action (that eventuates in the physical world) comes about as a result of the force produced by a particular combination of the three qualities of Chessed<\/em>, Din<\/em>, and Rachamim<\/em>\u201d. That\u2019s to say that everything that is either kindly, harsh, or some combination of the two, is actuated by an element of one letter or another or a combination of them.<\/p>\n

And they form different <\/strong>(different) combinations <\/strong>(and appear in formations represented as being) \u201cclosed\u201d and \u201ccompressed\u201d <\/strong>(in shape), or \u201copen\u201d and \u201cexpanded\u201d <\/strong>(in shape) which is to say as a \u201cline\u201d or a \u201cpoint\u201d <\/strong>or otherwise, Ramchal points out in Petach<\/em> 20.<\/strong><\/p>\n

This phenomenon bears a lot on what happens here in the world, Ramchal maintains elsewhere, given that \u201cthe world is governed \u2026 by the mystical principle of (the combination of) Chessed<\/em>, Din<\/em>, and Rachamim<\/em>\u201d (Adir<\/em> Bamarom<\/em> p. 188). \u201cEach one has its function\u201d in the world: \u201cChessed<\/em> emits a lot of (beneficent) light and a lot of (similar) light emanates from it, while Din<\/em> also emits a lot of light of the opposite sort (i.e., benevolent light), and the lights blend with each other in keeping with the mystical notion of Rachamim<\/em> (i.e., to form one blend or another or \u201crecipe\u201d of both benevolent and malevolent elements). This combination of one or another is the basis of the Torah\u2019s system of \u201cpure\u201d versus \u201cimpure\u201d (i.e., \u201ckosher\u201d and \u201cun-kosher\u201d; \u201cright\u201d and \u201cwrong\u201d; etc.) elements, he goes on to say there, for specific reasons.<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s only relevant to the lower realms, he points out. \u201cThat\u2019s not the intention in (the loftier realms of) Erich<\/em> Anpin<\/em>, where utter Chessed<\/em> reigns\u201d and where right, left, and center emanate pure Chessed<\/em> alone. \u201cThe (graded and variegated) emanations that come into play in the lower realms, which is the site of (moral and ethical) war against The Other Side\u201d are different from the ones in the higher realms where none of that comes into play.<\/p>\n

Thus we see that while the letters and words certainly play a major part in the makeup of the world as we know it, the sort of letters and words that will be found in the higher worlds will be of a whole other order and far purer.<\/p>\n

The upper and lower realms, as well as the roles they play in the governance of the universe, will all be discussed at great length later on in this work.<\/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":"

Ramchal\u2019s principal concern at this point in Klach Pitchei Chochma, though, isn\u2019t letters and words themselves so much as names — Divine Names and their various permutations, as we\u2019ll see. He does make one final point about the Aleph–Bet here, … 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-702","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\/702","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=702"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/702\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}