Monthly Archives: May 2011

R’ Ashlag’s “Introduction To The Zohar”: Ch. 36

            The second (more fully developed) “vegetable” stage comes next. It’s a more vigorous one than the inanimate stage, and the ratzon l’kabel prevails over each and every one of its details. For, each detail moves along on its own, length- and width-wise, (even) reaching to the sun.

This stage is organic, dynamic and vigorous. And it’s fecund and abundant enough in self-interest that its reach is far and wide. In fact, it’s so dynamic that…

            Eating and drinking, and the elimination of waste manifest themselves in each one of its details.

            Still-and-all, though, the details don’t exhibit an independent sense of self-will.

… as animate and verbal entities do, to a great degree.

(c) 2011 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

R’ Ashlag’s “Introduction To The Zohar”: Ch. 35

             The first or “mineral” stage of the ratzon l’kabel is its initial appearance in the physical world. It only has only one potential: that of movement, the one that all inanimate beings have. And (aside from that it’s also true that) by all appearances (it seems that) none of its details move.

On a surface level, inanimate entities don’t move. They’re said to have a “potential” for movement here because in classical terms everything that exists is said to be a combination of actualizations and potentials (even when those potentials aren’t actualized).

We now know that inanimate entities do in fact move on a microscopic level at least, so Ashlag says that their “details” or smallest components don’t move “by all appearances” only.

Still-and-all the argument is that while the ratzon l’kabel is stiff and inchoate at this point it nevertheless does exist, and that it will grow more and more dynamic as it passes from here to the “vegetative”, “animate”, and “verbal” stages.

            For what the ratzon l’kabel does (at bottom) is create needs which then generate enough movement for those needs to be met.

As we’d explained, a ratzon l’kabel is a “willingness, wish, or intent to (only) accept, receive, or take things” (see 7:2). As Ashlag explains here, its modus operandi is to demonstrate a “need” for something or another (which is really only a desire, but becomes a “need” by growing louder and louder), which then sets off a vague, blunt, and blind spontaneous “itch” that brings about the motions needed to have itself “scratched”.

            But since the ratzon l’kabel is minimal (at this point) it only prevails over the whole (inanimate) thing while seemingly not prevailing over its details.

That is, since the ratzon l’kabel is indeed minimal by this point, it has little effect.

(c) 2011 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

R’ Ashlag’s “Introduction To The Zohar”: Ch. 34

            Since God wanted to prepare His created beings for the aforementioned exalted levels, He required there to be four grades (of them) that were to unfold out of each other, known as the “mineral”, “vegetable”, “animal”, and “verbal” (beings).

Certain stages of existence had to have come into being before the ultimate created entity, humankind (i.e., “verbals”), could. They’re minerals, vegetables, and animals. Otherwise the human soul would sit stunned in full wonder, speechless and senseless, before the living presence of God Almighty, because it would have caught sight of it too soon.

These entities correspond to the birth-cycle in that the fetus first undergoes a “mineral” (fertilized egg) stage, from which it advances to a “vegetable” (blastocyst) one, and then proceeds on to a more “animal” (embryonic) stage, until it reaches the “verbal”, fully conscious stage.

            Those beings correspond to the four degrees of the ratzon l’kabel which the upper worlds are differentiated by.

For as we’ll see, minerals barely have a ratzon l’kabel, vegetables have some but not much, animals have quite a bit more but not all that much, while we humans have a great deal.

            For, even though desires are mostly expressed through the ratzon l’kabel found in the fourth (i.e., “verbal”) level, that level can’t come about all at once. It needs to gradually pass through and unfold out of the three preceding ones in order to come to full fruition.

(c) 2011 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

R’ Ashlag’s “Introduction To The Zohar”: Ch. 33

1.

            That now leaves us with the sixth inquiry to explain.

See 3:4.

            (As we’d stated there), our sages said that all the upper worlds as well as this corporeal one were created for man’s sake alone. But isn’t that strange? After all, why would God bother to create all that for man, who’s so insignificant and hasn’t a hair’s-breadth of worth in comparison to all that we see before us in this world — to say nothing of the upper worlds. And besides, why would man need (for there to be) such august and hallowed worlds?

2.

            (But in order to explain just how vitally significant mankind is we’ll start off with this.) It’s important to know that the satisfaction that God derives from granting His creatures pleasure depends on the extent to which they sense that it’s He who’s bestowing it. For when they do, God regales with them much the way a father regales with his beloved child when he senses that the child understands the father’s greatness and magnitude. It’s then that the father reveals all the treasures he’d prepared for the child.

God can be said to be thrilled when we, His children, take note of His presence and catch sight of His bounteous goodness and grandeur; and He wants to grant us even more goodness than before and of an even higher rank as a result — His full presence. For only mankind can recognize God’s presence in the face of things that seem to deny it, since lesser beings can’t recognize it at all, and higher ones aren’t denied access to it from the first.

            As the verse depicts it (God says): “Is Ephraim (not) My precious son? Is he (not) a darling child? For whenever I speak about him I earnestly remember him and my innards are moved by him” (Jeremiah 31:19). Scrutinize these words and you’ll come to understand just how God will (eventually) regale with His perfected ones who merit sensing His greatness the ways He devised for them to. He’ll act (toward them then) as a father does with his “precious (and) darling child”.

            But we needn’t go into this at length. Suffice it to say that it would be worth God’s while to have created all the worlds, higher and lower alike, for the sake of the satisfaction and delight He’ll derive from such perfected individuals.

It’s clear from this last statement and much of what we’d said up to now that we’re only “perfected” when we fully recognize God’s role in our lives, His grandeur, and His great benevolence; and when we replicate that benevolence by means of the mitzvah-system. It’s also clear that the reward for that will be the sort of full-face encounter with God’s Being in the World to Come that’s due such a soul.

(c) 2011 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