Previous: Part 2, Chapter 6. Book contents. Next: Part 2, Chapter 8.
Chapter 7
With this one can understand what is written in the holy Zohar. The verse “Hear, Israel” is the upper unification, and “Blessed be the Name of the glory of His kingdom forever and ever” is the lower unification, for “va’ed” (“and ever”) is “echad” (“one”) by exchange of the letters. The cause and the reason of this tzimtzum (a contraction of light) and of this hiding, by which the Holy One, blessed be He, hid and concealed the vitality of the world so that the world would appear as a thing separate in its own right, are known to all. The purpose of the creation of the world is the revelation of His kingship, blessed be He, for there is no king without a people. The meaning is that “am” (“people”) comes from the language of “omemot” (“dimmed things”), things that are separate, foreign, and far from the rank of the king. Even if he had very many children, the name of kingship would not apply to them, and the same is true even of ministers by themselves. Only in a multitude of people, specifically, is the splendor of a king. The Name that points to the attribute of His kingship, blessed be He, is the Name of Lordship, for He is Lord of all the earth. So this attribute and this Name are what bring the world into being and keep it in being, so that it is a world as it is now: a complete independent existence, a thing separate in its own right, and not nullified in actual existence. For if this attribute and this Name were to withdraw, God spare us, the world would return to its source in the word of Hashem (God) and the breath of His mouth, blessed be He, and it would be nullified there in actual existence, and the name “world” would not apply to it at all. The definition and the aspect of the name “world” fall specifically on the aspect of place and the aspect of time. The aspect of place is east and west, north and south, above and below. The aspect of time is past, present, and future.
Now none of these aspects has any connection with the supernal holy attributes, except with the attribute of His kingship, blessed be He, alone. Of that attribute alone is it fitting to say that He, blessed be He, is King above, without end, and below, without limit, and likewise to the four sides, and likewise in the aspect of time: “Hashem is king, Hashem was king, Hashem will be king.” So the vitality of place, and likewise the vitality of time, and their coming into being from nothing into something, and their lasting for the whole time that they last, are from the attribute of His kingship, blessed be He, and from the Name of Lordship, blessed be He. And because the attribute of His kingship, blessed be He, is united with His essence and His being, blessed be He, in the utmost union, as will be explained, therefore the aspect of place and of time is also nullified in actual existence before His essence and His being, blessed be He, as the light of the sun is nullified in the sun. This is the interweaving of the Name of Lordship into the Name Havayah. For the Name Havayah shows that He is above time, since He was, is, and will be in one moment, as it is written [in the Faithful Shepherd, the portion of Pinchas]. And likewise He is above the aspect of place, for He constantly brings the whole aspect of place into being, from above all the way down, and to the four sides.
Now although He, blessed be He, is above place and time, nevertheless He is also found below, in place and in time. That is, He unites with the attribute of His kingship, from which place and time are drawn and come into being. And this is the lower unification [the interweaving of Havayah into the Name of Lordship, blessed be He]. That is, His essence and His being, blessed be He, which is called by the name Ein Sof (the Endless), blessed be He, actually fills the whole earth, in time and in place. For in the heavens above, and on the earth, and to the four sides, everything is filled from the light of Ein Sof, blessed be He, truly equally, since it is so on the earth below exactly as in the heavens above. For all of it is an aspect of place, nullified in its existence in the light of Ein Sof, blessed be He, which clothes itself in it by means of the attribute of His kingship, which is united with Him, blessed be He. Only, the attribute of His kingship is the attribute of tzimtzum and of hiding, to hide the light of Ein Sof, blessed be He, so that time and place will not be nullified out of their existence completely. Otherwise no aspect of time and place would remain in existence at all, even for the lower beings.
From what has been explained, one can understand what is written (Malachi 3:6), “I, Hashem, have not changed.” The meaning is that there is no change at all. As He was alone before the creation of the world, so He is alone after it was created. And this is what we say: “You are He before the world was created, You are He,” and so on, with no change in His being, and none in His knowledge. For by knowledge of Himself He knows all created beings, since everything is from Him and is nullified in existence before Him. And as Maimonides, of blessed memory, wrote, He is the knower, and He is the known, and He is knowledge itself, all one. And there is no power in the mouth to say this thing, nor in the ear to hear it, nor in the heart of a person to know it as it truly is. For the Holy One, blessed be He, His essence and His being and His knowledge are all truly one, from every side and every corner, in every manner of union. And His knowledge is not something added to His essence and His being, as it is in the soul of a person, whose knowledge is something added to its essence and is compounded in it. For when a person studies and comes to know some matter, his thinking soul was already in him before he studied and knew, and after he studied and knew, this knowledge was added in his soul. And so it is from day to day. “Days will speak, and a wealth of years will declare wisdom” (Job 32:7). And this is not a simple unity, but a composite one. But the Holy One, blessed be He, is a simple unity, without any composition and without any side of plurality at all. If so, then of necessity His essence and His being and His knowledge are all truly one thing, without any composition. Therefore, just as it is impossible for any created being in the world to grasp the essence of the Creator and His being, so it is impossible to grasp the essence of His knowledge. One can only believe with a faith that is above the intellect and above grasp, that the Holy One, blessed be He, is singular and unique, and that He and His knowledge are all truly one. And by knowledge of Himself He recognizes and knows all beings, upper and lower, down to a small worm in the sea and down to a small gnat that might be at the center of the earth. Nothing is hidden from Him. And this knowledge adds in Him no plurality and no composition at all, since it is only knowledge of Himself, and His being and His knowledge are all one.
And because this is very hard to picture in our intellect, the prophet therefore said (Isaiah 55:9): “For the heavens are high above the earth, so are My ways high above your ways, and My thoughts above your thoughts.” And it is written (Job 11:7): “Will you find how far Elohim can be searched?” and so on. And it is written: “Are Your eyes fleshly eyes? Is Your seeing like the seeing of a mortal?” For a person sees and knows all things by a knowledge that is outside him, while the Holy One, blessed be He, knows by knowledge of Himself. Thus far his words. [See there in the Laws of the Foundations of the Torah (Maimonides, Laws of the Foundations of the Torah 2:10), and the sages of Kabbalah agreed with him, as is explained in the Pardes of the Ramak, of blessed memory.]
From here one can understand the error of some who are wise in their own eyes. May Hashem atone for them. They blundered and they erred in their study of the writings of the Ari, of blessed memory, and they understood the matter of the tzimtzum mentioned there in its plain sense: that the Holy One, blessed be He, removed Himself and His essence, God spare us, from this world, and only watches from above with particular providence over all the creatures, those in the heavens above and on the earth below. Now, besides the fact that it is entirely impossible to speak of the matter of tzimtzum in its plain sense, which is something that befalls a body, concerning the Holy One, blessed be He, who is separated from such things by myriads upon myriads of separations, without end, they also do not speak this with knowledge. For they are believers, children of believers, that the Holy One, blessed be He, knows all the creatures in this low world and watches over them. And of necessity His knowledge of them adds in Him no plurality and no newness, because He knows everything by knowledge of Himself. So, if one may speak so, His essence and His being and His knowledge are all one.
And this is what is written in the Tikkunim, Tikkun 57, that there is no place empty of Him, not in the upper ones and not in the lower ones. And in the Faithful Shepherd, the portion of Pinchas: He holds everything, and there is none who holds Him, and so on. He is sovev kol almin (surrounding all worlds), and so on, and there is none who goes out from His domain to the outside. He is memale kol almin (filling all worlds), and so on. He binds and unites kind with its kind, upper and lower, and there is no nearness in the four elements except in the Holy One, blessed be He, when He is among them. Thus far his words. And the meaning is: “there is none who holds Him,” that there is no one who can grasp, by the reach of his intellect, among all the supernal intellects, the essence and the being of the Holy One, blessed be He, as it is written in the Tikkunim: “Hidden of all hidden ones, and no thought grasps You at all.”
And also in the lower realms, even though He fills all worlds, He is not like the soul of a person inside his body, which is caught inside the body until it is affected and receives changes from the changes of the body and its pain, from blows, or cold, or the heat of fire, and the like. It is not so with the Holy One, blessed be He, who receives no change from the changes of this world, from summer to winter and from day to night, as it is written (Psalms 139:12): “Even darkness does not darken before You, and night shines as the day.” For He is not caught inside the worlds at all, even though He fills them.
And this is also the matter of sovev kol almin. The meaning, by way of a parable, is this. When a person contemplates some matter of wisdom in his intellect, or a physical thing in his thought, then his intellect and his thought surround that thing which is pictured in his thought or in his intellect, but they do not surround that thing itself, in actual deed. But the Holy One, blessed be He, of whom it is written (Isaiah 55:8), “For My thoughts are not the thoughts you have,” and so on, His thought and His knowledge, by which He knows all created beings, surround each and every created being in actual deed. For that very knowledge is its vitality and its coming into being from nothing into something, in actual deed.
And memale kol almin is the aspect of the vitality that clothes itself inside the very substance of the created being, which is contracted inside it in a great contraction, according to the measure of the created being’s own nature. That being has a bound and a limit in its quantity and its quality, that is, its rank and its importance. For example the sun, whose body has a bound and a limit in its quantity, for it is about 167 times the size of the globe of the earth. And its quality and its rank, which is its light, likewise has a bound as to how far it can shine, for it will not shine without limit, since it is created. And so all created beings have a bound and a limit, for from the earth to the firmament is a journey of 500 years, and so on.
If so, the vitality clothed in them is in the aspect of a great and mighty tzimtzum. For it must first contract through many mighty contractions, until from its power and its light the very substance of the created beings comes into being as they are, possessors of a bound and a limit. For the source of the vitality is the breath of the mouth of the Holy One, blessed be He, which clothes itself in the ten utterances in the Torah. And the breath of His mouth, blessed be He, could have spread without end and without limit, and created worlds without end and without limit in their quantity and their quality, and given them life forever, and this world would not have been created at all. (For just as the Holy One, blessed be He, is called Ein Sof, so are all His attributes and His actions, for He and His instruments are one. That is, the vitality drawn from His attributes, which are kindness and mercy and the rest of His holy attributes, by their clothing themselves in the breath of His mouth. For He spoke, and it came to be, and a world is built through kindness, by the word of Hashem and the breath of His mouth, which is made into kelim (vessels) and a garment for this kindness, like the locust whose garment is from it and in it.) Rather, the Holy One, blessed be He, contracted the light and the vitality that could spread from the breath of His mouth, and clothed it inside the combinations of the letters of the ten utterances, and the combinations of their combinations, in the exchanges and the substitutions of the letters themselves, and in their sum and their number. For every exchange and substitution shows the descent of the light and the vitality from level to level. That is, it can then create and give life to creatures whose levels of quality and rank are lower than the levels of quality and rank of the creatures created from the letters and the words themselves in the ten utterances, in which the Holy One, blessed be He, clothes Himself in His glory and in His very self, which are His attributes. And the sum shows the lessening of the light and the vitality, a lessening after a lessening, until nothing remains of it except a last aspect, which is the aspect of the sum and the number: how many kinds of powers and levels are included in this light and vitality that is clothed in this combination of this word. (And after all these contractions and the like, as His wisdom, blessed be He, decreed, the light and the vitality could then clothe itself also in the lower things, such as stones and the dust of the inanimate. For “stone,” by way of a parable, its name shows that its root is from the name that amounts to 52 in its number, and an additional alef from another name (לישעם) [it appears that it should read “for a reason”] known to its Maker.
Now the name that amounts to 52 is itself in worlds that are very high. Only, through many mighty contractions, from level to level, a very, very small vitality descended from it, until it could clothe itself in a stone. And this is the soul of the inanimate, which gives it life and brings it into being from nothing into something at every moment, as was explained above. And this is the aspect of memale kol almin, which is not so of the aspect of sovev kol almin.)
And every power and every level can also create creatures according to the aspect of that level, without end and without limit in their quantity and their quality, to give them life forever, since it is a power of Hashem that spreads forth and is emanated from the breath of His mouth, and there is no restraint, and so on. Yet their quality will not be of so great a rank as the quality and the rank of creatures that could be created from the aspect of the power and the level of the letters themselves.
Previous: Part 2, Chapter 6. Book contents. Next: Part 2, Chapter 8.
