"The Great Redemption" (47)
"The Great Redemption" by Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto
-- A Discourse on The End of the Exile and the Beginning of the Great Redemption
Translated by Rabbi Yaakov Feldman
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47.
Until now I’ve explained the emendation of holiness to you. I’ll now tell you about the cutting off of the husks, and you’ll see very wondrous mysteries (solved right before your eyes).
It’s written, “All the legions of Heaven will rot away and the Heavens will be rolled together like a scroll. Their legions will wither like a leaf from the vine and a fig from a fig tree” (Isaiah 34:4). Understand this great mystery.
The leaves from the Holy Tree will become stronger on each side. At first there’ll be seventy branches, then an infinite number of them. There will then be seventy other trees all about it, with a partition setting the holy apart from the profane. Nonetheless, the branches of external trees will mix in with the branches of the internal ones when people sin, and they grow stronger. But let me explain this because it’s profound.
Those (additional) trees couldn’t grow in holiness since they’re alien and of an external grouping. But human sins brought about some of these trees -- which are termed “branches” -- to mix in with and attach themselves onto the ends of, or even further past, the holy branches, depending on the extent of the sin (as those who know would understand). And those trees grew stronger without acknowledging their Master, and things came to ruin.
In fact, the seventy date-trees the Jewish Nation came upon in Elim (see Exodus 15:27 and Numbers 33:9) correspond to these seventy trees, since they serve and are subjugated to them, due to the fact that their branches are joined together, as I mentioned. And so holiness cannot rule and “servants (ride) upon horses while princes walk like servants upon the ground” (Ecclesiastes 10:7) as a consequence.
In order to rectify this damage we’d have to cut off these foreign plantings and pluck them from the boughs in which they sit so that they fall to the ground, and so that no harm whatsoever comes to the pure branches. Understand this well.
(c) 2006 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman
(Feel free to contact me at feldman@torah.org )
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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.
Rabbi Feldman also offers two free e-mail classes on www.torah.org entitled
"Spiritual Excellence" and "Ramchal"
-- A Discourse on The End of the Exile and the Beginning of the Great Redemption
Translated by Rabbi Yaakov Feldman
_____________________________________________
47.
Until now I’ve explained the emendation of holiness to you. I’ll now tell you about the cutting off of the husks, and you’ll see very wondrous mysteries (solved right before your eyes).
It’s written, “All the legions of Heaven will rot away and the Heavens will be rolled together like a scroll. Their legions will wither like a leaf from the vine and a fig from a fig tree” (Isaiah 34:4). Understand this great mystery.
The leaves from the Holy Tree will become stronger on each side. At first there’ll be seventy branches, then an infinite number of them. There will then be seventy other trees all about it, with a partition setting the holy apart from the profane. Nonetheless, the branches of external trees will mix in with the branches of the internal ones when people sin, and they grow stronger. But let me explain this because it’s profound.
Those (additional) trees couldn’t grow in holiness since they’re alien and of an external grouping. But human sins brought about some of these trees -- which are termed “branches” -- to mix in with and attach themselves onto the ends of, or even further past, the holy branches, depending on the extent of the sin (as those who know would understand). And those trees grew stronger without acknowledging their Master, and things came to ruin.
In fact, the seventy date-trees the Jewish Nation came upon in Elim (see Exodus 15:27 and Numbers 33:9) correspond to these seventy trees, since they serve and are subjugated to them, due to the fact that their branches are joined together, as I mentioned. And so holiness cannot rule and “servants (ride) upon horses while princes walk like servants upon the ground” (Ecclesiastes 10:7) as a consequence.
In order to rectify this damage we’d have to cut off these foreign plantings and pluck them from the boughs in which they sit so that they fall to the ground, and so that no harm whatsoever comes to the pure branches. Understand this well.
(c) 2006 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.
Rabbi Feldman also offers two free e-mail classes on www.torah.org entitled
"Spiritual Excellence" and "Ramchal"
posted by Rabbi Yaakov Feldman at 11:22 AM
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