Monthly Archives: September 2015

1:1 Jewish Joy

Part 1: Faith, Truth, and Trust

Para. 1: Jewish Joy

 

The first entry starts off with the rather broad and electric statement that, “The point of it all, and the intention behind the entirety of Torah and its 613 mitzvot is to be ‘attached’ thus by (I.e., mystically “fused”) onto the Living God. And also to grasp the truth of the first thing we heard from His own mouth that, ‘I am God your Lord’ (Exodus 20:2) [1].

“For each one of us can in fact attach himself onto Him”, Reb Tzadok continues, “since there’s always a portion of Him with us” [2].

This can be a source of “continual joy” – one that’s available to each and every Jew, the fact that we can always attach ourselves onto God. It can be unvarnished joy that “nothing can thwart or take away” from us, our “having a portion of the Living God within us”.

His point is that that’s so regardless of everything. For “even if you’re stuck wherever you’re stuck” (i.e., even if you’re otherwise attached onto wrongdoing and malevolence) and are chock full “of countless sins”, you still and all can never be “separated or cut off from that attachment”, given that you’re a Jew — a “descendent of Yaakov, who was perfect”. And given that God always “devises ways for a banished person not to remain banished from Him” (Samuel II 14:14) [3].

For even if you find yourself “in the depths of the darkest well” and are captivated by and “wedged within all the world’s (untoward) pleasures … and their nonsense” you can still have faith in the fact that God will never abandon you [4].

(From Resisei Layla 53)

Footnotes:

[1] That is, we’re able to and are to attach ourselves onto God’s presence, and to realize the fact that the whole of life itself, the Torah, and the mitzvah-system is meant to have us once again the experience of the Living presence of God that we had when He spoke to us at Mount Sinai.
[2] That’s to say that each one of us can attach onto Him given that He is Himself attached onto us.

[3] Despite everything. The point made in context is that while people may allow others to remain “banished” and abandoned, God never will, and we’re to take that to heart.

[4] In other words, deep in the warm and liquid core of your Jewish soul is a sure and irrevocable tie to God. Know that and you’ll be forever happy.

 

(c) 2015 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 http://www.torah.org entitled “Spiritual Excellence” and “Ramchal”.

 

And then there’s this

I’d also like to draw attention to this new sefer which just came out yet was downloaded for free on the www.hebrewbooks.org cite, and which is especially apropos now in the asseret y’mai teshuva. I’d also like to point to this cogent response to it.

For more information

There’s a lot of information about Reb Tzadok online. See this Hebrew cite and this English one for example, as well as some of these. I especially call your attention to this article.

Introduction

I have no expertise here at all and am depending solely on ספר אוצר המחשבה published anonymously in 1981, with a haskama from הרב יצחק יעקב ווייס and a note about the specifics signed by a “ד ורנר”. It was published by מאורות דעת in Israel.

The Sefer draws upon all of Reb Tzakok’s seforim. It includes a short biography and analysis of his thought, it offers comments by him according to topic, and is broken down into 14 chapters with a couple of hundred entries in all.

I’ll be presenting synopses of Reb Tzadok’s remarks, offer remarks of my own when that’s called for, then cite the work it’s taken from.

 

Rabbi Yaakov Feldman