Chapter Thirty-Six:

Rabbi Yehudah Ashlag's "Introduction to the Zohar"

-- as translated and commented on by Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

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

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

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

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

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

(c) 2008 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

(Feel free to contact me at feldman@torah.org )

********************************
AT LONG LAST! Rabbi Feldman's translation of "The Gates of Repentance" has been reissued at *at a discount*!
You can order it right now from here
Rabbi Yaakov Feldman has also translated and commented upon "The Path of the Just", and "The Duties of the Heart" (Jason Aronson Publishers). His new work on Maimonides' "The Eight Chapters" will soon be available from Yashar Books.
Rabbi Feldman also offers two free e-mail classes on www.torah.org entitled
"Spiritual Excellence" and "Ramchal"

Chapter Thirty-Five:

Rabbi Yehudah Ashlag's "Introduction to the Zohar"

-- as translated and commented on by Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

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The first or “mineral” stage of the ratzon l’kabel is its initial appearance in the physical world. It only has a potential for movement -- the one that all inanimate beings have. And none of its details move about, by all appearances.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(c) 2008 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

(Feel free to contact me at feldman@torah.org )

********************************
AT LONG LAST! Rabbi Feldman's translation of "The Gates of Repentance" has been reissued at *at a discount*!
You can order it right now from here
Rabbi Yaakov Feldman has also translated and commented upon "The Path of the Just", and "The Duties of the Heart" (Jason Aronson Publishers). His new work on Maimonides' "The Eight Chapters" will soon be available from Yashar Books.
Rabbi Feldman also offers two free e-mail classes on www.torah.org entitled
"Spiritual Excellence" and "Ramchal"