{"id":819,"date":"2011-08-11T10:15:49","date_gmt":"2011-08-11T14:15:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ramchal.wordpress.com\/?p=819"},"modified":"2011-08-11T10:15:49","modified_gmt":"2011-08-11T14:15:49","slug":"before-there-was-a-before-there-was","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/2011\/08\/11\/before-there-was-a-before-there-was\/","title":{"rendered":"Before there was a \u201cbefore\u201d there was \u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

Let\u2019s back-track a bit and speak of what preceded the Tzimtzum<\/em>, which was God alone. We already determined in the first section that we\u2019re neither able nor allowed to speak of God\u2019s essential Being itself; but we will delve a bit into something quite stunning that Ramchal offers in his comments to Petach<\/em> 24 relevant to the pre-cosmic reality and its relationship to God\u2019s Being. Let\u2019s first draw closer into our reality as it stands now, though.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re privileged to see far, far deeper down and up, within and without, than we ever could. Thanks to extraordinarily sophisticated and complex tools we\u2019re able to see the smallest of things and the grandest, the simplest and most complex. It has become clear to us that the universe — better, the lot of universes, both those \u201cout there\u201d and the one \u201cin here\u201d — is magnificently huge and tiny, and stunningly variegated. The thought that all of that was created by a single Deity is itself dazzling. But the following notion is nothing if not astounding and utterly humbling.<\/p>\n

Ramchal declares here that \u201cwe mustn\u2019t think that God created only what He was capable of creating and that He wasn\u2019t able to create anything else. God forbid! He\u2019s certainly capable of (creating or doing) much more; He (simply) didn\u2019t want to.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s to say that, despite what we imagine, it did not take everything that God \u201chad in Him\u201d, so to speak, to create this vast and multifarious universe: He could have created far more, and many utterly different phenomena than what even we know of today, but He didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

For, as Ramchal went on to say, God Himself \u201cencompasses all sorts of infinite capacities\u201d. So, when we address His creation of the universe, \u201cwe aren\u2019t referring to His infinitude\u2026. Rather, we\u2019re to that particular capacity among His infinite number of them that He (happened to have) used to create\u00a0us\u201d.<\/p>\n

In fact, as one of his students put in a certain unpublished work, \u201cthe capacity (God used to create the universe) is simply a single small<\/em>\u201d capacity of His. As such, \u201ceverything<\/em> (in the universe) emanates from this single<\/em> (small) capacity<\/em> alone<\/em>\u201d (from Ma\u2019amar<\/em> Mar<\/em> Yenukah<\/em>, quoted in R\u2019 Y. Spinner\u2019s edition of Klach<\/em> pp. 63-64) [1].<\/p>\n

The point to be made is that not only do few of us understand God as He manifests Himself in this universe — few even appreciate the limitations of our understanding of Him! For, He is not only far greater than our universe — He\u2019s far greater than any notion we might have of any possibility in or out of this universe!<\/p>\n

Note:<\/p>\n

[1] \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Also see Ramchal\u2019s Peirush l\u2019Arimat Yadi<\/em>, Ma\u2019amar Harautin<\/em>, and Sod HaYichud<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/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 back-track a bit and speak of what preceded the Tzimtzum, which was God alone. We already determined in the first section that we\u2019re neither able nor allowed to speak of God\u2019s essential Being itself; but we will delve a … 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-819","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\/819","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=819"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/819\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}