{"id":804,"date":"2011-08-08T11:22:17","date_gmt":"2011-08-08T15:22:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ramchal.wordpress.com\/?p=804"},"modified":"2011-08-08T11:22:17","modified_gmt":"2011-08-08T15:22:17","slug":"the-vision-and-its-solution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/2011\/08\/08\/the-vision-and-its-solution\/","title":{"rendered":"The vision and its solution"},"content":{"rendered":"

The next thing to consider is something we\u2019d also brought up earlier which most especially comes into play from here onwards — Ramchal\u2019s contrasting what was \u201cenvisioned\u201d by the prophets and certain exalted souls, as spoken of in 3:6, and what that was understood to represent, as we indicated there. As we put it (based on Ramchal\u2019s comments to Petach<\/em> 9), those \u201crare individuals who were able to \u2018envision\u2019 the Sephirot\u201d <\/em>and \u00a0the like, \u201cknew that they were experiencing \u2018visions\u2019 all along, and \u2026 they understood the import of those visions as well\u201d.<\/p>\n

But this isn\u2019t merely an abstruse statement about prophecy: it\u2019s actually Ramchal\u2019s method of explaining Kabbalah. For the sages in the Zohar and those Kabbalists who followed their system were also able to \u201cenvision\u201d things, and they too \u00a0were able to understand what lie behind what they were privy to. Now, most people aren\u2019t aware of what those individual\u2019s envisioned unless they\u2019re students of Kabbalah; and very few of the latter indeed are aware of the import of those visions (most especially Ari\u2019s). So Ramchal took it upon himself to explicate both what was seen (which he terms \u201cthe vision\u201d) and what was meant (what he terms its \u201csolution\u201d).<\/p>\n

As Ramchal said in Ma\u2019amar<\/em> HaVichuach<\/em>, many of the people who studied Ari\u2019s works, \u201ctook them literally and shallowly, which doesn\u2019t amount to much of an understanding at all\u201d. All they had in the end were \u201cnames of certain phenomena\u201d which thus served them as \u201ctables of contents\u201d. They didn\u2019t understand \u201cthe intention behind all those things or what they were referring to\u201d, and they were merely \u201cmemorizing text (girsah<\/em>) without (understanding the) logic (behind it)\u201d [1].<\/p>\n

The point of the matter is that while one should know all the nomenclature when studying Kabbalah, the various \u201cevents\u201d depicted , the interrelationship between the parts, as well all the major and minor themes, one should wind up also knowing the point of it all — the various \u201csolutions\u201d to the puzzles that comprise Kabbalistic knowledge [2].<\/p>\n

As such, we\u2019ll be offering both the \u201cvisions\u201d as Ramchal depicts them here and in other works and his own \u201csolutions\u201d of them. We\u2019ll work \u201cchronologically\u201d if you will (which is an anomalous term, given that we\u2019ll be presenting phenomena that came about before time itself), and we\u2019ll begin with the Tzimtzum<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Notes:<\/p>\n

[1] See Sha\u2019arei<\/em> Ramchal<\/em> pp. 36-37)<\/p>\n

[2] See Ibid. pp. 38-39.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>(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":"

The next thing to consider is something we\u2019d also brought up earlier which most especially comes into play from here onwards — Ramchal\u2019s contrasting what was \u201cenvisioned\u201d by the prophets and certain exalted souls, as spoken of in 3:6, and … 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-804","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\/804","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=804"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/804\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}