In his "Preface to Zohar," Baal HaSulam delves into this very idea, using a beautiful analogy to help us grasp something incredibly profound. He focuses on the ten sefirot – those emanations or attributes through which the Divine manifests. Specifically, he highlights Ḥokhma (Wisdom), Bina (Understanding), Tiferet (Beauty), and Malkhut (Kingdom) – and he likens them to colors.
Think of it this way: Ḥokhma is white, Bina is red, Tiferet is green, and Malkhut is black. Now, why these colors?
Baal HaSulam uses the image of a window with four panes, each tinted with one of these colors. Imagine pure, unadulterated light shining through this window. Before it passes through, it's just light, right? But as it goes through each pane, it's transformed. It takes on the hue of the glass, becoming white, red, green, or black light.
This, he explains, is how we can understand the Divine light as it passes through the different sefirot. The light itself, from the highest realm of Atzilut (Emanation) all the way down to the lowest realm of Asiya (Action), is fundamentally unified, simple Divinity. It’s a unity. So why this division into ten sefirot?
It's all about the "vessels," those containers or instruments through which the light is received. Each sefirah, like Ḥokhma, Bina, Tiferet, and Malkhut, acts as a kind of filter, a refined partition. And as the Divine light passes through each vessel, it appears to change, taking on a different characteristic, a different "color."
Now, here's where it gets really interesting. The vessel of Ḥokhma in the world of Atzilut transmits white light—essentially colorless light. Why? Because, at that level, the vessel of Atzilut is so refined, so close to the source, that it's almost indistinguishable from the light itself. As the Zohar says in Tikkunei_Zohar" target="_blank" rel="noopener" class="source-link">Tikkunei Zohar, in the world of Atzilut, "He, His life-force, and His attributes are one." It's a state of perfect unity. Separation? It just doesn't really exist in a meaningful way.
But as we move down the chain of being, to the worlds of Beria (Creation), Yetzira (Formation), and Asiya, the light undergoes a change. It becomes "duller" as it passes through the vessels. Red light represents Bina, which is associated with Beria. Yellow light, like the light of the sun, is for Tiferet, which corresponds to the world of Yetzira. And finally, black light is for Malkhut, the realm of Asiya.
So, what does all this mean? It suggests that our perception of the Divine is always filtered, always mediated through the vessels that receive it. We can't grasp the pure, undifferentiated light directly. Instead, we see it refracted, colored, and shaped by the structures of our own being and the nature of the world around us.
It's a reminder that even in the most profound experiences of connection, there's always a degree of separation, a veil that prevents us from fully grasping the infinite. But perhaps, in understanding the nature of that veil, in recognizing the colors through which we perceive the Divine, we can come a little closer to the light itself. What do you think?