Partzufim (6)

Petach 72 indicates that some of the Partzufim are, i.e., function as, “male” and others as “female”. That is, some of them, the “male” ones, function as a conduit for Chessed, and others i.e., the “female” ones, function as a conduit for Gevurah. But when they conjoin, both forms of conduction combine and “give birth” to a desired action, as there’s nothing that isn’t a combination of the two qualities of Chessed and Gevurah. This harkens back to what was said above in 11:3; see there for an explanation.

 Ramchal offers in his comments here that there are three reasons why everything is a combination of Chessed (allowance and consent) and Gevurah (prohibition and refusal): to allocate reward and punishment (as an allowance for one’s freely-made decisions to do right, or a refusal to allow for it for decisions to do wrong), to allow for counterbalance (which only the existence of patent opposites like Chessed and Gevurah allows for), and because the very essence of things are rooted in these concepts (so their offspring must be comprised of them, too).

(c) 2014 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

Feel free to contact me at feldman@torah.org

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