Part 10 · Chapter 1

The Ari's Text

*When the time came for ZON to be corrected, after Aba and Ima had been corrected, their correction had to come about through Ibur, so that the lights of the six points of ZA would enter, in the secret of Ibur, within the womb of his mother; and there the aspect of the shattered vessels that had fallen to Beria was also clarified and corrected.

Inner Light

This commentary hasn't been matched to individual seifim yet — items are shown in reading order, and the number beside each one counts the notes themselves, not the seifim of the Ari's text.

Not matched to a seif

1When the time came for ZON to be corrected, after AVI had been corrected: You already know from the previous parts that the matter of spiritual time — that is, the “beginning, and then” that is stated regarding the emergence of the upper lights — means cause and consequence. For every cause precedes its consequence, since it is what brings about the consequence that follows from it; hence this consequence cannot come out and be revealed except after its cause, and so the cause is regarded as first and prior, and the consequence is regarded as later and subsequent.
This is what he says: “When the time came for ZON to be corrected, after AVI had been corrected” — for AVI are the cause of ZON, since they correct and emanate them through their couplings, as will be said below, and as was said in the previous part, that the AHP of AVI — which are their posteriors, that had been nullified from them at the time of the breaking of the vessels — fell to the place of ZON. The meaning is that they joined and became one degree together with the GE of ZON, without any distinction or difference between them. And since they are bound to one another, it follows that after AVI were corrected in their complete Gadlut [greatness/adulthood] — that is, after they raised their posteriors and restored them to their degree — the GE of ZON also rose together with these AHP to the place of AVI, since they are bound to them, as explained. Hence the couplings of AVI benefit the GE of ZON, and in this way they grow and are corrected through AVI. Thus, before AVI themselves were corrected, the time for the correction of ZON had not yet come.
2Within the womb of his mother, and there the aspect of the shattered vessels was also clarified: Ima’s womb means the phase from her navel downward, which are the four Sefirot NHYM of Ima, and their main part is the middle line of Ima, which is Tifferet and Yesod; and this place — that is, from the navel to the Yesod — is called Ima’s womb, or her belly.
The matter of the ascent of ZON there has already been explained above, in the adjacent item: when the posteriors of Ima, which are her fallen AHP, return and join with her at her degree, the GE of ZON are found ascending together with them and joining likewise to Ima; and since, at the time of their fall, they were bound to one another at a single degree, so too now, at the time these posteriors return to Ima, they are found bound to one another as well. And you already know that these AHP are the discernment of ZAT of Bina of Ima, and her Hotem [nose] and Peh [mouth], from which her new NHY were made — for the lower Tifferet, from the chest downward, is the discernment of ZAT of Bina, since Tifferet is Bina of Hassadim, as is known; and NHY are the discernment of Hotem and Peh, that is, her ZON. And from this you will understand that the place of attachment of the GE of ZON to the AHP of Ima is from the place of the navel until the end of Tifferet and Yesod, which is the middle line — where the place of the coupling is, and where the place of the self of this Partzuf TNHY is, for the extremities, wherever they are, are not the essentials of the Partzuf, as is known. However, the main root of ZON is attached only to her Yesod, for there is the discernment of the ZON of Ima herself, as above; but by the power of the couplings of AVI that are there, the level of Bina is found receiving into itself, until it truly becomes his mother’s thigh. Then, over the course of the months of Ibur [impregnation], it goes on rising from the Yesod upward until the point of her chest, and no higher — for there the fallen AHP that were restored to her in her Gadlut already end, as above; and so up to there ZON has attachment and bonding with her, and no higher than her chest, which are the anterior vessels, that never had any contact or bonding whatsoever with ZON.
3The shattered vessels that had fallen to Beria and were corrected there: For the couplings that were made upon the records of the GE of ZON attached to the Yesod of Ima, as above, restore the lights belonging to those records — that is, the phase of the lights that were in them before the breaking of the vessels. Then, after the completion of the records, the vessels too are drawn and rise from BYA, and the corrected records return to their vessels and clothe in them as at first, that is, as they had been clothed in them before the breaking of the vessels. This is what he says: “and there the aspect of the shattered vessels that had fallen to Beria was also clarified.” For the correction of the records, which are included in the couplings of AVI, reaches only the vessels and sparks that fell to BYA that pertain to those records. For the records themselves, in their own phase, need no correction at all, since they are the remainder of the lights that departed from the vessels at the time of their breaking; and lights are never flawed, but only depart to their root, and only the receivers — which are the vessels of the Partzuf — are subject to correction and impairment. For at the time of their impairment they cannot receive the lights, and at the time of their correction they do receive them. Understand and remember this. And the matter of the records is the part that remains after the departure of the light, in order to draw again that same measure of light that had been in the vessels at first. However, the record too must necessarily be a phase of light, like the light that departed and rose — for otherwise it would not be called by the name record, and remainder of the light.