Part 14 · Chapter 204

The Ari's Text

But the general conclusion is that the beard of ZA, and also the Tefillin, all of them are surrounding lights coming out from the inwardness of ZA, and they are not like the surrounding lights of the Lamed-Mem of the Tzelem, which are before they entered within ZA at all. Rather, these surrounding lights are the inner lights themselves that returned and came out in the secret of surrounding lights. And understand this difference, as stated elsewhere.

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

1The Lamed-Mem of Tzelem, which are before they entered within ZA at all; rather, these surrounding lights are from the inner lights themselves that returned and came out in the secret of surrounding light. It has already been explained above that the matter of the surrounding lights of the hairs of the Rosh and of the Dikna [beard] is from the discernment of the reflected light that clothed the revealed level of AB at the time of its emergence in the GAR of Atik; for after the birth of the Mochin and their clothing in the secret of the MaLTz of Tzelem [image], the GAR of those Mochin were compelled to go outside, by force of the Mem that was corrected in the GAR of all the Mochin, and which cannot receive them, as is known. And likewise the surrounding lights of the Tefillin come also from the discernment of the aforementioned revealed AB, which cannot clothe in the inner vessels after their clothing in the MaLTz, as above, page 1566, the passage beginning “Six discernments.” Thus these surrounding lights were already in the internality of the level, that is, at the time they emerged in the GAR of AA, which was then in the place of the GAR of Atik, where the correction of MaLTz does not apply at all; only after the birth of the Partzufim [pl. of Partzuf] and their coming to their place were they compelled to go out from the inner ones and to become surrounding lights to them. This is not so with the Lamed-Mem of Tzelem, which are the Mochin of Shabbat that are in the Musaf, and likewise the Mochin of the Mincha of Shabbat: they have never yet been in the internality of the Partzuf, and he needs new sortings and new MAN [Mayin Nukvin]. And therefore they are not at all like the surrounding lights of the Dikna and the Tefillin. And know that these surrounding lights of the hairs of the Rosh and of the Dikna, and the discernment of the Tefillin, are for this reason called in the words of the ARI by the name “a returning surrounding light,” to indicate that they were already in the inner vessels at the time of the coupling, only that after the birth they returned and went out, as explained.