The final Petach to this section, Petach 89, serves as a segue to the next one which focuses on the Partzuf known as Erich Anpin. It contrasts a characteristic that Radlah and Erich Anpin would seem to have in common but which actually proves to be different in each, the sorts of “colors” emitted within each.
The Zohar speaks of a phenomenon known as “Tal b’Bedolcha” — a crystalline dew — in the arcane section of it known as Iddrah Rabbah (Zohar 3, 128a).
The dew is taken from the following sequence cited there in the Zohar. The Jewish Nation was complaining to Moshe about the lack of food, so God said, “I have heard the complaints of the children of Israel. (So) speak to them, saying, ‘In the afternoon you will eat meat, and in the morning you will be full with bread, and you know that I am God the Lord’.” And indeed, “It came to pass in the evening that quails went up and covered the camp, and in the morning there was a layer of dew around the camp. The layer of dew went up, and behold, on the surface of the desert, a fine, bare (substance) as fine as frost on the ground” which referred to the manna that they ate in the desert (Exodus 16: 12-14).
And the crystalline aspect of it refers to the verse cited there that reads,” Now the manna was like coriander seed, and its appearance was like the appearance of crystal” (Numbers 11:7).
Dew is thus a manifestation of God’s beneficence, and its crystalline character represents its multi-fadedness — of taste in the case of manna, and of color in the case of an actual crystal which reflects all colors.
(c) 2015 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman
Feel free to contact me at feldman@torah.org
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