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100) When the animals walk, the Ofanim [type of angel] go to them, and when the animals rise over the earth, the Ofanim rise. And when the animals go, they go in bestowal upwards. And if you say that this is ever upwards, it is not, it is downwards. It is as before the four faces and after the four faces.
HGTM de ZA are called “four animals,” in the four faces—lion, ox, eagle, and man. They receive from YESHSUT, as in three come out of one, and one is rewarded with all three. It was written above that when the animals go, they go in bestowal upwards, which is in bestowal of HB TM de YESHSUT.
And should you say that this is ever upwards, above YESHSUT, from HB TM of upper AVI, it is not so. Rather, they receive from below, from YESHSUT. It is as AVI, before the four faces—lion, ox, eagle, man—are made in them. This is so because there is only Hesed in AVI, for the Yod in them does not exit the Avir. In YESHSUT, however, they have already been divided into the four faces, meaning there is already the root of the lion, ox, eagle, and man in them. The Hochma appears in them, and the face of the lion becomes Hassadim, the face of the ox, Hochma, the face of the eagle comprises Hochma and Hassadim, and the face of a man comprises all three. Hence, it is necessary that the animals of ZA will receive from YESHSUT, for they are above it.
101) A wind from the four winds clothes in the four sections and in four sides, in the angels that were created in the supports of the illuminating faces. Because of that, they appear as animals, which are the four angels where the banners are set up. They are called “lion,” “eagle,” “ox,” and “man,” who includes four dominating angels—Michael, Gabriel, Uriel, and Raphael, and contain all the hosts of heaven.
After he clarified that the animals are drawn from YESHSUT, he now explains how they were drawn. It is known that ZA rose first and decided between the two lines of YESHSUT, eliciting the three lines there, and the Malchut that receives them. By causing the elicitation of the three lines and Malchut in YESHSUT, it, too, was rewarded with the same three lines and Malchut that receives them, since the lower one receives the full measure of light it causes in the upper one.
It wrote of one wind out of four winds that came out in YESHSUT. One wind is the middle line, ZA. It educed four winds in YESHSUT, which are three lines and Malchut. This wind spread in four sections, which are also the three lines and Malchut, in the same measure that ZA educed in YESHSUT.
They are called “sections” because there are three lines in each of these four, which make up twelve. In four sides means that each section shines with its three lines to one of the four sides—south, north, east, and west. It is known that these three lines in each section extend illumination of GAR, which are called illuminating face. Before the middle line comes and unites the right and the left together, the face of the left was dark. After the middle line came and educed the three lines and the Malchut, they support the faces so they will be illuminating faces.
It was written that the four sections and the four sides are the angels that support the illuminating face. This is so because each side has a unique quality, and by joining all those qualities together, the face shines. Hence, each animal has a unique appearance according to its quality, which are the four sides when the banners are waved. When they join together, they extend the illuminating face.
And these four animals, which are four angels—Michael, Gabriel, Uriel, and Raphael—govern the four camps of Divinity. Thus, in each banner there is the discernment of the animal, which is the source in ZA, and a discernment of the angel that extends from it, which stands as the chariot in Malchut. And the governing side there is discerned, as well: right or left, east or west. Those four angels comprise all the hosts of heaven, which are under their control.
102) The first banner is an armed camp, which is war veterans from twenty years of age onwards. Her animal is the lion. The angel is Michael—registered in the spreading of the banner that is spread to the right, and her wind is east. This is the beginning of the sun that walks by his illumination as he travels. There are two appointees under Michael—Yophiel and Tzadkiel—one for the Torah and one to go to the market.
103) When these travel, several armed camps travel from the right side, led by these three angels. The sun walks to the left, shining and crowning the camps, and a thousand and tens of thousands of appointees are below him, and all fear with dread, shiver, and tremor.
104) The lion stretches out his right hand, gathers all his armies to him, 370 lions around that lion, and he is among them in the middle.
105) And when that lion roars, the firmaments shake and all the armies and camps tremor with fear of him. By that sound, the river Dinur becomes broiling and descends by 1,500 degrees of hell below. Then, all the wicked in hell tremor and swelter in fire. It is written about that, “A lion has roared, who will not fear?”
106) He roars a second time. 370,000 lions all roaring. The lion stretches out his left hand, and all the litigants below fear and surrender under that hand. He stretches that hand over them and they are all under him.
107) Each has four wings made of white fire, and they are all broiling. All the faces of the ornaments are immersed in the white of that fire.
108) There are four faces to each of the four sides. They all shine in the white of the sun. The one to the east shines with joy. The one to the west gathers its light. The one to the north is dark without light, like the shadow of the sun with respect to the sun. The shadow is dark and the sun is shining because the sun and the shadow are right and left and go together. The darknesses that go with him all carry arms.
109) And everyone on the right and on the left are in three heads. One head is of 74,600. Armies come out with the right hand that he raised over them, excluding all those appointees below who are under those rulers, one atop the other, lower degrees with higher ones. Those are not counted.
110) The second head goes with the first head, and numbers 54,400, besides those appointees from below, to the four sides, who are not counted. The third head that follows is 57,400. As it travels to the right, so it travels to the left, and from before and from behind, as well.
111) Since this first one travels and the tabernacle is lowered, all the Levites sing, and all those who praise are from his side. Then it is written, “For the spirit of the living creature was in the wheels.”
The first banner is the banner of the camp of Judah. The travels are in order to reveal the illumination of Hochma in three lines, since illumination of Hochma appears only while traveling, which is the lowering of the tabernacle through the domination of the right line and the establishing of the tabernacle by revealing the left line and clothing it in Hassadim. This is so because the tabernacle, Malchut, is structured in the bottom Hochma. Hence, it is dominated only by the right line. And the tabernacle is lowered because then the illumination of Hochma in it is cancelled. Subsequently, by revealing the left line and its clothing in Hassadim, the tabernacle is reestablished by the mingling of the lines in one another.
The twelve tribes are Hesed and Gevura, Tifferet and Malchut in Malchut. Each of them contains three lines, thus twelve oxen. And the sea, which is Malchut, stands atop them. King Judah contains them in twelve tribes. It seems as though the order of the traveling should have been that Reuben would travel first, for he is right line and south, then the banner of the camp of Dan, which is the left line and north, then Judah, who is the middle line and east, and finally Ephraim, who is west—Malchut that receives from the three lines.
However, traveling in the wilderness was the most corrected way. First, all three lines that were included in one another in the twelve tribes came out. And since the main operator in the correction of the lines is the middle line, on the east, he traveled first, in the east. However, he is regarded as right line because there are two decisions in the middle line: 1) The beginning of the decision of the sun. The first decision of the middle line is called “sun.” At that time, he sets the right line as the ruler, and the left is included and cancelled in the right, as though it never was at all. 2) The force of the sun unites the two lines with one another so there will be disclosure for both, for Hesed and Hochma.
These are the first two banners. First, the banner of the camp of Judah traveled in the east. And even though the east is the middle line, the journey was the beginning of the decision of the sun, at which time the right line governs and there is no disclosure for the left line there. This is why it is considered the right line. Hence, the tabernacle was lowered when he journeyed, since the illumination of the left had been cancelled, meaning the illumination of Hochma, which is the tabernacle.
The banner of the camp of Judah, the first banner, is lion, meaning Hesed, right line, Michael. It is also considered Michael, which is over the camp of Divinity of Hesed. His banner is to the right, Hesed. However, the middle line is east; hence, it travels to the east of the tabernacle.
And why is Hesed considered right line? The beginning of the decision of the sun follows his illuminations on his journeys. This is the beginning of the decision of the sun, the middle line, at which time he sets the right as dominant over the left. This is why he is considered a lion and the angel Michael, which are right line. He is not considered middle line because the middle line should comprise right and left together, which is the second decision, called “the force of the sun.”
This is why Judah traveled first, for he comprises the beginning of the sun. It was not Reuben because Reuben is an element of Malchut, the right line, Hesed, which is completed only by the force of the sun, when it is included in the left line and receives GAR from it. Hence, he journeyed after Judah, in a way that Judah is actually the middle line and his illumination is Hesed, right without left. Hence, it is called Hesed, although it is on the east. And Reuben is actually the right line and his illumination is right, included with the left. This is why Judah went first and Rueben followed him.
It is known that each of the four banners comprises three lines, as well. This is why there are three tribes in each banner. And for this reason, there are two appointees under Michael—Yophiel and Tzadkiel—opposite Issachar and Zebulun in the banner of Judah, where one is opposite Issachar and the other opposite Zebulun. Yophiel is opposite Issachar, engaging in the Torah, and Tzadkiel is opposite Zebulun, going to the market, negotiating goods, and providing for Issachar.
And when he says that in the beginning of the decision of the sun, he sets the right as dominant over the left and only the right shines, it does not mean that the right is not included in the left whatsoever. Had it not been included in the left, it would have been only VAK without GAR. Rather, it means that the left merely serves the right, crowns it with GAR, and revokes itself. This is why it is written that the sun, the middle line, goes to the left line even in the beginning of the decision of the sun and shines the illumination of the left from there to all the camps on the right, to crown them with GAR. However, it discloses nothing of the illumination of the left itself.
And he says that there are a thousand and tens of thousands of appointees under him. Hence, there is illumination of a thousand there, which is Hochma, and illumination of tens of thousands, which are Hassadim, called “tens of thousands.” This means that there is GAR in them, but the fear of the Dinim in the left line is over them, hence they are cautious, so as to not receive any of its illumination, but only the sufficient amount for GAR.
He wrote that a lion stretches out his right hand, meaning sets the right as dominant over everything. And then he gathers all his armies to him because then he discloses the full measure of his Mochin, which are 370,000 lions that surround that lion. These are all the Mochin, the three lines, HBD, and the Malchut that receives them. HBD are 300,000 and Malchut is only 70,000, to indicate that she lacks GAR de Hochma and has only ZAT. The 100,000 are Hochma and Hassadim, but 70,000 are said about Malchut, who is only Hochma. And they are all called “lions,” indicating that there is only the domination of the right there, without left, and the middle is the lion, in the middle of which are the 370,000 lions. This is why they all turn only to the right.
After he clarified, he determined the illumination of the banner of the camp of Judah in general, as a whole, and now he details the order of decisions applied in the east, which is the middle line. It is known that the middle line cannot subdue the left line to surrender and be included in the right, unless by two actions. In the first action, it evokes the force of the Masach in the form of Man’ula [Aramaic: lock]. At that time, all the lights of the left line depart. In the second action, it conceals the Man’ula and evokes the Miftacha [Aramaic: key] in the Masach, by which the left line returns to shine in VAK de GAR.
This roar is the first act of the middle line. It is the awakening of the force of the Man’ula, which is Malchut of the quality of harsh Din, which removes all the lights. And then, all the armies are shaken from both right and left, and the river Dinur that stretches from the left line becomes broiling due to the Dinim in the Man’ula. This is so because the force of the left operates in the left line, which is Bina that returned to Hochma, which is a thousand. Hochma is called “a thousand,” and in the left half of Daat, which is five hundred, meaning half a thousand, half a degree. And now the force of the left descended from all its dominion, from the thousand and the half thousand. It descended from all its degrees and fell into the depth of hell below. All the wicked in hell are shaken and swelter in fire, for they are sentenced by the harsh Dinim of the Man’ula, as it is written, “A lion has roared, who will not fear?” since that roar frightens everyone and throws them off their degrees.
It is written that he roared a second time, which evokes a second action—the awakening of the Masach of Miftacha, which is fit to draw VAK de GAR of the left. And then 370,000 lions all roar because they all received from him the power of this Masach of the Miftacha. At that time, he returns and extends the lights of VAK de GAR on the left hand that returned, and the VAK de Hochma appears. Then, all the litigants below fear and surrender under that hand, for the illumination of Hochma subdues all the litigants, as it is written, “Your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies,” meaning the illumination of Hochma on the left hand subdues all the enemies of holiness.
However, the GAR de GAR remain hidden because of the awakening of the Masach of the middle line, for they were only exposed through VAK de GAR. He said that there are four wings to each, made of white fire, where four wings came out, corresponding to the four Mochin, which cover all the GAR de GAR of each Moach [singular of Mochin] so it would not shine. And because the force of this Masach, which covers the GAR de GAR, extends all the Hassadim, it is called “white fire.” And they are all broiling, for they are broiling in the Dinim of the Masach, to cover the GAR de GAR. This is why he said that all the faces of the ornaments, which are the complete face of GAR de GAR on the left, called “ornaments,” are immersed in the white of that fire. And they were sunken and do not shine, due to the white fire in the force of the Masach.
Now he explains the difference between the four sides, which are the three lines and the Malchut that receives them. There are four faces to each of the four sides, which are the measure of VAK de GAR, called “face,” which remained on all four sides, which are the three lines and Malchut. He says that they all shine in the whiteness of the sun, and the measure of their illumination is as the white in the middle line, called “sun.” Their illumination is essentially only Hassadim, called “white.” The difference between them is that the one that shines in the east, the middle line, shines in full and in joy, and the one that shines in the west side, which is Malchut, has no light of its own but gathers all the light from three lines.
Also, the one that shines to the north side—which is the left line—is darkness without light. However, this darkness is not absence of light, but is the reality that is created out of the light, as the shade of the sun is an offshoot of the light of the sun, and without the light of the sun, there would be no shade. Similarly, the darkness of the left line is an offshoot of the light of GAR de GAR that illuminated in it, and from which darkness was drawn because of the lack of light of Hassadim. Later, even though the GAR de GAR departed him, he shines only when mingled with the right line, which is Hassadim.
This is so because as long as the left is not included in the right, the left is a shade of the light and considered the left of the light, meaning its offshoot. And they go as one because where there is no light, there is no shadow. And it is known that illumination of Hochma does not shine in the left, unless together with the Dinim and the punishments of the wicked who wish to draw the GAR de GAR. And those darknesses are the Dinim that go with the left line, which carry arms to punish the wicked that wish to suck from the GAR de GAR. Now we understand the difference between the two lines—middle and left—and the Malchut. But the right line has not been explained because it is the Hassadim that he constantly discusses and does not need clarification.
After he explained all the discernments in the general and particular middle lines, he now explains the three tribes on the first banner, which are Judah, Issachar, and Zebulun, and he calls them “three heads.” It was written that its one head is 74,600, which is the number of the tribe of Judah. These armies come out by the force of the right that he set as dominant over them. And the women and children of the tribe of Judah were not counted with them. The second head, 54,400 is the number of the tribe of Issachar, which includes women and children. The third head, 54,400 is the number of the tribe of Zebulun.
The journey of all four banners was in one way, as explained here, since the journeying of the first banner, the banner of the camp of Judah, was considered the beginning of the decision of the sun, which sets Hassadim as governing and does not give room for disclosure of illumination of Hochma on the left. This is why the illumination of the tabernacle was cancelled, for it is lower Hochma, which is, “And the tabernacle was taken down,” said with the journeying of this banner.
However, this is not because of a flaw, but because of the great unification in the beginning of the decision of the sun, when the Levites were singing during this lowering, which comes by the force of the unity of the beginning of the decision of the sun. And all those who were praising were from his side and were singing, for the complete illumination of Hassadim is called, “Ruach of Haya,” “Ruach of Hochma,” since Hochma is called Haya. And the meaning of the four animals is HGTM de ZA. And HGTM in Nukva, in which the four angels—Michael, Gabriel, Uriel, and Raphael—are included, are called “animals” [plural of Haya], too. Also, all the camps that the four angels govern are called Ofanim.
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