ולהבין בתוס׳ ביאור ענין וייצר ה׳ אלקים את…

1To understand with further explanation the matter of “And Havayah Elokim formed the man of dust from the ground,” and afterward “He blew into his nostrils the breath of life”:

that his body at first was still without a soul, and was inanimate, of physical dust, and afterward the living, speaking soul was vested in it, etc.; whereas in all the other creatures, vegetative and animal, their bodies and souls came forth together from the earth, etc.

The matter will be understood by first stating that just as in physicality there are four levels — inanimate, vegetative, animal and speaking — so too in spirituality these four levels are found.

2By way of analogy, in the soul: the letters are the level of the inanimate, which have no growth, etc.; and the emotive attributes are the level of the vegetative, for an emotional arousal that is small at first later blazes up until it becomes a mighty flame, etc.

And their growth is from the intellect: just as the physical plant was at first hidden and buried in the ground, and afterward comes out and sprouts outward, so the emotive attributes are at first contained and concealed in the intellect that gives birth to them, and afterward they come out into revelation.

3And in the analogue above: Malchus is called “inanimate,” and Z’eir Anpin of Atzilus, which is the emotive attributes, is called “vegetative,”

meaning that it grows from the supernal Imma, which is the level of the supernal intellect, called by the name “living” (chai), as it is written of Chavah, “for she was the mother of all life (chai)”; and Chochmah too is called “living,” as it is written, “And wisdom gives life…,” etc.

4It turns out that the vegetative and the animal are adjacent to each other, without a leap or the interruption of another, intermediate level between them, and they unite and cleave to each other by virtue of their very essence and nature.

For at first the vegetative was contained within the animal itself — this is the concealment of the emotive attributes in a state of gestation within the intellect, like a fetus hidden in the mother’s womb, which is literally “its mother’s thigh”;

and even afterward, when they come out, they still need their mother in the days of nursing: the intellect enlivens and grows the emotive attributes, and it is their very sustenance.

5Therefore in physicality too, by the utterance “Let the earth bring forth living creatures,” the bodies of the animals and their souls, which are the levels of the vegetative and the animal, came forth together from the earth, since they are adjacent and united with each other in their root as well, as said above.

But the inanimate is very far from the animal, for the level of the vegetative interrupts between them. By way of analogy: the letters have no connection at all to the intellect, for they are not like the emotive attributes, which are of a kind and category close to the intellect.

And it is fitting that the emotional arousal come into being from the intellect, as it is written, “A man is praised according to his intellect.” Therefore they are adjacent to each other, as said above.

But the letters are of another essence and category, for they are actually physical and have no connection at all to the essence of the intellect (and see what is written above in the discourse beginning “On the twenty-fifth of Kislev,” regarding the lamps and the incense).

Therefore man’s body, which was inanimate and an unformed mass, came into being as it is, without the vital soul, for the animal soul could not join with it at all.

However, afterward the soul of man was vested in it, though it is the level of the speaking, which is above in rank even the animal.

But the matter is that this is exactly what dictates it: into the very lowest level, none can descend and lower himself there except one who is highest in rank.

Therefore into the body of the inanimate level, the lowest in rank, the speaking soul, the highest of them all, was vested; whereas into the vegetative only the animal soul was vested.

Only, that soul came forth together with the body; but with the inanimate it is not so, for the speaking soul did not come forth together with it; rather, afterward it was vested in it, etc.

6The explanation of all this will be understood through the difference between angels and souls. For the angels are called by the names of animals, chayos and behemos, as it is written, “The face of a lion on the right, and the face of an ox on the left…,” etc.

And they too are composed of a body and a soul, called matter and form, as with human beings; only, the difference between them and human beings is that their body is more spiritual.

7As the Ramban writes on the verse “He makes His angels winds, His ministers a flaming fire”: the bodies of the angels are made from the spirituality of these two elements, fire and air; some have bodies of the level of air, such as the camp of Michael, and some of the level of fire, such as the camp of Gavriel, etc.

Whereas the bodies of human beings are of the physicality of the four elements: fire, air, water and earth.

But the reason for this — why they were given bodies more spiritual than Israel — is that the purpose of the descent in the chain of the worlds is only as it is written, “And for My glory I created him…,” namely, that there be the nullification of the “something.”

And this is the essential point of the World of Tikkun (rectification): the union and inclusion of lights and vessels, which are, in general, the levels of “nothing” and “something.”

For the lights are the level of the illuminations and emanations of the Infinite One, blessed be He, and they are in a state of self-nullification; and the vessels are the level of “something”: Chochmah and Binah, Chesed and Gevurah.

8Now in the World of Tohu (chaos) the vessels could not contain the lights; that is, the “something” was not included and nullified into the “nothing.”

And the essential point of Tikkun is that there be the inclusion of the lights with the vessels, and likewise the inclusion of Chesed and Gevurah, left and right, etc., which is the nullification of the “something” to the “nothing.”

9The angels too have this service: to nullify the “something,” their body, through their soul, which is of the level of “nothing” and was taken from the outer dimension of the vessels.

And so too Israel must nullify the “something,” which is their physical body, through their G‑dly soul, which in itself needs no rectification, since it is in a state of “nothing,” etc., and was taken from the inner dimension of the vessels, higher than the quarry from which the souls of the angels were hewn.

10Therefore it can transform and subdue even a physical body; whereas the angels, had they a physical body, could not transform it at all and bring it to the nullification of the “something”; rather, they would fall from their level entirely.

Only the souls of man specifically, by virtue of the loftiness of their soul — they “arose in [G‑d’s] thought,” etc. — can transform even a physical body.

11It is like the analogy of a large bonfire, which shines farther than a small one, etc. It is understood, in any case, that the body and soul of the angels are close in rank to each other and came into being truly as one from their source, which is the level of Malchus of Atzilus, “the mother of all life” (chai) of [the worlds of] Beriah, Yetzirah and Asiyah.

Of this it is said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures (nefesh chayah)”: meaning, the supernal earth, which is Malchus, shall bring forth the soul of every chayah — these are the angels, who are called chayos (“living creatures”) — and their bodies came forth together with their souls,

for the body, which is the level of the vegetative, is beside and adjacent to the level of the animal, as said above, that the vegetative was contained in the animal in a state of gestation, etc.

12And so too it will be understood even higher, regarding the supernal chayos (“living creatures”), which are the Patriarchs — “they are the Chariot” — that is, on the level of Atzilus: they too were at first contained in the womb of the supernal Imma, in a state of gestation, and afterward came out into revelation.

And then they are in the state of nursing, etc. And this is the matter of the vegetative and the animal, which are adjacent to each other, being drawn from one another by way of a chain of cause and effect, etc.

But the level of the inanimate, which is the level of Malchus, is separated in rank from them and is not drawn by way of a chain of cause and effect, in the way the emotive attributes are drawn from the intellect.

For from Chochmah downward it is a chain of cause and effect: Chochmah, and afterward Binah, and afterward Daas, until afterward the emotive attributes are drawn, etc.,

down to the level of Malchus, but not including it. For as to the coming into being of Malchus, which is the level of the letters of the word of G‑d — they are not of the kind and rank of the level above it, that it could be said that it is drawn by way of cause and effect.

It is like the analogy of the physical letters, which are not of the rank of the emotive attributes and the intellect, etc.; rather, their coming into being is from higher up, namely, from the very essence of the soul, in which these twenty-two letters are fixed.

For although the letters Alef, Ches, Hei, Ayin are from the throat, etc., this means that they come and are vested in these points of articulation; but their root is in the soul, as is known and explained in Iggeres HaKodesh on the verse “And David made a name.”

13Therefore the same letters can express two opposite concepts, merely through a change in their combinations, by placing one letter before or after another,

although they are the very same letters, and there will be a great change in the concept, from one extreme to its opposite, as from fire to water — this is Chesed and this is Gevurah, etc.

14The reason is that in truth the body and substance of the letters have no connection at all to the essence of the intellect, such that one could say that these letters belong specifically to this concept, and that for the opposite concept other letters would be needed,

as is the case with the emotive attributes, where there is a concept that inclines toward Chesed and does not incline toward Gevurah, and there is a concept that inclines toward Gevurah, etc., because they are drawn by way of a chain of cause and effect, etc.

15So too above, the coming into being of the letters is not by way of a chain of cause and effect, in the way that the emotive attributes are drawn from Binah, for they are not of this rank, etc.

But nevertheless, for this very reason, they have an added superiority: their coming into being is from a higher place, for only from there can there be this lowering — the coming into being of the attribute of Malchus.

16And this is what is written, “With Chochmah He founded the earth; He established the heavens with Tevunah”: the level of “earth” is drawn specifically from Chochmah, which is above the comprehended intellect called Tevunah, with which He established the heavens, which are the emotive attributes.

Although the emotive attributes too are drawn from Chochmah, this means that their source is there; but the main part of their coming into being, to be differentiated as they are now, is from Tevunah.

For Chochmah is called Yud, which is still above differentiation, like a point, which is indivisible, as is known; and the flow of the emotive attributes from there is also in an all-inclusive form.

It is like the analogy of the son’s share: from the father only a single drop is drawn, yet it includes his whole body; but the main part of his building, in the growth of his limbs into the form of a human figure with differentiated limbs, is from the mother, through gestation in the mother’s womb.

17And so He, blessed be He, “established the heavens” — that the emotive attributes be well established as they should be, in the form of a complete configuration (partzuf) — specifically “with Tevunah.”

And this is the matter of the gestation of the emotive attributes in Binah, and afterward there are the days of nursing and [of] intellect, etc., which is the matter of the vegetative and the animal, which are adjacent to each other, as said above.

But Malchus is founded specifically with Chochmah itself, as it is said in the Zohar, “Abba founded the daughter.”

That is, just as Chochmah is drawn from nothing to something, not by way of a chain of descent, so too Malchus, which is the level of the letters, has this quality, in that it too is drawn from the level of “nothing”; for according to the chain of descent it would not be fitting for the letters to come into being from the intellect or from the emotive attributes, etc.

Therefore Adam, the first man, had a body that was truly inanimate. For there are two kinds of “Adam.”

One is the level of the Name Mah, which is called “Adam,” as it is written, “Like the beauty of a man (adam), to dwell in the house”: the level of Tiferes, which is the general and collective expression of Z’eir Anpin, called the Name Mah, is called “Adam.”

18However, the level of Adam, the first man, is the level of supernal Chochmah, which is the very beginning of Atzilus, and it is the level of the Name Av. Therefore it was specifically he whose body was inanimate.

For specifically “with Chochmah He founded the earth”: it is from Chochmah that the inanimate can come into being; on the contrary, Chochmah is vested specifically in the inanimate — not so in the vegetative, for “He established the heavens” only “with Tevunah.”

Whereas the animal soul could not be vested in a body of the inanimate level.

For from Binah there can be only a chain of cause and effect, which is the level of the vegetative, and not the coming into being of the level of Malchus, called “inanimate,” which is only from supernal Chochmah specifically, etc.

And this is why it is written specifically in the creation of man, “And Havayah Elokim formed,” with two Names: for in them and through them is the joining of Chochmah with Malchus, etc.

19It turns out that from all this we understand, at any rate, with good reason and knowledge, why the animal soul has a body specifically of the vegetative level, while the speaking soul, which is higher, has a body of the inanimate level.

For, on the contrary, this is exactly what dictates it: it is a high soul that can be vested specifically in a low body, etc.

And this is so both above and below; that is, both in the higher worlds, where there are inanimate, vegetative, animal and speaking — these being the angels, who are called by the names chayos (“living creatures”) and birds, as mentioned above, as it is written, “The face of a lion and the face of an ox and the face of an eagle…,” etc. —

and there is the level of the speaking there. And the soul of Adam, the first man, includes all the souls of Israel, etc. And they are all born from the “earth,” which is Malchus of Atzilus.

20Now, by the utterance “Let the earth bring forth living creatures… and let birds fly…,” which is the coming into being of the animal soul, its body came forth together with the soul; that is, the body was of the vegetative level and came forth together with the soul.

This is because the soul too was taken from the outer dimension of the vessels of Malchus; therefore its body too is spiritual, and it is the level of the vegetative, etc.

But the speaking soul of man did not come into being together with the body; rather, afterward it is vested specifically in an inanimate body, the lowest.

For since it is in itself exceedingly high, it could therefore bear even a physical body, etc.

And [so it is] below, that is, in the coming into being of the physical inanimate, vegetative, animal and speaking from this earth: the animal soul came forth from the earth itself.

That is, the matter and form of the animal, which are its vital soul and its body, both came forth from the earth, just as the vegetative came forth in its matter and form; and both came forth together, being adjacent and close in rank, as said above.

But with the speaking it is not so, as said above: the body came into being from the earth on the level of the inanimate, and afterward a soul from above was vested in it — this is the speaking soul, which could not dwell in the vegetative level, but only in the physical inanimate, etc.

And this is because even far above, on the level of Atzilus, it is likewise so: the animal is vested in the vegetative, and they are adjacent as one. And this is what is written, “He established the heavens with Tevunah,” and the earth — “its foundation is in the holy mountains,” [that is,] supernal Chochmah, etc.