Rav Ashlag's Introduction to the Zohar

1.

Ashlag now cites a dictum that seems out of place on the surface. But as we’ll quickly see, it lends credence to what’s to follow.

It’s said about the verse, “The leech has two daughters (named) ‘Give’ (and) ‘Give’” (Proverbs 30:15), that “the leech stands for Hell, where all the wrongdoers stranded there cry out ‘Give! Give!’ like dogs; Give us all the riches of this world and of The World to Come!’” (Tikkunim Chadashim 97B).

That’s to say that since the Jewish sages argue that it’s greedy, lowly, and wrongful to want to be fulfilled on both a worldly and other-worldly level, it would seem wrong to foster both a material and a spiritual ratzon l’kabel as spoken of in the last chapter, wouldn’t it?

And yet it’s a very much higher level than the first.

That is, even though acquiring a spiritual ratzon l’kabel is an amplification and expansion of our inborn material ratzon l’kabel, and would thus seem to be an even more inherently selfish and lowly desire, it’s ironically loftier.

For aside from acquiring a full measure of ratzon l’kabel and using it for all the material things we’d need to engage in, in our Divine service (as we’re asked to do), (we’re also asked to realize a spiritual ratzon l’kabel, because achieving) that level is what leads us to (achieving) the level of (doing things) altruistically.

We’re thus taught here that while we’ve indeed been created selfish and self-serving, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. What’s asked of us is to use that inclination for good ends, though, and to thus set out to accrue things — as we’re prone to — for Godly purposes.

And so we’d do well to set aside the fine foods we crave for the special, sanctified Shabbat meals, when we serve God by purposely eating well and heartily. We’re then asked to transcend that, too, by acquiring the spiritual ratzon l’kabel we spoke of before. But, how do we get from one to the other?

As our sages said (about doing that), “One should always (initially) observe Torah and mitzvot for self-serving purposes, since by doing that we (eventually) come to observe it for altruistic reasons” (Pesachim 50B).

The Jewish sages had long grappled with the tension between the very-human inclination to do things — both holy and profane — for self-serving purposes, and the Torah ideal of being altruistic.             Accepting the reality of the tension, they decided that the solution lies in using the flawed inclination to achieve the ideal one — in observing Torah and mitzvot for self-serving purposes at first, so as to eventually observe it for altruistic ones. It’s often equated with rewarding a child with a trinket when he or she does something important and noble on the assumption that the child will continue doing those sorts of things later on, on his own, once he understands how inherently important it is to be principled.

In our context that comes to this. As we’ve learned, it’s vitally important for us to foster a willingness to bestow (which is the ideal; see 11:2), yet we’re born with a contradictory very human ratzon l’kabel. So, how do we achieve a willingness to bestow? Again, by using the flawed inclination to achieve the ideal one: that is, by indeed observing Torah and mitzvot for self-serving purposes but with an eye toward eventually observing it for altruistic ones. And by then striving to only want to bestow.

Understand though, as Ashlag emphasizes any number of times, it’s actually impossible for us to turn our natures around like that on our own. The only way we could ever achieve a willingness to bestow is with God’s direct intercedence. What’s asked of us is to pray for that to happen, and to fulfill His mitzvot and learn His Torah for that end, and for no other.

That explains why this level which we (only) achieve after we’re thirteen is deemed holy.

… even though it would seem at first to be inherently selfish. For while it’s indeed a ratzon l’kabel, it’s still rooted in holiness and it will eventually lead to an altruistic willingness to only bestow (see 30:2).

2.

For our observing Torah and mitzvot for self-serving purposes (that way) is (likened to being) a pious maidservant serving her mistress, the holy Shechina, since it leads to an altruistic level which then enables us to merit having the Shechina dwell in our midst.

That is, the process of doing things for self-serving purposes at first so as to eventually do them altruistically is termed “a pious maidservant” because despite appearances of enjoying the prestige of being the maidservant of so lofty and venerated a mistress as the holy Shechina, the maidservant — this process — is still-in-all piously and selflessly executing its mistress’ bidding.

But we need to fulfill all the means necessary to arrive at altruism; because if we don’t, and don’t arrive at (true) altruism, then we’ll plunge into the abyss (which is the realm) of the impure maidservant, the polar opposite of the holy maidservant, whose role is to confuse us (and convince us that) we’ll never observe Torah and mitzvot altruistically by (first) observing them for self-serving purposes. For she has been termed the, “maidservant who is heir to her mistress” (Proverbs 30:23), since she won’t let anyone near the holy Shechina, her mistress.

The seemingly noble idea that we should start out by trying to do things altruistically is actually quite naive. For while the heart knows only too well how wrong and unfair selfishness is, the mind knows just as well how fetching and urgent our impulses are, and how important it is to use every ruse we can to mollify them — like starting out with selfish intentions. There’s simply no other way to succeed.

The ultimate reach in that would be falling madly in love with God, and acting like someone who’d long for a beloved he couldn’t take his mind off of the whole day long. As the poet expressed it, “I can’t sleep, thinking of Him (all the time)” (Selichot for the Ten Days of Repentance).

For when one falls madly in love with someone, longs for her, and can’t take his mind off of her the whole day long, he wants nothing better than to fulfill her every wish selflessly when he encounters her.

(Succeed at that, and) the phrase, “a desire that is fulfilled is a tree of life” (Proverbs 13:12) would then be ascribed to you. Because the five levels of the soul, termed N.R.N.C.Y., are The Tree of Life that endured for 500 years — 100 years each level; and you’d have come to earn all five of them in the third stage, as we’ll explain.

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

1.

The second stage (of our Divine service) extends from age thirteen and onward, and it’s when the point in the heart — which is the hindmost part of our holy soul, and is garbed in the native ratzon l’kabel — is fortified. It only begins to come into play, though, after (we reach) age thirteen, and it begins to enter the realm of the system of the holy worlds to the extent that we observe Torah and mitzvot.

The “point in the heart” spoken of here is that region in our being where our worldly awareness and sensitivity lies. It’s a “point” rather than an entire dimension, and the “hindmost part of our holy soul” rather than an inner part of it, because while it indeed touches on momentous things in our lives, it still-and-all hasn’t any bearing on our essential being and it’s ultimately dispensable (though certainly not “point”-less).

But don’t misunderstand. It’s vitally important for each one of us to develop his or her own “point in the heart”. First, because without one we can’t ever grow close to others or to God, or to mature in our beings; second, because it’s impossible to realize that we have a ratzon l’kabel, and then to transcend it, unless we gain insight into it and come to know how destructive it is. And only a well developed “point in the heart” allows us to do all that (see Ch’s 43, 65).

Ashlag is emphasizing the idea here that we only begin to grow aware and to be sensitive from age thirteen on (if at all; for the truth be known, many of us never do). For that’s when we begin to dabble in holiness and to expose ourselves to the nature of our beings; and it’s likewise when we can begin to strive for a willingness to bestow — after first having acquired what he refers to as a “spiritual” ratzon l’kabel as we’ll soon see.

2.

Our primary function from that point is to acquire and foster a spirit-based ratzon l’kabel, for at birth we only have a ratzon l’kabel for material things. And so even though we’d acquired a comprehensive ratzon l’kabel before we turned thirteen, that’s not yet the ultimate reach of the ratzon l’kabel, for it is primarily meant to grow on a spiritual level.

A “spirit-based ratzon l’kabel” is a willingness to now accrue spiritual “playthings”, like wisdom, revelation, and other such immortal delights, over the sort of worldly ones we’d embraced till then. Understand that while that too is rooted in self-serving needs, nonetheless a higher, more selfless self is served then.

But know as well that when Ashlag indicates that we’re to achieve even more when it comes to our ratzon l’kabel he’s alluding to the fact that there’s even more to come. Because after having fostered a spirit-based ratzon l’kabel we’re to then transpose it into a ratzon l’kabel al m’nat l’hashpia, and to ultimately cultivate a ratzon l’hashpia (see 27:2).

(Our only having a ratzon l’kabel for material things at first) explains, for example, why we (only) want to accumulate all sorts of worldly wealth and honor before we turn thirteen, though those things are clearly not eternal and merely ephemeral. For (in contrast) when we acquire a comprehensive spiritual ratzon l’kabel we want to have and enjoy all (sorts of spiritual delights, like) the “wealth” and “pleasure” to be had in the eternal upper worlds, which is an eternal possession. Thus (we see that) the comprehensive ratzon l’kabel is only completed for the most part with (i.e., when we acquire and foster a) spiritual ratzon l’kabel.

The statement that the comprehensive ratzon l’kabel is only completed for the most part when we acquire and foster a spiritual ratzon l’kabel underscores our remark above about having to subsequently acquire a ratzon l’kabel al m’nat l’hashpia and a ratzon l’hashpia.

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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 can now finally begin to resolve our second inquiry, about the role we humans play in the great course of events which we’re such minor players in, and for such a short span of time.

See 1:3.

This inquiry is crucial to our purposes, for it sums up our raison d’être and offers us direct guidance into how we’re to draw close to God, which is the point of it all. We’ll be occupied with it for the next few chapters.

Know that our lifelong Divine service is divided into four stages. The first centers on our acquiring a comprehensive ratzon l’kabel along with all the impurity (it garnered) from the four worlds of defiled-A.B.Y.A. (But, why would we have to attain it, seeing how foul it is?) Because we couldn’t rectify this corrupt ratzon l’kabel if we didn’t have it, since “no one can rectify something he doesn’t have”.

We’re passive participants in the first of the four stages of our spiritual development, since all we do, ironically, is take in the ratzon l’kabel — the willingness to only take in — in detail.

And we’d have to accept it in order to ultimately reject it. After all, how could we reject it if we didn’t first know it? The first point, then, is that our having and internalizing wrong and un-Godliness is inevitable to our being, as well as to our growth.

But (know, too, that) the degree of ratzon l’kabel that’s granted (us) at birth isn’t enough (for our purposes). (So) it has to serve as a vehicle for the impure husks for no less than thirteen years. That means to say that the husks must control that ratzon l’kabel and grant it the husks’ lights (for that length of time), since those lights augment it. For the satisfaction that the husks supply the ratzon l’kabel increase and broaden its demands.

Even though Ashlag had originally termed the native ratzon l’kabel “comprehensive” and said that it had “all the impurity (it garnered) from the four worlds of defiled-A.B.Y.A.”, that’s not to say that it’s the consummate ratzon l’kabel. For this native ratzon l’kabel will prove to be an obscure hint of its full and ugly self.

Indeed, we’d need to allow in a more lumbering, heftier ratzon l’kabel with each and every ugly, self-indulgent, mean detail, if we’re to rectify it. For we’d have to experience the ratzon l’kabel in its entirety, in all its hideousness, in order to know it to be detrimental and objectionable (or else we’d bear with it, or just be annoyed by it). For only after having had our fill of it can we utterly reject it. Since “no one can rectify something he doesn’t have” and want to spurn.

That’s why the native ratzon l’kabel must serve as a “vehicle (i.e., an instrument) for the impure husks for no less than thirteen years”, until we ourselves can become “vehicles” for mitzvot. And it’s why the native ratzon l’kabel must be controlled and emboldened by the impure husks that engorge and fatten it so.

2.

(That explains) for example, why a newborn only wants the smallest of things and no more, and why our ratzon l’kabel grows stronger and stronger when it gets what it wants, and even wants twice as much. And why it intensifies to such an extent that it immediately wants four times as much when it’s given double.

That is, while we’re very willing and eager to take-in when we’re born, indeed, the urge is nonetheless comparatively weak then, since we’re only drawing upon our native ratzon l’kabel at that point. But our willingness to take-in will invariably grow exponentially stronger from there on, because we’ll begin to draw upon the sort of deeper, more impure levels of ratzon l’kabel cited before.

(That comes to teach us that) if we don’t manage to overcome that (urge to take-in) through Torah and mitzvot, and to purify the ratzon l’kabel and transform it into a willingness to bestow, that our ratzon l’kabel will grow stronger and stronger throughout our life, and we’ll eventually die without fulfilling half our desires — which is tantamount to being left under the auspices of the other side and the husks, whose very function is to expand and increase our ratzon l’kabel, and to broaden it and take away all its restraints, so as to provide us with all the material we need to work with and rectify.

Hence, we’re to know that the only way to change the cakey, bloated, wily entity that is our comprehensive ratzon l’kabel into a Godly, selfless, blameless one is to transform it into a comprehensive willingness to bestow. Otherwise it will only grow fatter and fatter till it pops. And we do that by subsuming ourselves in the mitzvah-system which demands selfless acquiescence to God’s will.

But we’re never to forget that we’re only put through all that in order to prove ourselves valiant in battle; and that the grist for the whole alternately delectable and terrible mill that is the ratzon l’kabel is only there to “provide us with all the material we need to work with and rectify”.

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

1.

As to the sages’ statement that, “the dead will be brought back to life with all their defects (in place) and then be cured”, that means as follows.

The same body (i.e., self) with its comprehensive ratzon l’kabel will come back to life at the beginning (of the resurrection) without any restrictions whatsoever — meaning to say, it will return just as it had been when it passed through the impure worlds system and before meriting being at all purified by (adherence to) Torah and mitzvot. That’s the meaning of (the idea that it will be brought back to life) “with all its defects”.

Also see 26:2.

(And as to the idea of the dead being “cured”, that’s to be explained thusly.) We’ll then begin to engage in a new form of Divine service, and start to infuse our comprehensive ratzon l’kabel with a tsurah of bestowal, as we’d indicated, and (our body and self) will thus be cured! For it will have attained an affinity (with God).

In short, the idea that the dead will be brought back to life with all their defects in place and then be cured of them comes to this. There’ll come a time when the dead body — and self — will indeed come back to life in full, raw blossom. But not as it is now in our day-to-day experience with its expansive and comprehensive ratzon l’kabel in place. Instead, we’ll begin to rectify that pure and unadulterated ratzon l’kabel then by transforming it into a ratzon l’kabel al m’nat l’hashpia — a willingness to take in, in order to bestow. And that will cure it of its dread disease of alienation from God and will draw us close to Him as we emulate His ways.

2.

(As to the fact that) our sages said that the reason (we’re to be resurrected with all our defects in place) was so as “not to be mistaken for anyone else”, that’s so it couldn’t be said that (the body or self) was of a different form than its original one in the intentions for creation, since the comprehensive ratzon l’kabel would have retained its intent to take in all the goodness (that it was meant to enjoy) in the (original) intention for creation; and that it was set among the husks for the meanwhile until it could be purified. For in the end there simply cannot be a different body. For if it were restrained in any way, it would be a different entity for all intents and purposes, and wouldn’t merit receiving all the goodness (planned for it) in the (original) intentions of creation it (had already) received in the first era.

On an even more arcane level, the idea that the body and self is to come back to life with all its defects — i.e., in full, raw blossom — just “so as not to be mistaken for anyone else”, means to say this. The very same body/self that had been on God’s “mind”, if you will, in the first era when He set out to create the universe, and which He meant to exist in the second (and third) era — with its entire comprehensive ratzon l’kabel in place — is the very one that will be resurrected, none other. It just had to experience this and that before it could be resurrected. And that will be clear; no one would be able to say that another, less ratzon l’kabel-ridden body/self was being resurrected. (Why would that matter? Because it has to be manifest that the very same body and self that was rooted in taking-in could in fact be transformed to one rooted in bestowing.)

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

1.

In fact, the resurrection of the dead can only take place close to the full rectification that’s to occur at the end of the second era.

For (by then) we’d have merited abolishing our comprehensive ratzon l’kabel and received a willingness to only bestow (in its place), and merited (being endowed by the) prodigious qualities of the soul known as the nephesh, ruach, neshama, chaya, and yechidah as a consequence of all our efforts to abolish our ratzon l’kabel. And we’d have entered into (a state of) very great perfection.

This then is the classical Jewish chronology of the end: the Messiah will appear near the close of the present, second era. We’ll then manage to transform our all-encompassing ratzon l’kabel to a full and comprehensive ratzon l’hashpia, and to then merit taking on all the recondite soul-levels one could, as a consequence of that. And then we’ll experience the great rectification — the time when nearly all connections between heaven and earth that had been stopped and clogged will be unstopped, so that Godliness can begin to pass through; and when God will face us and we’ll start to be ready to face Him straight on. That will then usher in the resurrection, for…

(All) that would then enable the body, with its comprehensive ratzon l’kabel, to come back to life, and for us to no longer be severed from our adhesion (unto God). (In fact,) on the contrary, we’ll have overcome the ratzon l’kabel (by then) and will have granted the body its tsurah of bestowal.

2.

Now, that’s actually what we should do with every bad trait we want to eliminate. We should first thoroughly do away with it, and then to reincorporate it and make use of it (only) moderately. Because if we don’t (first) do away with it, we’ll never be able to use it moderately as we should.

This is a beguiling paragraph teeming with implication.

First off, it’s important to know that it’s rooted in Moses Maimonides’ idea (see Sh’mone Perakim and Hilchot De’ot) to the effect that extremes of behavior are always wrong, and that the middle, moderate path is always best and healthiest. So, if for example you tend to get angry easily, Maimonides would suggest that you not express any anger at all for a time, and that you’re to continue acting that way until you’d have stifled your anger altogether. Then he’d advise you to “return to the middle way” of equilibrium and to indeed express anger to an appropriate degree and when fitting, and to do that for the rest of your life. He’d also suggest that you follow that pattern in relation to your other extreme traits.

Ashlag reiterates that point here, but he goes far beyond Maimonides’ conception and adapts it to our ratzon l’kabel which, if you’ll recall, is our very essence in this world.

Hence, Ashlag is saying that Maimonides’ method is actually quite mystical, not merely ethical or psychological; and that it instructs us in how to get close to God. For while we’ll indeed eventually get to the point where we undo our ratzon l’kabel altogether, that’s nonetheless not the point. We’re instead to once again allow our ratzon l’kabel in — but only to a moderate degree. That’s to say that we’re develop a ratzon l’kabel al m’nat l’hashpia — a willingness to take in, in order to bestow (see 11:2) and to utterly transform our beings in the process (see 30:2 as well).

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

1.

Now, as we’ve already said, the (existence of the) first era made it necessary for the third era to materialize itself in full, in order to fulfill the intent for creation (already manifest) in the first era.

See Ch. 15.

Thus, the (existence of the) first era necessitated the resurrection of the body, which is to say that it made it necessary for the body’s comprehensive ratzon l’kabel which had (already) come to an end, been undone, and had decomposed in the course of the second era, to be resurrected anew, in full and comprehensive measure and to lack for nothing whatsoever — i.e., with all its defects (in place).

In answer to our question of the last chapter as to why we’re to be resurrected, it comes to this. We — better yet, our bodies along with our personality and sense of self — are to be fully and roundly resurrected when the time comes simply because that, too, is part of the great unfurling of God’s will that was already encased in the first era, by virtue of the fact that it will play a part in our drawing close to God.

But, why will we be brought back “with all (our) defects (in place)?” we also asked.

2.

But then our Divine service is to begin anew: (we’ll start) to convert our comprehensive ratzon l’kabel to the point where it only takes-in so as to bestow. And we’d have thus doubled our gain: first, we’d have had the capacity to accept all the goodness, pleasantness, and gentleness (we were meant to) in the (original) intent of creation by having a body with a comprehensive ratzon l’kabel, which goes hand in hand with all those pleasures, as we indicated.

And secondly, since we received all the goodness, pleasantness, and gentleness (we were meant to), it would then only exist to the degree necessary to grant God contentment, and our ratzon l’kabel would be tantamount to an out-and-out bestowal.

See 11:2.

That would bring us to (a state of) essential affinity (with) or adhesion (onto God) — which will be our tsurah in the third era. Thus we see that the (existence of the) first era did indeed make the resurrection of the dead an absolute necessity.

Things will be utterly different when we’re resurrected, as would only be expected; and all our foci and insights will change accordingly. Rather than be self-absorbed, we’ll be God-absorbed. For instead of being only willing to accept things that serve our own purposes, we’ll only be willing to accept things that we could then bestow upon another (God, in this instance), like the guest who only ate to please his host (see the comments to 11:3).

That explains why we’re to be brought back with all our defects. For, what “all our defects” refers to is all of our selfishness (also see Ch. 28); and it will be there for all to see at the point of resurrection, all right. But we’ll be so out-and-out flummoxed by the sight ourselves that we’ll be moved to (somehow) transform it to selflessness.

Ironically, though, we’ll have benefitted from our selflessness in the end to a remarkable degree (though we wouldn’t have set out to). For aside from having enjoyed the wherewithal to take in “all the goodness, pleasantness, and gentleness” we were meant to by virtue of the fact that “we’d already had a body with a comprehensive ratzon l’kabel“, we’d also be able to make the very best and purest use of that skill by turning it around to a means of adhering on to God’s presence.

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

This is a rather complex chapter that draws upon a lot of what has been said and raises a lot of questions of its own which will be left unanswered for a while. We’ll do what we can to encapsulate what’s said here at the end, and to point out where this whole chapter will be taking us. Then we’ll allow Ashlag to spell it all out for us.

We now have a solution to our fifth inquiry.

See 3:2.

We asked there why the body will be resurrected, seeing how base it is and given that its (immortal) soul won’t appear in it in all its purity until the body decomposes. (We can also now offer a solution to) our sages’ statement that “The dead will be brought back to life with all their defects (in place) so that they won’t be mistaken for anyone else (and that all those defects will be cured afterwards)” (Zohar, Emor 17).

But we’d first have to review the following in order to explain all that.

(Know, that) all of this is in keeping with the original intent behind creation in the first era. For, as we’d said, God intended for His creations to experience pleasure.

See 6:1.

So He created an enormous and comprehensive enough willingness to take-in all the vast amount of bounty that lay behind the intention of creation, since (the ability to take-in) a great deal of pleasure and (the need to have a correspondingly) comprehensive ratzon l’kabel go hand in hand.

See 6:2-3.

And so as we also said, this enormous ratzon l’kabel was the only thing created anew.

See 7:1-2.

… since God didn’t need to create anything else to carry out His intentions for creation, and (also) because it’s only natural that a perfect Producer wouldn’t produce anything extraneous.

We also said that this comprehensive ratzon l’kabel was withdrawn from the four worlds of holy-A.B.Y.A. and placed instead in the four worlds of defiled-A.B.Y.A., from which derived the bodies of this world, their sustenance, and all their circumstances.

See 10:2.

And we said that one only begins to attain a holy soul when he reaches age thirteen (or twelve, in the case of a young woman) thanks to his involvement in Torah and Mitzvot (with the intention to please God), and he starts to be nourished by the four worlds of holy-A.B.Y.A. to a degree that corresponds to the size of his holy (immortal) soul.

See 11:2.

We likewise said that during the six thousand years that we’d been granted to engage in Torah and Mitzvot, the body — i.e., our comprehensive ratzon l’kabel — wouldn’t be rectified (of its own accord). All the rectifications that will come about would be as a consequence of our efforts alone, and would only touch upon the Nephesh (i.e., the lowest degree of soul), from which rectifications will ascend upward through the various degrees of holiness and purity in order to (eventually) enhance the ratzon l’hashpia that evolves along with the soul.

See 11:2.

(Just know, that) all that helps to explain why the body is doomed to die, be buried, and decompose. After all, the body wouldn’t have been rectified in any way, and yet it can’t remain in that state (forever). However, if the (body’s) comprehensive ratzon l’kabel would be (prematurely) removed from the world, then God’s intentions for creation — that everyone would be granted all the great delights that He wanted them to — wouldn’t be carried out, God forbid. After all (as we alluded to above), a great ratzon l’kabel and (the ability to sustain) a great deal of pleasure go hand in hand, and one’s ratzon l’kabel diminishes to the selfsame degree that his delight and pleasure upon receiving diminishes. (So, what’s the solution?)

All Ashlag cited above begins to explain why the body must die and decompose before it’s to be resurrected, so let’s synopsize it. As we learned, God intended mankind to derive pleasure in this world. So He quite logically instilled a desire for pleasure in our beings; and He likewise quite reasonably provided us with as great a desire for pleasure as the pleasure itself would be. And so God created our ratzon l’kabel.

But it’s important to realize that it needs to be rectified. We’ll get back to that below.

We also learned that we only begin to develop an immortal soul once we start to live out the mitzvah-system and to delve into the Torah; and that the greater and purer our engagements in that, the greater and purer will our soul be.

Nonetheless, that process won’t rectify our problematic ratzon l’kabel unto itself. All we’d have accomplished by engaging in Torah and mitzvot would be to have advanced our soul upward by degrees and to have eventually bolstered our ratzon l’hashpia — which is no mean feat at all! But we will not have undone our ratzon l’kabel.

So how will our ratzon l’kabel be undone in the end as it must be in order to accomplish God’s plans? Why must we be resurrected? And why indeed did our sages say that the “dead will be brought back to life with all their defects (in place)” in order not to “be mistaken for anyone else” by that point? We’ll come to uncover all that in the next few chapters.

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”

Now, since we’re essentially a ratzon l’kabel and everything that happens to us and all our circumstances are replete with that corrupt ratzon which was only created from the first to be eradicated from the world in order to bring on the perfect third era at the final reparation, (know that) we and all our circumstances are as ephemeral and mortal as a passing shadow that leaves nothing behind.

And that’s so because the ratzon l’kabel will be undone in the end (see 19:2).

But in view of the fact that the immortal soul is essentially a ratzon l’hashpia and everything that happens to it and its circumstances are replete with that (lofty) ratzon which already existed in the eternal first era as well as in the third era that’s due to come about, it is not at all ephemeral or mortal. It and its circumstances are eternal and will exist forever.

In fact, not only will the soul not experience nonexistence when the body dies, on the contrary, the nonexistence of the body will actually strengthen the soul and enable it to ascend to the Heavens.

The soul will come to full flower once the body and ego are undone because the soul will no longer be held back by the effect of the ratzon l’kabel and it can thus adhere onto God.

We’ve thus clearly demonstrated that the immortality of the soul is in no way dependent on the concepts we acquire, as certain philosophers claim. Instead, its immortality is inherent, meaning to say that it’s in its ratzon l’hashpia which is its essence. And any concepts it acquires will be its reward rather than its essence.

See 21:1.

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”

Hence, our immortal souls want only to please their Creator — which is actually their nature, as we indicated — thanks to the garbs of “reverting light” that they received from the upper worlds which they’d come from.

See 21:1.

That is, since “we can deduce things about the makeup of spiritual phenomena … from the makeup of physical phenomena” as we learned at the end of the last chapter; and since people only want to please themselves and so all we do as a consequence is generate needs, thoughts about, and plans to satisfy their various desires — it stands to reason that our immortal souls, which are comprised of a desire to please God rather than themselves would set out to actually please Him.

(So,) once it’s clad in a human body, our immortal soul then starts to manifest needs, thoughts, and plans to satisfy its willingness to bestow to its fullest, and to please its Creator in proportion to its will to do that.

… much the way our egos manifest needs, thoughts, and plans to satisfy itself.

But rather than channel that desire through a combination of animalistic and more-ideal venues the way our egos do, the immortal soul only sets out to satisfy God in an ideal fashion. Since it’s utterly spiritual and doesn’t do anything by degree or in combination the way physical things do.

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”

All three of these desire-types …

That is: animalistic desires, lesser human desires as in desires for respect and domination, and loftier desires as in desires for knowledge and the like.

… are present in everyone, for the most part. It’s just that they’re within us in varying degrees and in combination, which explains the difference between people.

Ashlag’s point is that since we’re ratzon l’kabel– and pleasure-driven, it follows that even the best of us (with the exception of those scant few souls who have indeed achieved a ratzon l’hashpia in the here and now) have some base and small desires; and also that even the lowliest among us are drawn to higher ideals since all three desires-types are human archetypes.

The difference between us thus lies in the intensity with which we express those desires; in whether we express them in thought, speech, or action, or in combination; and the degree to which we express them in each of those realms.

For while the more-righteous want nothing better than to draw close to God (which is still-and-all a personal desire, don’t forget) and they think, talk about, and do things that will help them do that, they also harbor a thought or more, say something or another, or do a thing or two that thwarts that. Most of us think and talk about, and do more things to thwart closeness to God, and think and talk about, and do a number of base and meaner things. And the lowliest among us think and talk about, and do a great deal of base and coarse things, and few lofty things.

(Know that) we can deduce things about the makeup of spiritual phenomena — depending on their spiritual stature — from the makeup of physical phenomena.

We’ll begin to discuss this in detail in the next chapter.

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”