“Expressed in Light” p: 171

AyinBase with R' Paltiel Monday 4 MenachemAv 5772 

Page 171 – about a quarter into the page (line starts, 'devekut...') For text, see picture below, or see link top right of the blog (needs update).

There is nothing in essence, but essence. So how does light come from it? It comes by the will of the Essence. Totally volitional. The presence is due to the initiative of the essence. And thus there is an element of essence in the light.

A light that is a gilui/revelation from the essence – meaning the essence has that quality – there we can say it is a revelation from the essence. Like sunlight from the sun. The light is created by the presence of the sun. It is revelation from what the essence is.

But in essence there is no light and has no relationship to light and thus the light is not a revelation from the essence. Yet still, because it has an aspect of cleaving (bechinat devekut be-ha-atzmus) it means that the giving of the light, it 'this is what G-d wants (rather than it being reflective of who He is). 

Being that His will is to be 'in an element of light' (li-heyot be-bechinat ohr), it means that he wants not just that there be light, but rather that He be expressed in light. He wants to be expressed in light. And the resulting light is thus cleaving to him.

Here the 'cleaving' does not mean connected, but rather means, 'one and the same thing'.

So in truth, even as we do not know the level and supremacy of essence, so too, we do not know the essential level of the light.

Light and essence are incomparable. But essence wants to be represented in light. So if you go down to the essence of the light, it cannot be know... essence is perfect concealment and the essence of the light is also perfect concealment.

In the Zohar it says, that the creation of the world is 'in order that there should be knowledge of Him' and in the Etz Chaim it is written, 'what does the creation accomplish? It is so that there be revealed the perfection of His faculties and actions.' So this is saying that this ohr/revelation is showing perfection and can be known.

But all this knowing is addressing only the lights and the revelations. The spreading of the light, not how it is in essence.

That light, that has the quality of 'He fills all the worlds' and comes by means of contraction/tzimzum and reduction, to 'transport' it in vessels, is possible to know.

The principle of 'filling all worlds' (in contrast to 'surrounding all worlds') sounds like 'above worlds' since it is 'all' worlds.