R' Ashlag Ch. 15 (sect.2)

Rabbi Yehudah Ashlag's "Introduction to the Zohar"

-- as translated and commented on by Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

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Ch. 15

2.

"So if for example the third era -- when the tsurah of receiving is overturned to one of bestowing -- were not to come about, it would necessarily follow that the first era couldn’t have come about in the Infinite’s Being either."

--We’d have expected R’ Ashlag to begin with the first era, but he starts instead with the third one, because that’s the one we have to look forward to, and the one we're to set our course by.

"For all the perfection contained there (in the first era) only came about because it’s due to exist in the third one; so it was as if it already functioned (there, in the first). In fact, all the perfection depicted in that (first) era is actually something of an image of the future one (projected) onto that (first) one. In any event, if the future (era) were to somehow be abolished, (the first one) couldn’t exist either. For it’s only because the third era is to exist that the first one did."

(c) 2005 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

(Feel free to contact me at feldman@torah.org )

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