Part 15 · Chapter 17

The Ari's Text

And when the moon complained, she was diminished from the above measure and returned to be as at first, in the aspect of the greatest diminution possible, which is that her ten Sefirot returned and ascended and departed into their roots in the ten Sefirot of ZA, for from there they came out, as above; and nothing remained but her Malchut, which is a single point included of ten, under the back of the Yesod of ZA.

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 moon complained; then she was diminished from the above measure, and returned to be as at first, in the discernment of the greatest diminution, etc. The matter of the complaint of the moon has already been explained above, page 1691, the passage beginning “And in order.” See there — that it was for the reason that her separation from ZA caused her a lack of Hassadim there, and she could not stand there in Gadlut, but had to return to the discernment of VAK, to be attached to ZA in one wall, in order to receive Hassadim from him. However, it was said to her, “Go and diminish yourself,” that is, that she should return to the discernment of a point under the Yesod, the meaning of which is that she should return to the discernment of Ibur [impregnation], for from there her Ibur begins, as above. However, this is not a return to that same discernment of the Ibur of the posterior that she had before the complaint; rather it is a new Ibur of the discernment of face to face, which is called the second Ibur of the Mochin of the anterior. And from now on her IYM [Ibur, nursing, and Mochin] of the four phases of the anterior mentioned above in the words of the ARI begin. And it is found that the moon did not lose so much through her complaint, for she in fact gained, since from now on she begins to be built face to face.
And one must be exact here, for it is known that the seven days of Genesis are the discernment of the ZAT, HGT NHYM, and it is found that the fourth day is the Sefira of Netzah; and if so, the diminution of the moon should have been on the fifth day, which is the Sefira of the Hod, since the Nukva is the discernment of Hod and not the discernment of Netzah, which is the fourth day. And this is understood with what was explained above, that it is impossible for the Nukva to be in an equal level with ZA except through the inclusion of NH together, and even for the discernment of an equal level with Jacob the inclusion of NH is needed. See there. And therefore it is necessary that before she came into the third phase of the posterior, to be in an equal level with Jacob, the Nukva was already included in the Sefira of the Netzah; and therefore the diminution was made on the fourth day, which is Netzah.