[Avodah] Challenge: Finding Spirituality w/o Qabbalah

[Micha Berger]

On Wed, Jul 08, 2009 at 02:13:15PM +0000, rabbirichwolpoe at gmail.com wrote:
: Caveat: Remember that a Sefer like Mesillas Yesharim was written by
: Ramchal - and so my friend woud claim that it ostensibly has Qabbalistic
: overtones

It's very hard to see anything esoteric in MY. (And I'm teaching MY
next year in a "Center for Mindfulness" to a group of C Jews. So I've
actually actively looked for something to tease out some interest from
them that way.)

Horeb gives a path to spirtuality, but Dayan Grunfeld and R' Breuer
argued that it's heavily drawn from the Zohar.

Or Yisrael (RYS) has far less qabbalah, but he drew ideas from MY,
so if the Ramchal pulled qabbalah in... But im kein, ein ladavar sof;
everything was touched by it. ("Everything" is guzma; I don't mean to
include the Darda'im and other pocket communities.)

The Moreh, third cheileq, I presume gives one. But the Rambam's whole
intellectualization of spirituality -- ahavah means loving Him, mitzvos
are to create the right thoughts, etc... -- stretches the intuitive
definition of spirituality.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             In the days of our sages, man didn't sin unless
micha at aishdas.org        he was overcome with a spirit of foolishness.
http://www.aishdas.org   Today, we don't do a mitzvah unless we receive
Fax: (270) 514-1507      a spirit of purity.      - Rav Yisrael Salanter