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Chapter TwoExplaining the thought of creation.Now we shall come to clarify the thought of creation. Certainly, “The end of the work is in the preliminary thought.” Even in corporeal humans, with their many thoughts, the end of the work is in the preliminary thought. For example, when one builds one’s house, we understand that the first thought in this engagement is the shape of the house in which to dwell. Therefore, it is preceded by many thoughts and many actions until this shape that he had predesigned is completed. This shape is what appears at the end of all his operations. Thus, you see that “The end of the work is in the preliminary thought.”The end of the work, which is the axis and the purpose for which all these were created, is to delight His creations, as it is written in The Zohar. It is known that His thought ends and acts immediately, for He is not a human, who is impelled to act. Rather, the thought itself completes the entire work at once. Hence, we can see that as soon as He thought about creation, to delight His created beings, this light was immediately extended and expanded from Him in the full measure and form of the pleasures He had contemplated. It is all included in that thought, which we call “the thought of creation,” and understand this thoroughly since it is a place where they instructed to be concise. Know that we call this thought of creation “the light of Ein Sof [infinity/no end]” since we do not have a single word or utterance in His essence to define Him by any name at all, and remember this.

The will to bestow in the Emanator necessarily engenders the will to receive in the emanated being, and it is the vessel in which the emanated being receives His abundance.The Ari said that in the beginning, an upper simple light had filled all of reality. This means that since the Creator contemplated delighting the created beings, and the light expanded from Him and departed Him, it is as though the desire to receive His pleasure was immediately imprinted in this light. You can also determine that this desire is the full measure of the expanding light, meaning that the measure of His light and abundance is as the measure of His desire to delight, no more and no less.For this reason, we call the essence of that will to receive, imprinted in this light through the power of His thought, by the name, “place.” For instance, when we say that a person has a stomach big enough to eat a pound of bread, while another person cannot eat more than half a pound of bread, which place are we talking about? It is not the size of the intestines, but the measure of the appetite. You see that the measure for the place of the reception of the bread depends on the measure and the desire to eat. It is all the more so in spirituality, where the desire to receive the abundance is the place of the abundance, and the abundance is measured by the intensity of the desire.

The will to receive contained in the thought of creation brought it out of His self to acquire the name Ein Sof.By this we can learn why the light of Ein Sof departed from His self, in which we cannot utter any word, and became defined by the name “light of Ein Sof.” It is because of this above-mentioned discernment that the will to receive from His self is included in this light. This is a new form that is not included whatsoever in His self, as from whom would He receive? This form is also the full measure of this light. Examine this well for it is impossible to elaborate here.

Prior to the restriction, the disparity of form in the will to receive was indiscernible.In His almightiness, this new form would not have been defined as a change from His light, as it is written in Pirkey de Rabbi Eliezer, “Before the world was created, there were He is one and His name One.” “He” indicates the light in Ein Sof, and “His name” implies the “place,” which is the will to receive from His self, contained in the light of Ein Sof. He tells us that He and His name are one. “His name” is Malchut of Ein Sof, being the desire, namely the will to receive that has been imprinted in the entire reality contained in the thought of creation. Prior to the restriction, no disparity of form and difference from the light was discerned in it, and the light and the “place” are truly one. Had there been any difference and deficiency in the place compared to the light of Ein Sof, there would certainly have been two discernments there.

Restriction means that Malchut of Ein Sof diminished the will to receive in her. Then the light disappeared because there is no light without a vessel.This is the meaning of the restriction, that the will to receive that is contained in the light of Ein Sof, called Malchut of Ein Sof, which is the thought of creation in Ein Sof, which contains the whole of reality, embellished herself to ascend and equalize her form with His self. Hence, she diminished her will to receive His abundance in phase four in the desire. Her intention was that by so doing, the worlds would be emanated and created down to this world.In this manner, the form of the will to receive would be corrected and return to the form of bestowal, and that would bring her to equivalence of form with the Emanator. Then, after she had diminished the will to receive, consequently, the light departed from there, for it is already known that the light depends on the desire, and the desire is the place of the light, for there is no coercion in spirituality.