[Avodah] Challenge: Finding Spirituality w/o Qabbalah

[Simon Montagu]

On Wed, Jul 8, 2009 at 10:34 AM, Micha Berger <micha at aishdas.org> wrote:

> 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.)
>

RSW z"l has a fascinating remark about this at the end of Alei Shur Vol 1
Ch. 3 (p.30):

"Admor Ma'or `Eineinu Maran R. Yerucham zt"l used to say that MY is a
summing-up [or "the essence"] of all RMHL' z"l's  books on Kabbala, and I
heard the same from Mori veRabbi Hagaon R. Yitzchak Hutner zt"l. That is to
say, it is totally based on Hochmat Ha'Emet -- and when we learned it we
didn't realize! This is indeed preparation for the internals[1]  of the
Tora: by learning this marvellous book early and often, without drudgery or
routine, we will gradually become accustomed to finding the internal in his
words -- and in ourselves. Anyone who hasn't accustomed himself to this kind
of learning, and then comes to books of Kabbala in which the internal is not
concealed from view, will turn the internal knowledge into external. The
gateway to the truly internal (penimiut ha'emet] is MY."

[1] My apologies: "internals" is a terrible English translation of
"penimiut", maybe one that only a programmer who is used to hearing it as
programming jargon would have come up with
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