Part 4 · Chapter 10

God Transcends All Kabbalistic Levels 0:02

So that's the point. This is the basic point. That God is really higher than, than all these divisions of three levels, יחיד הקדמון, and the idea of the 10 ספירות, and everything, all these divisions we're making is really, it's really higher than that. But since when it's revealed after the צמצום in השתלשלות, it's revealed in a way of divisions with different levels and different ספירות, so we say that they're all came from before the צמצום.

But we're not actually mean, we don't actually mean to define levels before the צמצום. וכמו שכתב במקדש מלך בלשון האריז"ל עצמו מבורר במקום אחר באריכות. And this is really not a new thing that I'm telling you. The מיטעלער רבי is saying that this idea that that we can talk about before the צמצום like this, you're going to say to me, "Wait a minute, but it says you're not allowed to talk about before the צמצום."

So you say, "No, where does it say not to talk about the צמצום? It says that in the כתבי האריז"ל. Says that that from מלכות of אין סוף already and up you can't speak about it."

Mikdash Melech Sources on Pre‑Contraction 1:16

But if you, but really, even the האריז"ל himself, מקדש מלך, which was written by one of the תלמידים of the האריז"ל, רבי ישראל סרוק, I think was his name, he writes from a שיעור of the האריז"ל, he was one of the האריז"ל's פארברענגענס, and he wrote down the שיעור, he made a הנחה, and he wrote down based on that a book called מקדש מלך. And in that book, it has the שיעורים that the האריז"ל gave on before the צמצום, which

which are not explained so much בפירוש in רב חיים ויטאל's writings of the האריז"ל. And that's why it's quoted, whatever we talk about before the צמצום, it's usually quoted from מקדש מלך.

So there, we see that the האריז"ל himself was speaking about before the צמצום also. There, if you look there and you look at the way it's explained, you see that it's the same way we're saying now, that really you can't speak about the צמצום before the צמצום, we mean that you can't say that there's ממש like different levels there, you can't say that there's ממש like a certain thing of חכמה there, בינה there.

But, but to say like we're saying, that it's really higher than that, but we're saying that these things came from there, that you can say.

So this has a מקור in קבלה also. וזהו ענין כללות המאמר הראשון שבזהר, and this is also the intention of the first, the very first sentence of the זהר, at least in some editions.

Some editions it's a little later. It translates בראשית ברא אלקים את השמים ואת הארץ. So how does it translate it? What does it mean בראשית? In the beginning, בריש הורמנותא דמלכא גליף גליפו בטהירו עילאה. So it says that in the beginning of the sovereignty of the king, he engraved an engraving in the upper purity.

Zohar’s Opening on Sovereignty and Engraved Letters 2:56

הורמנותא can mean two things, by the way. It can mean kingship, sovereignty, it can also mean רצון, desire. In the beginning of the king's desire.

Just keep keep both in mind, because here he's he's kind of saying both. So in the beginning of the sovereignty of the king, he engraved an engraving in the upper purity.

What does that mean? פירוש שבעצמות גילוי אורו הפשוט הנזכר לעיל, that in the essence of God's simple revelation of light that we mentioned before, in other words, the revelation of God exactly the way he is to himself,

שנקרא טהירו עילאה, which is called the upper purity, גליף גליפו, he engraved an engraving. What does it mean he engraved an engraving? שהוא ענין חקיקת אותיות. That's the idea of engraving letters. גליף גליפו, yeah, like in English a glyph, like a hieroglyphic, means the letters.

ובריש הורמנותא, and what does it mean the beginning of the sovereignty, or the beginning of the רצון, the beginning of his desire, שזה כשעלה ברצונו הפשוט, that means when it came up in his simple will to be king. הוא בחינת הכתר, בחינת כתר.

So the בריש הורמנותא, the beginning of the desire is the כתר, is the crown, ובחינת האותיות שחקק הוא בחינת המלכות,

and the letters that he engraved is the מלכות. the אור אין סוף, of the infinite light. ואם כן, יש ריש וסוף, כתר ומלכות, גם בבחינת עצמיות אור אין סוף.

That means that there's a beginning and an end, a כתר and a מלכות, even in the עצמיות אור אין סוף, of the essence of the infinite light.

Seemingly, we're saying that there is a כתר and a מלכות there already. There's a, and that, which means that there's in middle a חכמה and a בינה, and a חסד and a גבורה.

So seemingly, even in the first מאמר of the זוהר already, he's saying that there are 10 ספירות in the עצמות אור אין סוף. Yeah, we're still,

he's explaining that this thing that we explained is the explanation of this first מאמר in the זוהר also. That's what we're saying. We already asked the question and answered it, and now he's saying that this is the meaning also of this first מאמר of the זוהר. This is like This is a מקור for this this idea also. And that explanation we find in the מקדש מלך of the אריז״ל also, like we explained.

So what does it mean? וביאור הענין, the explanation is שעלה במחשבה ורצון הפשוט, that it came up in ה׳'s simple thought and desire, אנא אמלוך, that I am going to be king, והכל בעצמותו עדיין,

but everything is still within Himself. קודם ענין מה ששיער בעצמו בכח דוקא כל מה שיהיה לו רצון מלוכה בגלוי. This is still before he had an השערה of how he's going to actually want to be king af- In other words, how it's going to be revealed after the צמצום. והוא אחר הצמצום במקום פנוי וכולי, which the actual revelation of מלוכה is after the צמצום that's called the מקום פנוי.

Yeah, so in other words that we we're saying here this מאמר of the זוהר is saying that there is an ענין of a כתר and a מלכות in the level of יחיד, that in the עצמות in the of in the אור אין סוף in the תרי ו׳ we're saying that there is an ענין of a כתר and an ענין of a of a מלכות before the השערה, before he estimated Himself how is what he's going to do even, before he estimated how it's going to come after the צמצום.

But the explanation is that it's like we said, that we that we're not saying that there's actually the levels there, we're saying, since once he estimated how to make the the the השתלשלות there that he that he decided to make 10 ספירות in this whole way, so we're saying that even before he decided to do it, before he estimated it, already there he already had like the יכלות for it, he already had the ability for it.

So that's this whole thing until now is just an introduction to the idea of what we're going to explain in this chapter, which is the idea of like a היולי, and that's that's what it's going to be we're going to call it, this type of a relationship where the essence is higher than everything, but it includes everything.

And he brought sources from קבלה that seem to say that there are 10 ספירות, but in other places we know that it says that there aren't 10 ספירות, and it's like it seems to be a contradiction, and he explained what it means is that really it's higher than the 10 ספירות, but since they come out from there, so we say that it's not that they they came from there, it's not missing them.

But we're not saying that the way that they are there is not the same way that they come out, but rather there they're totally it's really higher than than than being 10 ספירות. So that's the basic idea. Now, at this point, the th- this is just like a bunch of words, and it doesn't, you know, it doesn't necessarily make so much sense to us yet. So now the מיטעלער רבי is going to explain, give us משלים, to understand this idea, like he always does.

Essence Higher Than the Ten Sefirot 8:58

First he explains the idea, the kabbalistic, you know, sources and whatever, based on that, in short, and then he gives משלים for it.