Thus, in the sefira of Tiferet, Ḥesed is Keter, Gevura is Ḥokhma, Tiferet is Bina, Netzaḥ is Tiferet, and Hod is Malkhut. They are joined by the sefira of Yesod, which is not another level in addition to the five levels, but rather it is simply an encompassing level, since it incorporates within it all five sefirot of Ḥesed, Gevura, Tiferet, Netzaḥ, and Hod. These six sefirot are invariably identified by the acronym VAK, which is an acronym for vav ketzavot, or six extremities, which are these six sefirot of Ḥesed, Gevura, Tiferet, Netzaḥ, Hod, and Yesod.5The six extremities refer to the six directional edges or limits of every physical being: above, below, right, left, front, and back.
These six extremities correspond to the six sefirot that represent the body of a partzuf: Ḥesed, Gevura, Tiferet, Netzaḥ, Hod, and Yesod. Since this descent of the five levels to Ḥesed, Gevura, Tiferet, Netzaḥ and Hod occurs only in the partzuf of Ze’er Anpin, we attribute these five changed levels only to Ze’er Anpin.6As the author of the Sulam will explain in the following sections, the sefirot are the foundation for spiritual structures called partzufim.
There are five partzufim types, and each corresponds to one of the five levels discussed here. The level of Tiferet corresponds to the partzuf called Ze’er Anpin, which is the reason the author of the Sulam writes here that the lower forms of the five sefirot making up Tiferet are associated with this partzuf.