Ramchal expands on the correspondence between the physical universe and the Sephira system that we referred to above in his Klallim Rishonim 1. He indicates there that “creation … itself in its entirety is a replica of all the lights (i.e., of the Sephira system) that produced it. As the various parts of the universe each corresponds to the lights in every way … each to each”. That explains the idea of there being “613 lights which parallel the (248) limbs (and 365 organs) of the human form”, and the idea that they function in ways that “parallel the natural laws that govern humanity” and the natural world.
He also makes the point that “whatever is said of the Sephirot is (likewise) said of the universe”, it’s just that what’s said about the former “is said about them in their context” while what’s said about of the latter “is said about them in their context”. So, for example, it’s said that “Sephirot ‘speak’ to each other” or “that they ‘hug’” one another, and the like. “That’s not to say that the Sephirot are two specific entities that (actually) speak to each other” or hug of course, Ramchal underscores. The point is that at times “one of them leaves its own border and enters the border of the other” much the way people communicate by one person emitting words which enter another’s ears, and the like. And that illustrates the idea that they interact by assuming different relative positions, as when they’re “encased” within each other for example.
(c) 2011 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman
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