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Chapter 4
For behold, it is written (Psalms 84:12): “For a sun and a shield are Hashem (God) Elohim.” The meaning of “shield” is a sheath for the sun, to give protection, so that the creatures will be able to bear it. As the saying of our rabbis, of blessed memory (Avodah Zarah 3b): In the time to come the Holy One, blessed be He, brings the sun out of its sheath. The wicked are judged by it, and so on. And as the sheath shields against the sun, so the name Elohim is a shield for the name Havayah, blessed be He. For the meaning of the name Havayah is that He brings everything into being from nothing into something, and the yod serves for the action, which is in the form of the present and of the continual, as Rashi explained on the verse (Job 1:5), “So Job would do, all the days.” And this is the life force that is flowed, in every moment actually, into all the creatures, from what issues from the mouth of Hashem and from His spirit, and it brings them into being from nothing into something in every moment. For it is not enough for them, that they were created in the six days of creation, that they should endure by that, as was explained above.
Now, in the order of the praises of the Holy One, blessed be He, it is written (Jeremiah 32:18; Nehemiah 9:32): “the great, the mighty,” and so on. And the meaning of “the great” is the attribute of kindness, and the spreading of the life force into all the worlds and creatures, without end and without limit, so that they be created from nothing into something and endure by a free kindness. And it is called “greatness,” for it comes from the greatness of the Holy One, blessed be He, in His glory and in His very self, for Hashem is great, “and His greatness has no searching out” (Psalms 145:3). And therefore He also bestows life force, and coming into being from nothing into something, upon worlds and creatures without end, for the nature of the good is to do good.
Now, as this attribute is the praise of the Holy One, blessed be He, alone, for no creature has the power to create something from nothing and to give it life. And this attribute is also above the understanding of all the creatures and their grasp, for there is no power in the intellect of any creature to comprehend and to grasp this attribute and its power to create something from nothing and to give it life. For the creation of something from nothing is a thing that is above the intellect of the creatures, for it is from the attribute of the greatness of the Holy One, blessed be He. And the Holy One, blessed be He, and His attributes are a simple unity, as is found in the holy Zohar, that He and His organs are one. And just as no created intellect has the power to grasp its Creator, so it cannot grasp His attributes.
And just as no created intellect has the power to grasp the attribute of His greatness, which is the power to create something from nothing and to give it life, as it is written (Psalms 89:3) (Psalms 89:3): “The world shall be built by kindness,” so, exactly, it has no power to grasp the attribute of the might of the Holy One, blessed be He, which is the attribute of tzimtzum (a contraction of light) and the withholding of the spread of the life force from His greatness, so that it not come down and be revealed upon the creatures, to give them life and to sustain them in a revealed way, but only in a hiding of the face, so that the life force is hidden in the body of the creature, and it is as if the body of the creature is a thing in its own right, and is not a spreading of the life force and the spirituality, as the radiance and the light spread from the sun, but it is a thing in its own right.
And even though in truth it is not a thing in its own right, but like the spreading of the light from the sun, even so, these are precisely the acts of might of the Holy One, blessed be He, who can do all, to contract the life force and the spirituality that is flowed from the breath of His mouth and to hide it, so that it not nullify the body of the creature in existence. And of this, there is not in the intellect of any creature the power to grasp the essence of the tzimtzum and of the hiding, and that even so the body of the creature is created from nothing into something, just as there is no power in the intellect of any creature to grasp the essence of the creation from nothing into something.
[Now, the aspect of the tzimtzum and of the hiding of the life force is called by the name vessels, and the life force itself is called by the name light. For as the vessel covers over what is inside it, so the aspect of the tzimtzum covers and hides the light and the life force that flows. And the vessels are the letters themselves, whose root is the five letters mem, nun, tzadi, pe, and kaf, which are the five mights that divide and separate the breath and the voice in the five outlets of the mouth, so that the 22 letters come into being. And the root of the five mights is the lamp of darkness, which is the supernal might of the Ancient of Days, and the root of the kindnesses is also the kindness of the Ancient of Days, as is known to those who know grace.]
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