Ramchal on the Breaking of the Vessels (Part 3)

Ramchal lays out the raw details — as well as some other points of concern which we’ll turn elsewhere for — in HaIlan HaKodesh (2:2-3). He says there that, “Ten vessels were first emitted (from Adam Kadmon) and then their lights. The lights descended to Keter, Chochma, and Binah where they were (successfully) received, and then (they descended) to the seven lower (Sephirot) where they weren’t received. (As a consequence,) their vessels descended further downwards (to Atzilut, etc.) while their lights ascended upward to their places (i.e., their sources)…. These ten Sephirot were (then) in a state where they were divided into … the four worlds of Atzilut, Briah, Yetzirah, and Assiyah, and it was out of the very last one that wrong emitted…. (The latter seven Sephirot were like) ten separate, un-combinable sparks ….”

He adds some other raw details in Pitchei Chochma v’Da’at (35). He indicates that the lower seven Sephirot that emitted from Adam Kadmon “could neither accept or combine with” the light that entered into them, and (instead) broke and fell to the end of Assiyah… from which point the Sitra Achra (i.e., the “other side”) emerged”; that they “didn’t form the mystical configuration of a triad… (unlike) Keter, Chochma, and Binah (which) did”; and that it was their having formed that triad that “enabled Chessed (kindness) and Din (judgment) to stand as polar opposites” and for Rachamim (mercy) to “assume a place between them and to enable them to combine”, which was not so in the case of the lower seven Sephirot.

(c) 2012 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

Feel free to contact me at feldman@torah.org

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