Unlike the rest of the work this first part of Klach Pitchei Chochma, which is comprised of the first four petachim, hardly touches upon Kabbalah per se, but rather offers a rationale for the book as a whole.
The petachim themselves (without Ramchal's comments) read as follows:
1.
"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.
2. The Emanator wants only (to do) good, so nothing but (manifestations of) His goodness exists. Hence, whatever is initially wrongful (by all appearances) does not emanate from another sphere of influence that could oppose Him (as we might think) -- God forbid; instead it will undoubtedly (prove to be) good in the end. And (thanks to that) it will be known that there's no sphere of influence apart from Him.
3. The world was ultimately created so that God could be beneficent in accordance with His generous desire to bestow utmost goodness (upon the universe).
4. The Infinite One wanted to express utter and complete benevolence
in such a way that its recipients wouldn't be ashamed to accept it. So He set out to (eventually) reveal His Yichud, (and to thus show) that He has neither deterrents nor defects.
He accordingly established the system of governance that He now uses (which is the gist of what the Kabbalistic system sets out to illustrate), thanks to which wrongfulness will (eventually) revert to goodness.
For while God initially granted wrongdoing a realm in which to do what it can, in the end all harm will be rectified and all wrong will revert to actual goodness. And God's Yichud will thus be revealed, (the experience of) which will in fact be the delight of the souls.
This section is best summarized by the following statement of Ramchal's made elsewhere:
Even before The Infinite did everything He was to eventually do (in the cosmos) He had the ability to do (absolutely) everything (including what He decided not to do; thus everything He manifest came about with a purpose in mind). But (what) you need to know (about Him in order to understand His ways in this world is) that He is infinitely good and that all He wants to do is to be infinitely benevolent (to all). Understand, though, that being "infinitely benevolent" involves even allowing wrongfulness to revert to (its original a state of) goodness (when, like goodness itself, wrongfulness was a part of God's thoughts for creation). But (the realization of) that (like so much else in the workings of the cosmos) also depends on (the eventual revelation of) God's Yichud, i.e., on the (revelation of the) fact that His reign is supreme and that all He wants to do is to be benevolent (despite appearances to the contrary). And so (it will eventually be found that) wrong will not have ruled and been permanent (as it seems to have been), despite the thinking of the heretics of old (i.e., Zoroastrians) who claimed that there were two ruling entities (i.e. a benevolent one in charge of goodness and a countervailing malevolent one in charge of wrongfulness), God forbid. (In the end it will be shown that) all wrong will necessarily be overturned to good by means of (the revelation of) God's benevolent Yichud. And we will thus understand that two (apparently divergent) phenomena are actually connected: God's will to be benevolent -- which is an element of His infinite goodness -- and His (eventually) reverting of all wrongfulness to goodness."
Ma'amar Reisha v'Saifah, (as found in Adir Bamarom 2, p. 35)
The rest of Klach Pitchei Chochma will then lay out the Kabbalistic dynamics behind all of that, since the Kabbalistic system is the best one to do that. We'll now expand on the above ideas by citing Ramchal's own comments and explaining them.
© 2009 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman
