Monthly Archives: June 2011

1.

     Now that it has been explained that God created everything in order to bestow pleasure upon His creatures…

See Ch’s 6-7.

     … so that they could know Him and His greatness, and accept all the goodness and delight He’d prepared for them to the extent enunciated in the verse, “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)…

See 33:2.

     … It’s obvious, then, that this intention doesn’t apply to the mineral (realm), or (even) to the great heavenly bodies like the earth, the moon, or the sun, however effulgent or immense (they are). And (it likewise doesn’t apply) to the vegetable or animal (realms either), since they aren’t even aware of others of their own species, and thus can’t sense Godliness or God’s beneficence. (It) Only (applies to) humankind, since it (alone) is aware of others of its kind.

2.

     (But it’s mostly relevant to those who abide by God’s mitzvah-system, for it only comes to fruition) after delving in Torah and mitzvot which serves to overturn a ratzon l’kabel to a willingness to bestow and (thus) enables us to arrive at an affinity with God.

See 11:2, 14:3.

     (For when we) attain to all the stages that had been prepared for us in the upper worlds termed N.R.N.C.Y., we become qualified to satisfy God’s intention behind the creation of the world.

See 32:1.

     (It’s) thus (clear that) all of creation came about for mankind’s sake alone.

Here’s the gist of this vital chapter’s argument. We’re taught that “the only reason God created the world was to grant pleasure to His creations” (6:1). But He “had to have created a willingness to accept all the pleasure and goodness He’d planned for them” (7:1) — and in fact, “all of creation, from start to finish, is nothing other than (the creation of) the ratzon l’kabel” (7:3).

But since God derives satisfaction from granting His creatures pleasure to “the extent to which they sense that it’s He who’s bestowing it” to them (33:2), it stands to reason that there would have to be some entities that couldn’t sense that (minerals), others that could only sense it to a limited extent (vegetatives), others that could sense it fairly much (animals), and others yet that could truly sense God’s presence and benevolence (humankind).

Yet most of mankind obviously cannot sense God’s presence and benevolence, so what is it that enables us to indeed be aware of that? The mitzvah-system. Since it enables man to “refine his inborn ratzon l’kabel and … to draw a holy soul (i.e., a full N.R.N.C.Y.) downward from its root … (and to eventually) gain an essential affinity with his Creator” (11:2) and to thus satisfy God’s intention for creation.

(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”

            And lastly comes the fourth, human (i.e., “verbal”) stage. The ratzon l’kabel is fully active and definitive by then, and it includes an awareness of others.

On the one hand, while we humans are able to move about freely and are aware of ourselves piece by piece unlike lesser entities, and we’re also able to sense others’ needs and to commiserate with them altruistically unlike our closest type, animal-kind, we humans are correspondingly imbued with an ironic fierce and overarching need to take-in and satisfy ourselves piece by piece.

            In fact, if you’d ask me to succinctly contrast the ratzon l’kabel of the third, animal stage with the fourth, human stage of it I’d say that they were as different as a single being versus all of creation. For the ratzon l’kabel in the animal stage in which there’s no awareness of others can only foster the needs and desires that are specific to that one being, while the ratzon l’kabel of humans who can sense others’ (needs) can also incorporate the needs of everything else. 

For not only are we aware of what we need and want, we’re likewise only too well aware of others’ needs and wants, and we’re inclined to want those same things — and more — knowing about them, since we have so potent a need to take-in.

            And so we can covet and want whatever others have; and if you were to “give us an inch, we’d take a mile”. Indeed our needs can be so great that we’d want everything!

But while all that seems to damn human beings for our pettiness and to rail against our bottomless self-absorption, Ashlag’s point will be that our natures are God-given and intentional, and they bolster God’s ultimate cosmic goal.

(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”

            Next comes the third (even more developed) “animal” stage. The ratzon l’kabel is very potent by then and it engenders a sense of self-will and uniqueness for each and every detail.

If the previous stage was organic, this one is out-and-out agile, brisk, and alive. It’s depicted as the “animal” stage because aside from the same freedom of movement we humans have, animals likewise have nearly the same broad sense of self and freedom that we do. Thus they too know what they need and want over-all, and take pains to get it, detail by detail.

            But those details don’t yet sense the existence of others, and they haven’t the means to commiserate with another’s pains or to share in its joys.

It’s just that animals can’t transcend their selves as we humans can or identify and empathize with others other than momentarily and specifically. But identifying with others is a complex of reactions, in that it enables one to be selflessly generous to others, or to selfishly envy them, as we’ll see.

(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”