Parte 5 · Capítulo 49

You should also know that the measure of time that the light is not Matei in the Sefira is only one moment. This is the meaning of, “For His anger is but for a moment.” It is so because the departure of the light when it is not Matei was because of wrath, and also because the lower ones do not have the strength. However, the continuation of the phase of Matei, which is the return of the light downward to revive the worlds, has no measure since it will be according to the act of the lower ones. This is the meaning of, “life in His will,” according to the desire that will then be, meaning according to the actions of humans, so will the length of those lives be. Indeed, we have explained above that the first departure of the lights was in order to make a vessel. Now that the lights returned a second time in the second expansion, the vessels were annulled as in the beginning. Hence, the first light, which is light of Keter, had to have remained above in all of them, and not permeate those vessels. Thus, only nine lights came in this order: The light of Hochma in the vessel of Keter, the light of Bina in the vessel of Hochma, etc. similarly. Finally, the light of Malchut permeates the vessel of Yesod. Now the first light did not return to the vessel that concerns it, which first departed from it. Instead, a different, smaller light came in its place. Hence, the vessels remained as vessels; they did not return to being lights, as before. When the lights began to enter the vessels, the nine lights entered the Keter, and this is called Matei in Keter. After that, the light that reaches the Keter departed, which is the light of Hochma, and this is called, and this is called not Matei. We should not elaborate in that since we have already elaborated sufficiently on the matter of Matei and not Matei. Yet, the reason that all nine lights entered the vessel of Keter together, unlike the first expansion, when they entered one to one, where the light of Malchut entered the vessel of Keter. Afterwards, that light was pushed down to the place of Hochma, and then the light of Yesod entered Keter, etc., similarly, until all ten lights entered, according to the number, ten vessels. The reason is understood with the abovesaid, that in the beginning, when the light of Keter was with them and they all illuminated from its side, none of those vessels had the strength to receive within it, but only one light. Now, however, that light of Keter does not enter the vessel, but remains above and turned its posterior downward, as it is written in Tree of Life, because of it, now there is strength to install all the lights together in one vessel, since all nine lights that now enter the Keter, are smaller than the first light of Keter, and there is the strength to receive them. ­Also, when all eight lights entered the vessel of Hochma, it has the power to receive them, as they are all smaller than the light of Hochma, etc., similarly in all of them.