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Chapter 12
Only, the creatures are divided into their kinds, in general and in particular, by changes of the combinations and the exchanges and the substitutions, as mentioned above. For every letter is a drawing down of a distinct, particular life force and power, and when many letters are combined so as to be a word, then, besides the many kinds of powers and life force that are drawn according to the number of the letters in the word, there is yet this, which rises above them all: a drawing down of an upper power and a general life force, which includes and is of equal weight against all the kinds of the particular powers and life force of the letters, and rises above them, and it joins them and combines them together, to bestow power and life force on the world created in this word, for its whole and for its particulars.
Gloss: (And because each and every letter of the 22 letters of the Torah is a drawing down of a distinct, particular life force and power that is not drawn in another letter, therefore also their form in writing, each letter is in a distinct, particular form that indicates the shape of the drawing down and the revelation of the light and the life force and the power that is revealed and drawn in this letter, how it is drawn and revealed from the attributes of the Holy One, blessed be He, and His will and His wisdom, and so on.)
For example, by way of a parable, in the words that are in the utterance “Let a firmament be,” and so on (Genesis 1:6), in which the 7 firmaments were created, and all the host of the heavens that is in them, as our rabbis, of blessed memory, said (Chagigah 12b): “Shehakim,” in which mills stand and grind manna for the righteous, and so on, “Zevul,” in which are Jerusalem and the Holy Temple and the altar, and so on, “Makhon,” in which are storehouses of snow and storehouses of hail, and so on. For the firmaments as a whole were created and live and endure in the whole of these words that are in the utterance “Let a firmament be,” and so on, and the particulars of the creatures that are in the 7 firmaments, each particular of them was created and lives and endures from some combination of letters from these words, or from their exchanges and their substitutions, which are according to the aspect of the life force of that particular creature. For every change of combination is a composing and a weaving of the powers and the life force in a different way, for every letter that comes first in the combination is the one that prevails, and it is the principal thing in this creation, and the rest are secondary to it and are included in its light, and by this a new creature is created. And so, by exchanges of letters or their substitutions, new creatures are created, lower in excellence in relation to the creatures from the letters themselves. For they are, by way of a parable, like the likeness of the light that shines at night on the earth from the moon, and the light of the moon is from the sun, and so the light that is on the earth is the light of the light of the sun.
And exactly so, by way of a parable, the letters that are in the utterances are the whole of the drawing down of the life force and the light and the power from the attributes of the Holy One, blessed be He, to create the worlds from nothing to something and to give them life and to sustain them for all the time of the span of His will, blessed be He. And from the whole of this drawing down and this great illumination, Hashem (God) shone and drew from it its offspring, like it, and its branches, which are offspring and a drawing down of the light from the letters, and these very ones are exchanges of letters and their substitutions, and with them He created particular creatures in every world. And so Hashem shone further and drew and brought down an illumination of an illumination of an illumination from the illuminations of the letters, and so He drew further and brought down, down to the very lowest, in the aspect of a chain of descent, until the inanimate was truly created, such as stones and dust, and their names, “stone” and “dust,” are exchanges of exchanges, and so on, and substitutions of substitutions, and so on, as mentioned above.
Part two is completed, with the help of Hashem, blessed and exalted.
Previous: Part 2, Chapter 11. Book contents.
