R' Ashlag Ch. 46 (Part 1)

Chapter Forty-Six:

Rabbi Yehudah Ashlag's "Introduction to the Zohar"

-- as translated and commented on by Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

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46.

1.

"But understand that while (all) the sephirot -- from the top-most point of Keter in the world of Adam Kadmon to the bottom-most point of Malchut in the world of Asiyah -- are G-dly, changeless and undifferentiated, there’s still and all a *great* difference (between them) as far as those who receive (from them) are concerned."
-- That's to say that from a G-d's eye-view, the sephirot are all part of the one great, smooth, clear bouillon of His own making and Being without distinction and particularity. But from our perspective -- from the other side of the picture, touching on the effect that each sephira has upon us and absolutely everything in the material universe -- there's a "world" of difference.
-- We could perhaps liken the difference between the two prespectives to the one between how parents see themselves when they make a decision about the household -- as a unit; as opposed to how their children see them; as mother versus father.

"For the sephirot are grouped into (two aspects:) lights and vessels. While their light (aspect) is pure G-dliness, their vessel (aspect), which is termed K.C.B.T.M. (i.e., Keter, Chochma, Binah, Tipheret, and Malchut), in each of the lower worlds of Briyah, Yetzirah and Asiyah, are *not* deemed G-dliness. What they are, are cloaks that conceal the light of the Infinite within them and bestow the receivers with the amount of light each is to receive according to its degree of purity."
-- Though thoroughly G-dly on their own as we just learned, the sephirot are comprised of two aspects when they touch upon creation: an inner, essential one of light; and an outer, external one of vessel. What that comes to is this.
-- If the everything-bound-to-everything-else that is the primeval bouillon of G-d's light were to emanate as-is toward us, we'd drown outright. We could withstand it and would even flourish thanks to it if it came upon us bit by bit, though. The phenomenon of it all becoming bit by bit, though, is unnatural to the primeval bouillon, as it calls for everything-bound-to-everything-else to unbind, but it's a necessary event nonetheless. In order for each element to be set off from the next, though, it has to be encased and set off by a self-container or "vessel". Thus, everything in our experience is comprised by an essential light and a necessary (albeit nonessential) vessel or encasement.
-- Rabbi Ashlag is underscoring the point that while the sephirot's light aspect is pure G-dliness, their vessel aspect actually (though necessarily) conceal the light within them, while still-and-all bestowing us receivers with the light due us, according to our purity (or, preparedness). He also makes the point of saying that all that only occurs in the lower worlds of Briyah, Yetzirah and Asiyah, but not in Atzilut. Because everything in Atzilut is undifferentiated G-dliness. But since that's out of our present experience, it's not to be considered.

(c) 2006 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

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

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