{"id":868,"date":"2011-09-18T10:06:56","date_gmt":"2011-09-18T14:06:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ramchal.wordpress.com\/?p=868"},"modified":"2011-09-18T10:06:56","modified_gmt":"2011-09-18T14:06:56","slug":"style-and-ramchal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/2011\/09\/18\/style-and-ramchal\/","title":{"rendered":"Style and Ramchal"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is just a quick note about one matter. One can\u2019t help but notice that this Petach<\/em> has two segments. The first reads It was the Tzimtzum<\/em> that enabled God\u2019s light and radiance to be envisioned. For before it occurred — and even now in the case of those levels which the Tzimtzum<\/em> doesn\u2019t affect — they couldn\u2019t be envisioned or grasped at all. <\/strong>This segment fits in well with the great majority of the other Petachim<\/em> in that it\u2019s Mishna-like in its pithiness and conclusiveness.<\/p>\n

The second segment, which reads, now, while the light that can now be envisioned is termed \u201cemanated light\u201d since it presents as a newly created light, in fact it\u2019s only a specific aspect of the original light whose ability was diminished as a consequence of the mystical process of Tzimtzum<\/em><\/strong> is not that sort. It\u2019s more Gemorrah-like in that it\u2019s explicative, and only comes to clarify a statement in Eitz<\/em> Chaim<\/em> that might mislead, as we indicated above.<\/p>\n

The truth is that the second segment would have been better placed in Ramchal\u2019s comments which themselves serve as a sort of Gemorrah to the Mishnaic Petach<\/em> they address, and his setting it here in the body of the Petach<\/em> is rather out-of-sorts and distracts from the intended tight nature of the Petachim<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Now, this is especially disturbing on the part of someone who is taken to be a major stylist and artist. But in fact Ramchal should not<\/em> be considered a great stylist. There are many instances of misplacement in Klach<\/em> — as well as in a great many of Ramchal\u2019s works. Truth be told, much of Klach<\/em> could and should have been edited; it\u2019s terrible wordiness and repetitiveness has turned many potential readers away from a stunning original work of Kabbalistic analysis and explication.<\/p>\n

We now know that Ramchal had an editor for his most successful work, Messilat Yesharim<\/em> (\u201cThe Path of the Just\u201d), and that the first edition was too wordy and repetitive in fact. Students of Ramchal\u2019s know that most<\/em> of his other works are also in need of editing (Da\u2019at Tevunot<\/em> for example tends to ramble; Adir Bamarom<\/em> is often distracting; etc.). That doesn\u2019t deny the brilliance, piety, or inspiration of his entire corpus, but it is an issue that isn\u2019t often addressed (perhaps because of the over-all success of other succinct and terse works including Derech<\/em> Hashem<\/em>, the various Klallim<\/em>, etc., aside from the better-known second edition of Messilat<\/em> Yesharim<\/em>).<\/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":"

This is just a quick note about one matter. One can\u2019t help but notice that this Petach has two segments. The first reads It was the Tzimtzum that enabled God\u2019s light and radiance to be envisioned. For before it occurred … 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-868","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\/868","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=868"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/868\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}