Baal HaSulam's Preface to Zohar Reader

For if His light had not spread over all created beings by its enclothing, as it were, in these holy sefirot, how could the created beings merit recognizing Him and how could the verse be fulfilled: “The whole earth is full of His glory”?60Isaiah 6:3. The author of the Sulam explains: The meaning is that the Zohar is thereby explaining the Divine desire to appear to the souls as though these changes in the sefirot are in Him. This is in order to give the souls the possibility of sufficient recognition and perception of Him, since then the verse “the whole earth is full of His glory” will be fulfilled, as we stated in section #33# above.

Despite all of the above, woe is he who ascribes to Him any attribute, i.e., who claims that the attribute is found in God Himself, even with regard to these spiritual attributes of His, through which He appears to the souls. All the more so regarding the corporeal attributes of the nature of people, whose origin is dust,61See Job 4:19. and who are fleeting and transitory.

This is as we stated (section #34#, above), that although it is the Divine desire that the receiving souls should see the changes in the attributes as in the Giver, it must nevertheless be clear to the souls that there is no change or attribute in Him, God forbid. Rather, it is simply the Divine desire that they should imagine it as such, in the mystical meaning of the verse: “And by the ministry of the prophets have I used symbols.”62Hosea 12:11.

Should they err in this regard, God forbid, woe to them, for in an instant they will forfeit the Divine shefa. There is no need to say this with respect to those dim-witted ones who ascribe to Him some of the incidents that can befall a fleeting, transitory, flesh-and-blood creature. This concludes the citation from the Zohar. It would be advantageous for the reader to study the entire continuation of this section of the Zohar, as it clarifies the topic of the ten sefirot and three worlds of Beria, Yetzira, and Asiya, but this is not the place to elaborate any further.