“Shadow and Light” p: 174

 AyinBase with R' Paltiel Tuesday17 Elul 5772  

Page 174 – 3^rd line from top of the page (line starts, 'key im...') For text, see picture below.

It was explained that the light that comes after the tzimzum still contains an element of the essence, since there is a process of 'return and illuminate', rather than a total concealment, so it has the element of essence. It is a total concealment in that there is no enclothement.

The light before the tzimzum is different. Due to its supremacy, it cannot come into 'world' in full investment...

Hislabshut/investment can be thought of as the way sunlight relates to the physical objects in the world. Relating to the object and deflecting off the object differently according to the color and surface.

Light is a constant emanation from its source. It does not have a basic presence. Thus hislabshut/investment for light is a kind of an anomaly – light seems to shine on gold and dirt equally. It seems aloof from the object – while retaining the purity of its source, yet still we see there is an element of hislabshut, which is made possible by the reduction of the light...

Pure light from the sun would eliminate darkness, and it would not be world.

So too above the tzizum, the Rebbe is saying, that this light is too much for the world... 'World' requires a sense of presence and absence – light and shadow... 

We walk in the world, by covering the distance gradually, there's a process... without that, it is a jump/dilug, which is super-worldly.

This is to explain hislabshut - this is enclothement, the way that light is made appropriate to the world.  While we are at home in the whole world, we move in stages, with one foot forward and one trailing... connected to the place before. 

Only by concealment and absence, can there be a worldly reception for the G-dly light.

Just like a king, hidden in his palace affects his country. So there is presence of the king in an absent manner. When the king passes by everything stops.

The eye is a pure channel – it does not 'translate' the signal. The eye is transparent. But it is still a channel – we don't see all directions at once, and there is a slight filter... In thought or binah there is a 'translation' of what we see... The light is 'stepped down' into the vessels of the 'letters of thought'.