It could be objected: We said earlier that the government lies in the Residue while the Line is concealed within it (see Opening 27). But from our present discussion it appears that on the contrary, the entire government derives from the Line, for we see that the government comes about only through what emerges from these apertures, which is from the interior, which is the Line. If so, surely the government is from the Line.
This may be answered as follows. What is revealed cannot be said to be revealed in accordance with the level of the soul. On the contrary, we must say that it is revealed according to the level of the body. This is because man is made up of a soul clothed within a body built of apertures and cavities: the cavities are container vessels while the apertures are vessels of exit. The soul fills the container vessels while emitting light through the exit vessels. All this is in accordance with the way the body works and the nature of its vessels. When the soul goes out through these exit vessels, it makes a radiant splendor around the body. The soul adds nothing to the body, which remains as it is. For even when the soul brings forth its lights, it brings them forth only in accordance with the nature of the body. This is the implication of the above-quoted passage from Otzrot Chaim stating that “the light of the brain is called AV, while the light of the ear is called SaG”. However, the vessels that bring forth the light exist only to reveal what takes place inside the container vessels. Thus the root of the government lies in the interconnection of the soul and the body inside, but the government is revealed in the face, and then an even greater revelation comes in the radiant splendor emerging from the fissures with all that is revealed there.