הקדמה

3. And just like the reflection of the covenant was sown in forty-two fusions from that seed, so was the engraved and explicit name seeded with the forty-two letters of the act of creation.

Explanation: The mystical meaning of the forty-two lettered name [of God] is simple Havaya, and a “filled” Havaya, and a “filled” of a “filled” Havaya, which contain forty-two letters.1The "simple" Havaya is simply the four letters yod-heh-vav-heh. A "filled" spelling of this name actually spells out the pronounced letter's name, like "yod" being spelled with three letters (y-o-d), instead of just the one letter yod. A "filled" "filled" spelling involves actually spelling out the already spelled out letters, like yod being spelled out as yod-vav-dalet, spelling out yod. The simple spelling is four letters, the filled spelling is ten letters, and the filled spelling is twenty-eight letters, for a total of forty-two. This will be explained in Marot HaSulam. That seed which is present in the sign of the covenant,2As explained in the previous sections, this refers to the coronet (ateret) of Yesod of Ze'er Anpin, corresponding to the circumcision on a Jewish man's reproductive organ, the "sign of the covenant" of Brit Mila (ritual circumcision). which is five givings (ḥassadim) and five restraints (gevurot), as stated previously, is drawn from the forty-two-letter name [of God].

This the meaning of “just like the reflection of the covenant,” which is the Nukba, “was sown in forty-two fusions from that seed, so was the engraved and explicit name sown in the forty-two letters of the act of creation.” The explanation: one can discern two aspects in the Nukba: The first is the construction of her partzuf, built by the Bina, which is explained here in the act of the creation.3This refers to the phase of immaturity. The second is her fusion with Ze’er Anpin, which is called “the secret of the unification.” This is why [the Zohar] says, “just like the reflection of the covenant,” which is the Yesod of Nukba, “was sown in forty-two fusions from that seed,” of the sign of the covenant, as this phenomenon is through “the secret of the unification,” i.e., in the mystical meaning of the fusion. Through this you can extrapolate to the order of the emanation of the construction of the Nukba by means of Bina, called “the act of creation,” that it was also in the mystical meaning of the name of forty-two.4The point here is that one can extrapolate backward from the seeding of Nukba from Ze'er Anpin, through the forty-two fusions, to the actual formation of the partzuf of Nukba itself, which transpired through Bina and similarly used the forty-two letter name.

As you know, there are two phases in the construction of the Nukba, phases of immaturity and maturity. Now, the immaturity is called “engraved,” which means engravement of a receptacle for the lights of the phase of maturity, as everything that is received by the Nukba at the time of maturity requires preparation and qualification during the phase of immaturity (as stated in section 1, above, in the paragraph beginning “The brains"). [The immature phase] is therefore called “engraved.” [The Nukba's] phase of maturity is called “explicit,” because everything that was embedded during the phase of immaturity is clarified and becomes known at the time of maturity. This is [Rabbi Ḥizkiya's] meaning when he states: “So was seeded the engraved and explicit name” – the Nukba is called “name,” and “engraved” is her immaturity, while “explicit” is her maturity. They too were sown and constructed through the forty-two letters, like the forty-two fusions in “the secret of the unification” in the sign of the covenant. This is why [the Zohar] says, “in the forty-two letters of the act of creation” is the forty-two letters which appear here from Bereshit [“In the beginning”] until the letter bet of va-vohu [“and void,” Genesis 2:2].