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Chapter 10
Yet for all that, since the Torah spoke in the language of human beings, to ease the ear with what it is able to hear, permission was therefore given to the sages of truth to speak of the sefirot (divine channels) by way of a parable, and they called them lights, so that by means of this parable the matter of the unity of the Holy One, blessed be He, and His attributes might be a little understood by us. It is, by way of a parable, after the likeness of the unity of the light of the sun that is within the body of the globe of the sun with the body of the sun, which is called a luminary, as it is written (Genesis 1:16), “the great luminary,” and so on. And the radiance and the spark that spreads out and shines from it is called light, as it is written (Genesis 1:5), “And Elohim called the light day.” And when the light is in its source, in the body of the sun, it is united with it in the utmost unity, for there is there only one substance, which is the body of the luminary that shines. For the radiance and the light there are truly one substance with the body of the luminary that shines, and it has no existence at all by itself.
And exactly like these things, and more than this, are the attributes of the Holy One, blessed be He, and His will and His wisdom, in the world of Emanation, with His essence and His very self, as it were, which clothes itself within them and unites with them in the utmost unity, since they were drawn and emanated from Him, from Him, blessed be He, by way of a parable, in the manner of the spreading of the light from the sun. But not actually in this manner, only in a manner distant and wondrous beyond our grasp, for His ways are high above our ways. Even so, to ease the ear, we will listen and we will reflect from the parable of the light of the sun, which is united and nullified in its source and does not rise to a name at all by itself, only the name of the source alone. So all the attributes of the Holy One, blessed be He, and His will and His wisdom, do not rise and are not called by these names at all, except in relation to the created beings, upper and lower. Their coming into being, and their life force, and their conduct, in that the Holy One, blessed be He, brings them into being and gives them life and conducts them, is by His will and His wisdom and His understanding and His knowledge that clothe themselves in His holy attributes, as it is stated in the Midrash (Chagigah 12a): By ten things the world was created, by wisdom, by understanding, and by knowledge, and so on, as it is written (Proverbs 3:19), “Hashem (God) with wisdom founded the earth, He made the heavens firm with understanding, with His knowledge the deeps were split open,” and so on, and as the saying of Elijah, “You brought forth ten arrangements, and we call them ten sefirot, to conduct with them hidden worlds that are not revealed and worlds that are revealed, and with them You are concealed,” and so on.
By way of a parable, on the first day of the six days of Creation the attribute of kindness was revealed, comprised of all His holy attributes, and His will and His wisdom and His understanding and His knowledge were clothed in it, and with it He created the light, by the utterance “Let light be” (Genesis 1:3), which is the aspect of the spreading and the drawing down of the light into the world from above, and its spreading in the world from the end of the world to its end, which is the aspect of the attribute of kindness. Only, because it is also comprised of the attribute of might, it was therefore not spiritual, truly like the light from above, and it was also clothed in this world, which is in the aspect of limit and bound, which is a journey of 500 years from the earth to the firmament and from east to west. And so on the second day the attribute of might was revealed, comprised of the rest of the attributes and His will, and so on, and with it He created the firmament, by the utterance “Let a firmament be in the midst of the waters, and let it divide between waters and waters” (Genesis 1:6), which is the aspect of tzimtzum (a contraction of light) and of severities, to conceal the upper spiritual waters from the lower waters, and by this the lower ones became material in their being separated from the upper ones. And the attribute of kindness is comprised in it, for “By kindness a world is built” (Psalms 89:3), since the whole is so that the dry land be seen, and a human upon it, to serve Hashem. And so all of them. And this is what Elijah said in the Tikkunim, there: “to show how the world is conducted with righteousness and justice, and so on. Righteousness is judgment, justice is mercy, and so on. All of it is to show how the world is conducted. But it is not that You have a known righteousness that is judgment, nor a known justice that is mercy, nor any of all those attributes at all.”
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