יחוד האין סוף ב"ה הוא - שרק רצונו ית' הוא הנמצא, ואין שום רצון אחר נמצא אלא ממנו, על כן הוא לבדו שולט, ולא שום רצון אחר. ועל יסוד זה בנוי כל הבנין:
"The Infinite One's Yichud" implies that only His will functions (fully) and that no other will functions other than through it. Hence, He alone reigns (supreme) and no other (being's) will does. The entire structure is erected upon this foundation.
Ramchal's primary concern in this work is to define and underscore the grand and ultimate significance of God's "Yichud" (which will be explained below) and to use the Kabbalistic system to do it. That's why he started off with a definition of it. But before he gets to that he sets out to explain a number of other essential things.
1.
His first point is that it's imperative to understand that "we won't be discussing God Himself"-- God irrespective of creation and in His utterly unfathomable being -- in this work, since we may not [1]. As such, whatever will be said in Klach Pitchei Chochma will only touch upon God's will rather than on Himself, since "we are permitted to speak of it" [2]. That explains Ramchal's references to God's will alone later on.
He warns us, though, that even discussions about God's will have their restrictions, given that "there's a limit as to how far our minds can go" there as well [3].
2.
He then takes the opportunity here to explain the place and intention of the kabbalistic system (which will be the thrust of this work), asserting that it is "first and foremost meant to exhibit the truth of the (Jewish) faith". That's to say, what Kabbalah does better than anything else is explain in detail why we believe what we do, and by implication, why we do what we do.
He adds that the kabbalistic system also "comes to illustrate how all … (of creation) materialized out of the Supreme Will" rather than out of sheer nothingness and at random. It likewise "demonstrates how everything is governed as it should be" rather than haphazardly; it provides us with "in-depth understandings of all the rules and processes of Divine governance"; and it comes to illustrate that God wants most of all "to bring the entire cycle of creation to perfection in the end." This last point will be discussed later [4].
It should also be understood that while other Kabbalists strove for an encyclopedic knowledge of the system for their own mystical, arcane motivations, Ramchal contended that we're to know the system only so as to catch sight of and follow God's overarching presence and sovereignty in the cosmos -- to have access to the cosmic backdrop [5]. So when he says that the entire structure is erected on this foundation, he's referring to the Kabbalistic system or structure [6].
3.
Ramchal then makes the most crucial statement in this work: that the reality of God's Yichud "is the foundation of (the Jewish) faith and the core of (all) wisdom". So let's see just what this Yichud is.
The Hebrew term "Yichud" literally means oneness and union, or uniqueness, but it has other implications which Ramchal offers.
He says that we'll only understand God's Yichud once we come to know that "everything that we see" and experience "has but one Lord", God Almighty.
That's to say that God's Yichud implies that He is the lone Sovereign Ruler; that He "alone carries everything out, and controls everything".
Or as Ramchal put it in his opening statement, "The Infinite One's Yichud" implies that only His will functions (fully) and that no other will functions other than through it. Hence, He alone reigns (supreme) and no other (being's) will does. Yichud thus refers to the absoluteness of God's will and dominion [7].
Now, even though the idea of God being in full command is taken on faith by believers, the implications of God's utter omnipotence are so overturning and revolutionary that we'd have to know it for ourselves.
And we will, in fact, come to know and experience it in the future, since God's plan is to make His utter sovereignty manifest.
There's another element of God's Yichud that we'd have to know about as well, which goes back to the idea of Yichud as "uniqueness" cited above. God is utterly unique in the sense that "only His existence is imperative … none other". That's to say that while God must exist for anything else to, His existence depends on nothing else: it is imperative for Him to exist if anything else is to. In fact only He has that quality -- He is unique that way [8]. So in light of God's imperativeness, it follows that "only He is in control of everything", since everything depends on Him to exist. Hence both aspects about Yichud -- God's sovereignty and His unique imperativeness -- tie in.
4.
Ramchal then begins a rather protracted discussion of the seeming contradiction between the idea of mankind's God-given free-will and God's over-arching will. If, as we're taught, we're each utterly free to make the ethical choices we deem fit and we're thus seemingly capable of "foiling" God's wishes in the process, then how could God's will be absolute [9]?
As such, some might argue that indeed "Originally, God may have been alone" i.e., independent and hence omnipotent, but "He then chose to create beings … with wills of their own," which then made it "possible … for them to thwart His will … and go against it". After all, they'd argue, didn't God also "create the Other Side" – i.e., wrongfulness and ungodliness, which apparently goes against His will all the time. And don't we also see that "the Nation of Israel has sinned, and there is (apparently) no salvation for them", so how could He, who chose them to be the purveyors of His will, be said to be omnipotent [10]?
Ramchal's response is simply this: Whatever seems to thwart His will only does so because "He allows it to, for His own inscrutable reasons" as we'll see in the 2nd petach. So the point is that at bottom God is in utter command of everything, "nothing can thwart His wishes", and all other wills are in fact "subservient to Him" and His wishes.
In fact, Ramchal concludes quite astonishingly, "everything created … is a single, complete entity that manifests the truth of (God's) Yichud". That's to say that everything is controlled by God and specific to His purposes, thus underscoring the fact that only His will functions (fully)
and that He alone reigns (supreme).
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Notes:
[1] We may not discuss God Himself for a number of reasons: most significantly, we'd offer, because whatever we'd say about Him in His essence -- which is necessarily out of the context of reality as we know it -- would be incorrect. Since all the words, symbols, and references we would have to draw upon would be based on human experiences which are un-Godlike by definition. For even the term "Will" in relation to God is purely metaphorical, since even the suggestion of so subtle and recondite element as a will is still-and-all anthropomorphic, and only depicts God in relation to created beings rather than Himself. Ramchal said elsewhere that only God could grasp Himself (Derech Hashem 1:1:2), for as it had once been put, "If I knew Him, I would be Him" (Sefer HaIkkurim 2:30).
Now, the ramifications of the fact that we're neither able nor allowed to speak of God Himself are huge. Among many other things it implies that God Himself isn't addressed in the Torah, only His will for us; and it suggests that most arguments for or against belief in God are off-the-mark since they only touch upon His role as Creator without addressing His Being before creation.
It's also important to say that speaking of God Himself might lead one to inadvertently demean Him, and to so misunderstand Him that one would be worshipping a not-God rather than Him. Nonetheless we took it upon ourselves to explain the concept of God below because in point of fact Ramchal "defined" God in another work written for a wider readership than this one, Derech Hashem (The Way of God). And he did that there presumably in order to introduce and clarify the matter to some degree as well as to further the conversation along.
He wrote there (1:1:6, based on Maimonides's Yesodei HaTorah Ch. 1) that what one should understand about God is that He exists, that He's perfect, that His existence is imperative, that He's utterly self-sufficient, that He's simple (i.e., purely God and unalloyed), and that there's only one of Him. (We'll touch upon a bit of this in section 3 below.) He also indicated that our knowledge of Him is thanks to the traditions we have from the Forefathers and prophets, and from our mystical experience at God at Mount Sinai (1:1:2), when God appeared to us with the revelation of the Torah (see Exodus 19-20), and when we were on par with Moses' level of prophecy (Yesodei HaTorah 8:1,3).
The opening word's of the Ari's Eitz Chaim, "When God first willed to create beings…" may have inspired the notion of addressing God's will per se.
See the following citations about our not being able or allowed to speak of God Himself: Ramchal's Da'at Tevunot 80, Adir Bamarom p.59A, Ma'amar HaVichuach 44, and Ma'amar Yichud HaYirah; also see the Vilna Gaon at the end of his commentary to Sifra D'tzniutah, "Sod Hatzimtzum"; the beginning of HaRav m'Fano's Yonat Elim; Ramban's introduction to his commentary to the Torah, and Tikkunei Zohar 17a (Petach Eliyahu). Also see Maimonides' Guide for the Perplexed (1:58-59).
[2] Ramchal makes the distinction later on between being allowed to speak of the will rather than of "The One Who Wills" (the Ba'al HaRatzon rather than the ratzon). Also see Cordovero's Pardes (20:1).
[3] … given that His will is the very first and hence most tenuous point at which His Being and creation converge.
[4] Elsewhere Ramchal explains that the kabbalistic system serves three distinct functions over-all: it illustrates how the various names and depictions of God's traits offered in the Torah and elsewhere apply (which he terms Kabbalah's most "superficial" function); it demonstrates the fact that God will eventually exhibit His abiding beneficence, which will then lead to the undoing of all wrongdoing and to the ultimate reward of the righteous (which will be discussed in the 2nd
petach); and lastly (what Ramchal terms its most significant role) Kabbalah reveals God's Yichud and ever-presence, and shows just how everything will return to its Source (end of Iggrot Pitchei Chochma v'Da'at). This last, decidedly recondite, point -- which could perhaps be termed The Great Implosion -- is "the truth of the [Jewish] faith" cited above, which Ramchal contends few of us understand. We'll return to this idea.
An unknown student of Ramchal cited some other cogent reasons to study Kabbalah based on Ramchal's teachings, in a work known as Klallim Mitoch Sefer Milchemet Moshe (found on pp. 349- 365 of R' Friedlander's edition of Da'at Tevunot - Sefer HaKlallim) where it's explained there that we're actually enjoined to study it by the Torah itself.
[5] One more point is made about the role of Kabbalah at the end of the second petach, where we're told that "the benefit of studying … Kabbalah comes in knowing and understanding (all of the above) clearly"; as the Kabbalistic system will illustrate just how "the entire cycle of the universe is governed from beginning to end", hence by studying it we'll "see clearly (for ourselves just) how it is that everything comes only from God" and how "His … will to be beneficent will endure forever, and nothing else".
See Ramchal's Klallei Milchamot Moshe 1 for further discussion of the aim of Kabbalah study.
It's important to know that some latter-day Kabbalists disagreed with this assessment of the role of Kabbalah, including the Hassidic Master, Rabbi Meshulam Feivish of Zhebariza, the author of Yosher Divrei Emmet, who taught that we study Kabbalah so as to cling onto God's presence; and Rabbi Shlomo Eliyashuv, the author of Leshem Shevo v'Achlamah, who contended that limiting Kabbalah to a particular niche or outlook is inappropriate (Sefer HaDeah p. 57).
But see Rabbi Yaakov Moshe Charlop's Mai Marom Ch. 8 note 17 (cited by Rabbi S. Debliztky in his approbation to Rabbi Mordechai Shriki's Derech Chochmat haEmet) where he explains Ramchal's intentions.
[6] Ramchal also makes the point at the end of this petach that the entire structure upon which this foundation … is erected "refers to all that was brought into existence by God" both worldly and otherworldly, which is to say, the entire cosmic structure. And he refers to this structure again at the end of the 4th petach in another context. But that doesn't preclude our statement here, since our position is that everything that exists is discussed by the kabbalistic system (albeit sometimes very allusively).
[7] God's Yichud is one of Ramchal's foremost themes. See Da'at Tevunot 35, 38 for more on it.
Also see Rabbi Mordechai Shriki's Rechev Yisroel pp. 167-228 and his essay HaYichud in his commentary to Da'at Tevunot pp. 61-66. He makes the point there that Yichud hearkens to the Kabbalistic concepts of "Yichud Kudhsha Breich Hu u'Sheintu", the ultimate Union of God (HaKadosh Baruch Hu) and His Shechina. This hearkens back to the statement we cited in section 2 to the effect that what God wants most of all is "to bring the entire cycle of creation to perfection in the end" which this phenomenon refers to. It also refers to the statement made at the very end of this petach that "everything created … is a single, complete entity that manifests the truth of (God's) Yichud".
[8] See Derech Hashem (1:1: 3-4) and Rambam's Yesodei HaTorah (1:2).
[9] See the following for the concept of free will in Jewish Thought: Deuteronomy 30:15–19 and Sifre on Deuteronomy 53–54; Pirkei Avot 3:15; Emunot v' Deot (Ch. 4); Chovot Halevovot (3:8), Moreh Nevuchim (3:17), and Hilchot Teshuvah Ch. 5. Also see Ramchal's statement to the effect that free-will is not at all permanent and will be rescinded in The World to Come (Da'at Tevunot 40).
[10] See Da'at Tevunot 36.
(c) 2009 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman
Feel free to contact me at feldman@torah.org
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