See, in this holy passage [from the Zohar] he the Holy One, he [the Rashbi], of blessed memory, intended to depart on this height, as En Sof is exalted above its emanated entities, which need to take council, the lower from the higher, as it needs influx from its cause which influences on it, and therefore it says: “Let us make a human being”, as if to say: ‘You shall influence [on me] and I shall act, and a human being is found made by means of the two of us’.
But [even] the upper one still needs to be influenced by its cause, as [even] in its hand there is also no [total] ability. But blessed En Sof has no need to talk to what is besides it ‘Let us make’, but [only] “I, I am He, and there is no god/elohim beside me”, meaning to say: with assistance [that is] with me: not below, as it does not have its equal below it, and not above, as there is no above beside it, because it is above all emanated entities. And he [= the Rashbi] said: ‘cause for all those above’, ‘above those causes’.
He intended to clarify for us that the reason which is called ‘cause of causes’ is of two aspects. The first [aspect] he explained from the expression ‘ascent’, and the intention [is] that it is above all the upper ones. And the intention is not a spatial ascent - Heaven forbid! – as there is no spatial matter at all in Atsilut/Emanation, let alone in the Emanator, but the explanation [is] the reality of an upward ascent and the spirituality and the possibility.
And the second explanation [and aspect] is from the expression ‘cause’/עילה and ‘reason’/סיבה as it is cause and reason for all the causes that there are in reality.