Introduction to Sulam Commentary

How the Lower Level Ascends to Its Upper Level 20. By means of this ascent of Malkhut to Bina, the connection and the possibility for the ascent of each lower level to the level above it has been prepared.26This section describes how a lower level can ascend to a higher level. In order for this ascent to take place, there must be an equating of form between the two levels (recall that in spiritual matters, an equating of form means connection and unification). Through the process of feminine waters which will be explained more extensively, the Malkhut leaves its position within Bina. This removal of Malkhut allows the displaced sefirot of Bina, Tiferet and Malkhut of the higher level (the ones displaced by the ascent of Malkhut to Bina) to return to their higher place (the state of maturity). The important point added in this section is that while these displaced sefirot were in the lower state, they united with the sefirot of that lower level. When they subsequently return to their higher state, they remain united with those sefirot of the lower level, and they pull those isefirot up with them. Thus, the ascent of feminine waters allows lower levels of existence to be elevated to higher levels. This elevated state further allows those lower levels to access amounts of supernal light and brains that would otherwise have been restricted to them in their lower state. For there is a rule that an upper level which descends to the lower level below becomes like it, and likewise a lower level that ascends to the upper level above becomes like it. Therefore, when the level is in a state of immaturity – that is, when the terminating Malkhut ascends to Bina, expelling Bina, Tiferet, and Malkhut from that level to the level below it – those sefirot of Bina, Tiferet, and Malkhut become one level with the level below it since the upper level that descends to the level below becomes like the lower level.

Consequently, when the level is in a state of maturity – that is, when Malkhut returns and leaves Bina and comes back to its place – and the Bina, Tiferet and Malkhut that fell from Bina return to their level – they also take with them the lower level where they were residing at the time of their fall. Since they became a single level with the lower level at the time of their fall, and they became attached to it as one, they therefore also take it with them upon their return to the higher level, raising the lower level to the higher level. In accordance with the rule that a lower level that ascends to an upper level becomes like it, it follows that the lower level receives all the lights and brains that exist in the higher level.

It has thus been explained how the ascent of Malkhut to Bina brought about a connection between the levels, so that each level can ascend to the level above it. Furthermore, even the lowest degree can ascend to the loftiest level through this connection that has been achieved through the falling of Bina, Tiferet, and Malkhut from each level to the level below it (as explained in Sulam on Zohar, Vayak’hel 41, s.v. “vezeh amru”).