Part 15 · Chapter 45

The Ari's Text

However, the deficiency that was now in the exile of Babylon is that those illuminations that the seven upper [Sefirot] illuminated — in which Bina expanded in ZA, as above, in the days of the First Temple, and all of them illuminated in her in the aspect of face to face, as above — these lights all descended and were drawn into the Klipot, alas. But not her own first ten Sefirot, as above, which ascended in ZA; rather, these seven lights descended into the Klipot, and she returned back to back, on weekdays.

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 seven lights descended into the shells, and she returned back to back etc. The meaning is not that the seven lights themselves descended into the shells, for the ARI has already taught us that there is no descent for lights at all, but that they depart at the time of the flaw, and only vessels and sparks can descend and fall into the shells. Rather, the intention is to that addition of Mochin that the Nukva attained through the building of the First Temple, which is the expansion of the seven Sefirot of Bina, as above. In them the shell gripped, because the sortings of their new NHY, which are the AHP of the discernment of Haya, were corrupted again on account of the sin, and fell once more to the shells, to that place where they had been before the sorting that was made in the days of the building of the Temple. And after the destruction there remained only the discernment of GE of the ten Sefirot of the Nukva, namely what there had been before the building of the Temple; but the sortings of AHP fell into the shells, namely the new NHY of Haya that she attained in the building of the Temple, for the shells gripped these new NHY that were corrupted, and not the lights at all. Indeed, it is already known that when the NHY of the vessels are lacking, the GAR of the lights are lacking, namely the seven lights of the expansion of Bina; and therefore the ARI says that the seven lights fell into the shells. That is to say, since the shells gripped the NHY of the vessels, they are found holding in their hands all the aforementioned seven lights, so that these can no longer return to the Nukva, for when the NHY of the vessels are lacking it is impossible for them to return to her. However, the lights themselves certainly returned to their root above, as the ARI writes in many places.