He sets up a crucial question: when we It's tempting to think that concepts like quantity and relativity only apply to these vessels, which were created along with our souls to help us perceive the Divine in manageable doses. This idea is akin to the parable of the window with four colored panes – white, red, green, and black – each tinting our view of the same light (as mentioned earlier in section #7 of Baal HaSulam's Preface). Or like the ink and parchment of a book, distinct but working together.
We might even extend this analogy to the lower worlds of Beria, Yetzira, and Asiya – Creation, Formation, and Action. In those realms, it’s easier to see the vessels of the sefirot as newly formed entities, separate from pure Divinity.
Baal HaSulam insists this understanding falls apart when we reach the world of Atzilut (the World of Emanation) – Emanation. In Atzilut, even the vessels of the ten sefirot are fully Divine, completely one with the Divine light within them. As the Tikkunei (spiritual repair) Zohar (3b) so beautifully puts it: “He, His life, and His attributes are one.” "He" refers to the very essence of the sefirot, the hidden aspect of Ein Sof (the Infinite), blessed be He. "His life" is the light that illuminates the sefirot, the "light of vitality" – because Atzilut is an expression of Ḥokhma (Wisdom), and the light of Ḥokhma is life-giving. And "His attributes" refers to the vessels themselves. Everything in Atzilut is Divinity, pure unity.
So, if Atzilut is entirely Divine, how can we account for the changes that seem to be caused by the lower worlds? If change implies quantity and relativity – qualities that seemingly can't apply to the unchanging Divine – how can change even exist in Atzilut?
This leads to another challenging question: If everything in Atzilut is Divinity, and there are no newly created vessels, how can we make the three distinctions mentioned in the Tikkunei Zohar – "He, His life, and His attributes"? Shouldn't it all be one simple, unified whole?
These questions are not meant to be easily answered. They are invitations to delve deeper into the mysteries of Kabbalah, to confront the seemingly paradoxical nature of the Divine, and to consider how the infinite and the finite can, in fact, be intimately connected. What do you think? How can we reconcile the idea of an unchanging Divine with the constant flux of our own experience?
You might say that these concepts do not refer, God forbid, to the Divinity itself, which is enclothed and illuminates in the sefirot, but only to the vessels of the sefirot.24That is, perhaps all these conceptions involving quantities and relativity do not refer to God Himself, but rather to the sefirot which are vessels. These are not Divinity, one might suggest, but were newly formed together with the creation of the souls in order to conceal or reveal measures of perception in accordance with the appropriate amount and degree for souls, so as to bring them to the desired completed state of rectification. This suggestion is like what was stated earlier (section #7#) regarding the parable of the window with four panes with four different colors – white, red, green, and black – and similarly the white in a book and the substance of the letters in a book. Such a suggestion can be made with regard to the three worlds of Beria, Yetzira, and Asiya, as there one finds that the vessels of the sefirot are newly formed and are not Divinity. However, it is completely unjustifiable to understand the world of Atzilut in this manner, as in Atzilut it is also the vessels of the ten sefirot that are fully Divine; they are one with the Divine light that is within them. This is as written in the Tikkunim (Tikkunei Zohar) (3b): “He, His life, and His attributes are one.” “He” means the essence of the sefirot, which is the mystical meaning of Ein Sof, blessed be He. “His life” is the mystical meaning of the light that illuminates in the sefirot, which is called the “light of vitality,” for the whole world of Atzilut is an expression of Ḥokhma, and the light of Ḥokhma is called the light of vitality, and therefore the Tikkunei Zohar states “His life.” And “His attributes” means the vessels of the sefirot. Thus, everything in that level of existence is Divinity and complete unity. If so, how is it possible in Atzilut to understand those changes caused by the lower creations?25In other words, since change implies quantities and relativity, qualities that cannot apply to the intangible Divine, how can the concept of change be applied at all to the world of Atzilut, a world that is purely divine, and thus, not changeable? At the same time, it is necessary to understand the following: If everything is Divinity in that world, and there are no vessels there that are newly created entities, how can one make the three distinctions stated in the Tikkunei Zohar – “He, His life, and His attributes”? After all, it is an absolutely simple unity.
