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404) “You shall have no other gods before Me.” That is, you shall have no other gods instead of Divinity, who is called God. “Before Me” means taking out the face of the King, in which the holy King is seen. They are His name, and His name is that the apparent face is His name, Malchut, and His name is the apparent face. He is His name; ZA is His name. That is, they are one, as it is written, “I, the Lord is My name.” He and His name are one.
405) Happy are Israel, whom the Creator names “man,” as it is written, “And you, My sheep, the sheep of My pasture, you are men.” It is also written, “When any man of you brings an offering.” What is the reason that He calls them “men”? It is because it is written, “And you that cleave unto the Lord your God,” meaning you, and not the rest of the idol-worshipping nations. This is the reason why you are men. You are called “man,” and the idol-worshipping nations are not called “man.”
406) When a person from Israel is circumcised, he enters the covenant that the Creator made with Abraham, as it is written, “And the Lord blessed Abraham in all.” It is also written, “Mercy [Hesed] for Abraham.” And he begins to enter in that place. When he has been rewarded with keeping the Mitzvot of the Torah, he comes into that man of the upper Merkava [chariot/assembly] and clings to the King’s body, and then he is called “man.”
407) The descendants of Israel are called “man.” It is written of Ishmael, “He will be a wild donkey of a man.” “A wild donkey of a man,” and not a man. “A wild donkey of a man” because he was circumcised and had the beginning of a man in him, as it is written, “And Ishmael his son was thirteen years old when he was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin.” When he was circumcised he entered that beginning called “all,” Yesod, as it is written, “And he will be a wild donkey of a man,” and not a man.
It is also written, “His hand will be in all.” Indeed, “In all” and not more because he did not accept the Mitzvot of the Torah. There was a beginning in him because he was circumcised, but he was not completed in the Mitzvot of the Torah. But the descendants of Israel, who were completed in everything, are called “actual men,” as it is written, “For the Lord’s portion is His people; Jacob is the allotment of His inheritance.”
408) For this reason, any form of face is permitted to make, except for the face of a man. When the shape of man is made, it seems engraved inside engravings of wholeness, meaning that special wholeness is seen in it. His ties with the Ruach is in form, meaning that one’s connections with the Ruach [spirit] in him is apparent in the form of the person that is made.
409) “He will be a wild donkey of a man.” Yet, what is the meaning of the end of the verse, “And he will live to the east of all his brothers”?
410) It is written, “And this is the law which Moses set,” which he heard from his teacher.
411) It is written, “For it is your life and the length of your days.” One who has been rewarded with the Torah and did not part from it is rewarded with two lives: one in this world and one in the next world. It is written, “Your life” in plural tense [in Hebrew it can be perceived as plural], which are two. And anyone who parts from it, it is as though he parted from life. And one who parts from Rabbi Shimon, it is as though he parted from everything.
412) If in this verse, in which he opened a door, we could not enter, the abstruse words of Torah are several times more so. Woe unto a generation from whom Rabbi Shimon departs, since when we stand before Rabbi Shimon, the fountains of the heart are open to all directions and everything is revealed. And when we part from him, we know nothing and all the fountains are hidden.
413) “And He took of the Spirit who was upon him and placed Him upon the seventy elders,” like that candle from which several candles shine, yet it is complete, with none of it missing because the candles were lit from it. So is Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, owner of the candles. He shines for all and the light does not depart from him, and he remains whole. They went until they came to him.
414) When they came to him they found him seated and engaged in Torah. He was saying, “A prayer of the poor when he is weak and pours out his complaint before the Lord.” All of Israel’s prayers are prayer, and the prayer of the poor is the highest because it rises up to the throne of the King and crowns itself in His head and the Creator is praised in this prayer. This is why the prayer of the poor is called “a prayer.”
415) “When he is weak [“weak” can also mean “wrap” in Hebrew].” This “weak” is not the wrapping of clothing, for he has no clothing. Rather, here it is written, “When he is weak,” and there it is written, “Who are weak from hunger.” Here, too, “When he is weak” is with hunger. “And pours out his complaint before the Lord,” meaning that he cries out to his Master, and it pleases him before the Creator since the world exists in him when there are no others who sustain the world in the world. Woe unto one of whom that poor cries out to his Master, since the poor is closer to the King than anyone, as it is written, “And it shall come to pass, when he cries unto Me, that I will hear; for I am gracious.”
416) As for the rest of the people in the world, at times He listens and at times He does not listen, since the tabernacle of the Creator is in those broken Kelim, as it is written, “And with the contrite and lowly of spirit.” It is also written, “The Lord is near to those with a broken heart,” and “A broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.”
417) One who rebukes a poor, rebukes Divinity, as it is written, “And with the contrite and lowly of spirit.” It is also written, “For the Lord will plead their case” because their custodian is a mighty one who rules over everything, and needs no witnesses. He also needs no other judge and does not take pawn as do other judges. What pawn does He accept? The souls of people, as it is written, “And take the life of those who rob them.”
418) “A prayer for the poor.” Any place that is called “a prayer” is a high thing because it rises to a high place. Mochin de ZA are called “head Tefillin,” the Tefillin that the King puts on.
419) Rabbi Shimon saw that people came to him, he looked at them and told them, “You had a treasure and you lost it, meaning that they heard words of Torah and forgot them.” They replied to him, “Indeed, the master has opened a high gate, but now we cannot enter it.”
420) They said to him, “He will be a wild donkey of a man.” They also wished to know the end of the verse, as it is written, “And he will live to the east of all his brothers.” What is “And he will live to the east of all his brothers”? We know the clarification of the verse, but we do not know that the end of the verse is not as its beginning.
421) He told them, “It is all one thing, and counts as a single degree. There are several faces within faces to the Creator. There are illuminating faces, faces that do not illuminate, lower faces, remote faces, near faces, faces within faces, faces without, faces of the right, and faces of the left.”
422) Happy are Israel before the Creator, for they cling to the King’s upper face, that face to which He and His name cling, and He and His name are one. The rest of the nations grip the remote faces, the lower faces. This is why they are remote from the King’s body, for we see that all those Egyptians were Ishmael’s relatives. He had several brothers and relatives, and they were all in the lower faces, in those remote faces.
423) Because of Abraham, when Ishmael was circumcised, he was rewarded with placing his abode and his share in a place that governs all those remote and lower faces, all those faces of the rest of the nations, as it is written, “His hand will be in all,” where “All” means Yesod. For this reason, “And he will live to the east of all his brothers,” meaning will place his abode and his share above them all. “His hand will be in all,” governing all the other faces below. For this reason, “Of all his brothers,” indeed, for they were not rewarded as was he.
424) His students came and kissed his hands. This is as people say, “Wine grows stronger over its yeast, and the fountain of the well is crowned over the knot of dust and waste that covers it,” for out of its pressure to break through the dust, it spouts more forcefully. Similarly, Ishmael grew stronger in his dominion over all his brother’s waste, which are the remote and lower faces. Woe unto the world when its lord leaves it. Woe unto the generation that will happen to be at that time. Happy is the generation that knows my lord; happy is the generation within which He dwells.
425) A stranger who converted is considered “a proselyte of Tzedek [justice],” and nothing more. So why did the Creator say here, “His hand will be in all,” meaning that he was rewarded with Yesod, which is called “all”? Rabbi Shimon said, “It all ties to one place. Ishmael is different, for he is not a proselyte, for he was Abraham’s son; he was the son of a holy man. It is written about Ishmael, “Behold, I have blessed him,” a blessing with “all.” This is why it is written, “His hand will be in all.”
426) For this reason, it is written, “And he will live to the east of all his brothers,” for if the rest of his relatives were to convert, they would only be considered “proselytes of Tzedek,” but he was greater and higher than all of them. It is all the more so with those who were not circumcised, who stood in those remote and lower faces. He, his abode is above all their faces, and more than all the faces of the idol-worshipping nations, as it is written “And he will live to the east of all his brothers.”
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