Kabbalah Library Home
/
Baal HaSulam /
After the Tzimtzum
73. After the Tzimtzum
I heard in 1943
After the Tzimtzum [restriction], the first nine became the place of Kedusha [holiness]. And Malchut, over which there was the Tzimtzum, became the place of the worlds. There are two discernments to be made: 1) a hollow place, which is a place for the Klipot [shells/peels], whose essence is the desire to receive only for themselves, and 2) a vacant place, meaning a place that became vacant for inserting what one chooses—Kedusha or the opposite.
Had it not been for the Tzimtzum, the whole of reality would have been in the form of simple light. Only after the Tzimtzum was there room for choosing to do bad or do good.
The abundance extends into that place through choosing the good. This is the meaning of what is written in the writings of the ARI, that the light of Ein Sof [infinity] shines to the lower ones.
Ein Sof is called “the desire to do good to His creations.” Although we discern many worlds, ten Sefirot, and other names, it all extends from Ein Sof, called “the thought of creation.”
The names, Sefira [sing. of Sefirot] and “world,” are because the abundance that pours out from Ein Sof descends through that Sefira and world. This means that since the lower ones cannot receive His bounty without preparation and correction, for the lower one to be able to receive, corrections were made by which there is ability to receive. This is called Sefirot.
In other words, each Sefira has its unique correction. Because of this there are many discernments. But they are only with respect to the receivers, since when the lower one receives the abundance from Ein Sof, he receives through a special correction which adapts it to receive the abundance. This is the meaning of receiving through a special Sefira although there are no changes whatsoever in the abundance itself.
Now you will understand the matter of the prayer that we pray to the Creator, which is the light of Ein Sof, being the connection that the Creator has with the creatures, called “His desire to do good to His creations.” Even though there are many names with the aim of the prayer, the interpretation is that the abundance will pour out through the corrections in the names since precisely through the corrections in the names will the abundance be in the hands of the receivers.