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Chapter 3
And behold, every aspect and every level of these three, nefesh (the lowest level of the soul), ruach, and neshamah, is composed of ten aspects, corresponding to the ten upper sefirot (divine channels) from which they came down in a chain, which divide into two. They are three mothers and seven doubles. The meaning is, wisdom, understanding, and knowledge, and the seven days of the building: kindness, might, splendor, and so on. And so in the nefesh of a person, which divides into two, intellect and traits. The intellect includes wisdom, understanding, and knowledge. And the traits are love of Hashem (God), and dread of Him, and awe of Him, and to glorify Him, and so on. And wisdom, understanding, and knowledge are called mothers and a source for the traits, for the traits are the offspring of wisdom, understanding, and knowledge.
And the explanation of the matter is this. For behold, the intellect in the understanding nefesh, which is what understands every thing, is called by the name wisdom: koach mah, the power of “what.” And when it brings its power out into act, in that it reflects with its intellect to understand a thing in its true state and in its depth, from out of some matter of wisdom grasped in its intellect, it is called understanding. And these are the father and the mother that give birth to love of Hashem, and awe of Him, and dread of Him. For the intellect in the understanding nefesh, when it reflects and goes very deep into the greatness of Hashem, how He fills all worlds and surrounds all worlds, and all before Him is reckoned as nothing, then the trait of awe of loftiness is born and awakened in his brain and his thought, to be in awe and to be ashamed before His greatness, blessed be He, which has no end and no limit, and dread of Hashem is in his heart. And then his heart flames in a fierce love, like sparks of fire, with ardent attachment, and with delight, and with longing, and a nefesh that thirsts, for the greatness of Ein Sof (the Endless), blessed be He. And this is the pining of the nefesh. As it is written (Psalms 84:3): “My nefesh longed, and it also pined away,” and the rest. And it is written (Psalms 42:3): “My nefesh thirsted for Elohim,” and the rest. And it is written (Psalms 63:2): “It thirsted for You, my nefesh,” and the rest. And the thirst is from the element of fire in the nefesh elokit (the soul from God). And as the naturalists wrote, and so it is in the Tree of Life, that the element of fire is in the heart, and the source of the water and the moisture is from the brain. And as is written in the Tree of Life, gate 50, that it is the aspect of wisdom, which is called water, in the nefesh elokit. And all the rest of the traits are branches of the awe and the love, and their offspring, as we explained in another place.
And knowledge is from the wording of (Genesis 4:1) “and the man knew Chavah,” and it is a wording of binding and of joining. He binds his mind with a very firm and strong bond, and he fixes his thought with strength in the greatness of Ein Sof, blessed be He, and he does not turn his mind away. For even one who is wise and discerning in the greatness of Ein Sof, blessed be He, behold, if he does not bind his mind and fix his thought with strength and with constancy, he will not bring to birth in his nefesh true awe and love, but only empty images. And therefore knowledge is the upholding of the traits and their life. And it includes kindness and might. The meaning is, love and its branches, and awe and its branches.
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