138 Openings of Wisdom

Opening 50

The entry of the light into the vessels and its exit are the root of the governmental order of this world in a state of damage and repair.

Nothing is in vain. Therefore the initial entry of the light and its subsequent turnabout and departure -- when all this gradation could have been brought about from the outset without this -- also has an essential function and consequence. And this is the individual root needed to give existence to the governmental order of this world in its various states of damage and repair, reward and punishment, according to the complete measure of what is required for this, neither less nor more.

Having provided an overall conspectus of the subject of the primordial kings, it is now necessary to go back and explain the initial stages accordingly.

The proposition consists of two parts. Part 1: Nothing is in vain. This explains how the lights entered into the vessels and afterwards turned back and went out. Part 2: And this is the individual root... This explains the reason for this phenomenon.

Part 1: Nothing is in vain. This is obvious from two sides. Firstly, that anything could be for no purpose is quite inconceivable in the Supreme Mind, for something that is without a purpose is quite unfitting and it is impossible that anything unfitting could exist in the Supreme Mind. Secondly, as we have already said, the Sefirot are the measures of all the creations in all their different parts and aspects as laid down in the Supreme Mind, and the Sefirot are nothing except this. If so, the Sefirot contain nothing that does not exist in the creations, and accordingly nothing is in vain.

Therefore the initial entry of the light and its subsequent turnabout and departure... Even when we do not know what results from a given phenomenon, on the strength of the above unshakeable premise we certainly know that it has some consequence, except that we have not understood it. Moreover, on the basis of that premise we can legitimately infer that the phenomenon in question is also necessary in order to produce a result of precisely the required nature because of it.

To apply this to the subject under discussion, since we see that what happened is that the lights entered into the vessels and then turned back and went out, we infer that this must have happened for a reason. However, the reason cannot have been simply to produce the gradation (of the Partzufim) since that could have been brought about without this. We must therefore say that it was for some other reason besides this. But since we see that this phenomenon comes to produce the gradation -- for it is through this that came about -- we can therefore immediately infer that although the gradation could have been produced without this phenomenon, it must have required some condition that would not have been fulfilled had it not been produced in this way, as it goes on to say.

...when all this gradation could have been brought about from the beginning without this... For the light did not do anything -- it did not act. It simply did not join with the vessel, because the vessel was not complete, and the light waited until the gradation on which the repair of the vessel depended was brought about. If so, the light itself did not do anything in producing the gradation, it just waited until the gradation was brought about. If so, why did it enter initially?

This also has an essential function... For certainly the entry of the light into the vessels produces some effect in those vessels. ...and consequence. Everything that was done above has a conseqence in the governmental order of the worlds.

Part 2: And this is the individual root... I.e. the root of the specific nature of the creations lies in the combination of the lights above. Where the lights above shine in a revealed way, this puts greater power into the creations. Where there is concealment, it causes weakness. Corresponding to all the different aspects required in what exists, there are exactly so many lights above. Where some aspect of existence needs to be weak, the light that is its root has to be closed up or occluded. What has to be strong requires that its light should be open. There is thus a combination of just so many revelations and just so many occlusions in those places, i.e. those individual lights which are responsible for producing the particular design and character of what exists below in all its aspects.

...needed to give existence to the governmental order of this world... For this is the result that derives from this root through this particular combination.

...in its various states of damage and repair... What we see here are the roots of damage and repair, with things sometimes going in one direction, sometimes in another. This is because in our world damage and repair have been combined to exist in various different ways, and all these corresponding roots can therefore be discerned above. ...reward and punishment... For this is the main thing that comes out of this.

...according to the complete measure of what is required for this, neither less nor more. The Supreme Mind knew how to calculate what had to exist in order to bring all this about to perfection, and decreed accordingly how many roots of damage should exist and how many roots of repair and in which order and manner they should be subject to one another.