“True Life Element” p: 174

AyinBase with R' Paltiel Friday 20 Elul 5772 

Page 174 – middle of the top paragraph (line starts, 'legabay...') For text, see picture below.

Light after the tzimzum has an essential quality, even though it is after the tzimzum.

Tzimzum results in a total absence of light in contrast to the parsa, so you may think the essence does not come through. But actually the parsa has a more profound affect.

The parsa allows the light to assume the contours of the vessel into which it is invested. The soul is dressed in the body and assumes some of the body qualities to provide for it life and mind and you can lose sense that it is spiritual.

The light that follows the tzimzum is not of the tzimzum, but rather it is due to Him, that He comes back and shines again (chozer u-may-ir), in a close way... this is initiated from above. It is not to fill some lacking on a lower level. It is due to a movement from above.

This gives the light after the tzimzum an 'authentic' quality – from the ohr ein sof – the infinite light.

Think of breathing. We participate, yet there is a 'true life element' – a limitless quality, that is beyond a defined action. Life cannot be explained from a physical perspective, even though life is invested into a physical body.

Breathing is a physical illustration of this concept – an activity that is initiated from above. Air pressure pushes itself into our nostrils when we inhale. On the one hand it is via the conduit/tzimzum of the nostril, but what comes? And how does it come? Life itself comes, due to its infinity.

So the tzimzum is initiated from above, and goes through a narrow channel, but it does not think, 'how do I relate to this' – it comes with an element of infinity.

The light that comes via the kav/line retains an element of the luminary.

Eins sof – infinity, doesn't even apply to essence. Essence is reality itself. Light has a source. Essence has no source. And this light in the kav/line that is the origin of existence, carries this essential quality. There is an element of the essene in everything.