Rav Ashlag's Introduction to the Zohar

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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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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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).

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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”

1.

Fourth, since the chariot of the other side and the husks are utterly and completely removed from God’s holiness — then how could they ever have been culled from and created by Him, let alone allowed to go on?

This calls for more extensive explanation since it assumes that we’re aware of some fairly abstruse Kabbalistic and otherwise Jewish concepts which we may not be. So we’ll do what we can to spell them out.

The term “chariot” is obviously as old as the item itself, and it’s cited over 150 times in the Jewish Bible. On one level it simply stands for a chariot per se, or any other vehicle. But on another level a chariot stands for the point at which a human being controls — or is controlled by — an animal in transit. Thus a chariot often represents the center of the lifelong struggle between body (the chariot’s horse) and soul (its driver).

In the present instance, though, it stands for something else again — the matrix, environment, or ground of the “other side” and “husks”. And they stand for the same thing overall: the “side” of reality that’s “other” than Godly, and the hard “shell” of materiality over-covering the Godly fruit that one would like to get to.

Ashlag depicts that unholy universe as being “utterly and completely removed from God’s holiness” which is to say completely opposite to Him.

Now, if that’s so, then “how could it ever have been culled from and created by Him” since that’s more or less analogous to a woman giving birth to a stone? And secondly, why would God accommodate something that seems to run counter to His whole Being and intentions?

2.

Fifth, touching upon the Resurrection of the Dead: since the human body is so base that it’s doomed to die and be buried from the outset, and since the Zohar says that the soul can’t ascend to its place in the Garden of Eden until the body decomposes and disintegrates, why then would the body need to be resurrected anyway? Couldn’t the Creator have delighted our souls without (our having to go through) resurrection?

Some more definitions: Inherent to classical Jewish Thought is the belief in a Messianic Era that will be initiated by a righteous leader who will bring on many radical alterations to reality. That will culminate in the Resurrection of the Dead and the dawning of the supernatural World to Come (the state of being which the universe will unfold into after all of the above). It’s also important to know that the “Garden of Eden” spoken of here isn’t the one cited at the beginning of Genesis where Adam and Eve dwelt but rather the numinous environment in which the soul alone dwells (and reaps its reward) after death and before the resurrection.

Ashlag’s point is that it seems odd that the human body — which is so seemingly un-Godly and earthly that it’s doomed to be buried and to decompose in the ground rather than go elsewhere to reap its reward (as the soul does) — would be resurrected along with the soul later on, rather than be utterly forgotten and brushed aside. After all, the soul could just as easily delight in its place in the World to Come on its own!

3.

Even more baffling is our sages’ statement that the dead are destined to be resurrected with all of their defects (in place) in order not to be mistaken for anyone else, and that all those defects will be cured afterwards. For why would God care enough to first bring back someone’s defects and then cure him simply because he’d be mistaken for someone else?

That’s to say that we’d expect the body to enjoy a new supernatural status once it comes back to life, yet we’re taught that it will come back “warts and all” instead, and that only later will those “warts” be undone and the body elevated. Why? We’re told it’s so that everyone will know exactly whom they’re seeing come back to life. But why would that matter?

4.

And sixth, our sages say that man is the focal point of reality, that all the upper worlds as well as this corporeal one along with everything in it were created for him alone (Zohar, Tazriah 40), and they even obliged us to believe that the world was created for our sake (Sanhedrin 37A). But, isn’t that strange? After all, why would God bother to create all that for man, who’s so insignificant and only occupies a hair’s-breadth worth of space in the universe — to say nothing of (his insignificance in comparison to) the upper worlds, whose reaches are immeasurable! Why would God have troubled Himself to create all that for man’s sake? And besides — what would man need all that for?

Ashlag’s last inquiry here focuses on our own centrality for a good reason. For if God Almighty could be said to be not only the Creator of all of reality but its “leading character” as well, then man is its sole supporting character (while everything else serves as stage-props and incidentals).

But in fact, considering how minute we are within the vast reaches of things, we seem on one level to be as awesomely consequential but overlookable as a sudden chink in a vast stopped dam; while on another to be as superfluous as a chink in a tumbler. So why fill the “stage” with so much else?

Notice, by the way, that Ashlag cites mankind’s minuteness much the way others do, but that while they use it to point out our essential insignificance, he will use it to ironically underscore our splendid potency below.

(See Ch’s 34-39 below for the explanation.)

(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.

We’d first have to explore a few things before we can solve all that, though we certainly won’t explore anything we’re not allowed to, like God’s very Essence, Heaven forfend! For “no thought can grasp His Essence whatsoever” (Tikkunei Zohar, Introduction), so we dare not think about or reflect upon that. But we will delve into the things we’re commanded to explore, like God’s actions. After all, the Torah charges each one of us to “know your father’s God and serve Him” (1 Chronicles 28:9); and as it’s said, “we know You from Your actions” (Shir HaYichud).

Ashlag now begins to answer his questions by stepping back a bit and laying out certain Kabbalistic principles beforehand.

Let it be said from the outset that underlying Ashlag’s statements here is the supposition that we’re to speak of God while knowing that there are two ways to depict Him overall: God unto Himself, and God as He presents Himself in the world. Make no mistake about it, though: that’s not to say that there are different aspects of the one, sheer, complete, total, unalloyed, and indivisible God. Just that when we speak of Him we’re to take into account how He is unto Himself and how He’s experienced by us now that the world has been created. This point won’t be expanded on after this, however; it’s just a caveat.

The point is that God doesn’t present Himself — appear — in the world as He is per se since the world couldn’t endure that. He appears here on a more subdued, we might even say “suppressed” level (the way geniuses present themselves when they interact with more ordinary people).

And while we’re indeed encouraged and charged to know Him as He presents Himself in the world, which we can deduce from what He does here (the way we can deduce anyone’s character by his or her actions), we’re still-and-all barred from inquiring into Him Himself, i.e., His ultimate thoughts and motivations. For “no thought can” — is able or allowed to — “grasp His Essence whatsoever”.

So we’ll explore God’s ways in the world, from the moment it occurred to Him to create it and onward, but not before that.

2.

So, our first inquiry will touch on this: How could anyone imagine a completely original creation — something utterly new-sprung that hadn’t already been incorporated in God’s Being from the first — when it’s obvious to any thinking person that everything was originally incorporated in His Being (since it’s clear that whoever means to give something can only give it if he himself already has it)?

Ashlag will now address a series of sub-questions. They aren’t reiterations of the five underlying questions we’d just presented but rather new conundrums we’d need to solve before we could go back to the original ones. Just know that this is heady and deeply abstract stuff, so be patient and allow yourself to luxuriate in it.

At the time it occurred to God to create the cosmos (which is our time-frame, don’t forget) all that existed was God Himself and His idea to create it (other thoughts existed, too, but they’re also out of our framework).

It follows then that the entirety that did eventually come about had to have been an utterly new and original phenomenon, rather than a derivation of or a variation on something else ongoing. It had to have “popped up” somehow “out of the blue”, as we’d put it, unlike anything else (which means to say, unlike God Himself).

But, how can there be anything outside of or separate from God? That is, how could anything appear out of the blue in fact? For as Ashlag enunciates it, isn’t it clear that a giver can only give what he himself already has? So, how could anything other than He ever come about?

3.

Second, if you contend that He’s omnipotent so He could certainly have created something out of sheer nothingness, which is to say, something that didn’t already exist in His Being — then what is this “thing” that we’d determine wasn’t found in Him originally but was created out of sheer nothingness?

That is, if in fact the cosmos did come about out of sheer nothingness, as it could very well have, since God can do anything including just that — then what does that say about the nature and makeup of the cosmos? It must be nearly as sublime and utterly inexplicable as God Himself in its perplexity and marvel.

The truth of that should strike us, by the way. After all, the “everything” that has come into being is utterly original and fresh; everything that we know of, as well as everything that we don’t, can’t, and won’t know of is a thing (and non-thing) hatched anew from God’s mind, while every “thing” else is either God Himself or still in His mind.

We’ve raised questions up to now about our essential natures, about God, and about the cosmos at large. Now onto our souls (which we said aren’t our essential natures, if you recall). Did they pop-up out of the blue, too? What are they comprised of? Ashlag begins exploring that by first citing a fundamental Kabbalistic portrayal of the soul.

(This will be the first question answered, see Ch. 7.)

4.

Third, the kabbalists say that the human soul is a “part of God”, the only difference between them being that God is the “whole” while the soul is a “part”. And they equate the two to a rock hewn from a mountain, with the only difference between them being that one is the “whole” and the other is a “piece”.

That’s to say that the reason the human soul is the numinous, very otherwise, singular, and peculiar phenomenon that it is, is because it’s a “part of God”.

First off, understand that we’re not talking about the “battery-cell” that keeps the body alive when we refer to the soul; or about the human heart which is admittedly profoundly occult, forestial, and awash with mystery, but not the soul; or about the nearly equally numinous human mind either. Instead, we’re referring to the immortal utterly non-physical “kernel” that lays both deep within and near-and-far outside our beings.

Each soul, we’re told, is a particular detail in the perfect total makeup of God Himself.

Now, that’s not to say that at bottom God is the sum-total of all souls, since He Himself can’t be defined or limited in any way (as we said). What it means to say is that once God decided to create the cosmos, He allowed for the appearance of our souls as well. And they’re each a part of Him, much the way each segment of a hologram is an independent element of the entire hologram.

But this point itself raises other questions.

5.

Only now we’d need to explore the following. A stone that’s hewn from a mountain had to have been hewn by an axe made for the express purpose of separating the “piece” from the “whole”. But could anyone ever imagine hewing a separate “part” of God, i.e., a soul, which would then be considered a part of His very Essence?

That is, how could God Almighty be divided into parts — and what in the world could ever have actually done that?

(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”