Introduction to Sulam Commentary

7. Therefore,12This point returns to the middle of the previous section , explaining the logic as to why the returning light was only able to serve as complete vessels for the direct light below the partition and not above it. the ten sefirot of the direct light and the ten sefirot of the returning light had to spread from the partition and downward. The reason is that it was at that point that the ten sefirot of the returning light became vessels that receive and enclothe the ten sefirot of the direct light. At this stage, the partition is already positioned above the ten sefirot of the returning light, and therefore its opacity controls the ten sefirot of the returning light, and it is through this positioning that they are formed into vessels.

These ten sefirot, which are formed into actual vessels, are termed “interior” and “body“, meaning that they are the inner part, the inside, and the exterior, the body, of the partzuf. The Malkhut of the interior is termed “navel,” as in the phrase “the navel [tabur] of the earth,”13See Ezekiel 38:12. which means the center, the middle. This indicates that the Malkhut of the interior is the central Malkhut, from which its returning light, the actualized vessels of the body, were made. It can further be stated that the word for navel, tabur, comes from the letters of tov or, “good light,” indicating that the light is “good” up to that point since it is enclothed in the vessels that are suitable for receiving it. This is the explanation of the ten sefirot of the interior until the navel.