Monthly Archives: December 2010

1.

But we’d still need to understand (a few things about) this. How in fact could the ratzon l’kabel have been a part of God’s original intentions for creation (altogether), given that it’s so defiled and impure while God’s Being is so unfathomably and indescribably purely One (i.e., integrated and without contradiction)?

That is, how could a pastiche of desires like wanting to take-in and not wanting to give-out at the same time have been a part of God’s Being on any level?  After all, the two are so antithetical that it seems blasphemous to see them as intertwined. But as we’ll soon see, there’s no real contradiction there.

2.

The point is that as soon as it occurred to God to create the cosmos, that very thought alone brought it about in its entirety. For God doesn’t need to resort to action per se the way we do (to bring anything about; for the reality of it just has to occur to Him and it’s instantly and automatically fulfilled).

Know that God’s methods, scopes, and domains are utterly unlike our own. For while things physical demand time, place, and person, the ethereal stuff of His formless and primal dominion does not. His considerations make things so; His Self immerses itself in its Self and something other than Him appears in coat and hat. And that was true of the whole of reality as well.

So, as soon as (He decided to create them,) all the souls and worlds that were to have been created, were created — full of all the goodness, delight, and tranquility planned for them. And they were also already in the ultimately perfect state they’re destined to be in when everything is rectified in the end — which is to say, when the soul’s ratzon l’kabel is fully rectified and is transformed into pure bestowance, in complete affinity with the Emanator.

Past, present, and future are one and the same to the Eternal, (so) the future functions as the present for Him, and all the impediments of time are irrelevant to Him.

For not only was the whole of past and present reality already in God’s mind (i.e., His intentions) — all of what seems to us to be a gathering, impending reality was there, too, at that point, including the furthermost, ultimate end. And that’s the point at which there’ll no longer be the appearance of a ratzon l’kabel in the face of a bestowing God; when there’ll no longer be the contradistinction between beginning and end we now imagine there to be because we don’t understand how above cause and effect God is.

3.

Hence, the matter of the corrupt ratzon l’kabel — which is a tsurah (that’s diametrically opposite to God’s own, since it’s the embodiment) of separation from the Infinite — was never at issue. In fact, the opposite is true. For the essential affinity (between our souls and God) that’s to be revealed when all is fully rectified came about automatically, thanks to God’s Infinite nature. Our sages depicted this mystical phenomenon with the expression, “Even before the world was created, He and His name were one” (Pirkei D’Rebbe Eliezer, Ch. 3).

For the tsurah of separation (from the Infinite) found in the ratzon l’kabel never actually manifested itself in the souls that emanated from the (i.e., from God’s) intent to create (the cosmos). Instead, they (always) enjoyed the Devekut with Him that is essential affinity, in keeping with the stated mystical phenomenon of “He and His name (are) one”.

Ashlag’s point is that beginning and end are one and the same in God’s being. Thus, while we certainly experience a ratzon l’kabel, the irony of its existence is outside of God’s consideration, and might as well not exist as far as His experience goes. For both, “before the world was created” and subsequent to its being created and then being undone, “He (His being) and His Name (what He’s known for; i.e., creation en toto)”, will prove to have always been conjoined, with nothing actually interposing between them — even a ratzon l’kabel.

For as we’ll start to examine in the next chapter, there will prove to be three cosmic “eras”: the first, which concerns itself with the “period of time” before time and the cosmos itself were created; the second, which concerns itself with the period of (actual) time that the cosmos exist; and the third, which concerns itself with the “period of time” when time and the cosmos will no longer exist. And Ashlag’s point is that the three have already played themselves out in full in God’s Being, though not in ours.

So, yes, there is a ratzon l’kabel as far as we’re concerned, which is no small matter; but, no, the ratzon l’kabel hasn’t a place in God Being, so it doesn’t contradict the fact of Him being the Ultimate Benefactor.

AT LONG LAST! Rabbi Feldman’s translation of Maimonides’ “Eight Chapters” is available here at a discount.

You can still purchase a copy of Rabbi Feldman’s translation of “The Gates of Repentance” here at a discount as well.

Rabbi Yaakov Feldman has also translated and commented upon “The Path of the Just” and “The Duties of the Heart” (Jason Aronson Publishers).

Rabbi Feldman also offers two free e-mail classes on www.torah.org entitled “Spiritual Excellence” and “Ramchal”

1.

We’ve thus clearly explained how the ratzon l’kabel — which had been implanted in our souls in order to fulfill (God’s) intentions for creation — is (in fact) to be rectified.

For (as we said,) God purposefully prepared the aforementioned two parallel but opposite systems (i.e., holy-A.B.Y.A. and defiled-A.B.Y.A.) which all souls pass through, and they then became separated into two aspects — body and spirit — which became enmeshed with each other.

But we’re able to eventually transform the trait of a ratzon l’kabel into a ratzon l’kabel al m’nat l’hashpia by adhering to Torah and mitzvot, when we then become ready to accept all the good (prepared for them, as laid out) in (God’s original) intentions for creation.

And we also merit experiencing a strong attachment onto God as a consequence of our having attained an affinity with Him, which is a full and absolute rectification, by adhering to Torah and mitzvot.

(Another series of monumental events would then occur.) The impure Other Side will be eliminated from the world since there’d no longer be a need for it; and death would be annihilated (see Isaiah 25: 8). All the Torah and mitzvah-based tasks given to the world for the duration of the six thousand years (of the universe as we know it), as well as to every individual in the course of his seventy years of life, would (prove to only have existed in order to) bring them to the ultimate rectification that is the affinity of tsurot we spoke about (and will thus be null and void, having served their end).

2.

(An additional consequence of what we’ve indicated is that now) the issue of how the husks and impurity could come about from God’s own Holiness has been solved. (For as we’d explained) they had to exist in order to allow for bodies that would eventually be rectified by (adherence to) Torah and mitzvot.

For if our bodies with their defiled ratzon l’kabel would not have passed through the impure system, we would never be able to rectify ourselves, for one cannot correct something not (already) within him. (And so the husks and impurity will also be undone in the end after having served their end.)

AT LONG LAST! Rabbi Feldman’s translation of Maimonides’ “Eight Chapters” is available here at a discount.

You can still purchase a copy of Rabbi Feldman’s translation of “The Gates of Repentance” here at a discount as well.

Rabbi Yaakov Feldman has also translated and commented upon “The Path of the Just” and “The Duties of the Heart” (Jason Aronson Publishers).

Rabbi Feldman also offers two free e-mail classes on www.torah.org entitled “Spiritual Excellence” and “Ramchal”

1.

The (supernal) worlds devolved downward (in intensity) to this physical world, which is the environment for body and soul, and (encompasses) the period of (both) ruin and repair. The individual (literally, “the body”) who is the ratzon l’kabel (incarnate) devolves downward from his root in the thought of creation and passes down through the defiled-worlds system [1]. And he remains subservient to that system (i.e., the defiled-worlds system) for his first thirteen years, which is the period of ruin (rather than repair).

Ashlag had promised to explain what “defilement and the husks (were) all about” so as to spell out how they “could … ever have been culled from and created by (God)”, and so we begin.

We’re taught here that the supernatural worlds “devolved downward”. Understand that the supernatural worlds are utterly unearthly, thus the phrase “devolve downward” is likely to confuse us since they imply space, time, and relative distance. But since we’ve always been granted the right to draw analogies between the upper realms and our own one, we’ll offer this one now to explain the concept.

The idea of the supernatural worlds devolving downward is comparable to what we experience when our plans become less and less abstract and more and more concrete the closer they get to fruition. Let’s take the example of committees set up to accomplish a certain goal. As most know, members of such committees enter the first meeting with a lot of ideas and expectations but precious little sum and substance. The further along the process goes, though, the more concrete the details become, until the original committee itself ceases to function and the project-come-alive is taken over by functionaries with all their gear and fittings.

As Ashlag puts it, this world is where “the individual … devolves downward from his root in the thought of creation and passes through the defiled worlds system” to dwell in the material world in much the same way. He then depicts the material world as encompassing “the period of (both) ruin and repair”. What he means to say is that what the physical world is at bottom is the stage upon which freewill plays itself out, which then allows for either spiritual ruin and debasement or repair and elevation (as we’ll see).

We’re then told that the individual then remains tied to un-holiness for his first thirteen years — before his yetzer hatov (i.e., one’s innate drive toward holiness) appears; and that those thirteen years constitute “the period of ruin” because the individual has no hope yet for elevation since he hasn’t yet been introduced to the mitzvah system that will provide him the means to elevate himself (as we’ll see).

So far Ashlag has explained how the soul devolves into this world. He’ll now illustrate what the individual soul can do to improve its lot here.

2.

But once he engages in mitzvot from the age of thirteen onward (with the intent) to please his Creator, he begins to refine his inborn ratzon l’kabel and to very slowly transform it into a ratzon l’kabel al m’nat l’hashpia (i.e., a willingness to take in, in order to bestow). And that enables him to draw a holy soul downward from its root in the intentions behind creation, which passes through the system of holy worlds and garbs itself in the individual (literally, “the body”). This is the period of repair (rather than ruin).

The individual then continues to acquire degrees of the holiness of the Infinite’s intentions for creation, which then help him turn his ratzon l’kabel to a ratzon l’kabel al m’nat l’hashpia and to please his Creator rather than himself. And He thus gains an essential affinity with his Creator, since a ratzon l’kabel al m’nat l’hashpia is tantamount to out-and-out bestowance.

As Ashlag points out many times in his writings, mitzvot are depicted two different ways in the Zohar: as “pieces of advice” offered to us, or as “deposits”. He maintains that they’re both actually, since they first advise us how to draw close to God (they say, “do this to draw close to Him, and avoid that to not draw away from Him”), and then, once we take drawing close to God as the whole point of fulfilling mitzvot (rather than to accrue reward or for any other reason) the mitzvot deposit God’s Light in our being and we indeed draw close to Him.

Thus once a person begins to fulfill mitzvot from bar or bat mitzvah age and onward (in the course of the “period of repair”) for the express purpose of pleasing and drawing close to God, he or she ceases to be self-centered, and begins the long process of replacing his or her own self-serving desires with the desire to please God alone. That’s to say, the individual starts to transform his usual and quite normal willingness-to-only-take-in into a willingness-to-take-in-so-as-to-give-back-in-return. Having started that process, he then merits a soul.

But that calls for some explanation; for don’t we all have souls?

As we’ll find later on (starting in Ch. 34), there are actually five degrees of “soul”. The lowest is the Nephesh, higher than that is the Ruach, higher yet is the Neshama (the best-known Hebrew term for the soul), higher yet is the Chaya, and then there’s the Yechidah, which is the most sublime degree. As we’ll find, one has to earn a Neshama (to say nothing of a Chaya and a Yechidah), and one only comes to earn it by transforming his ratzon l’kabel to a ratzon l’kabel al m’nat l’hashpia.

Once one does that, he gains an affinity with God, who only bestows. Understand, though, that we humans aren’t expected (or even encouraged) to achieve an out-and-out ratzon l’hashpia (a willingness to only bestow) and to thus be Godly; we’re encouraged to achieve the aforementioned willingness-to-take-in-so-as-to-give-back-in-return. And once we do, we will have become Godly for all intents and purposes.

3.

After all, as it’s written in the Talmud (Kiddushin 7a), when it comes to a prominent man, a woman can offer (a betrothal pledge) and the man can agree to confirm the betrothal (and the marriage is legitimized). That’s because it’s an instance of someone accepting something in order to please someone else, which is deemed a (i.e., an act of) complete bestowance and giving.

Ever the Talmudist and originally addressing himself to a readership that is well versed in Talmudic reference, Ashlag offers a classical (albeit obscure) Talmudic reference to shore up his argument. Here’s the entire rather knotty and convoluted statement meant to explain Ashlag’s contentions along with Ashlag’s remarks (and our explanation).

“Raba asked: What if she says (i.e., what would be the halachic outcome if a woman would say to a prominent man) ‘Here’s a maneh-coin (as a betrothal pledge — when it’s the man who usually offers the betrothal pledge to the woman — and she then says) … ‘I am hereby betrothed to you’? (Is she in fact betrothed to him?)

Mar Zutra ruled in R. Papa‘s name that she is…. (But, how could that be? Because) he’s a prominent man whom she completely abdicates to (in great joy, and she thus agrees to his “offer to marry her”, so to speak) because of the satisfaction (that she derives) from the fact that (someone of his caliber) would accept a gift (i.e., a betrothal pledge) from (someone like) her.”

Rabbi Ashlag terms that whole transaction “an instance of someone accepting something in order to please someone else”, and he equates it with out-and-out bestowance.

Let’s now explain the reference in terms we’re more familiar with by now. We’d learned that while we’re all very ready and willing to take-in and hardly willing to bestow, there are nonetheless instances in which we’re indeed willing and even eager to bestow — when we benefit from our “generosity”. The Talmudic example makes the point that if someone truly important were willing to take something (a betrothal pledge in this instance) from me, I’d be so honored by his deigning to acknowledge my offer that his taking it from me would be tantamount to his bestowing me with something.

Thus we see that one can indeed take-in as we’re inclined to do, and yet do so with the other person in mind — when he bestows in return. Ashlag’s final point is that doing that is in fact the best that we could hope for as human beings who always need to take in, unlike God who has no need to take-in, and always bestows.

For when one does that (i.e., takes-in with the other in mind), he comes to be utterly attached to God, since Devekut on a spiritual level comes about with an affinity of tsurot (as we’d indicated).

For as our sages put it, “One cannot attach himself onto God (per se), but (he can attach onto or align himself with) His attributes” (Sifre to Deuteronomy 11:22). And when one does that, he merits receiving the delight, pleasure, and pleasantness that lie within the (original) thought of creation.

In sum, when we take-in so as to give-back we align ourselves with God’s being as much as we can as humans, and we thus come to cling unto His Presence. This will prove to be a major thesis of Ashlag’s and one of the primary ways he indicated we can fulfill our roles in life en toto and God’s wishes for us.

Ashlag offers a cogent parable for this elsewhere. A certain Mr. A was hungry when he arrived at his friend Mr. B’s house, and whether knowing that or not, Mr. B offered him a meal. Mr. A declined despite his hunger, because he didn’t want to put Mr. B out by eating at his expense. As any good host would do though, Mr. B insisted on serving Mr. A something, and Mr. A finally accepted so as not to upset his host.

The point is that though Mr. A did indeed benefit from his friend’s largesse, he did as much good for Mr. B by accepting his meal as he did for himself by satisfying his own hunger; and so Mr. A also became a benefactor in the process like Mr. B. So we see that we can indeed bestow even as we take-in; and that that’s essentially equivalent to out-and-out bestowing.

AT LONG LAST! Rabbi Feldman’s translation of Maimonides’ “Eight Chapters” is available here at a discount.

You can still purchase a copy of Rabbi Feldman’s translation of “The Gates of Repentance” here at a discount as well.

Rabbi Yaakov Feldman has also translated and commented upon “The Path of the Just” and “The Duties of the Heart” (Jason Aronson Publishers).

Rabbi Feldman also offers two free e-mail classes on www.torah.org entitled “Spiritual Excellence” and “Ramchal”

1.

Now we can begin to understand (the dynamic behind) our fourth inquiry, as to how it was possible for the chariot of defilement and husks, which is so utterly and completely apart from Him, to emerge from God; and how it could be that He supports and sustains it. But we’d first have to understand what defilement and the husks are all about.

See our opening remarks about all this in 3:1.

Just know that our vast ratzon l’kabel — the essence of our souls, the reason for their being created, and the means by which we’re prepared to accept everything incorporated in the thought of creation — won’t be with us forever. Because if it were, we would be separated from God forever, inasmuch as such a discrepancy of tsurot would (inevitably) separate us from Him forever.

Rabbi Ashlag’s vital point here is that while our ratzon l’kabel is eminently purposeful and of ultimate importance for our functions in this universe, it’s still-and-all temporary, and it will become unfixed — when the universe is undone in The End of Days, as it must be.

This is a rather shocking idea to those of us who can’t quite understand how anything as fundamental to the human situation as the ratzon l’kabel is said to be could ever be undone. For it’s commonly held that while any and all worldly circumstances can change, human nature is immutable. After all, they reason, doesn’t world literature prove that! Aren’t we the same piteous fools and venerable sages the Phoneticians and early Chinese were? Won’t we always be?

But human nature will indeed change we’re told, forever and radically so. And, ironically, while at present human deeds and moods vary all the time with changes of circumstance while basic human nature doesn’t, when the greatest change of circumstance possible occurs, human deeds and moods will slowly become undone, and human nature will be utterly refashioned.

What makes this point so consequential is that we’d learned that our ratzon l’kabel — our God-given ability to take in all that God, the Ultimate Benefactor, has provided us with — was granted us purposefully. For were we not willing to accept what God offers us, then His plans for the cosmos would seemingly be thwarted on some level.

Nonetheless the point is that since our taking-in does undo our relationship to God, which is the only thing that will endure in the end, bar none, our ratzon l’kabel will and must terminate in the end. But that’s for a vital and Godly reason, as we’ll see.

2.

So in order to repair this division that had been implanted in our soul’s vessel, i.e., our ratzon l’kabel, after creating the various worlds, God then divided them into two systems, in keeping with (the mystical import of) the statement that “God made the one as well as the other” (Ecclesiastes 7:14).

This verse is cited because it implies that everything but God Himself has its equal and opposite counterpart in the universe; its doppelganger.

The two systems comprise the four worlds of holy-A.B.Y.A., and their counterpart, the four worlds of defiled-A.B.Y.A.

A.B.Y.A. is an acronym for A-tzilut, B-eria, Y-etzirah, and A-siyah, the four Kabbalistic supernal worlds or planes of existence (to be explained later), in descending order of significance and potency. Holy-A.B.Y.A. and defiled-A.B.Y.A. are thus two utterly antithetical parallel universes, with one (holy-A.B.Y.A.) being rooted in the willingness to bestow, and the other (defiled-A.B.Y.A.) in the willingness to accept. The two divisions are significant because…

God implanted the ratzon l’hashpia (the willingness to bestow) within the worlds of holy-A.B.Y.A., and withdrew the ratzon l’kabel from them. And He placed the ratzon l’kabel into the defiled-A.B.Y.A., which explains why they’re separate from God and all the holy realms.

The willingness to bestow is all-good and Godly, since God is all-good and benevolent (1:5), and because His sole intention upon creating the cosmos was to bestow pleasure upon His creatures (7:1). It’s thus the antithesis of the ratzon l’kabel. It is extraordinarily significant, mostly because our aim is to aspire to bestowance and to undo the ratzon l’kabel in the process, as we’ll learn later on.

3.

That’s why the husks are referred to as “the dead” and why wrongdoers are attracted to them, as our sages indicated when they said that wrongdoers are termed dead even in their lifetimes (Berachot 18B).

That means to say that the husks are as dead (i.e., as severed from God’s presence) as their offshoot, wrongdoing, since they dwell in an un-Godly universe.

Because the ratzon l’kabel that has been implanted in them is diametrically opposite in tsurah to God, which thus separates them from the “the Life of all Lives” (i.e., God) and utterly severs them from Him. For He wants only to bestow rather than to accept, while the husks want only to accept for their own sake rather than to bestow, and there’s no greater disparity than that. For as you already know, “distance” in the spiritual sense starts with some sort of disparity of tsurah and culminates in an utter disparity, which is the ultimate degree of “distance” (i.e., estrangement).

The only response Ashlag has to offer to the quandary of how defilement and the husks could emerge from God is that they comprise an utterly and radically separate system of reality created by God for His own purposes. And so it comes out that reality is comprised of not just matter and antimatter as we’ve come to learn, but Holiness and anti-Holiness.

We’ll delve into just how (and) why He supports and sustains that system.

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AT LONG LAST! Rabbi Feldman’s translation of Maimonides’ “Eight Chapters” is available here at a discount.

You can still purchase a copy of Rabbi Feldman’s translation of “The Gates of Repentance” here at a discount as well.

Rabbi Yaakov Feldman has also translated and commented upon “The Path of the Just” and “The Duties of the Heart” (Jason Aronson Publishers).

Rabbi Feldman also offers two free e-mail classes on www.torah.org entitled “Spiritual Excellence” and “Ramchal”

1.

Hence, it’s a change of tsurah that “hews” (things apart) on a spiritual level the way an ax hews two material objects; and it’s the discrepancy in their tsurot that determines their “distance” (from each other).

From this we can see that when the aforementioned willingness to accept pleasure was implanted in our souls — which doesn’t exist in the Creator, for after all, from whom can He receive? — that very change of tsurah in our beings “hewed” us from God’s essence the way an ax hews a stone from a mountain. And that change of tsurah consequently shifted our souls from the order of Creator into that of creations.

Rabbi Ashlag is thus saying (and quite clearly so) that were it not for the fact that our souls were granted the ratzon l’kabel, there’d be nothing to differentiate them from God! But make no mistake about it, that’s not to say that you and I are actually God “except for this one small detail”, if you will, because that’s simply not true.

You and I, as we experience ourselves in and present ourselves to the world, are nothing other than manifestations of a unique conduit of the ratzon l’kabel. Our unfathomable essence in its pristine state on the other hand — our soul — was actually subsumed in God’s Being before the ratzon l’kabel came into being and was thus at one with His indivisible Self. But the fact remains that it experienced something utterly transformative which God’s Being didn’t experience, i.e., it became willing and able to accept rather than to only bestow, and that set our souls as apart from Him as any two things could be, and allowed one of the two to remain Creator and the other to be a separate created entity. Our souls would still be conjoined with Him had the ratzon l’kabel not come into being, but since it did (and purposefully so) we’re no longer a part of the great Divine Mix (other than on a transcendent level as the following statement makes clear).

2.

That notwithstanding, (it’s also true that) everything that our souls derived from God’s light is still-and-all culled directly from His Essence, and is (an instance of a derivation of) yesh from yesh.

This is a rather arcane point. First off, “light” itself represents anything bestowed on us from God. It’s an expression of the idea of something or another endlessly and effortlessly issuing forth things from the core of its being the way sunlight issues from the sun.

Next, the statement that something is bestowed upon us from “God’s light” means to say that it comes only indirectly from Him (i.e., it comes from His light, rather than from Himself). Ashlag’s ironic statement that it’s “still-and-all culled directly from His Essence” means to say that though it’s indeed thus coming to us through an intermediary, it’s still from God Himself at bottom, much the way a recorded message from a friend is still a “direct” message from him.

As to the fact that everything that our souls derives from God’s light is an instance of yesh from yesh, that refers to the following.

Reality is comprised of instances of yesh (translated as “somethingness”, or rank materiality) and of ayin (“nothingness”, or pure immaterial Godliness). We’re taught for example that the universe was created yesh from ayin — “out of the blue” so to speak — which is to say that the material universe en toto was a product of pure immaterial Godliness. Everything subsequent to that has merely been fashioned yesh from yesh — out of something material like itself rather than “out of the blue”, as when a child is born of parents rather than created anew.

As such, Ashlag is indicating that even though our “willingness to accept … wasn’t a part of God’s essence before He placed it in our souls” and had to be created anew (7:1), its creation was still-and-all an instance of yesh from yesh simply because “everything that our souls derived from God’s light” is just that.

It thus follows that any Godly light that our souls accepted into its vessel — that is, within our willingness to accept — is itself indistinguishable from God’s very Essence, since our souls received it directly from His Essence as (an instance of) yesh from yesh.

“Light”, as we said, represents anything bestowed on us from God, that we accept into our “vessel”, i.e., our selves, which we’d earlier-on termed “manifestations of a unique conduit of the ratzon l’kabel“. The point is that anything material that we accept is still-and-all directly from God, even though our having accepted it set us apart from Him.

3.

So, again, the only difference between our souls and God’s Essence is the fact that our souls are a “part” of it. For the light that our souls accepted into their vessels — into their willingness to accept things — is differentiated from God, since it came about by the change of tsurah known as the willingness to accept. And that then made it a “part” which is termed a “soul”.  (Once more,) the only difference between them (i.e., our souls and God’s Essence) is that one is the “whole” and the other is a “part”, like a stone hewn from a mountain.

Ashlag is undoubtedly repeating himself because the point is so vital. For as he goes on to say…

Reflect upon (the ramifications of) this carefully, for it’s impossible to expand upon it (adequately in print since), it’s so sublime.

There’s a world of  things to say about this but the thrust of the argument is that the only thing that sets us apart from achieving the rich and fecund Godliness in our being and from fully flowering in our essence is our being willing to only take-in. It’s the crux of our humanity and what defines it, but it’s also what keeps us human, and only merely so.

There’s no easy way to rid ourselves of it, as it can’t be partially undone, only completely so. After all, as it stands now, whenever we give-out we only do it to take-in. How many times have we heard people offer that they do good things in life because it gives them so much more in return than they ever give-out. No one is to be blamed for that, since few would be inclined to give in the first place if given nothing in return, but it’s off-putting nonetheless and argues against that noblest of human traits, altruism.

But know that our overarching willingness to only take-in isn’t merely a character fault: it’s a fundamental component of reality utterly removed from right and wrong. After all, in a very real sense, gravity is an expression of taking-in — of the earth drawing-in rather than imparting outward. And our own innate and mystical human need to return to the source is fundamentally a need to be taken-over and drawn-in.

But none of that is true of God. He persistently effulges outward, and has no source to luxuriate in. The point once again is that reality is indeed, and utterly so, the utter un-God.

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AT LONG LAST! Rabbi Feldman’s translation of Maimonides’ “Eight Chapters” is available here at a discount.

You can still purchase a copy of Rabbi Feldman’s translation of “The Gates of Repentance” here at a discount as well.

Rabbi Yaakov Feldman has also translated and commented upon “The Path of the Just” and “The Duties of the Heart” (Jason Aronson Publishers).

Rabbi Feldman also offers two free e-mail classes on www.torah.org entitled “Spiritual Excellence” and “Ramchal”

1.

So let’s now plumb the depths of the Kabbalists’ viewpoint we cited in the third inquiry (2:4-5). We were struck by their statement (there) that our souls are a part of God much the way that a stone is a part of the mountain that it’s hewn from, the only difference between them being that one is a “piece” while the other is the “whole”.

What does the statement that “our souls are a ‘part’ of God” mean? God certainly can’t be subdivided; because if we assumed that He could be, then we’d be forced to arrive at certain inanities like the idea that everyone is, say, a trillionth of God. But if that were so, then God would only be an aggregate of His parts, and as soon as one would be missing, He’d be that much less-than-perfect. But that’s absurd since God is perfect and whole, “one, sheer, complete, total, unalloyed, and indivisible” (2:1). So while we’re indeed a “part of God”, we’d still need to know what that means.

After all, it’s one thing to say that a stone can be hewn from a mountain by an ax made for that purpose — but how could anyone say anything like that about God? And with what were our souls (“hewn” and) withdrawn from Him in order to become created entities?

That is, there’s also the dilemma of what “tool” one could ever use to separate a “part” of God from the “rest” of Him. It would obviously have to be stronger than He, which is also absurd.

2.

But now we can begin to understand this for ourselves: for just as (something physical like) an ax can hew and separate physical things from each other, (something intangible like) a difference of tsurah can likewise separate two spiritual things from each other.

Let’s illustrate that. While we’d consider two people who love each other as being “attached” to each other and to have become a single entity (for all intents and purposes), and contrarily we’d consider two people who hate each other as being as disparate (from each other) as east is from west.

This is a complex section with many points raised. Let’s begin by defining terms. One’s tsurah (tsurot in the plural) is his make-up and character, which is to say his physical, intellectual, and emotional selfness — your impalpable “you”, and my impalpable “me”. We’ll also add that a tsurah is taken to be “spiritual” even though it has nothing to do with one’s soul in the above instances, because it refers to a person’s intangible personal qualities.

Now, the Hebrew term for the idea of “attachment” expressed here, Devekut, usually alludes to the sort of selfless and utterly amorphous adhesion onto the Divine that the righteous long for and sometimes achieve. It’s taken to be the fulfillment of a great degree of adoration for God and is often depicted as swooning before the Divine Presence. The closest everyday experiences we have of it are instances of great and pure camaraderie or of romantic love. But Ashlag will present us with an entirely different understanding of the term.

He contends that when one person’s make-up and character (his tsurah) is aligned with another’s, the two are very compatible and are thus either true friends or in love with one another, and are “attached” to each other emotionally accordingly. Contrarily, if their make-up and characters are incompatible, there’s an intangible psychic breach between them that’s just as real as the breach between two hewn stones. Hence, what attaches people to each other is the likeness of their tsurot: their essential alikeness.

But it isn’t a question of their physical proximity so much as a compatibility of tsurot.

That’s to say that their physical proximity wouldn’t have anything to do with their attachment, since they could be “close” to each other on an emotional, psychic level even if they were worlds apart if their tsurot were on par. After all, there’d be a high degree of affinity between them.

For when their tsurot are so identical that each one loves what the other loves and hates what the other hates, then they in fact love one another and are “attached” to one another. But if they have disparate tsurot — meaning that one of them loves something that the other hates (and vice versa) — then the more disparate they are, the farther from each other they are, and the less attached are they to each other.

As such, if they’re comprised of (totally) opposite tsurot and each one loves what the other hates and vice versa, then they’re as distant from each other as east is from west, which is to say, utterly so.

So what is it that attaches us onto God? It must be the things we have “in common” with Him. Apparently, then, when we’re at variance with Him we’re distant from Him. Recall, though, that God is everywhere; so in fact the only way anyone could ever be said to be “distant” from Him would be in his make-up and character (which is exactly what Ashlag is driving at).

——————————————————

AT LONG LAST! Rabbi Feldman’s translation of Maimonides’ “Eight Chapters” is available here at a discount.

You can still purchase a copy of Rabbi Feldman’s translation of “The Gates of Repentance” here at a discount as well.

Rabbi Yaakov Feldman has also translated and commented upon “The Path of the Just” and “The Duties of the Heart” (Jason Aronson Publishers).

Rabbi Feldman also offers two free e-mail classes on www.torah.org entitled “Spiritual Excellence” and “Ramchal”

1.

Now that we know that, we can begin to fully and clearly explain our second inquiry.

That is, now we can finally understand what it is that wasn’t found in God originally but was created by Him out of sheer nothingness.

For we’d determined that there’s in fact a phenomenon that’s clearly not a part of God’s essence which can thus be said to have been created utterly anew rather than out of anything else.

That’s to say that since God doesn’t need anything it follows that the need to derive pleasure is clearly something extrinsic to Him and is thus utterly original. So it must play a unique and purposeful role in the cosmos. And besides ….

Now that we know for certain that God’s intention when He created the world was to bestow pleasure upon His creatures, it’s clear that He necessarily had to have created a willingness to accept all the pleasure and goodness He’d planned for them. Thus it’s the willingness to accept (anything) that wasn’t a part of God’s essence. After all, from whom could He receive, and what could He be lacking? So He did indeed create something anew that wasn’t part of His Being.

… which thus answers our second inquiry.

2.

In light of His intent when He created the world we can now understand that there was no need to create anything other than the willingness to accept (things). For it’s all He needed to (create in order to) fulfill His intent to create the world, which was to bestow us with favors.

We’ve only alluded to it till this point but we’ll now expand upon our willingness to accept things which is a major theme in Ashlag’s system. It’s termed the ratzon l’kabel in Hebrew and it can be translated as our willingness, wish, or intent to only accept, receive, or take things (see Ashlag’s P’ticha l’Chochmat HaKabbalah 4, and Mattan Torah 12). At bottom it comes down to our tendency to catch rather than throw, eat rather than cook.

It is what defines us and sets us apart from all else. And it’s thus central to our being.

But don’t make the mistake of thinking that it’s fully and exclusively a symptom of our spoiled or self-centered nature, for it goes far deeper. In fact, sometimes it’s a rather healthy need at that.

Consider inhalation and exhalation. I just naturally will, wish, and intend to accept, receive, or take in oxygen all the time; and I only “give it back” when I exhale in order to be able to inhale again — or so it seems. But as every schoolchild knows, when I exhale I proffer carbon dioxide into the air which in fact feeds things. And besides, if I didn’t inhale, I’d die. I likewise ingest food for seemingly selfish reasons, but I’d also die if I didn’t (and it’s also important to point out that we also produce waste matter by eating, which is useful too, of course). The list goes on and on.

Still and all, though, our wish to take-in rather than give-out is selfish and self-serving for the most part. For as we all know, immaturity and crudeness are marked by selfishness (by an utter exploitation of the ratzon l’kabel), while maturity and refinement are marked by selflessness. And thus we’re called upon to transcend the ratzon l’kabel in ways we’ll discuss later on.

In fact, it’s the ratzon l’kabel that sets us apart from God, who needs nothing and grants everything (as we pointed out), and thus it’s surely a detriment to our spiritual growth. That having been said, though, it’s still true that God purposefully created the ratzon l’kabel, so it must fulfill a role in His plans. And in fact it does, and a supremely high one at that as we learned: it serves as the medium through which God’s intention to bestow us with favors plays itself out. After all, if I didn’t want to take, then my Benefactor couldn’t effectively give (see 6:2).

3.

Nonetheless, the fulfillment of His intentions for the world to grant us all the good He had in mind for us, originated in His essence; so He didn’t need to create it.

That is, you might think that something else was created out of sheer nothingness: our actually getting all the good that God had in mind for us. But that’s not so. Since that had sat idle in God’s Being from the first, waiting to come to fruition, and in fact …

It comes to fruition from the willingness to take-in that’s within us.

So it isn’t original.

Ashlag’s point here is that since all we tend to do (with exception) is take-in, and all God does indeed is give-out, it necessarily follows that our urge to take-in is the only thing God created outright, out of the blue, which is apart from Himself. Everything else comes directly from Him and is a manifestation of His will to give-out.

Thus it becomes absolutely clear that all of creation, from start to finish, is nothing other than (the creation of) the ratzon l’kabel.

It follows then that the creation of the ratzon l’kabel was the establishment of The Other: of the not-God, the mundane. For up to then only God existed, and the not-God had to be tugged out of a realm exterior to and wholly other than His Being. And with it came reality as we know it, which is hence characterized as the realm of only being willing to take-in.

——————————————————

AT LONG LAST! Rabbi Feldman’s translation of Maimonides’ “Eight Chapters” is available here at a discount.

You can still purchase a copy of Rabbi Feldman’s translation of “The Gates of Repentance” here at a discount as well.

Rabbi Yaakov Feldman has also translated and commented upon “The Path of the Just” and “The Duties of the Heart” (Jason Aronson Publishers).

Rabbi Feldman also offers two free e-mail classes on www.torah.org entitled “Spiritual Excellence” and “Ramchal”

1.

Now, our sages have already taught us that the only reason God created the universe was to grant pleasure to His creations (Eitz Chaim, Sha’ar HaKlallim, Ch. 1). Hence, that’s what we should be focusing all of our attention and our thoughts upon, since it’s the ultimate aim and function of creation.

The preeminent Kabbalist and Jewish mystic Rabbi Isaac Luria (1534-1572), whose work Rabbi Ashlag cites as his source, revealed that we were created to enjoy life. Now, while everyone intuits that should be so and would like it to be, reality seems to quash the notion. For as every mature soul knows only too well, there’s a lot of agony and anguish in the world (see 1:5). Yet the human heart somehow retains the idea that life, a gift outright at bottom, should be good; and Luria affirms that.

Just understand, though, that while some people are happy traveling and exploring, others are only happy when they’re left alone to eat and play board-games. And realize too that a truly sweet and transcendent moment for someone mortally ill might be one in which he’s pain-free and not ravaged by mortal fears; or when his body is still, and he’s simply able to breathe in, out, and again. So while Ashlag is indeed declaring outright that we were meant to be happy and well-pleased with life, he’ll soon-enough depict the sort of true happiness he’s referring to.

But don’t think he’s about to tell us that true happiness can only be found in dark, dry bread and tepid water because he won’t. What Ashlag will indeed come to do in the end, though, is reveal what true bliss and satisfaction is all about.

Now, since pleasure and delight is the point of it all at bottom, it follows then that that’s what our attention should be focused on. Indeed it is, the truth be known; and many are fully aware of that and act on it. Yet others of a more ascetic nature deny it and claim that the only way to be satisfied and full is to be hungry and empty. Just understand, though, that even the latter want to be satisfied. It’s just that their systems function other ways; and only subtler — though still-and-all material — things please them.

Don’t think that Ashlag is advocating hedonism either, because he certainly isn’t. As we’ll see, he’ll be advising us to enjoy life indeed, but with a particular end in mind that’s deep-rooted in fostering and maintaining an abiding relationship with God.

2.

So we’ll now reflect upon the following. Since God’s intention upon creating the universe was to grant His creatures pleasure, it only stands to reason that He created us with a great desire to accept what He wanted to grant us, inasmuch as the amount of pleasure and delight (a person can derive) depends on how much he wants it. As the greater the willingness to accept (something), the greater the pleasure (derived from it); while the less the willingness, the less pleasure.

An example Ashlag brings elsewhere is the different ways we drink water. He points out that we gulp it down when we’re thirsty, and sip at it or want very little to do with it when we’re not. So it’s the wanting that makes all the difference. It then follows that we’d have to want what God would like us to have if we’re to enjoy it; and since enjoying life is the goal, it’s clear that He who made that the goal would also have implanted a desire for enjoyment and pleasure in us.

It’s also clear that since the greatest pleasure we could derive comes from drawing close to God and adhering onto Him (as we’ll see), there must be a great natural longing to do just that — but we’re getting ahead of ourselves. In any event it still follows that if God wanted us to be radiantly healthy for example (which He does), that He’d have instilled a longing for that in us (which He clearly has), as well as other longings.

3.

It follows then that the intention behind creation itself would have seen to it that a vast enough amount of willingness to accept (things) would be implanted in us to accommodate the vast amount of pleasure that God Almighty meant to bestow upon us, since great delight and a great willingness to accept (it) go hand in hand.

The point is that God has not only granted us noble and uplifting desires; He has granted us a colossal array of desires of all stripes. For if He had only accorded us a limited number of desires, that fact would have restricted our capacity to enjoy, which would then have stymied His goal for us.

In any event we’ve thus hit upon a vital principle, as we’ll see.

(c) 2010 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

Feel free to contact me at feldman@torah.org
——————————————————

AT LONG LAST! Rabbi Feldman’s translation of Maimonides’ “Eight Chapters” is available here at a discount.

You can still purchase a copy of Rabbi Feldman’s translation of “The Gates of Repentance” here at a discount as well.

Rabbi Yaakov Feldman has also translated and commented upon “The Path of the Just” and “The Duties of the Heart” (Jason Aronson Publishers).

Rabbi Feldman also offers two free e-mail classes on www.torah.org entitled “Spiritual Excellence” and “Ramchal”

1.

So logic would seem to indicate that we assume the very opposite of what appears (to be true) and declare that we’re truly good and noble creatures (at bottom), and of inestimable worth — as worthy as one would expect our Producer to have made.

How radical a theology this is: that at bottom mankind is just-so, and purposefully so! And that our having been created by God Almighty is proof of that! But what about all of the manifest wrong and fraudulence out there, all the treachery and moral rot? The answer lies in the fact that…

2.

And that whatever faults you may find in our bodies (i.e., our selves)…

… rather than in our moral choices …

… can only be attributed to God’s will no matter how you (may otherwise try to) explain it, since it’s He who created us as we are. It’s also clear that it’s He alone who created us, not we. And that He also knows all the consequences of our natures and of the “wrongful” attributes He implanted within us.

God is perfectly aware of all the wrong, having set it all in motion; and He’s clearly mindful of the ramifications of our having been created the way we were. Our apprehension about all this, though, lies in our human provincialism, if you will (which God granted us, too, of course, and which thus also serves its purpose — but we’ll get to that later).

3.

So as we said (4:1), we’d do best to look at the culmination of events (rather than to peer midcourse), for only then will we be able to understand it all. As the expression goes, “Don’t show a fool a project that’s only half done”.

The mortals that we are, we miss the end of the story, and thus overlook the big picture. So we misread (and underestimate) the characters involved and can’t imagine how well things will turn out in the end. That’s not to deny our experience of evil and wrong, though, for there’s a teeming world of it. It’s just to trip-off the realization that while there will be chaos and ugliness as the work progresses, the painting itself will be effulgent and luminous in the end.

(c) 2010 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

Feel free to contact me at feldman@torah.org
——————————————————

AT LONG LAST! Rabbi Feldman’s translation of Maimonides’ “Eight Chapters” is available here at a discount.

You can still purchase a copy of Rabbi Feldman’s translation of “The Gates of Repentance” here at a discount as well.

Rabbi Yaakov Feldman has also translated and commented upon “The Path of the Just” and “The Duties of the Heart” (Jason Aronson Publishers).

Rabbi Feldman also offers two free e-mail classes on www.torah.org entitled “Spiritual Excellence” and “Ramchal”

1.

The model we’ll use to answer all these questions and inquiries is a vision of the culmination of things, which is to say, of the ultimate goal of creation. For we can only really understand things once they’re finished, not while they’re in process.

First off, only someone as boldly assured of the Divinity of his sources as Ashlag could ever claim to cite “the ultimate goal of creation”. More importantly for our purposes, though, is the fact that we’d all do well to know that goal, since nothing gnaws more rancorously at our being than the dread thought that we — and life itself — are meaningless. Thus knowing the goal and meaning of life would be a great antidote for a lot of what ails us, and we’d be fortunate to know it.

Now, as everyone knows, mysteries become more understandable when you read the end at the beginning, for example; and it’s always easier to solve a maze by starting it at its conclusion. For knowing how things come out from the first helps explain their objective and allows you to avoid pitfalls. Ashlag’s point is that we can only truly understand life and existence once we know the end from the beginning, too; and that not knowing it is what has us stumble.

He goes on to depict the course of all things by stating what God had in mind when He created the cosmos. After all, He had to have had plans or an agenda, if you will, when He created and set everything in order, since …

2.

It’s clear that no one other than a madman does anything without a particular goal in mind.

… that is, since utter extemporaneousness and abandon is either a product of a person of unsound mind or of an entity devoid of free will, and God is neither.

(Now, some might argue that art is a product of abandon and non-rationality. But the truth of the matter is that while the artistic process is impulsive and “mindless” or non-rational, the preparations and actual outcomes of it are anything but. For, as any artist knows, a lot of thought goes into each moment of magic and quick genius.)

That having been said, Ashlag goes on to explain God’s ways in the world.

3.

Now, I know that there are some skeptical Jewish thinkers who acknowledge that God indeed created the universe but who also claim that He then left it to its own devices. After all, they reason, His creations are so worthless that it wouldn’t befit so exalted a Creator to keep watch over those such as they with their trivial, sordid ways.

Two points are being made here. First, that some who do indeed acknowledge a Creator nonetheless deny His ongoing engagement with the world as Lord. (They’re known as “Deists”. The school of thought wasn’t initiated by Jewish thinkers by any means; Ashlag particularized it to that context because he was addressing a Jewish readership.) Such individuals accept the notion of a physical, chemical, and mathematical “First Cause” but they deny a purposeful God.

The second point is that if they’d somehow be persuaded to believe in God in theory they’d still-and-all think it absurd to believe we could engage with Him since (they’d argue) it would be beneath one such as He to interact with anyone such as we.

4.

But the truth of the matter is that they don’t know what they’re talking about. For it’s absurd to argue that we’re base and worthless without then arguing that we made ourselves that way.

In other words, if God indeed created us but then left us on our own as the people above cited first thought, then we obviously came to be who we are despite Him and on our own, not thanks to Him.

5.

But when we argue (instead) that an utterly perfect Creator was responsible for having created and designed us — and that He made us with both good and bad inclinations — (then we’re forced to admit that such) a perfect Producer wouldn’t produce a shoddy and inferior product. After all, a product always reflects its producer, so an inferior garment couldn’t be blamed for being so if it had been made by a second-rate tailor.

Not only is God purposeful as we’d said, He’s also utterly perfect by definition. Those two points underlie all of Ashlag’s assumptions in this work, and all else follows from them.

Now, since God is perfect it follows that everything He does is done perfectly, just-so — and with His purpose in mind. It likewise follows that we, His creations, must be just-so, too. (We couldn’t say we’re perfect, because we’re not; though we could say that we’re prepared and even primed to be “perfect” when God’s purpose is realized — but that’s far beyond the subject at hand.)

In any event, anything about us that appears to be off and unbefitting a product of a perfect Creator must actually not be off, but just-so and in-process, instead (the way sculptured works are, before they’re finished). It follows then that our “bad” inclinations must be purposeful, too, and that we really can’t be blamed for them (though we can be blamed for not improving and perfecting ourselves as we’re able and bidden to).

Ashlag now goes on to present a parable to that effect from the Talmud. He tells us to …

6.

See for example the Talmudic sages’ story of Rabbi Eliezer who came upon a very ugly man and said “How ugly you are!” to which the other replied, “Just go and tell the Craftsman who made me how ugly the vessel He made is!” (Ta’anit 20).

The Talmud reports there that Rabbi Eliezer called the ugly man a reika (from the term reik, empty) which would thus either be translated as “dunderhead” or “good-for-nothing”. But it has been explained that the man was ugly both inside and out — that he was coarse and vulgar (see Maharsha’s comments), and that’s why he was called reika, or “flawed”, in this instance. Thus Ashlag’s point is again that our failings are there by Divine will; so “just go and tell the Craftsman who formed me how ugly the vessel He made is!” if you think we’re anything other than just-so.

7.

Thus those thinkers who claim that God abandoned us (after having created us) because it’s beneath Him to keep watch over such worthless and base creatures (as we) only divulge their own ignorance (with that claim).

After all, could anyone ever imagine coming across someone purposefully setting out to create beings who’d be as tormented and tried their whole lives as we are, who’d then utterly abandon them and not even bother to look after them or help them besides? How loathsome and despicable a person he’d be! So how could we ever imagine such a thing of God?

The truth be known, we can imagine someone setting out to do just that! — some fiendish, crazed scientist, perhaps. So Ashlag’s argument seems invalid. For that reason it would serve us better to freely translate the expression thusly: “would anyone dare imagine coming across someone purposefully setting out to create beings who’d be as tormented and tried their whole lives as we are … without being dumbstruck by the very idea.“ That’s presumably how Ashlag himself would have put it had he written it today, when we can indeed imagine such a thing.

But why didn’t he word it that way originally? It comes to this. Each generation is to be judged by its presumptions about what’s good and right, as well as by what it can’t even imagine, because it’s so far removed from those presumptions. After all, could any one of us actually imagine sacrificing children to a god, enslaving a people, submitting whole populations to political oppression and the like? Of course not, because no one presumes any of that’s good or right; those sorts of things are too unimaginably evil in our eyes, and for good reason.

Yet we can apparently still stomach the thought of someone insane “setting out to create beings who’d be as tormented and tried their whole lives as we are, and who’d utterly abandon them and not even bother to look after them or help them besides”. Why? because we’re no longer “dumbstruck by the very idea” any more. Assumedly because the notion isn’t all that far removed from our presumptions about good and right any more, sad to say.

(c) 2010 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

Feel free to contact me at feldman@torah.org
——————————————————

AT LONG LAST! Rabbi Feldman’s translation of Maimonides’ “Eight Chapters” is available here at a discount.

You can still purchase a copy of Rabbi Feldman’s translation of “The Gates of Repentance” here at a discount as well.

Rabbi Yaakov Feldman has also translated and commented upon “The Path of the Just” and “The Duties of the Heart” (Jason Aronson Publishers).

Rabbi Feldman also offers two free e-mail classes on www.torah.org entitled “Spiritual Excellence” and “Ramchal”