760. The Material of the Soul

Concerning the soul, which is a part of God above, the kabbalists compared it to a stone that is carved from a mountain. The question is, How can it be said that it is the same material as the mountain, for it is from His essence?

We should interpret that they mean that it is discerned as existence from existence. This is why they made a comparison to a stone from a mountain. The difference is that it is a part of the matter, which He divided, to be called a “soul.” This is the will to receive, meaning that this part is called “Creation,” meaning existence from absence.

Conversely, the light in it is regarded as existence from existence, but of course this “existence,” which is received in the soul, already has its own form and changes between each soul. All this is done by the will to receive, and all the changing is according to the will to receive according to the corrections of the desire to bestow. But the filling in the soul, meaning the light and vitality that the soul obtains, is called “existence from existence.”