However, these ten sefirot of the returning light, which emerge from the partition and rise upward and which enclothe the ten sefirot of the direct light, are not yet genuine vessels, because the term “vessel” is indicative of opacity, namely, the force of judgment that the partition contains, which prevents the enclothing of the light in Malkhut. There is a principle that the force of judgment is active only from the place where the judgment is located and below it, not from the place where the judgment is located and above it.8The force of judgment in a level derives from the particular amount of will to receive found within that level.
This will to receive cannot operate above its own level. In kabbalistic thought, “lower level“ denotes an increase in limitations and finitude, as the concepts of barriers and containment are increasingly manifested. These concepts are expressive of the force of judgment, as judgment is the dynamic of delineation, selectivity, standards, and evaluations. Accordingly, the “amount” of judgment that exists in a particular level derives from the “amount” of the will to receive that is unique to that level.
As a result, the force of judgment in a level cannot operate above that level, since the will to receive of the level is unique to the level and would be reduced in the higher level above. Since the ten sefirot of the returning light emerged from the partition and rose upward, as stated above, the force of judgment is therefore not discernible in the returning light, and the returning light is not fit to be a genuine vessel.9As the author of the Sulam explains, in order to be a true vessel, opacity is required.
Thus, the returning light cannot serve as a true vessel, since it is “above” the partition. However, the returning light and its vessels serve as roots, theoretical forms of the fully formed vessels that manifest below the partition as the body. As the author of the Sulam elucidates, the theoretical vessel structure above the partition is called the head. Consequently, the ten sefirot of the returning light are called head, which means the root of the vessels but not actual vessels.