The Voice of Prophecy, Lesson 27

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] We talked about the positive attributes that exist in Kabbalah. We said that the philosophers spoke about the worlds of Beriah, Yetzirah, and Asiyah, while the kabbalists generally speak in terms of Atzilut. And beyond Beriah, Yetzirah, and Asiyah—which are the separate worlds—the philosophers basically speak only in negative terms, because sight really doesn’t apply there. So they can say what it isn’t; they can’t say what it is. From their point of view, it isn’t accessible. And the kabbalists speak positively about the world of Atzilut, where the sefirot, or the names, in the world of Atzilut are those positive attributes of the Holy One, blessed be He. And we also spoke a bit about how the relation between the attributes and the essence there is different from the relation between attributes and essence in ordinary things. In ordinary things, attributes are not things; they’re some kind of phenomena that occur when we observe the thing. What we see in our consciousness are the attributes of the thing. In the divine attributes, which are the sefirot or the names, the positive attributes of the Holy One, blessed be He, are entities in themselves—simply things that exist.

[Speaker B] That’s the light we talked about.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, and that’s also why the term light is used, as we said, because light, even though it’s subtle and fine, is still a being. Unlike, for example—we once gave this example—unlike wind, right? Wind is a property of the air; it’s not a thing. Light is not a property of anything; it’s a thing. However subtle it may be, it’s still a thing. That’s why it serves as the word that describes the sefirot and Atzilut.

[Speaker B] Did they know that light is something? What? They knew that light is something? Apparently. Whoever explained these things about light—is there someone who writes this somewhere, that this distinction between wind and light is…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Theoretically, this distinction between wind and light is written somewhere, but I think it’s a distinction anyone can understand; you don’t really need a source for it. Last time we tried to understand the stitching he does between the philosophers and the kabbalists, where we were in letter 27. Rabbi Yosef Albo and the Rashba, who combine philosophy and Kabbalah, as he describes at the beginning of this section. And further down, when he explains a bit more, we said that from the identification of Metatron with the active intellect, it seems that the upper edge of the philosophical world is the lower edge of the kabbalistic world. And therefore we identified Metatron, on the one hand, as the sefirah of Malkhut, which is the last sefirah of the world of Atzilut, and on the other hand as the upper edge of the world of Beriah. Beneath it are the separate intellects, the angels, the spheres, all sorts of things of that kind, and above it are the sefirot, which is Atzilut. And I think we also talked about this, right—that in every transition from one world to another in Kabbalah, there’s some component that belongs to both worlds. They often call it Atik, Atik Yomin. And this is something that in some sense belongs to the lower world, but in fact it is the Malkhut of the upper world. And that is probably the identification of Metatron, as you see down here. One more final point that’s worth mentioning: he refers here to the division of the sefirot into three and seven, at the end of the first paragraph of section 27. I looked for the Leshem downstairs and for some reason I couldn’t find it—I don’t know, maybe someone took it upstairs.

[Speaker B] Maybe Rabbi Shoshan took it?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, I suppose so. In any case, this division of the ten sefirot into the first three and the lower seven—GAR and ZAT—you often get these abbreviations if you see them: GAR means the first three, and ZAT means the lower seven. A division of any structure of ten sefirot that splits this way: the first three are basically the essence of the thing, and the lower seven are some kind of radiance from it, around which the world below is built. Say, for example, a world. The world of Adam Kadmon—sorry—so it consists, say, of ten sefirot, where the top three, namely Keter, Chokhmah, and Binah, are the three sefirot that constitute Adam Kadmon itself, and they themselves divide into ten and form some kind of independent entity, while its lower seven are in fact the world of Atzilut. Meaning, these aren’t ten sefirot all of the same type, even though everything is always described as divided into ten sefirot. There is an internal division within those ten sefirot: the first three are the essence, and the lower seven are some sort of radiation toward the lower world—what gives life to the lower world, what the lower world lives around.

[Speaker B] What is the meaning of the lower seven within Atzilut—the lower seven? I asked, you also said that the first three divide into ten.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And in that sense they are fully independent, and the lower seven are a lower world. It gives life to something.

[Speaker B] Or is the lower seven…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, I didn’t understand. The lower seven? The lower seven out of the ten that… I think not, no, no, that’s already an internal division. It’s already an internal division. Meaning, say, the world of Adam Kadmon—which is really all of Adam Kadmon and Atzilut, down to the created beings—is ten sefirot. The first three are… from the fourth and downward, around them, there is the world of Atzilut. But the three sefirot that remain, as it were, exposed outside—that is Adam Kadmon—they themselves are divided into ten sefirot, and that remains Adam Kadmon, ten sefirot of Adam Kadmon. There too maybe there are distinctions between the first three and the lower seven, but not in the same sense of descending to a lower world beneath.

[Speaker B] Can you say that the lower seven give life to Binah? To Keter, Chokhmah, and Binah? Or does Binah give life to… it?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Between one sefirah and another, that’s true, but I’m speaking now about a division of Keter, Chokhmah, and Binah. Those three sefirot create an independent entity that has ten sefirot together—not that there are ten sub-sefirot of Keter, ten sub-sefirot of Chokhmah, and ten sub-sefirot of Binah. That’s a different issue. I’m talking now about those three sefirot themselves being re-divided into ten. That side is described in several ways in the Ari, but it’s those same three sefirot. It’s not their internal division. Their internal division is ten within each sefirah. But those same three sefirot can also be viewed as ten from another perspective. Not so important for our purposes.

[Speaker B] Is it infinite like that—every ten and ten and so on?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, apparently not infinite. Apparently not infinite. But I myself don’t know the precise answer. Still, there are hints that it isn’t infinite. Yes. I didn’t understand.

[Speaker B] The three—is it six, or is the three ten?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, three is ten, as I’m saying. There is also a division of each sefirah into ten, but that’s a division according to the earlier perspective on them. And there is a different perspective: first of all, all of Adam Kadmon and Atzilut together are ten sefirot; each such sefirah divides into ten, like anything that has a subdivision—every sefirah has another subdivision into ten. Fine, that’s in general. But if you take those ten sefirot and isolate the upper three from them, that is an independent entity that itself is ten sefirot. So that is simply a different division at the same level, as it were. It’s not a subdivision of each sefirah separately. Those three create a new entity that has ten sefirot.

[Speaker B] And does Atzilut have ten sefirot of its own?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, of course. So Atzilut…

[Speaker B] And Adam Kadmon—is that the same… on the same level of…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I said there is a difference between the first three… All I wanted to demonstrate here is that when there is a structure of ten sefirot, there are two parts here: the first three and the lower seven. Now in the context of Atzilut and Adam Kadmon, that split is between Adam Kadmon and Atzilut, where the first three are above and the lower seven below. Each of those two parts is then re-divided into ten sefirot, but that’s really only an example. I only wanted to illustrate this division into three and seven.

[Speaker B] And does Atzilut have ten sefirot of its own?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes. Every complete world is ten sefirot. There is no…

[Speaker B] No world that’s somehow incomplete? Meaning, that’s…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly. So that’s the relation—how Adam Kadmon gives life to Atzilut, basically.

[Speaker B] The boundary between the worlds…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, after all, together they form a kind of single human stature. Meaning, every world has the form of a human, and within every world there are also five partzufim, each of which also has the form of a human. Now all the worlds together also have the form of a human. Atik and Atika Kadisha—that’s what you have in the Zohar, and usually it means Arikh, Arikh Anpin, just not to confuse the enemy. Atik Yomin in the language of the Ari is a partzuf above Arikh. Are you a little familiar with the partzufim? Maybe just a brief introduction. From below upward there is Asiyah, Yetzirah, Beriah, Atzilut, Adam Kadmon, kav and tzimtzum, Ein Sof. That’s it. There is also the Emanator somewhere, but He is not included in… that is the essence, but He is not included. This is the list of attributes or revelations. All of this is revelation; we are not speaking of divinity itself.

[Speaker B] What is above Adam Kadmon?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Kav and tzimtzum. Which is basically called…

[Speaker B] Right, that is the world of kav and tzimtzum.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Usually the accepted description is that all these worlds basically live within the same… Since we’re already talking, maybe a few more words. The accepted description is that all these worlds exist within the same volume. Meaning, at the beginning… as we described, from below upward. At first there was Ein Sof, as it were simple light filling all of reality, the light of Ein Sof. Then some kind of empty space opened within it. That process is called tzimtzum. An empty void was opened within it, and into that void entered a line, a line of the light of Ein Sof that did not actually reach all the way to the edge—it stopped a little above it. What was formed there is basically some kind of empty circle—that’s how it’s usually described—an empty circle into which from above a line of light enters almost all the way to the bottom, a thin line of light, the light of Ein Sof, into the empty void. Is this done in the imagination in order to understand the picture, or is it really like that? No, no, no, no, no, no—this is the picture. We use the picture in order to work with pictures. Yes. Obviously the picture is the question, but the picture is supposed to contain a lot of information. It’s important. They make lots of calculations there about what it looks like exactly from a geometrical standpoint.

[Speaker B] And all of this brings down…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] This whole circle into our conceptual world—that’s exactly the point. We’re trying to understand in our world something of what is happening there. We’ll talk a bit later about what this means.

[Speaker B] And it’s something very non-abstract, very… right.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It’s like what prophets see, let’s say. Prophets see visions of this sort. The vision represents the reality; it is not the reality itself. There isn’t really some physical empty space there with a given diameter, into which a line enters. But it is the precise descriptive model for what happens above, in our concepts. Not a parable—it’s a description. Which isn’t exactly a parable. In any case, there was an empty sphere, as it were—that’s the tzimtzum—into which the line entered. So first there was the world of Ein Sof. Within Ein Sof there came into being a world of kav and tzimtzum, and the kav and tzimtzum are that empty sphere. That is the second world. Now there is the world of Adam Kadmon. The world of Adam Kadmon is basically this: around this line of light there is formed a somewhat more concretized world which already has the form of a human. This is the first time we encounter the form of a human, and that is why it is called Adam Kadmon. It is the first time there is a human form. Adam Kadmon means primordial not chronologically, but primordial in the degree of subtlety, yes? The highest world in which there is a human form. A human form in the sense that the world itself has a human form, not that there are human beings inside it. The world itself has the form of a human.

[Speaker B] Is that “God made man upright”?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, “God made man upright.”

[Speaker B] That’s what is called “God made man upright.” And is this in a straight line? It’s in a straight line. That line is straight.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Unless you don’t pay attention, the line is straight. That line is completely straight. In any case, this human form is now essentially ten sefirot, where the upper three of those ten sefirot are the first three of Adam Kadmon, and the lower seven are the lower seven around which the world is created. They remain the very essence of Adam Kadmon and themselves become ten, as we said before, and the lower seven—from its navel downward, from its chest downward—are the world of Atzilut. Around… this also appears later on. We just mention it from time to time, so at least once there should be a picture. Fine, but I don’t know, this doesn’t tell me anything right now. It will tell you something later. This is one of the phenomena we’ll also talk about later—how suddenly things like these, which you would think would be complete Chinese, start…

[Speaker B] really to say…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] something, the more we study it. At a certain stage it really does start to say something. You’re right, at first glance it really isn’t understandable—what lines,

[Speaker B] worlds, circles, what stories are these?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Every conceptual system at first looks strange. Sometimes they call it getting used to it, and sometimes… in physics too they say that in quantum theory nobody understands; people just get used to it. You can talk about quantum theory—what it means and what this is—nobody really understands what’s going on there; they just get used to it. They speak about all these concepts very calmly, even though in fact when you stop to think, you realize you don’t understand anything. So that’s one side. On the other hand, I think that at a deeper level some understanding really is hidden here. It’s not just reciting formulas. These processes of forming a new conceptual world always come with something that at first seems like absolutely nothing, until it starts to be internalized and starts to speak to me. So the same thing happens here. From the experience of other people too—I really would expect you to encounter concepts, words here and there, and it means nothing to you—but at some point it starts saying something to you. That is the world of Atzilut, and after that there are the worlds of Beriah, Yetzirah, and Asiyah, which don’t even enter this hierarchy at all; they are completely below it, completely below this structure.

[Speaker B] The relation of the lower seven, which effectively become the levels of Adam Kadmon and Atzilut—is that in the same picture?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That relation—in the kav and tzimtzum there are no lower seven. In the kav and tzimtzum there are no sefirot yet. Sefirot are what are called vessels, and that is already a thing, already an entity, not just light. It is something that has some kind of structure, some kind of properties. In fact, sefirot indicate certain properties, and in Kabbalah this is called vessels, because it is no longer just light. It is some limitation of the light. It already has form, it has characteristics, it’s not just light and that’s it. Okay? So that is what is called vessels. The light has already become a bit concretized. This happens only from Adam Kadmon downward. Before that there is?

[Speaker B] No, no, no—there are no sefirot there. No sefirot there.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, there is no differentiation at all. It’s not even in the form of a human, and therefore it doesn’t belong to any of these concepts. Now in every such world—even though in the Ari, when people talk about this, he usually speaks about the world of Atzilut—but it’s true of every such world. I’m speaking from Adam Kadmon downward, and even Adam Kadmon is already a certain innovation, but I’m

[Speaker B] speaking of Adam Kadmon and below.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There are five partzufim within every world.

[Speaker B] Does that mean below Adam Kadmon, the lower ten sefirot, or all the sefirot we mentioned?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Within every world that is below Adam Kadmon. Meaning, in the world of Adam Kadmon, in the world of Atzilut, the world of Beriah, Yetzirah, and Asiyah. In these five worlds, every world has five partzufim, and each such partzuf is a kind of sefirotic structure. Meaning, the worlds correspond to the partzufim and the partzufim correspond to the worlds, so it’s not exactly that there are five of these and five of those. And the five partzufim are called: Arikh Anpin, or just Arikh—Arikh Anpin. Why is it called Arikh Anpin? Because it has a long face, a long visage, so it is called Arikh Anpin. It spans the whole stature of Atzilut. Arikh Anpin runs through the entire… Upon that Arikh Anpin there are two partzufim called short-statured partzufim: Abba and Imma. Unlike Arikh, they are short-statured: Abba on the upper right and Imma on the upper left. And below, under Abba, there is Ze’ir Anpin, and under Imma there is Nukva, that is, Malkhut.

[Speaker B] Abba and Imma where? Those two partzufim, Abba and Imma. And that is inside Arikh Anpin? Is it inside?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Around Arikh Anpin. Arikh Anpin is also like a bar running through them. But Arikh Anpin extends through the whole world, and they are simply like four squares: Abba on the upper right, Imma on the upper left, Ze’ir Anpin on the lower right, and Nukva on the lower left.

[Speaker B] Abba and Imma above? Yes.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Ze’ir Anpin is like the son—he is always called the son—and Nukva is the daughter. Their names are Ze’ir Anpin and Nukva. Why Ze’ir Anpin? Precisely because that one is Arikh Anpin, and this one is Ze’ir Anpin—a small visage. Abba and Imma? They are also called short-statured, but they are not called Ze’ir Anpin. Ze’ir Anpin is the name of a specific partzuf, not just a description. Those are the five partzufim. Now above those five partzufim—since we keep mentioning this, let’s once give some kind of picture of the relation among the partzufim.

[Speaker B] Within every world?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Every world is divided into five partzufim. Within every world there are five partzufim. From Adam Kadmon downward, every world has the form of a human. Now above those five partzufim there is a partzuf called Atik. It sort of hides. It’s not located exactly somewhere in the skull above the world—as if the world is in the form of a human, then somewhere in the upper skull of that human there is the partzuf Atik. Perhaps in the skull, perhaps above the skull.

[Speaker B] And this whole world—so every world of five partzufim has yet another, sixth partzuf?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] נכון, yes. But again, it’s not exactly called the sixth partzuf of that world. It’s something that belongs to the world above, and somehow also to the world below. What the exact relation is—I myself don’t know.

[Speaker B] So now there’s another partzuf connecting them.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly. It is some kind of Malkhut of the world above that descends into the world below, because those five partzufim divide the world according to sefirot. Meaning, Arikh is Keter. The sefirah of Keter in the world is Arikh, which itself forms the partzuf called Arikh. The sefirah of Chokhmah in every world is the partzuf called Abba. The sefirah of Binah in every world is called Imma. Then there are six sefirot that are called Ze’ir Anpin. Ze’ir Anpin has six sefirot, or six extremities. Very often they call it VAK—vav ketzavot, six extremities.

[Speaker B] Why are they called that? What are those six sefirot?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Chesed, Gevurah, Tiferet, Netzach, Hod, and Yesod. Sometimes it’s abbreviated simply as Tiferet—that is Ze’ir Anpin—but it is really six sefirot. And Malkhut is the Nukva. Malkhut is feminine, and Binah is also feminine. Binah is Imma, which is also, in the division of male and female—or right and left—on the left side, and therefore feminine. And it is not accidental that Malkhut is always connected to Binah. In fact, we already encountered that here—I don’t know whether that was in your cycle or not; I no longer keep track of when each person joined—but Binah and Malkhut are somehow connected to one another. Very often Malkhut rises to Binah, Binah descends and expands through Malkhut—they are the two feminine elements

[Speaker B] in this structure, basically.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] These are different kinds of divisions of the same world, different ways of looking at the world. You can look at it as made up of ten sefirot, and you can look at it as made up of five partzufim. But these aren’t just two disconnected ways; there is a connection between the two forms.

[Speaker B] When do you use each form?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t know myself. Sometimes they talk in these terms, sometimes in those terms. Generally, all these partzufim are the innovation of the Ari. Before him they didn’t know about partzufim, and this solved a great many riddles that existed until his time. A lot of people didn’t really understand what was going on in the Zohar—what it was talking about—sometimes Arikh Anpin, sometimes things like that. But the concept of partzuf did not exist before the Ari. So he introduced this additional division altogether, and through that he solved a lot of problems in the puzzle.

[Speaker B] The names of the partzufim in this world—for that partzuf that is above the five partzufim.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Atik, Atik Yomin. It’s, as it were, ancient. Arikh Anpin is abbreviated Arikh, Abba, Imma, ZA is Ze’ir Anpin. And how does that connect to its sefirot?

[Speaker B] It’s not…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] exactly structured—you see why I’m telling you all this? Because there is no sefirah left for it, notice. Arikh is the sefirah of Keter, and even that—Keter—is already somewhat above the world in a certain sense. Now for Atik there is no sefirah left. It is, as it were, the Malkhut, some part of the Malkhut of the world above. Even though the Malkhut of the world above is the Nukva of the world above. So there is some seam here called Atik Yomin. It is something that precedes this world from the standpoint of that upper world, but still belongs to the concepts of this world. It is that part of the upper, earlier world that can still be grasped in the concepts of our world. That is called Atik. It is not really something located fully in either one of the two worlds.

[Speaker B] Does man also have such an Atik? I think so. Good question.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I think so. I’m almost sure. The order of the six is…

[Speaker B] Chesed, Gevurah, Yesod, Netzach, Hod?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Chesed, Gevurah, Tiferet, Netzach, Hod, Yesod. Chabad, Chagat, Nehi, and Malkhut—you always remember those in the end. So Chabad—Chabad is one division. Sometimes they call it Chokhmah, Binah, Da’at—that’s Chabad—and sometimes they call it Keter, Chokhmah, Binah. So again, just to confuse the Satan: Kachab and Chabad. We said Chesed, Gevurah, Tiferet? Chabad, Chokhmah, Binah—no, there is Chabad, Chagat, Nehi. Chokhmah, Binah, Da’at are the upper three; Chesed, Gevurah, Tiferet, Netzach, Hod, Yesod, Malkhut. The fact that it’s three-three is intentional. It’s not just Rabbi Yehudah giving mnemonic signs. Those groups of three have significance.

[Speaker B] And this switch between Da’at and Keter too?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Chronologically, how that happened, I don’t know. But it’s simply that sometimes they count this way and sometimes that way. The truth is that apparently there are eleven, and the claim is that there are actually even thirteen. Even though people always talk about ten. How thirteen?

[Speaker B] Yes.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, everywhere it says ten, but somehow in reality there are thirteen, and I myself don’t know how that fits in, but it fits in. Sometimes people use this, sometimes that.

[Speaker B] I didn’t understand. There is Keter, Chokhmah, Binah, Chesed, Gevurah, Tiferet, Netzach, Hod, Yesod, and Malkhut? Yes. But where is Da’at in this whole story? So with Da’at there are two ways of looking at the upper three sefirot: either call them Keter, Chokhmah, Binah, or call them Chokhmah, Binah, Da’at.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] When people use the language of sefirot, usually it’s Chokhmah, Binah, Da’at. When people use the perspective of partzufim, it’s usually Keter, Chokhmah, Binah. Because in the partzufim, Arikh is Keter, Abba is Chokhmah, and Imma is Binah.

[Speaker B] Do they place each one above the other?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So they add the sefirah of Keter and remove Da’at, as it were. It’s simply a different perspective on the same world.

[Speaker B] So they simply drop one and give its name to something else?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] They remove Da’at, which is the third, and add Keter, which is first.

[Speaker B] It’s not exactly that, but say Abba would be called…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, Abba wouldn’t be called—no. In the perspective of sefirot, in the perspective of partzufim, when you relate the sefirot that belong to the partzufim, then Keter is Arikh, Chokhmah is Abba, and Binah is Imma. We would never say, for example, let’s call Da’at Imma, Binah Abba, and Chokhmah Arikh. No, that’s not how they speak.

[Speaker B] There is a concept of sefirot and a concept of partzufim?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right. And the partzufim also have a translation into sefirot. And when you translate the partzufim into sefirot, you always use Keter-Chokhmah-Binah and not Chokhmah-Binah-Da’at.

[Speaker B] But when you’re not using partzufim, only sefirot?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Usually when looking at sefirot, it’s Chokhmah-Binah-Da’at and not Keter. But the first three are basically either Keter-Chokhmah-Binah or Chokhmah-Binah-Da’at. Those are the first three referred to here, and the lower seven—which in our terms, you understand, means the first three are Arikh, Abba, and Imma. Those are the first three. And the lower seven are basically the six of Ze’ir Anpin plus one of the Nukva, right? Chesed, Gevurah, Tiferet, Netzach, Hod, Yesod, Malkhut. So in fact the thing itself—in the division at least between Adam Kadmon and Atzilut, and probably in some sense in other divisions too—the thing itself is the first three. That is the thing itself. The lower seven are some kind of radiance of the world itself, of the partzuf. A partzuf too is divided into ten sefirot. Every thing on its own is divided into ten sefirot. A partzuf too is divided into ten sefirot. And the five partzufim, five worlds, and five parts of the soul—Nefesh, Ruach, Neshamah, Chayah, and Yechidah—that too is all the same five, or not exactly the same five, but there is a one-to-one correspondence among these divisions. The whole world of Adam Kadmon corresponds to Arikh. The world of Atzilut corresponds to Abba, the world of Beriah to Imma, and so on. Meaning, there is some relation between the partzufim, the worlds, and the parts of the soul—Nefesh, Ruach, Neshamah, Chayah, and Yechidah—which are also five.

[Speaker B] Does each partzuf divide into five partzufim, or is that only in… yes. Yes. Yes. And in the world of Abba—is that in the thing itself, in another domain, the person himself that the rabbi mentioned, spirit, soul, and things like that?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] A person himself also has five parts, the spiritual part of a person, the psychic part.

[Speaker B] When we say a person, we mean us.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not the human of the partzufim, no, no. There too, but basically every thing has five parts, not only a human being. We know this about a person: everything has Nefesh, Ruach, Neshamah, Chayah, and Yechidah. So in the partzufim of a person… not partzufim. He has five parts in his soul, in his spiritual aspect, and this table too has Nefesh, Ruach, Neshamah, Chayah, and Yechidah. This table also has Nefesh, Ruach, Neshamah, Chayah, and Yechidah. “Person” is not really the right term here from your perspective, but we’re used to saying it that way. And this division too is somehow connected to the division of the partzufim. It’s not that each one is a partzuf, but there is a relation between this fivefold division and that fivefold division.

[Speaker B] And also

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In a person, for example, the Nefesh, Ruach, and Neshamah are… they are the person himself. And the Chayah and Yechidah are what’s called surrounding light.

[Speaker B] If every object has Nefesh, Ruach, Neshamah, Chayah, and Yechidah… yes, yes, yes,

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] that same

[Speaker B] thing,

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] around him, it is not he himself. Yes, the Neshamah is actually in some kind of intermediate status; it has some very low half that is somehow located in his brain, and the rest really belongs to the surrounding aspects. The Neshamah is not exactly inside; it’s something in an intermediate state. And then, in some sense, this is also parallel, because Yechidah, Chayah, and Neshamah parallel the first three, right? And we said that this is the thing that is above. And Nefesh and Ruach are the lower seven, that is Ze’ir Anpin and Nukva, right? Those are the two lower partzufim.

[Speaker B] Nefesh and Ruach are

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] the lower seven; Yechidah is the upper one and Nefesh is the lower one?

[Speaker B] So Yechidah, Chayah, and Neshamah are the person himself? The opposite. They are outside the person.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, here I… the divine parts are Chayah and Yechidah. And in fact the Neshamah too is a divine part, which again parallels in the same way, say, the first three of the world of Atzilut, which are above the world of Atzilut, right? That is the world of Adam Kadmon. And the world of Atzilut itself is only its lower seven, which are like the two lower partzufim of the world of Adam Kadmon, right? The seven lower sefirot are two partzufim: Ze’ir Anpin, which is six sefirot, and Nukva. So in a person too, in the division of Nefesh, Ruach, Neshamah, Chayah, and Yechidah, there is a similar situation: the two lower parts are the person himself, and the other three parts are above him. Above him or surrounding him—those are similar terms.

[Speaker B] And within Neshamah, Ruach, and Nefesh is there also Beriah?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What do you mean by Beriah? Not in this perspective. In the perspective of Nefesh, Ruach, Neshamah, Chayah, and Yechidah, this is not a perspective… this is usually more in the perspective of circles and not of upright structure, meaning something surrounding the thing and what is inside the thing; it is not generally described in a hierarchy of one above the other. Fine, I really just wanted to give some kind of picture here, because we run into this from time to time, and he himself also gets to it, so just so we have a simple basic understanding and know what we’re talking about. I have no intention here of getting into meanings and more precise details. One more final note here on the previous section: that there is a difference between sound and light, or between hearing and seeing, in the mode of orientation. Meaning, when I see something, that thing doesn’t do anything in order to be seen by me. We talked about this once already. It doesn’t turn to me. It simply exists, and I look at it, so I see it. Sound is generally the result of an action by the thing that produces the sound. There is almost nothing that simply, by its very essence, emits sound. Except the spheres, where they sometimes speak about the sound from their turning. Well, there too it’s from their turning, but that is the essence of a sphere—that it turns. There, for some reason, they speak about sounds. I don’t know exactly what they meant.

[Speaker B] In the Guide there?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, right, exactly there, but there it is more as part of its essence. Never mind. In any case, sound is generally the result of an action by the one producing the sound. The most extreme case, of course, is the case of teacher and student. The Oral Torah is transmitted through sound. Why is it transmitted through sound? Because there needs to be some kind of turning from the teacher toward the student. When I read a book, in principle the book does not turn to me. It lies here; when I see it, I see it. I can read it, I can choose not to read it—it does not turn to me. That is the Written Torah. The Written Torah does not turn to me; it is an object, it is not something standing there addressing me. “Whoever wishes to take, let him come and take,” meaning it does not turn to you. The Oral Torah is something that turns to you, and therefore too each person can understand it differently. Because the rabbi who teaches me Torah turns to me, explains it to me, tries at least to explain it in my terms or in his terms, and tries to translate it to me. It is always a mode of address. Therefore Torah is learned through hearing and not through sight. That is how Torah is transmitted: by the one who is speaking directing the information toward you, producing sound in your direction, and you receiving it. Of course, the reception too is done in a more active way, and we already talked about that as well. In hearing, the reception too—the receiver too—is active; not only the transmitter, not only the one conveying the ideas, is active, but the receiver is also more active. But from the standpoint of the one speaking the words, it seems to me much clearer that in hearing the speaker is active; he turns to you. That is how sound is created. He simply turns to you so that you will understand something. The appearance exists even if you are not looking at it, even if it is not turning to you, even if you do not interest it. It is simply there, and you can look at it and then you’ll see it; if you don’t look, you won’t see it.

[Speaker B] There was some aspect here of turning in Torah and the whole idea of transmission, he

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] says there was a general lecture about the matter of transmission, right? I wasn’t there, yes, something like that. So this is basically what we already spoke about once. I’m just mentioning it here—why teacher and student really are not just some technical example. I might have thought, okay, fine, when someone teaches, then he makes a sound, but that is only an example. Why is that the canonical example he brings here to explain to me what hearing is and what sound is? He says yes—what is sound? “An ear that hears the rebuke of life abides among the wise”; each of these is fitting; “the sound by which we apprehend intelligibles from the teacher is very pleasant,” because “your voice is sweet and your appearance is lovely.” Why specifically is the representative of the auditory apprehension of sound the teacher, the sound that comes from a teacher? It seems to me the reason is exactly this. Sound, by its whole essence, turns to me, and that is exactly what happens when someone teaches. Fine, let’s move to section 28. Light—its primary application is to sensory light, and it is borrowed for divine illumination, and that is why Torah is called light. And it is borrowed for physical and spiritual pleasure, for desire, for the soul, for understanding wisdom, and it is also borrowed for God, may He be blessed. In all these things, the word “light” is used to describe them, because just as light—its existence cannot be denied and it is not matter—so too God, may He be blessed. And it seems to me that here he means what we keep coming back to. On the one hand, and on the other hand, it is not matter. And that is exactly the description I would provide to describe sefirot. “And all these things found in light bear a strong resemblance to a thing separated from matter.” Yes, even though it exists, it is the existent thing farthest from the material concepts we know. “And because of this, Scripture called the world of separate intellects ‘light’; this is the spiritual light.” This is exactly what we said until now, yes? That precisely for this reason the separate intellects too are something that exists, just not in material terms. Why does he say this? As we already discussed, many people make the mistake of thinking that all the separate intellects and all that are intellectual fictions—that is, they are not entities that really exist, but rather a conceptual framework we choose in order to describe various, let’s call them, modes of behavior of the Holy One, blessed be He, in the world, or something like that. But we already said that the modes of behavior of the Holy One, blessed be He, in the world are not like the forms of a table. They themselves are entities. It is true that these are modes of God’s behavior in the world; they are the attributes of the Holy One, blessed be He, positive attributes. But they are not attributes like the attributes of a table; they are entities, they are things that exist. Even though they are attributes. Here the attributes are also nouns; they are not only adjectives. And therefore that is what he is saying here: that is why they are described with the word “light,” because light is something that exists, whose existence cannot be denied—it is an entity. As opposed to spirit, which is a description of a state of the air. Therefore it is not good to describe this in terms of spirit. If I described it in terms of spirit, then I really would think those people are right who say that these are not existing things, but only our way of describing the mode of behavior of the Holy One, blessed be He, in the world; but all that exists is only our world, and above it the Holy One, blessed be He. That is of course the philosophical picture of the world. Right? What exists is our world—or from the spheres downward, it doesn’t matter; by “our world” I mean Beriah, Yetzirah, and Asiyah, in the summary of the previous page—and above that there is no Atzilut, none of the whole divine hierarchy above it exists; there is only His essence, may He be blessed, only that is above, and everything one can say there is only in negative terms. Because there is nothing there that really exists. There are only descriptions of the Holy One, blessed be He, Himself. But certainly descriptions of the Holy One, blessed be He, Himself can only be made negatively; they cannot be made positively. The whole ability of Kabbalah to speak about positive attributes is because it does not speak about the Holy One, blessed be He, Himself, but about the entities that constitute His attributes. All right? And that is all the worlds from Atzilut and above. Excuse me. “And all these things found in light bear a strong resemblance to a thing separated from matter, and because of this Scripture calls the world of separate intellects light; this is the spiritual light. But lest a person err and say that intellectual light is a thing drawn from matter, like sensory light, Habakkuk 3 says: ‘And brightness shall be as the light’—with the letter of comparison, ‘as the light,’ yes, like light. For the light and the brightness seen by the prophet are not the appearance of the likeness of the glory of God itself, only a likeness, not the appearance of the glory itself, which has no appearance. And similarly in the vision of the bush, ‘he hid his face, for he feared to look,’ for the senses have no business at all in this apprehension.” It wasn’t that he feared to look; he simply could not look. You cannot look at such a thing, because it does not belong to these senses. “And similarly Elijah, in the vision in which the matter of the three worlds was alluded to—the world of generation and corruption, the spheres, and the angels or separate intellects—said: not in the wind,” the force governing the world of generation and corruption, “and not in the earthquake,” the world of the spheres, “and not in the fire,” the world of the angels, “is the Lord, whose essence is hidden, so that nothing can be understood of Him, nor from attributes of perfection except by negation, and they are in a still small voice.” How many times we jumped to this sentence, if you remember, because here he introduces the connection—I already began talking about negative attributes several sections ago—here he introduces it for the first time. Yes. And here he says, “nor from attributes of perfection except by negation.” When we are speaking about the Holy One, blessed be He, Himself, then attributes in the visual sense of form can only be spoken of in negative attributes. On this the philosophers are right. “Thus it follows that the hidden upper one is not seen and cannot be observed; rather, its matter is heard by the reasoning of prophetic hearing.” One can only hear it; one cannot observe it. All right, that in general. Let’s try to focus a bit more on what we see here, what we hear here. First of all, he says here that the prophet—and we already discussed the first part—that basically light, as we already mentioned earlier in the introduction and as we read, why the concept of light represents the sefirot: it exists and it is not a form in the ordinary sense, and so on. The prophet—we talked at the beginning of this essay, if you remember, in section 2—we spoke about light, glory, the vision of prophecy, in the place of the Holy Land upon which the eyes of the Lord are fixed. The light of glory—if you remember, we spoke about Shir HaKavod. We spoke a little about certain lines from it. Glory—or kavod, honor and glory, yes, yekara also means weight. We spoke about the fact that glory is revelation. The glory of the Holy One, blessed be He, is His revelation in the world. The way He is revealed in the world is called His glory. “His glory fills the world,” meaning the way the Holy One, blessed be He, is revealed in the world—that is what is called the light of glory, the glory of the Holy One, blessed be He, His revelation in the world. The prophets who look at this light of glory—that is another point he adds here in the section we just read—and the prophets see, right? Therefore the prophet is called “the seer”; in those days in Israel they called the prophet “the seer.” A prophet is a seer—why? Because he really does not use hearing; he uses sight. He succeeds in seeing something from within the world of Atzilut, not hearing as we try to hear—he succeeds in seeing. But what he sees is not the sefirot themselves, it is not the light of glory itself. What he sees is a likeness from the light of glory; that is what he says here. “And the appearance of the likeness of the glory of God”—he does not see the glory of God, but the likeness of the glory of God; not the appearance of the glory itself, for it has no appearance. The glory itself we can only hear; we cannot see it.

[Speaker B] So there is the glory and there is the likeness of the glory.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, that’s what we basically agreed on even just now. You asked that question, and I remember that someone asked that question in one of the previous lectures—probably the last lecture. I guess I didn’t mention it in the breakdown; the distinction appears here, but I didn’t mention it earlier. This is actually one aspect in which we can see that a sage is preferable to a prophet. The prophet indeed manages to see higher than any other person; in places where the philosophers reach negative attributes, the prophet sees the positive attributes. But he sees only their likeness; he does not see them themselves. Sight does not apply to them as they are in themselves. By contrast, one who knows how to listen—the sage who knows how to hear—he hears the glory of God itself, not a likeness of the glory of God. Meaning, not God Himself of course—not God Himself, but the glory of God itself, the sefirot in short. The sage is the one who grasps, through the study of the hidden teaching, the essence of the worlds above. The prophet sees some likeness of them, some representation of them, but not them themselves. Through the representation, of course, some understanding is created in him, and that is the subject of section 30, and maybe also 29—that the prophet, of course, does acquire understanding in light of the vision. But the vision itself is, of course, only of the likeness of the glory and not of the glory itself. In that sense, a sage is preferable to a prophet. Why can’t the sage see? It may be that not everyone has that; maybe that is prophecy.

[Speaker B] It could be to descend to…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, but to grasp things in the form of sight—after all, what can you see? You can only see things borrowed from the world in which you live, right? Think what it means to see sefirot. If they have any appearance at all—suppose I could see sefirot with some… I was equipped with a sophisticated telescope. It’s not in my conceptual world, I can’t see that; as far as I’m concerned it’s transparent. I can see things that have forms somewhat like the forms I know here, things that have color, that have geometric shape. What would it mean to see sefirot? It doesn’t apply. Now the prophet can live in such a conceptual world that the visual representation of the sefirot is taken from his world, so he can see it. It’s not just a matter of what sort of telescope he is equipped with. Even if I were equipped with the same telescope as the prophet—a spiritual telescope, of course—it wouldn’t help, because the appearances coming out of the telescope would appear before me and I wouldn’t even recognize them as an appearance. They simply do not belong to my conceptual world, you understand? So what good would that do? Meaning, I have to be something in order to be a prophet; it is not enough that I be equipped with a sophisticated spiritual sensory instrument. Because what they show has to belong to my world in order for me to look at it by way of sight. But my intellect, my understanding, can understand there. Because my intellect really is a lofty thing. The prophet’s intellect is not loftier than mine; the prophet’s consciousness is loftier than mine, but the prophet’s intellect is not loftier than mine. That is also why a prophet cannot innovate Jewish law, because Jewish law comes from intellect; Jewish law is the task of the intellect. Is he able to say that the law is such and such? Meaning to testify? To see?

[Speaker B] Is that a recognition that this is the Jewish law?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Apparently not, no, no, no. And that really is a question why—not sure. But apparently there is some point here: not because it isn’t true, but because Jewish law must be determined by the intellect, yes? “It is not in heaven.” Meaning that when you see a law, you do not follow it. Law has to be reached with the intellect, yes? Not that they should spoon-feed it to you. You have to create it. Understand it, with the intellect; work with the intellect; understand what the law is, and act accordingly. The prophet’s seeing is, in some sense, not an act that he creates. He is fed it. So that is, as it were, a law from heaven. But “it is not in heaven.” I do not receive laws from heaven. Again—not because it is not true, understand? But because that is not how the halakhic mechanism works; that is not what the Holy One, blessed be He, expects from me. It is still the word of God, and if a heavenly voice came out and said that the law is such and such, then of course that is what the Holy One, blessed be He, wanted people to do; it’s not some bluff of the Other Side. But the halakhic rule we hold is that we do not follow pure truth; rather, we follow what our intellect understands. We did not rule Jewish law in accordance with Rabbi Meir because we could not fully grasp his reasoning, right? So what is the conclusion?

[Speaker B] If we could not fully grasp his reasoning, that is a sign that he is the most

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] brilliant, so we should rule like him even without understanding? No. We rule Jewish law according to what we understand, and it may be that we miss something, but that is our role here. As for how we are supposed to act, that becomes the truth. As for what it really means in the upper worlds, that is not the truth. Every law also has a meaning in what it says in the upper worlds. All right? And that is exactly the point. We need to rule Jewish law from what we understand. And that one should not rule directly from the Mishnah Berurah—this too has many implications, and we spoke about them a bit as well. It has many implications for how to rule Jewish law even from the Talmud. Not to rule Jewish law because that is what is written in the Mishnah Berurah. Same thing. That is ruling Jewish law by prophecy. One has to rule Jewish law because I arrived at the conclusion that this is what should be done. And that is our entire task in our world: to reach a conclusion about what should be done, and to do it. That is the stitching together of the whole human stature: that you reach, by intellect, a conclusion about what should be done, and afterward you carry it out with the limbs. If you did not reach the conclusion, and you

[Speaker B] only carry it out with the limbs, that is not what is expected of you. It has to go from the beginning, as it were? The Maharal, the Maharal writes about this, and all the controversies around Maimonides and the Shulchan Arukh that wrote decided laws,

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] so all the arguments against them were always exactly on this plane. That is not how one rules Jewish law. But not because it isn’t true, not because it can be confusing—there were discussions about that too—but that is not the main point, I feel, because that really is not an essential point. The outcry there was against the principle. How can you hand me laws on a spoon? I don’t understand—that’s not how one rules Jewish law; you’re taking away the whole work here. Everything is that my intellect has to reach a conclusion, and then that is what I do. To lead from the brain to the limbs. That is to bring Torah into the world. I have to bring Torah down from above and insert it into this world, to enact it in the limbs. That is the whole essence of the work.

[Speaker B] Like “we will do and we will hear,” meaning the doing comes before the hearing, that’s how it is.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Of course—but what will you do? You’ll do what you understand needs to be done from the Torah. Not what your gut tells you. But sometimes even if you don’t understand, then you’ll do it.

[Speaker B] If you didn’t manage to understand, then do it—but the question is what to do, what is the form of work expected of us.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The form of work expected is to understand and to do, right? And if there is something I don’t understand, certainly I will do it. Certainly if I don’t know the law and I haven’t clarified it in the passage, I’ll take the Mishnah Berurah in order to know what to do. But what is the goal? What is expected of me? What is expected of me is to arrive at halakhic conclusions, to write my own Mishnah Berurah for myself, and to do that. Every person has to write his own Mishnah Berurah for himself. That is the task of a person in the world. And not in order to leave another Mishnah Berurah for future generations, but in order to bring Torah down into this world, into actions. That is the whole essence of the work. We spoke about this in the last lecture, when they asked there and I said I’m against charts, remember? The guys asked what about studying Jewish law, and I said I don’t know what “studying Jewish law” means. I don’t know that concept, “studying Jewish law.” Study Talmud.

[Speaker B] Yes, within the passage.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Of course I’m saying it in an extreme way to illustrate what I mean. There are things that really need to be learned, because in fact we haven’t managed to clarify all the passages, so one has to go through the Mishnah Berurah in order to know what to do. That is not Torah study. Maybe it’s not neglect of Torah, but it is not Torah study. Certainly it is not Torah study. It has no connection to Torah study. It is only in order not to sin. Here it really is only a means. There’s no choice—you haven’t covered the entire Talmud, you haven’t clarified everything. Fine; things you haven’t clarified, open the Mishnah Berurah—what can you do. All right, let’s move on.