הקדמה

24. “Shin entered etc.”The letter shin entered before Him. She said to Him: “Master of the worlds! It is good for You to create the world with me, as Your name is called by me, Shaddai, and it is fitting to create the world with a holy name. He said to her: You are beautiful, you are good, and you are true, but since the letters of falsehood [sheker] took you to be with them, I do not wish to create the world with you. For sheker cannot exist unless the letters kof and resh take you.

Explanation: The Nukba has two endpoints; one is called Malkhut of Malkhut, which is the tav, and the other is called Yesod of Malkhut, which is the shin. The explanation is that when [the Nukba] is without a structure from Abba and Imma Ila'in,1As explained in the previous sections, the Nukba draws brains from Abba and Imma Ila'in, building the Nukba into its proper structure. the tav is considered the endpoint, which is a harsh judgment, as we stated just above.2In the previous section of the Zohar. And when [the Nukba] is in the structure of a partzuf by means of Abba and Imma Ila'in, the letter shin is formed at the endpoint [of the Nukba], with the three heads of the shin representing the illumination of Ḥesed, Gevura, and Tiferet of the Imma, which [the Nukba] receives through Ze’er Anpin into the endpoint [of the Nukba], in the mystical meaning of the verse: “The well, which the princes dug etc.” (Numbers 21:18). By means of this illumination [the Nukba] becomes a vessel to receive one hundred blessings from Ze’er Anpin, in the mystical meaning of: “A woman enacts a covenant only with the one who made her into a vessel” (Sanhedrin 22a). [The Nukba] thereby becomes a receptacle to receive one hundred blessings from Yesod of Ze’er Anpin. This endpoint is therefore called “the middle point of the settlement,” since the whole settling of the world comes from it, and it is also called Yesod of Nukba.

Consequently, the letter shin is called a “letter of truth,” like the tav, and it is similarly called “the King’s seal,” like [the tav]. The word “seal” has multiple meanings: First, it denotes the end of the partzuf, like the seal of the king, which comes at the end of a document that is written in the king’s name. Second, the seal of the king is like the king Himself, as stated in the Tikkunim (Tikkun 22): “They fear the writing of the King’s seal as though it was the King Himself.” For this reason, the seal is called “a sign of truth,” since the whole truthfulness is thereby apparent from the seal. However, the shin has an advantage over the tav, since the shin is called by the mystical meaning of the name Shaddai, which means that He said to His world: “Dai [enough]; spread no further” (Ḥagiga 12a).3The name Shaddai mentioned here reflects God's ability to constrain and control reality, allowing it to serve as a stable context fit for populating. Thus, while the tav represents an intrinsic endpoint demarcating the edge of the realms of holiness, the shin demarcates reality in terms of its capacity for inhabitation. This refers to the building of the world in terms of [its] settlement, which ended only with a shin, through which He said to His world: Enough, do not spread further into the aspect of the tav. Therefore, the end point of the shin is called the middle point of the settlement.4"Middle point" means "the heart" of the settlement, its essence.

This was the shin’s claim: “It is good for You to create the world with me, as Your name is called by me, Shaddai.” Having seen that He rejected the tav because of the harsh attribute of judgment [the tav] contains, the shin thought to herself that the Holy One, blessed be He, would choose her attribute for the creation of the world, since she has all the merits of the tav – as she too is the King’s seal, and she is likewise a letter of truth – and she has another merit, since the name Shaddai is called by her. She was selected for the endpoint of the Nukba with respect to the settlement of the world, not the tav. Accordingly, she found the inner strength to come before the Holy One, blessed be He, [to request] that He should create the world with her attribute.

The Holy One, blessed be He, replied to her, to the shin: “Although your attribute is great, as you claim, it is for this very reason that your opposite in the kelippa is very strong. Falsehood could not exist in the world had the two letters of forgery and falsehood of the kelippot not taken you, i.e., kof and resh.” In other words, there are two sources [of lifeforce] for the Sitra Aḥara and all of the kelippot. One is a very small luminescence, which the [the side of] holiness itself shines for [the Sitra Aḥara and the kelippot] so they can exist and not be negated, as long as they are needed in order to punish the wicked. [With respect to this source], their construction is not great because the illumination is very slight, merely enough to sustain them, as the male [aspect] of the kelippa is only six extremities without a head, while the Nukba [of the kelippa] is only a dot without any expansion at all. As you already know [from the previous section of the Zohar], this very small luminescence is drawn to [the Sitra Aḥara and the kelippot] by means of the letter kof, since this is the beginning of their power to resemble the man5The language of "man" here in Hebrew is adam, and is a reference to the structure of man that is present in all levels of creation. of Beria, Yetzira, and Asiya of holiness, like a monkey [kof] in relation to man, which is the mystical meaning of: “God made one thing corresponding to the other” (Ecclesiastes 7:14).6Meaning, each created being on the side of holiness has a corresponding counterpart on the side of the Sitra Aḥara. The second source [of lifeforce] for the Sitra Aḥara is from the corruption of the lower beings, as through their evil deeds they draw away lights of holiness to the kelippot. The first corruption occurred at the sin of the Tree of Knowledge, through which a great structure was made for [the kelippot], with five partzufim and Atzilut, Beria, Yetzira, and Asiya, just like there is for the [side of] holiness.

This second source [of lifeforce for the Sitra Aḥara and the kelippot] is the letter resh, which indicates that [the Sitra Aḥara and the kelippot] ascend and attach as high as Bina of Malkhut, which is the letter dalet. As explained above, the twenty-two letters of the Malkhut are divided into Bina, Ze’er Anpin, and Malkhut: The units are Bina, the tens Ze’er Anpin, and the hundreds Malkhut.7In the Hebrew alphabet, the first nine letters equal 1-9, the next nine are 10-90, the "tens" and the last four are 100-400, the "hundreds." In this example, the twenty-two letters under discussion are all within Malkhut but are divided up to correspond to the levels of Bina, Ze'er Anpin and Malkhut that are within Malkhut. Thus, the dalet of the twenty-two letters of Malkhut is positioned at the start of the seven lower letters of Bina, since alef-bet-gimmel are the first three, and from the dalet and onwards, through tet, they are the six extremities of Bina in Malkhut.8The first three numbers correspond to the first three sefirot of Bina of Malkhut, while the fourth, dalet, corresponds to the sefira of Ḥesed, the beginning of the six extremities of the Bina level within Malkhut.

The mystical meaning of dalet is the poverty and wretchedness that is in Malkhut in general, since Malkhut “has nothing of her own, except for what her husband,” Ze’er Anpin, “gives her,” as is known.9Malkhut receives from Ze'er Anpin and has "nothing of its own," which is correlated to the meaning of the Hebrew word dalut, like the letter dalet, which means "poverty." This attribute of [Malkhut] is inscribed in the dalet, because when [the letter dalet] is [written out in] full it is dalet-lamed-tav, connoting “poverty [dalut]” and “emptiness.” The dalet also has a protruding corner on its roof, which indicates the protrusion of [the light of giving] (ḥassadim) in [the letter], which the dalet takes from the gimmel that precedes it. This gimmel is from the first three [letters] of Bina [of Malkhut, [and this gimmel] receives from its corresponding aspect in Ze’er Anpin, which itself receives from its corresponding aspect in Bina, where [the light of giving] are in great abundance. For this reason, [this letter] is called gimmel, from the phrase gommel ḥassadim [bestower of kindnesses, ḥassadim] (see Shabbat 104a), for [the gimmel] performs acts of kindness with the dalet, since [the dalet] has nothing of its own, and [the gimmel] bestows abundant giving [upon the dalet]. This protrusion of giving is alluded to by the corner on the roof of the dalet.10The right side of the roof of the dalet protrudes backward toward the gimmel, the preceding letter, to indicate that it is receiving the bestowal of giving from the gimmel.

However, the opposite [counterpart] of Malkhut of holiness is “a backbiter alienates friends,” which is the mystical meaning of “an arrogant pauper” [see Pesaḥim 113b] who does not want to receive from the gimmel and submit to it. Instead, [this counterpart] pretends to be master, with great pride. Due to this flaw, the corner is erased from the dalet, which is the protrusion of [the light of giving] in [the dalet], and [the dalet] becomes poor and destitute [rash], since erasing the corner from the dalet gives it the form of a resh, i.e., rash, which is the mystical meaning of: “Even in his reign he was revealed as poor [rash]” (Ecclesiastes 4:14).11In other words, in an impure version, the dalet, instead of viewing itself as poor and receiving from the gimmel, it views itself as the master, and cuts itself off from the source of the bestowal of giving. This erodes the right corner of the roof of the dalet, and the remaining shape is that of the letter resh, from the word rash, meaning destitute. The unification of Ze’er Anpin and the Nukba of holiness is in the mystical meaning of [the letters of] eḥad [“one,” alef-ḥet-dalet]. This is because alef-ḥet is the nine sefirot of Ze’er Anpin, which gives from the gimmel of Bina [above Ze'er Anpin] to the gimmel of Malkhut, by which the Malkhut becomes the mystical meaning of a dalet with a protruding angle – with abundant [light of giving].12Meaning, Ze'er Anpin serves as the bridge sharing the light of giving of the gimmel of Bina with Malkhut. Through this, Ze’er Anpin and Nukba become “one” (eḥad) flesh in complete unification. Thus, when the lower beings corrupt their actions, they give power to Malkhut of the Sitra Aḥara to cling to the dalet, which is the Malkhut, in order to erase the angle that protrudes in [receiving the light of giving] and turn it into a resh. Then the eḥad becomes aḥer [“other,” alef-ḥet-resh], and other gods cling to Ze’er Anpin and Nukba of holiness. This is the mystical meaning of: “A backbiter alienates friends” (Proverbs 16:28).

It is then considered that the letters kof-resh of the Sitra Aḥara expropriate for themselves the seal of the shin, which is the sign of “truth,” and the Yesod of Nukba, which is the receptacle of the Yesod of Ze’er Anpin, as stated previously. [The Yesod of Nukba] now goes to another god, of the Sitra Aḥara, because out of this shin a Yesod of the Nukba of the Sitra Aḥara is built. Therefore, the Sitra Aḥara grows, with ten complete sefirot with a head, and the shin that [the Sitra Aḥara] exploited becomes a point of destruction, because the Sitra Aḥara is built from the ruin of holiness. From here the [worlds of] Atzilut, Beria, Yetzira, and Asiya of the “wicked man” are built. It has thus been explained how the kof-resh are the two sources of the Sitra Aḥara, and therefore they are called the “letters of forgery,” since the Sitra Aḥara forged them in the above manner, in order to destroy the construction and unification of holiness, for [the Sitra Aḥara] to be built on the ruin of the holiness, as stated. This is achieved primarily by drawing to [the Sitra Aḥara] the shin, which is the form of Yesod of Nukba, into their portion and domain, by forging the dalet into a resh, which forges eḥad into aḥer, creating a structure for the partzufim of other gods. Thus, falsehood and forgery would not exist in such a large structure had the kof-resh of the Sitra Aḥara not expropriated the shin for themselves.

This is the meaning of the response of the Holy One, blessed be He, to the shin: “You are beautiful, you are good, and you are true, but since the letters of falsehood [sheker] took you to be with them, I do not wish to create the world with you. For sheker will not exist unless the letters kof and resh take you.” This is as we explained, that there would be no structure for falsehood and forgery of the Sitra Aḥara had it not expropriated the shin for itself, and therefore the world should not be created by means of the attribute [of the shin], as its opposite is balanced against it, and the completion of the rectification is not assured through it.