In order to limit questions to at most 3 lines…

What I meant was that on the one hand, the author of Leshem seems to claim that there is an influence from divinity (light in a vessel) that really limits itself, and from what I understand that is anthropomorphism. Because the essence of the Infinite enters a vessel within a limit. And likewise from the standpoint of prayer, God forbid, to intermediary agents…

On the other hand, Ramchal’s second option is also problematic, because not every metaphor in Kabbalah can be translated into a concrete represented meaning.

I don’t understand the difficulty. It’s obvious that the influence of the Holy One, blessed be He, is given in a limited way. More than that, He Himself limited Himself in the contraction, otherwise we would not exist. What is problematic here?

How does the Rabbi know that otherwise we would not exist?

I don’t understand why God needs to limit Himself in order for us to be able to exist. Fine, limit His influence toward us — but why limit His essence? He simply shouldn’t act with His full power, as Ramchal says.
And therefore that seems more fitting than thinking that God sends some sort of arm that is literally part of His essence and limits it absolutely and not only relative to us, as the author of Leshem says. All the more so to limit His essence and make a void — that is anthropomorphism of the sort that makes it clear to me why Leibowitz cried out against it.

All the above views are altogether carcass and treifa.

Benjamin,
First, we are discussing the kabbalistic conception here. This is the kabbalistic conception. But reason also suggests it, since if He filled everything there would be no existence for anything besides Him. Once something besides Him exists, then there is some segment of reality that He does not fill.

Or,
I really can’t follow the discussion with you. You spoke about limiting His influence, and that is the topic. Now you move to limiting His essence? If that doesn’t sit well with you, you can assume that He didn’t limit Himself but only His influence. See my answer to Benjamin here.

Ah okay, your words did imply that you meant limiting His essence… since the contraction, according to many literalists, is in the Infinite Light, which is God’s essence. That’s fine.

1. The thing I can’t understand is how, philosophically, it is even possible to distinguish between God’s essence and His influence.
For if there is an influence that is not God’s essence, then it turns out there are two first things — God and His influence. (The light and the luminary.)

2. I can’t understand whether according to the author of Leshem, that limitation in that influence is made in the fact that the influence actually goes out toward the receiver, or whether it is truly a change in the essence of the influence?
Like, say, if I dim the light of a flashlight, or if I simply put sunglasses on the person I’m shining it on.

3. And if the answer to both of these is yes — that in 1, there is only God’s essence and His influence is simply the action of His essence, meaning the light and the luminary are literally one… and in 2, that the influence is limited only from the standpoint of the receiver and not in the influence itself in its essence — that the influence is only on the side of the receiver, and in reality there is infinite divinity acting toward the receiver in its essence without contracting either itself or its influence, but only the result on the ground toward the receiver… then we are back at Ramchal’s starting point — that we are speaking only from what is evident to our awareness and not about God’s reality or His influences in themselves.

The question of whether the Infinite Light is His essence is disputed.
1. If you think there is no distinction to be made, then assume that the contraction is in His essence. I don’t see the importance of that. But I didn’t understand why you think there are two primordial entities. He is the primordial one, and His influence is contracted. All of this seems to me like word games.
2. What practical difference does it make? I really don’t understand this complication.
3. See 1-2.

Rabbi Michi, what is the point of discussing some kabbalistic “conception” that has no meaning at all? The Ari got himself confused with “the Infinite” and had to resolve the confusion with “contraction,” meaning a contraction of the confusion.
What does the Rabbi have to do with this nonsense? What is missing without these absurdities?

I have a great deal of difficulty explaining this in writing rather than speech.

1. It seems hard to me to say that God contracts His essence… and on the other hand that there is an influence separate from Him. This is a fairly familiar philosophical problem from history (prime matter, Maimonides), as the Rabbi surely knows. And then it turns out there are apparently two primordial things.

2. The practical difference in the second point affects the first… because if there is contraction in the essence or in His influence, which is really the action of His essence (since we rejected the idea of an influence “like a ray newly emerging from Him,” which would require change in His essence… or duplication of Him or addition to Him, may He be blessed — all of which is one great philosophical nonsense, because adding to essential infinity is absurd).

Another point:
It seems that this might perhaps be settled through what Gersonides asks against Maimonides (Dr. Yazivitz’s tenth lecture on the Guide deals with this topic), when he asks: what is special about studying the metaphysical system? After all, it is openly available to all the sages of the world, so why count it as the wisdom of the secret and the Account of the Chariot? Or what is special about the Account of Creation, since the physical system too is openly available to the whole world?
And he says that the difference is between understanding all these sciences as a logical, systematic understanding of matter, the way one studies matter, versus the Account of the Chariot and the Account of Creation, which means taking this information and turning it into awareness — learning it as awareness and vision, like a kind of spiritual sense beyond the intuitive and its abstraction. And this resembles what Rabbi Michi says, and somewhat like the common example about the difference between learning everything about the color red when a person is color-blind, versus actually seeing the color red on the phenomenological, experiential level — in which case something is certainly newly gained, even if it is not necessarily a novelty on the level of understanding, but certainly a novelty on the level of awareness.

And this is one of the things that troubles me about the author of Leshem’s approach as opposed to Ramchal. Ramchal tries to reach a place of awareness and an attempt to bring the matters essentially to the micro level and to experience them as much as possible and abstract them. Whereas the author of Leshem’s approach says there is nothing to grasp — no represented meaning and no awareness — rather the whole thing is the study of an empty system.

Thank you for dedicating your time
Or

I don’t understand a word. I simply don’t understand. I don’t see the slightest difficulty and don’t know what to answer.
As for the distinction that Ramchal tries to reach awareness whereas Leshem treats this as a more intellectual kind of study — that is true. But such study is not an empty system. There is an understanding of the meaning of the ideas on the intellectual plane, even if it is not visual awareness or some other kind.

I’ll try in other words:
Ramchal claims that this is a matter of cognition.
Whereas the author of Leshem claims that these are objective spiritual factors.

Their source, according to the author of Leshem, would be from divinity… the difficulty, apparently, according to this approach, is that one ends up praying to those entities that came out from divinity on the one hand, and on the other hand there is the emergence of factors from divinity that are sub-divinities or something of that sort… or a division within divinity, God forbid.

This difficulty is great on both the philosophical and religious levels… whereas Ramchal’s approach does not fall into this difficulty.

Obviously, someone who does not believe in Kabbalah does not stumble over the failures within it. That is tautological. Leshem already wrote that Ramchal is not a kabbalist because he did not engage in Kabbalah. Kabbalah is engagement with the higher worlds and not with ourselves, even if by way of metaphors.
But in my opinion there is no failure here, because the upper garments of the Holy One, blessed be He, are created beings (or emanated beings), and they create no difficulty at all. One does not pray to them but to Him as He is revealed through them. The early author of Shomer Emunim already discussed this at length.
In short, these are difficulties that were already answered hundreds of years ago in fruitless disputes that were conducted back then. I do not see anything difficult here. One can accept it or not, but I do not see difficulties here.

I understand, thank you very much Rabbi.

Rabbi, just one more question. As for the claim that Ramchal is discussing this world — that actually doesn’t seem to fit.

Even if we assume that Ramchal says this is only about the governance of the world, in the end he is discussing God’s action. And that is not “nothing, just interpretation.”
For example, if we speak about the sefirah of kindness, then we are speaking about how the Holy One, blessed be He, acts in His essence in such a way that there is an act of influence upon the separate beings in the world of Beriah, which will continue in the chain down to the state of affairs here.
And this is not at all a discussion only about the governance of this world, both because one is speaking about the effect of the governance on the whole chain of all the worlds of Beriah, Yetzirah, and Asiyah, and also because one is speaking from the standpoint of the Creator’s action, which is real.
It is like if I say to you, “My father is performing a dance action,” and you would tell me there is nothing in that because we are not speaking and describing from the standpoint of his limbs but about the action of the dance. Since when is an action not a reality? The Holy One, blessed be He, performs an act in a way that we do not understand, but in the end there is an act of kindness here. That is not a reference only to this world… and there is no problem here either from the standpoint of anthropomorphism of God, because that is why one speaks of contraction — that God does not act according to His infinite reality but within a limit.
Thanks.

And here Ramchal writes on the subject:

“And if you say that all these things are metaphor and allusion to higher matters, to governance and its laws — that too cannot be said, for then most of these expositions would amount to nothing, since one hangs what is taught on what was not taught. And the words of the holy Rabbi of blessed memory, and the words of the earlier and later kabbalists, and above them all the words of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai of blessed memory, do not indicate this. Rather, they indicate that there is a real existence of these things in the sefirot themselves. And here is the place for clarifying the truth: for if this foundation is properly laid, everything is understood in actual understanding, openly and simply; and if this foundation is not proper, all the structures float in the air, and it is impossible to arrive at any understanding of the expositions at all.”
(138 Openings of Wisdom, Opening 7, p. 23)

Leshem’s claim is that engagement with this world is not Kabbalah. What you are describing is engagement with the actions of the Holy One, blessed be He, in this world. Studying physics or psychology is also engagement with His actions in this world. Is that too the study of Kabbalah?
The last source you brought from 138 Openings of Wisdom shows that Ramchal too understood that this is not a metaphor. As far as I know, there are contradictions in his thought on this issue, and Leshem refers to the sources where it appears to be a metaphor.

Therefore my claim is that neither option in the dispute according to the author of Leshem has a real basis.
1. If he meant it as a metaphor — and we are speaking about God’s governing of the factors of the higher worlds of Beriah, Yetzirah, and Asiyah — I do not see why one should relate only to the end of the chain, this world. God first governs the world of Beriah, which is the root of souls and separate beings. Why should such an argument be empty of kabbalistic content like studying psychology?

2. And if he did not mean that it is only a metaphor, then the author of Leshem’s objection falls away from the outset.

You reversed point 1. Leshem meant that according to Ramchal this is a metaphor, but not a metaphor describing higher worlds; just the opposite: kabbalistic discourse about higher worlds is a metaphor for human psychology and patterns of conduct in this world. That is not the field that Kabbalah deals with.

What I meant was that if, according to the way the author of Leshem understands Ramchal, this is a metaphor — then I claim that even according to that approach, from Ramchal’s wording it is impossible to argue that Ramchal is referring to something that describes only this world, since Ramchal explicitly speaks about all the worlds of Beriah, Yetzirah, and Asiyah, similar to the approach of Rabbi Yosef Ergas and Rabbi Herrera.

It’s just that Ramchal refers to what the author of Leshem says is called “created” as something that begins in the world of Beriah and not Atzilut.
Those first entities are created and belong to the world of Beriah and not to the world of Atzilut… those primary entities that the author of Leshem raised to the world of Atzilut. So what difference does it make where God begins and changes those created beings — in Atzilut or in Beriah? It is purely semantics.

Leshem understands that when Ramchal speaks about the worlds of Beriah, Yetzirah, and Asiyah, these are, in his view, metaphors for layers within the human soul. And certainly this is so in Atzilut and above.

I can’t understand how one could arrive at such an understanding of Ramchal… and besides, Ramchal himself spoke about a maggid that was revealed to him. So according to this approach of the author of Leshem, what was revealed to him? Himself?

Haha, of course I’m not complaining to the Rabbi.
I just think that the claim various kabbalists make against Ramchal is really baseless.

That is how Leshem understood Ramchal. Since I have not studied Ramchal, I have neither the ability nor the interest to clarify what he really thought. It also doesn’t seem important to me. The question is what is true and what is not, not what so-and-so thought or said.
As for your claim, the fact that a maggid was revealed to him does not say anything. Clearly Ramchal agreed that there are spiritual beings such as angels or maggidim. He also agreed that we have a soul. None of that has any connection to the question of the existence of the kabbalistic worlds.