In any event chariots apparently stopped resonating all that much in terms of governance when leadership was placed in the hands of governors rather than warriors, per se — of those who ruled on palatial thrones somewhere in the capitol city rather than in those who lead while in battle.
That might explain why the Chariot came to represent the king’s court in the Heichalot (literally, “palaces”) literature — which were produced from Talmudic times all the way to the early Middle Ages — and the fact that the King there sits on His Throne. And it also might explain why the Chariot came to represent the array of Sephirot — all representative of God’s governance — in the Zohar and later Kabbalistic literature, thus hearkening to the King on His Throne once again.
Here, finally, is how Ramchal uses both Chariot and Throne in Klach (Petach 57). These four instances of AV discussed in the previous Petach which reinforce the four Partzufim of Abba, Imma, Zeir Anpin, and Nukveh in Erich Anpin, and which are removed from harm, are the essence of the “Chariot”. It’s here that the “Throne” “bears its bearers”.
As he explains in his comments there, “The Chariot represents the connection of the entire governmental order”. We’ll explain the idea of the Throne “bearing its bearers” soon, but suffice it to say for our purposes here that Ramchal equates the Chariot with the Throne, and with the entirety of the Sephirot system.
(c) 2013 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman
Feel free to contact me at feldman@torah.org
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