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Chapter 2
And the second nefesh (the lowest level of the soul) in Israel is, in fact, a part of Elohim from above. As it is written (Genesis 2:7): “and He breathed into his nostrils a neshamah of life,” and “You breathed into me” (the blessing “My Elohim, the neshamah,” in the morning service). And as it is written in the Zohar (see in the book HaKaneh, on the portion Bereshit, folio 47b, in the edition of the year 5757: and He breathed into his nostrils a neshamah of life. He who breathes, from his own he breathes.): He who breathes, breathes from within it. The meaning is, from his inwardness and from his inner part. For the inwardness and the inner part of the life force that is in the person, he brings out in his breathing, with force. So, by way of a parable, the souls of Israel rose in thought. As it is written: “My son, My firstborn, Israel” (Exodus 4:22), “you are children to Hashem (God) your Elohim” (Deuteronomy 14:1). The meaning is, as the son is drawn from the brain of the father, so, so to speak, the soul of every man of Israel was drawn from His thought and His wisdom, blessed be He. For He is wise, and not with a wisdom that is known (the Opening of Elijah). Rather, He and His wisdom are one. And as the Rambam (Maimonides) wrote (Rambam (Maimonides), Laws of the Foundations of the Torah 2:10),
Gloss: And the sages of the Kabbalah agreed with him, as is written in the Pardes of the Ramak. And also according to the received teaching of the Ari (Rabbi Isaac Luria), of blessed memory, the matter stands firm, in the mystery of the clothing of the light of Ein Sof (the Endless), blessed be He, through many contractions, in the vessels of wisdom, understanding, and knowledge of Atzilut (emanation). But not above Atzilut. And as has been explained in another place, Ein Sof, blessed be He, is exalted and raised high, an exaltation without end, high, high above the essence and the aspect of Chabad, wisdom, understanding, and knowledge, until the essence and the aspect of Chabad is reckoned as a bodily deed beside Him, blessed be He. As it is written (Psalms 104:24): “All of them You made with wisdom.”
that He is the knowledge and He is the knower, and so on. And this matter is not in the power of a person to understand it in its clear truth, and so on. As it is written (Job 11:7): “Will you find the searching of Elohim?” And it is written (Isaiah 55:8): “For My thoughts are not your thoughts,” and the rest.
And though there are myriads of kinds of divisions of levels in the souls, high above high, without end, such as the greatness of the rank of the souls of the fathers and of Moses our teacher, peace upon them, over the souls of these generations of ours, of the heels of the Messiah, for they are in fact the aspect of heels as against the brain and the head. And so in every generation and generation there are heads of the thousands of Israel, whose souls are the aspect of head and brain as against the souls of the multitude and the people of the land. And so nefashot as against nefashot, for every nefesh is composed of nefesh, ruach, and neshamah. Even so, the root of all the nefesh, ruach, and neshamah, all of them, from the head of all the levels to the end of all the rungs, that which is clothed in the body of the people of the land and of the lightest of the light, is drawn from the upper brain, which is supernal wisdom, so to speak, like the parable of the son who is drawn from the brain of the father. For even the nails of his feet came to be from this very drop, by its staying nine months in the mother’s womb, and it went down from level to level, to be changed, and for nails to come to be from it. And with all this it is still bound and united, in a wondrous and mighty union, in its essence and its first substance, which had been the drop of the father’s brain. And also now, in the son, the nourishment of the nails and their life is drawn from the brain that is in the head. As it is stated in the Gemara [Niddah, there (Niddah 31a)]: the white, from which come sinews, and bones, and nails.
[And as is written in the Tree of Life, the gate of the chashmal, in the mystery of the garments of the first man in the garden of Eden, that they were nails from the aspect of the brain of discernment.]
And exactly so, in fact, so to speak, in the root of all the nefesh, ruach, and neshamah of the whole of Israel above, in its descent from level to level by the chaining down of the worlds, Atzilut, Beriah (creation), Yetzirah (formation), and Asiyah (making), from His wisdom, blessed be He. As it is written (Psalms 104:24): “All of them You made with wisdom.” From it came to be the nefesh, ruach, and neshamah of the people of the land and of those low in worth. And with all this they are still bound and united, in a wondrous and mighty union, in their essence and their first substance, which is the drawing down of supernal wisdom. For the nourishment and the life of the nefesh, ruach, and neshamah of the people of the land is from the nefesh, ruach, and neshamah of the tzaddikim (a tzaddik is a righteous person) and the sages, the heads of the children of Israel in their generation.
And by this the saying of the sages of blessed memory will be understood (Ketubot 111b), on the verse (Deuteronomy 30:20), “and to cling to Him,” that anyone who clings to a sage, Scripture counts it for him as if he clung to the Shekhinah (the divine presence) in fact. For by clinging to the sages, the nefesh, ruach, and neshamah of the people of the land are bound and united in their first essence and their root that is in supernal wisdom, for He, blessed be He, and His wisdom are one, and He is the knowledge, and so on. [And those who offend and those who rebel against the sages, the nourishment of their nefesh, ruach, and neshamah is from the aspect of the backs of the nefesh, the ruach, and the neshamah of the sages.]
And what is written in the Zohar (Zohar I 112a) and in the New Zohar (the Hidden Midrash, the portion Bereshit), that the main thing depends on his sanctifying himself at the time of marital union, specifically, which is not so with the children of the people of the land, and so on, that is because you have no nefesh, ruach, and neshamah that does not have a garment from the nefesh of the very substance of his father and his mother. And all the mitzvot (commanded deeds) that he does, all of it is by means of that garment, and so on. And even the flow that they give him from heaven, all of it is by means of this garment. And if he sanctifies himself, he draws a holy garment for the soul of his son. And even if it is a great soul, it needs the sanctification of his father, and so on. But the soul itself, behold, sometimes the soul of a person high without end comes to be the son of a person who is despised and low, and so on, as the Ari, of blessed memory, wrote all this in Collected Teachings on the Torah, the portion Vayera, and in the Reasons of the Commandments, the portion Bereshit.
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