This beating continues until the surrounding light purifies the partition of all its opacity (ovyut) and elevates it to its root above, which is the mouth of the head.51The beating of the surrounding light represents the constant insistence of the surrounding light to enter the vessel. The vessel of Malkhut resists this pressure, represented by the partition. Since the surrounding light is inexorable, over time it erodes the partition, degrading it so that it loses its opacity.
This removal of opacity, which the author of the Sulam refers to as “purification of the partition,” causes the body of the partzuf to revert to the more theoretical form of the head of the partzuf, causing the body to merge and unite with the structure of the head. In other words, the surrounding light purifies the partition of the Malkhut of the body of all the opacity, that is, the opacity of above to below, which is referred to as the partition and opacity of the body.52The “opacity of above to below” refers to the dynamic of the body of the partzuf receiving the supernal light, which flows from above.
By contrast, “the opacity from below to above” conveys the opposite dynamic, of the returning light moving “upward” to serve as new vessels for the supernal light. In this state, the “separation” described here has not yet been achieved because the returning light only serves as theoretical vessels for the supernal light, the head that then expands to become the body. This purification leaves the partition of the body with only the root of the body, which is the same as the partition of the Malkhut of the head, called “mouth.”
That is, the partition is purified of all the opacity that is of above to below, which separates the inner light from the surrounding light, and only the opacity from below to above remains, where this separation between the inner light and the surrounding light has not yet been achieved, as stated in the previous section.