A Beginner's Companion to Nesirah u'Vinyan HaNukva

A Beginner's Companion to

נסירה ובנין הנוקבא

Nesirah u'Vinyan HaNukva

The Sawing-Apart and the Building of the Feminine

The Concepts, Terms and Process of Rosh Hashanah,

the Ten Days of Teshuvah, Yom Kippur and Shemini Atzeres

in the Teaching of the Arizal and Baal HaSulam,

Explained for the Beginner

by

Michoel Or

◆

Rosh Hashanah 5787

Contents

How to Use This Booklet

Part One: The Vocabulary

Group A: The Building Blocks

Group B: The Partzufim in the Story

Group C: States and Relationships

Group D: Processes and Events

Part Two: The Story in Order

Stage 1: The Point

Stage 2: The First Growth, Back-to-Back

Stage 3: The Complaint

Stage 4: The Diminishment

Stage 5: The Rebuilding, and the First Rosh Hashanah

Stage 6: Why Back-to-Back at All

Stage 7: The Deep Sleep

Stage 8: The Nesirah, Day One

Stage 9: The Shofar, Day One

Stage 10: Chochmah and the Second Shofar, Day Two

Stage 11: The Ten Days

Stage 12: Yom Kippur

Stage 13: Sukkos

Stage 14: Shemini Atzeres

Part Three: The Central Question and Its Answer

The Question

Two Kinds of "One Crown"

Why She Could Not Simply Be Given It

The Law of the Point

Independence That Is Not Separation

Part Four: The Calendar of Tishrei, Day by Day

Erev Rosh Hashanah

The Night of Rosh Hashanah

The First Day

When Rosh Hashanah Falls on Shabbos

The Second Day

The Third Day: Tzom Gedaliah

The Fourth Through Eighth Days

The Ninth Day

Yom Kippur

Sukkos

Shemini Atzeres

Part Five: What This Means for a Person

You Are Malchus

Back and Face in Your Own Life

Go and Make Yourself Small

Teshuvah as Rebuilding the Partzuf

The Nesirah and Free Choice

Return That Is Renewal

A Guide to the Sources

Quick Reference: The Terms at a Glance

How to Use This Booklet

This booklet is a companion to the Hebrew sefer Nesirah u'Vinyan HaNukva ("The Sawing-Apart and the Building of the Feminine"). The sefer is written in the language of the Arizal and Baal HaSulam and assumes that the reader already knows the vocabulary of Kabbalah. This booklet assumes nothing. It is written for someone who has heard words like sefirah, partzuf, or Ze'ir Anpin and wants to understand what they actually mean, and then wants to understand the specific idea the sefer is about: why Rosh Hashanah, the Ten Days of Teshuvah, Yom Kippur, Sukkos and Shemini Atzeres form one single process, and what that process has to do with the moon, with Adam and Chavah, and with a person's own inner life.

The booklet is built in five parts. Part One is a vocabulary. Every technical term used in the sefer is explained there, one at a time, in plain English, with the Hebrew and a short definition first and then a longer explanation. If you are reading the sefer and hit a word you do not know, look for it there. Part Two tells the story in order, from the very first state of the Nukva as a single point through to Shemini Atzeres, step by step. Part Three explains the central question of the sefer and how it is answered. Part Four walks through the calendar of Tishrei day by day. Part Five explains what all of this means for a person, which is the real purpose of the sefer. At the end there is a short guide to the sources.

A word of caution before you begin. The Arizal describes spiritual realities using the language of the human body, of marriage, of sleep and waking, of growing up from childhood to adulthood. None of this is meant physically. There is no "back" and no "face" in the upper worlds, no one falls asleep, no one is twelve years old. These are the most precise words human language has for describing relationships between spiritual forces: dependence and independence, giving and receiving, hiddenness and revelation, potential and actuality. The Zohar and the Arizal chose the language of the body because the human being is built as a small model of the whole structure, so the words fit better than any abstract vocabulary would. Keep this in mind on every page. When you read "the Nukva stands back-to-back with Ze'ir Anpin," read it as "the receiving side of reality is in a state of receiving indirectly, through an intermediary, without its own face being visible." Once that translation becomes automatic, the whole subject opens up.

Part One: The Vocabulary

This part explains the words. It is organized in four groups: the basic building blocks (sefiros and partzufim), the specific partzufim that appear in the sefer, the states and relationships between them, and the processes and events. Read it straight through the first time, then use it as a reference.

Group A: The Building Blocks

Sefirah / Sefiros (ספירה, ספירות)

A sefirah is one of the ten channels or attributes through which the infinite light of God is expressed and stepped down into creation.

The word comes from a root meaning "to count" and also "sapphire," suggesting both number and brilliance. The Kabbalists teach that God Himself is Ein Sof, without end, entirely beyond description. In order for a finite world to exist, that infinite light must be expressed through a structure of ten distinct qualities. These ten are the sefiros. They are not ten gods and not ten separate things; they are ten ways in which the one light acts, the way a single white beam passing through a prism appears as a spectrum of colors.

The ten sefiros are usually listed in this order, from highest to lowest:

• Kesser (כתר, "crown") — will, the root of everything, above conscious thought.

• Chochmah (חכמה, "wisdom") — the flash of an idea, insight before it is worked out.

• Binah (בינה, "understanding") — the working out of the idea, developing the flash into a full structure. Binah is described as a mother, because in her the seed of Chochmah is developed and given birth.

• Da'as (דעת, "knowledge") — the connecting point that joins Chochmah and Binah and carries their result downward. Da'as is sometimes counted and sometimes not; when Kesser is counted, Da'as is usually left out, and vice versa.

• Chesed (חסד, "kindness") — giving, expansion, water.

• Gevurah (גבורה, "strength" or "severity") — restraint, limit, judgment, fire.

• Tiferes (תפארת, "beauty") — the balance of Chesed and Gevurah, mercy, the center line of the body.

• Netzach (נצח, "victory" or "eternity") — the drive to carry the flow forward, the right leg.

• Hod (הוד, "splendor" or "acknowledgment") — the counterpart of Netzach, the left leg.

• Yesod (יסוד, "foundation") — the channel that gathers everything above and transmits it to the last sefirah.

• Malchus (מלכות, "kingship") — the receiver, which has nothing of its own but takes in everything from above and makes it real in the world below.

The sefiros are pictured as arranged in three columns. The right column is Chochmah, Chesed, Netzach: the side of giving and expansion. The left column is Binah, Gevurah, Hod: the side of restraint and limit. The middle column is Kesser, Da'as, Tiferes, Yesod, Malchus: the side of balance and transmission. Much of the sefer depends on this picture, especially on the fact that the middle column of the Nukva is built from Gevuros, from the left side, and not from Chassadim.

The sefiros are also grouped into "the three upper ones" (Kesser, Chochmah, Binah, called gimmel rishonos or G"R), which are the "head," and "the seven lower ones" (Chesed through Malchus, called zayin tachtonos), which are the "body." The three upper ones are about consciousness and identity; the seven lower ones are about action and emotion. When the sefer says that the Nukva was rebuilt "up to six sefiros but not the three upper ones," it means she had a body but not yet her own head.

Partzuf / Partzufim (פרצוף, פרצופים)

A partzuf is a complete "face" or "personality": a full structure of ten sefiros that itself functions as one unit.

This is one of the most important words in the sefer. The sefiros as a simple list of ten are only the beginning. In the teaching of the Arizal, each sefirah, when it is fully developed, itself contains all ten sefiros, arranged as a whole figure with a head, a body, arms and legs. Such a complete figure is called a partzuf, a "face" or "countenance." So a partzuf is a sefirah that has grown up: it is no longer a single quality but a full organism of ten qualities.

The Arizal teaches that the ten sefiros of the world of Atzilus (the highest of the four worlds) organize themselves into five main partzufim: Arich Anpin (the "long face," from Kesser), Abba ("father," from Chochmah), Imma ("mother," from Binah), Ze'ir Anpin (the "small face," from the six sefiros Chesed through Yesod), and Nukva (the "female," from Malchus). These five are the main characters of the sefer. In particular, the whole story is about how Nukva, which begins as only a single point, becomes a full partzuf.

The difference between a point and a partzuf is the difference between a seed and a tree, or between a single note and a symphony. A point has everything in it in potential but nothing spread out. A partzuf has everything spread out and working: it has its own Kesser (its own will), its own Chochmah and Binah (its own thinking), its own Chesed and Gevurah (its own emotions), and so on. The sefer's first chapter establishes that the Nukva begins as a point and that the entire purpose of the process is to make her a partzuf.

Nekudah (נקודה, "point")

The smallest possible existence of a sefirah: a single undivided potential, containing everything but revealing nothing.

The Arizal writes that at the beginning, when Ze'ir Anpin was only six "ends" (six qualities not yet developed), the Nukva was "one point included of ten" (nekudah achas kelulah mi'yud). This means she was a single point, but a point that contains all ten sefiros folded up inside it. Nothing was missing from her in potential; everything was missing in actuality.

The sefer treats the point as the single most important idea in the whole subject. The point is the Nukva's root, her essence, the one thing that never changes no matter how she grows. Every time she needs to rise to a higher level she first returns to the point and is rebuilt from it. Understanding why this must be so is the main work of the sefer.

Middah (מדה, "measure" or "attribute")

A single sefirah as a complete quality, but not yet a full partzuf.

The Arizal distinguishes three sizes of existence for the Nukva: a point, then a middah, then a partzuf. A middah is one whole sefirah, one complete quality, like the "measure" of Chesed or of Gevurah. Ze'ir Anpin at first consists of six such measures. The Nukva, after her first growth, becomes "one complete measure like the other measures of Ze'ir Anpin, but not a partzuf, only one complete measure." She is now a real seventh quality alongside his six, but she has no head, no inner structure of her own. To make her a partzuf, the Arizal writes, the Creator had to divide that one measure into ten points, and then grow each point into a full measure. The result is ten measures, which together are a partzuf.

Kelim and Oros (כלים ואורות, "vessels and lights")

Light is the divine energy or content; a vessel is the structure that receives and holds it.

Every spiritual reality has two aspects: the light, which is its life and content, and the vessel, which is its shape and capacity. A vessel that is too small or wrongly shaped cannot hold a great light; if the light enters anyway, the vessel shatters. This is what happened in the "breaking of the vessels" (shviras hakelim) that the sefer mentions in passing when it quotes "these are the kings who died." The whole art of tikkun (repair) is building vessels able to hold the light.

In the sefer, this shows up in the answer to the central question. The moon asked for the crown of the final state while she still had the vessels of an earlier state. She asked for a light too great for her vessels. The answer, "go and make yourself small," was not a punishment but the only way to build new vessels.

Mochin (מוחין, "brains")

The inner intelligence of a partzuf: the lights of Chochmah, Binah and Da'as that enter the head of a partzuf and make it "grown up."

A partzuf without mochin is like a body without a mind: it can exist but it cannot think, choose, or relate. When mochin enter a partzuf it is said to reach gadlus (maturity). The mochin do not come from nowhere; they come from a higher partzuf. Ze'ir Anpin receives his mochin from Abba and Imma. The Nukva at first receives her mochin only through Ze'ir Anpin, second-hand; later, in the nesirah, she receives them directly from Imma. This shift, from second-hand mochin to direct mochin, is the technical core of the whole sefer.

The mochin come "clothed" in the lower sefiros of the partzuf that gives them. Specifically, Imma's Netzach, Hod and Yesod (her "legs" and her transmitting channel) enter into the head of Ze'ir Anpin, carrying the mochin inside them like a garment carrying a body. This is why the sefer speaks of "the Netzach-Hod-Yesod of Imma entering the head of the Nukva." It means: the Nukva's mind is now being delivered to her directly by the mother.

Chassadim and Gevuros (חסדים וגבורות)

Chassadim are the five "kindnesses," lights of giving and expansion; Gevuros are the five "strengths," lights of limit, form and severity.

These are not the same as the sefiros Chesed and Gevurah. They are five-fold lights that flow from Da'as down through the body of a partzuf. In Ze'ir Anpin the five Chassadim spread through his body from Chesed to Hod and are what make him grow. In the Nukva, the sefer stresses, the Gevuros play this role. The Arizal writes something surprising: the Gevuros are "water in every respect," they are the rain (gevuros geshamim) that makes the tree grow. In the Nukva's structure, the Chassadim only build her three upper sefiros; everything from Da'as downward is built by Gevuros.

This matters enormously for understanding Rosh Hashanah. The sefer will explain that on Rosh Hashanah all of the Gevuros and dinim (judgments) in Ze'ir Anpin are transferred into the Nukva. A beginner hears this and thinks "she is being punished with all the judgments." The sefer says the opposite: she is being given her building material. Gevurah, judgment, limit, is what gives a thing form. Without form there is no vessel; without a vessel there is nothing to receive. Rosh Hashanah is the day of judgment because it is the day the Nukva's form is built, and form is made of judgment.

Klipos (קליפות, "shells" or "husks")

Forces of impurity and concealment that surround holiness and feed on it, the way a shell surrounds a fruit.

The klipos attach themselves to the "back" of holiness, to whatever is exposed, unprotected, or in a state of din (judgment). The Arizal writes that the achorayim, the backs of the partzufim, are the names Elokim, names of judgment, and that is where the klipos try to grasp. This is why, the sefer explains, the Creator at first built Ze'ir Anpin and the Nukva back-to-back: with their backs pressed together, there was no exposed back for the klipos to grasp. The back-to-back state was a protection, not a deficiency.

Whenever the sefer speaks of things "falling into the klipos," it means a loss of holiness into the domain of impurity, where it is trapped and must be redeemed. The sefer draws a sharp line between the moon's mi'ut (diminishment) on the fourth day of creation, in which her nine upper sefiros went up into their root and were safe, and Adam's sin, in which her nine upper sefiros went down into the klipos. The two events look the same from outside (she becomes a mere point in both) but are opposites inside.

Group B: The Partzufim in the Story

Ze'ir Anpin, Z"A (זעיר אנפין, ז"א, "the small face")

The central male partzuf of Atzilus, built from the six sefiros Chesed, Gevurah, Tiferes, Netzach, Hod and Yesod, which grows into a full ten. Corresponds to the Holy One, blessed be He, as He relates to the world, and to the name Havayah.

Ze'ir Anpin is called "small" only in comparison to Arich Anpin, the "long face" above him. In himself he is the main active partzuf: he is the "husband," the giver, the one who relates to the Nukva. In the sefer he is also called simply Adam, "the man," because the verse "God cast a deep sleep upon the man" is read as referring to him.

Ze'ir Anpin has a "chest" (chazeh), the point one third of the way down his Tiferes. Above the chest his lights are "covered" (still enclosed in the vessel of Imma's Yesod, which ends at the chest); below the chest his lights are "revealed." This distinction runs through the entire sefer: the Nukva at first stands only from his chest downward; the first day of Rosh Hashanah is "hard judgment" because it involves the covered lights above the chest, the second day is "soft judgment" because it involves the revealed lights below.

Nukva (נוקבא, "the female"), also Malchus (מלכות, "kingship"), also Rachel

The receiving partzuf of Atzilus, built from the sefirah of Malchus. Corresponds to the Shechinah, to Knesses Yisrael (the collective soul of Israel), to the moon, and to the name Adnus.

The Nukva is the heroine of the sefer. She is the receiver: "she has nothing of her own" (leis lah mi'garmah klum). The Arizal explains her very name: she is called nukva, from nekev, "opening," because her light comes to her only through an opening. He also reads the four letters of nukva as the initials of her four stages of life: Na'arah (young woman), Ketanah (little girl), Bogeres (adult woman), and Hei tata'ah (the lower letter hei of the divine name).

She is called Malchus, "kingship," because kingship is precisely the quality of having nothing of one's own and yet making everything real. A king has no power except the power his people give him; and yet without the king nothing is organized or realized. Malchus is the last sefirah, the one that turns all the higher lights into an actual world.

She is called Rachel when she is the full Nukva standing from the chest of Ze'ir Anpin downward. There is a second, higher feminine partzuf called Leah, standing behind Ze'ir Anpin from his chest upward, associated with harsher judgment. The sefer mentions that on Rosh Hashanah Leah is separated entirely in one day, while Rachel is separated one sefirah per day over the ten days.

Abba and Imma (אבא ואמא, "father and mother")

The partzufim built from Chochmah and Binah. They are the parents of Ze'ir Anpin and the Nukva, the source of their mochin.

Abba and Imma are the model of what the Nukva is trying to become. The Arizal writes that they "go out as one and rest as one" (kachada nafkin v'kachada sharyan): each of them receives directly from Arich Anpin, each is complete in itself, and therefore their union is constant. Ze'ir Anpin and the Nukva, by contrast, begin in a state where she receives only through him, so their union is intermittent and back-to-back. The final goal, the sefer says, is that Ze'ir Anpin and the Nukva become "like Abba and Imma," two equals, each drawing from the source.

Imma in particular is the key figure of Rosh Hashanah. Imma is Binah, the "supernal mother." From her come the mochin, and from her also come the Gevuros, since "from her the judgments are aroused." During the dormita (sleep) of Ze'ir Anpin, Imma withdraws from him and enters the Nukva directly, giving her both her mind and her judgments without an intermediary. This is the nesirah. And it is Imma who, on Yom Kippur, sweetens the judgments: "on Yom Kippur the daughter ascends to the mother."

Arich Anpin (אריך אנפין, "the long face")

The partzuf built from Kesser. The highest partzuf of Atzilus, the root of will and of mercy, from which Abba and Imma receive.

Arich Anpin appears only in the background of the sefer, as the source from which Abba and Imma draw. The point is that Abba and Imma are equals because they both draw from Arich Anpin; if Ze'ir Anpin and the Nukva are to become equals, they too must each draw from their own common source, which is Imma.

Adam HaRishon (אדם הראשון, "the first man")

The first human being, whose creation on the sixth day of creation was the first Rosh Hashanah, and whose actions and sin shaped the entire structure of the year.

Adam plays a double role in the sefer. On one hand he is the model below of Ze'ir Anpin above: as the upper Adam was put to sleep so that the Nukva could be separated from him, so the lower Adam was put to sleep so that Chavah could be separated from him. On the other hand Adam is the agent who makes the separation possible: the Arizal writes that it was Adam's prayer and his fulfilling of a mitzvah on the day of his creation that "cut down the thorns from the vineyard," removed the klipos, and so made it safe for the backs to be exposed and the nesirah to happen. And it was Adam's sin, on the same day, that delayed the final union from the first Shabbos to Shemini Atzeres. The sefer draws from this the principle that the whole process, above and below, depends on human action.

Group C: States and Relationships

Achor b'Achor, A"B (אחור באחור, אב"א, "back-to-back")

The state in which the Nukva stands behind Ze'ir Anpin, attached to his back, receiving all of her light through him and having no revealed face of her own.

Picture two people standing back-to-back, pressed together. Neither sees the other's face. One of them (Ze'ir Anpin) faces outward toward the source of light; the other (the Nukva) receives light only as it passes through him. In this state the Nukva can be fully grown in size, with all ten sefiros, and yet she has no independent existence: everything she has comes second-hand.

The sefer makes three points about this state that a beginner must hold together. First, it is a real stage of growth, not a failure: the Arizal counts three levels of back-to-back existence, and the Nukva must pass through them. Second, it is a protection: as long as the klipos are strong, the backs must be hidden, and back-to-back hides them. Third, it cannot be the end: "the crown is recognizable only in the face," so in the back-to-back state the Nukva's own Kesser, her own will and identity, can never be seen. This is why she must eventually be separated and turned around.

Panim b'Panim, P"B (פנים בפנים, פב"פ, "face-to-face")

The state in which Ze'ir Anpin and the Nukva stand facing each other, each a complete partzuf, each revealing its own face; the state in which true union (zivug) is possible.

Face-to-face is the goal. But the sefer stresses that there are four levels within face-to-face, and only the highest is the true goal. At the lower levels the Nukva is face-to-face but still shorter than Ze'ir Anpin, or still receiving her light through him. At the highest level she is his full height, receives directly from Imma, and "the two kings use one crown." The difference between face-to-face-but-still-dependent and face-to-face-and-independent is exactly what the sefer's central question turns on.

Shnei Melachim b'Keser Echad (שני מלכים בכתר אחד, "two kings in one crown")

The phrase from the Talmud's account of the moon's complaint; used by the Arizal as the name of the final, perfect state of Ze'ir Anpin and the Nukva.

The Talmud (Chullin 60b) says that the sun and moon were created equal, and the moon said, "Master of the universe, is it possible for two kings to use one crown?" She was told, "Go and make yourself small." The Arizal, remarkably, uses this same phrase to describe the ultimate goal: "and the two kings will use one crown, which is what the moon complained about." How the goal and the complaint can be the same thing is the central puzzle of the sefer.

The sefer's answer, in short, is that "one crown" can mean two different things. It can mean that both crowns are carved out of Ze'ir Anpin's own body, so that the Nukva's crown is really a piece of his: that is the "one crown" of the back-to-back state, and there is really only one king there with an echo. Or it can mean that both crowns come from the same source above them both, Imma, so that each king has his own crown and the two crowns are equal because they have one origin: that is the "one crown" of the final state, and there are truly two kings.

Hashva'ah (השוואה, "equality")

Sameness of level or stature between Ze'ir Anpin and the Nukva.

The sefer distinguishes between equality of komah (height, stature) and equality of keser (crown, essence). Two partzufim can be the same height while one of them receives everything from the other; that is equality of stature without equality of essence. True equality is when both stand at the same height and each has its own crown from the common source. The moon on the fourth day had the first kind and asked for the second.

Shoresh (שורש, "root")

The source from which a thing emerges and to which it can return.

The Arizal writes that the Nukva has "a root in every sefirah of Ze'ir Anpin," left there when she was inside him during his gestation, and above all a root in his Yesod, "and she never moves from there." The sefer builds on this: no matter how high she grows, her first point remains rooted, and when she is diminished she does not vanish but goes back up into that root. "Returning to the root" is therefore never destruction. This distinction, between returning to the root and falling into the klipos, is one of the most practical ideas in the sefer.

Chazeh (חזה, "chest")

The point one third down the Tiferes of Ze'ir Anpin where the vessel of Imma's Yesod ends, so that above it his lights are covered and below it they are revealed.

The Nukva in most of her states stands "from the chest downward." Her Kesser is opposite the lower two-thirds of his Tiferes, her Chochmah and Binah opposite the upper joints of his Netzach and Hod, and so on down. Everything that happens on the first day of Rosh Hashanah happens in the region above the chest (covered lights, hard judgment); everything from the second day onward happens below the chest (revealed lights, soft judgment).

Dina Kashya and Dina Rafya (דינא קשיא, דינא רפיא, "hard judgment" and "soft judgment")

The Zohar's terms for the first and second days of Rosh Hashanah.

The Zohar (Pinchas) calls the first day of Rosh Hashanah "hard judgment" and the second "soft judgment." The Arizal explains why through the structure of the nesirah: on the first day, the judgments transferred to the Nukva are those from Ze'ir Anpin's Kesser down to his chest, where the lights are still covered and cannot sweeten them; on the second day the judgments come from below the chest, where the revealed lights shine on them and soften them. He adds a second reason: on the first day the judgments came to her directly from Imma with no sweetening, while after the first shofar they come through the awakened Ze'ir Anpin and are already sweetened.

Mituk, Bisum (מיתוק, ביסום, "sweetening")

The softening of judgment by the light of mercy, so that the judgment remains as structure but loses its harshness.

Sweetening does not remove the Gevuros. It could not, because the Nukva is built from them. It changes their quality: judgment that has passed through a higher union (the union of Abba and Imma) comes back "sweetened and perfumed." The sefer identifies several sweetenings during Rosh Hashanah: through the first shofar, through the second day's transfer, through the second shofar, and finally through Imma on Yom Kippur.

Group D: Processes and Events

Ibbur, Yenikah, Mochin (עיבור, יניקה, מוחין, "gestation, nursing, maturity")

The three stages through which every partzuf grows: first as an embryo inside its mother, then as a nursing infant, then as an adult with its own mind.

The Arizal describes the growth of Ze'ir Anpin and of the Nukva as parallel to the growth of a child. In gestation, the partzuf is "three folded into three," compressed inside Imma. In nursing, it is born, and its six qualities spread out. In maturity, the mochin enter and it becomes a full ten. The Nukva goes through the same three stages, and the sefer notes that a first "twelve years and one day" of her growth (her "childhood," katnus) is described in the Etz Chaim as the entry, one per year, of the Chassadim and then the Gevuros into her structure.

Kitrug HaYareach, Mi'ut HaYareach (קטרוג הירח, מיעוט הירח, "the moon's complaint" and "the moon's diminishment")

The events of the fourth day of creation, when the moon, equal to the sun, protested that two kings cannot share one crown and was told to make herself small.

The Arizal explains what this means structurally. By the fourth day the Nukva had grown through all three back-to-back levels and was a full partzuf standing behind Ze'ir Anpin. When she "complained," she was diminished "to the greatest diminishment possible": her ten sefiros "went back up and were withdrawn into their roots in the nine sefiros of Ze'ir Anpin, for from there they had emerged, and nothing remained but the Malchus in her, which is one point included of ten, beneath the back of the Yesod of Ze'ir Anpin." The sefer emphasizes that the sefiros went up into their root, not down into the klipos, and that this makes the diminishment a return to the seed rather than a death. The Talmud adds that God consoled the moon with several gifts and even said, "bring an atonement for Me, for I diminished the moon," which the sefer reads as proof that the moon's request was right in substance and wrong only in timing.

Tardeimah, Dormita (תרדמה, דורמיטא, "deep sleep")

The withdrawal of the mochin from Ze'ir Anpin, so that his "soul" rises to Abba and Imma and arouses their union, while only a minimal spark of life (kista d'chiyusa) remains in him.

The word dormita is Aramaic (related to the Latin dormire) and is the Arizal's usual term; tardeimah is the Hebrew of the verse "God cast a deep sleep upon the man." The Arizal explains: because the Nukva received only through Ze'ir Anpin, she could never become a full partzuf; therefore the Creator "cast a deep sleep upon the man, that is, Ze'ir Anpin, and then Ze'ir Anpin alone, in the aspect of his soul which departs from him at the time of sleep, ascends above as mayin nukvin to the supernal Imma." Just as a person's soul rises during sleep and draws down new life, the soul of Ze'ir Anpin rises and arouses a union of Abba and Imma, and "from the illumination of that union they build and repair the Nukva." The sleep is not a pause in the building; it is the building. The old mind must withdraw before a new one can be given.

Mayin Nukvin, M"N (מיין נוקבין, מ"ן, "female waters")

The arousal from below that calls forth a response from above; the receiver's contribution to a union.

In every spiritual union there must be an arousal from the lower partner (mayin nukvin) before there can be a flow from the upper partner (mayin duchrin, "male waters"). In the dormita, the soul of Ze'ir Anpin itself becomes the mayin nukvin rising to Abba and Imma. The Arizal notes that normally both Ze'ir Anpin and the Nukva must rise, but here Ze'ir Anpin alone suffices, because the whole purpose of this union is to build the Nukva, who cannot yet rise herself.

Nesirah (נסירה, "sawing apart")

The separation of the Nukva from the back of Ze'ir Anpin, accomplished by transferring all of the judgments in his back into her, so that she becomes a separate partzuf and can turn to face him.

This is the title concept. The word is taken from the Midrash: "Rabbi Yirmiyah ben Elazar said, when the Holy One created Adam he created him with two faces, and sawed him apart and made him two backs, a back here and a back there." The Arizal writes: "All of those backs and judgments that were in the male were sawed off and separated from the male and given entirely into her back, and through this she was separated and distanced from him, and then Ze'ir Anpin remained entirely in the aspect of Chesed and she in the aspect of judgments and Gevuros, hers and his."

Two features of the nesirah surprise beginners. First, it is accomplished by Chesed: "the sawing off and pushing away of these judgments from the back of Ze'ir Anpin to give them into the back of the Nukva is done by the supernal Chesed of Imma." The verse "a man who takes his sister, it is chesed" is read to mean that only Chesed can separate the "brother and sister" enough for them to become husband and wife. Second, the nesirah is not an external cut but an automatic result of a change in where the Nukva receives from: "the giving of the judgments and Gevuros into her not through Ze'ir Anpin is what causes the nesirah, that she should separate from him, because she no longer receives anything from him; and these two things, the giving of the Gevuros into her and the nesirah, happen as one." The moment she draws from Imma directly, the attachment to his back, which was only ever a consequence of receiving through him, simply dissolves.

Chazaras Panim b'Panim (חזרת פנים בפנים, "the return face-to-face")

After the nesirah, the turning of the Nukva to face Ze'ir Anpin as a separate and equal partzuf.

This corresponds to the verse "and He brought her to the man." The Etz Chaim says that when she returns face-to-face she is called bogeres, "adult woman," and notes that bogeres has the same numerical value (611) as Torah: "for then Malchus is face-to-face with Ze'ir Anpin, and then she is called the Oral Torah joining with the Written Torah." The sefer draws out the comparison: the Oral Torah is not a copy of the Written Torah but a body of Torah with its own life, built from the understanding (Binah) of the Sages, and precisely for that reason it can join the Written Torah as an equal.

Shofar (שופר)

The ram's horn sounded on Rosh Hashanah, which in the Arizal's account returns the withdrawn mochin into Ze'ir Anpin and awakens him from the dormita.

The shofar does not act from outside the structure as a mere alarm. It acts inside it: "through the shofar that is blown on Rosh Hashanah the Netzach-Hod-Yesod of Imma with the mochin inside them return to enter Ze'ir Anpin, and Ze'ir Anpin has already awakened from his sleep, and then necessarily the Gevuros return to be drawn into the Nukva through Ze'ir Anpin," and these Gevuros are now sweetened, because during his sleep his soul caused a union of Abba and Imma that sweetened them. The sefer stresses: the shofar does not sweeten; it opens the channel through which the already-sweetened light descends.

Aseres Yemei Teshuvah (עשרת ימי תשובה, "the Ten Days of Repentance")

The ten days from Rosh Hashanah through Yom Kippur, during which the nesirah proceeds one sefirah per day.

"The matter of the nesirah extends over these ten days." On the first day the Nukva's Kesser is separated, on the second her Chochmah, on the third her Binah, on the fourth her Da'as, on the fifth her Chesed, on the sixth her Gevurah, on the seventh her Tiferes, on the eighth her Netzach, on the ninth her Hod, and on the tenth, Yom Kippur, her Yesod and Malchus together. Throughout these days she is still back-to-back "from his chest downward," because the work is not finished until Yom Kippur.

Yom Kippur (יום הכפורים)

The tenth day, on which the nesirah is completed and the Nukva ascends to Imma to have her judgments sweetened.

"On Yom Kippur the daughter ascends to the mother." The Arizal explains the five afflictions of Yom Kippur as the Nukva's ceasing to eat and drink in the ordinary way because she is being nourished directly from Imma. The sefer reads Yom Kippur as the moment of "sweetening by the supernal Imma" in the verse "His left hand is under my head."

Sukkos and Shemini Atzeres (סוכות ושמיני עצרת)

The festival of booths, corresponding to "His right hand embraces me," the embrace of the Chassadim; and the eighth day, on which the union itself takes place.

The Arizal reads the whole of Tishrei through one verse from Shir HaShirim (2:6): "His left hand is under my head, and His right hand embraces me." Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur is "His left hand under my head": the Gevuros, the left side, supporting and building the head of the Nukva. Sukkos is "His right hand embraces me": the Chassadim from Imma spreading through the now-built Nukva. Shemini Atzeres is "the union itself." All the stages that were supposed to happen between the sixth day of creation and the first Shabbos, had Adam not sinned, are spread over these fifty-two days.

Kista d'Chiyusa (קיסטא דחיותא, "a measure of life")

The minimal spark of life that remains in a sleeping person, and in Ze'ir Anpin during the dormita, so that sleep is not death.

This small phrase carries a large idea. The dormita is a complete withdrawal of the old mochin, but it is not a death, because a measure of life remains. The one who awakens is the same one who fell asleep, and yet he awakens with a renewed mind. The sefer uses this as the model for every renewal: the person who returns to the "point" in teshuvah does not cease to exist; the point is the kista d'chiyusa, and from it a new structure grows.

Mochin d'Katnus and Mochin d'Gadlus (מוחין דקטנות, מוחין דגדלות, "mind of smallness" and "mind of maturity")

The immature and mature intelligence of a partzuf; the Nukva's immature mochin are the three names Elokim, harsh and constricted.

The Arizal writes that the Nukva in her childhood has only three mochin, all of them names of Elokim (judgment), whose combined numerical value is "tokef," meaning force or harshness. Her mature mochin come only with the nesirah, when she receives "the mochin themselves" instead of "the residue of the light through partitions." The sefer relies on this to explain why the nesirah gives her light "greater than at first, without limit."

Tefillah as Cutting the Thorns (תפלה, כריתת הקוצים)

Human prayer and mitzvah observance, which remove the klipos and make the exposure of the "backs" safe, so that the nesirah can occur.

This is not a term so much as a principle the sefer draws from the Arizal: "Afterward Adam was created and performed a mitzvah and prayed a prayer, and through his deeds he cut down the klipos, in the mystery of the man who works the earth and clears the thorns from the vineyard... and then, since Adam was cutting down the klipos, there was no fear of the klipos, and then came the matter of the nesirah and the return face-to-face." The sefer concludes that the entire upper process depends on lower action, which is why these days are given to prayer and teshuvah.

Part Two: The Story in Order

Now that the words are in place, here is the story they tell, from beginning to end. Each stage is numbered to match the summary table at the end of the Hebrew sefer. Read this part slowly; it is the backbone of everything else.

Stage 1: The Point

At the very beginning of the world of Atzilus, when Ze'ir Anpin was still only six undeveloped qualities, the Nukva existed as "one point included of ten." She had no structure, no head, no body. She was located "beneath the back of the Yesod of Ze'ir Anpin," which means she was nothing more than the very end of his channel of transmission, the atarah (crown) of the Yesod. The Arizal says her measure at that time was one third of the Yesod.

Yet this point is not nothing. It contains all ten of her sefiros folded up, and it is, the Arizal says, "her Kesser" in the sense that it is her root and essence. He adds a striking detail: this point "had the power to stand with him face-to-face." That is, the raw point, precisely because it had no body yet, could face Ze'ir Anpin; it is only once she starts to grow, receiving through him, that she must turn to his back. Hold onto this paradox; the sefer returns to it.

Stage 2: The First Growth, Back-to-Back

Through gestation, nursing and the entry of mochin into Ze'ir Anpin, the Nukva also grew. The Etz Chaim describes it in detail. First she grew from a point to the size of the whole Yesod. Then, when Ze'ir Anpin's lower sefiros spread out, "the woman rises with him but does not descend with him," and she ended up attached to the back of his Tiferes, opposite his chest. There she became "one complete measure." Then that measure was split into ten points, and the Chassadim of Ze'ir Anpin, flowing out of a hole in his chest and bending around to his back, entered her one joint at a time, one per "year," building her right and left columns. After seven years the Chassadim were finished; then the five Gevuros, which had been waiting in his Yesod, entered her Da'as all at once, descended her middle column, and rose back up to her Kesser. After "twelve years and one day" she was a complete partzuf, ten full sefiros, standing back-to-back with Ze'ir Anpin from his chest downward.

This was the state by the fourth day of creation. She had passed through the three levels of back-to-back existence. She was his height from the chest down. Even the lights of his five upper sefiros were shining down on her from above. From the outside, she and he looked equal. This is the "two great lights" of Bereishis 1:16.

Stage 3: The Complaint

And then she spoke. "Is it possible for two kings to use one crown?" The Talmud records the words; the Arizal decodes them. What she saw was that her equality was hollow. Her crown was carved from his Tiferes: the Etz Chaim says explicitly that "from the light of the Tiferes of Ze'ir Anpin two crowns were made, one for Ze'ir Anpin and one for the Nukva, and this is the mystery of two kings using one crown." One crown, literally: his light, split. Everything she had came through his partitions, as "residue." She was his height and yet she was not herself. Two kings cannot rule with one crown, she said, because in such an arrangement there is really only one king.

Baal HaSulam, in his commentary on the Etz Chaim, puts the point in his own terms: "only in the maturity of the backs the moon could not stand there, from the lack of Chassadim, and therefore she complained." In his language, she had Chochmah (light, height) but no Chassadim (no vessels of giving to clothe that light in), and light without a garment cannot be held.

Stage 4: The Diminishment

"Go and make yourself small." The Arizal: "her ten sefiros went back up and were withdrawn into their roots in the nine sefiros of Ze'ir Anpin, for from there they had emerged, and nothing remained but the Malchus in her, which is one point included of ten, beneath the back of the Yesod of Ze'ir Anpin." She returned to Stage 1.

But not quite to Stage 1, and this is the sefer's key observation. Her sefiros did not disappear. They went up, into their root. They were deposited, not destroyed. The Arizal contrasts this with what happened at Adam's sin, when "because it was on account of sin, all those nine sefiros descended below into the klipos." The fourth-day diminishment was a controlled return to the seed; the sixth-day fall was a collapse into impurity. Both leave her as a point; one is a beginning and the other a catastrophe.

The Talmud confirms that the diminishment was not a punishment for a false claim. God consoled the moon: "go and rule by day and by night"; "Israel will count days and years by you"; "the righteous will be called by your name, Yaakov the small, Shmuel the small, David the small"; and finally, "bring an atonement for Me, for I diminished the moon." The sefer reads all of this as God agreeing that her request was correct in substance. She was wrong only to ask for the crown of the final state while she still had the vessels of the back-to-back state. The diminishment was the only way to get new vessels.

Stage 5: The Rebuilding, and the First Rosh Hashanah

"Afterward, on the sixth day, she returned to grow into the third level, being a complete partzuf back-to-back opposite the chest of Ze'ir Anpin." All five lights of his upper sefiros, corresponding to the five days of creation, shone into her on the sixth day. "And then on the sixth day Ze'ir Anpin and the Nukva united back-to-back, and Adam was created in this state alone."

That sixth day was the first Rosh Hashanah. "Had Adam not sinned, he would have aroused mayin nukvin on that first Shabbos, and through this Ze'ir Anpin and the Nukva would have united face-to-face in the highest level of all, that the two of them use one crown, face-to-face, than which there is no greater growth, and she would receive from the supernal Imma not through him." Everything the moon asked for on the fourth day was scheduled to be given on the first Shabbos, some sixty hours later.

Stage 6: Why Back-to-Back at All

Before going on, the sefer pauses to ask why the rebuilding on the sixth day was again back-to-back rather than directly face-to-face. The Etz Chaim answers: after the breaking of the vessels, all the harsh judgments and klipos settled in Ze'ir Anpin and the Nukva. "When the supernal Emanator saw that if He then repaired Ze'ir Anpin and the Nukva face-to-face the klipos and judgments would grasp their backs, for the backs are judgment, He left them back-to-back, and through this the klipos could not grasp there." Back-to-back is a shield. The backs are the names Elokim; if they are exposed the klipos feed on them; so the two partzufim are pressed together to hide them. Above the chest, the Arizal adds, Ze'ir Anpin's exposed back is covered by the long lock of hair (kotza d'sa'arei) that hangs from the back of his head to the chest.

And who removes the danger? Adam. "Adam was created and performed a mitzvah and prayed a prayer, and through his deeds he cut down the klipos... and then there was no fear of the klipos, and then came the nesirah and the return face-to-face." The whole process from here on waits on human action.

Stage 7: The Deep Sleep

On the first Rosh Hashanah, the night of the sixth day, "the Creator cast a deep sleep upon the man, that is, Ze'ir Anpin." His mochin, the Netzach-Hod-Yesod of Imma with the mind inside them, withdrew from him and rose above his head as a surrounding light. Only the kista d'chiyusa remained in him. His soul rose to Abba and Imma as mayin nukvin and aroused their union. "From the illumination of that union they build and repair the Nukva and bring other mochin down into that point of hers, and she grows, and nine other points are added to her, and she becomes a full partzuf of ten sefiros."

Notice that the sleep is the mechanism, not an interruption. As long as Ze'ir Anpin is awake, the Nukva can only receive through him. Only when his own mind withdraws can a mind be delivered to her directly. The sefer puts it as a general law: the old order must be suspended before a new order can be born.

Stage 8: The Nesirah, Day One

Now the two events that "happen as one." With Ze'ir Anpin's mind withdrawn, "Imma spreads herself in the aspect of her Netzach-Hod-Yesod inside the Nukva herself, and those Gevuros of the crown of Gevurah are drawn to her through Binah, not through Ze'ir Anpin." Because she is now fed from Imma, the connection to his back, which existed only because she was fed through him, dissolves: "she was separated and sawed off from him and all those Gevuros were given into her. Thus the giving of the judgments and Gevuros into her not through Ze'ir Anpin is what causes the nesirah."

On the first day of Rosh Hashanah, "all the Gevuros from his Kesser down to the end of his Tiferes were sawed off and given into her Kesser." He is separated from Kesser to Tiferes; she is separated only in her Kesser, and all those judgments gather there. This is why the first day is "hard judgment": the Gevuros come from the covered region above his chest, and they come straight from Imma "without sweetening." It is also why Rosh Hashanah is a "head" for both of them: "it is the head of the male and also the head of the female, he gives and she receives, and both are true."

Stage 9: The Shofar, Day One

Then the shofar. "Through the shofar that is blown on Rosh Hashanah, the Netzach-Hod-Yesod of Imma with the mochin inside them return to enter Ze'ir Anpin, and Ze'ir Anpin has already awakened from his sleep." Now the Gevuros are drawn to the Nukva through him again, "but these Gevuros are sweeter and more perfumed than those that were given to her when Imma spread within her during his sleep, because during his sleep his soul, which is his mochin, rose to Abba and Imma as mayin nukvin and caused a supernal union, and through that union these Gevuros were sweetened." So she now has two kinds of Gevuros: the raw ones from Imma at the nesirah, and the sweetened ones from the awakened Ze'ir Anpin after the shofar. She needs both: the first give her herself, the second give her sweetness.

Stage 10: Chochmah and the Second Shofar, Day Two

But his awakening is not complete. "Although Ze'ir Anpin was aroused and awoke from his sleep on the first day through the shofar, nevertheless since only her Kesser had been sawed off and not her Chochmah, this is not a complete awakening, and he goes back to sleep until the second day, when her Chochmah is sawed off." On the second day the first joint of his Netzach is separated, and with it her Chochmah, and all the Gevuros from his Chochmah down descend into her Chochmah. The shofar is sounded again. "And since that mind called Chochmah was aroused, there is no more sleep and no need to blow shofar on the other days." Kesser and Chochmah alone are called "heads," which is why Rosh Hashanah has two days and no more. The second day is "soft judgment" because the Gevuros now come from below the chest where the lights are revealed, and because they come through Ze'ir Anpin and are already sweetened.

Stage 11: The Ten Days

The nesirah continues one sefirah per day. Day three: her Binah (his Hod, first joint). All the Gevuros gather there "on deposit," and because the shofar is not blown to sweeten them, "on that day Gedaliah ben Achikam was killed," which is the Fast of Gedaliah; and because her Da'as (day four) has the same gathering, when the third of Tishrei falls on Shabbos the fast is pushed to the fourth. Day five: her Chesed. Day six: her Gevurah. Day seven: her Tiferes. Day eight: her Netzach. Day nine: her Hod, and "in this Hod of the Nukva her Yesod and Malchus are included," which is why "whoever eats and drinks on the ninth is considered to have fasted on the ninth and the tenth."

The sefer notes the direction of the sequence: the nesirah begins in the head and moves downward. On the first day all the Gevuros are given, but only "rooted there in potential" in her Kesser; the ten days are the work of drawing what was decided in the head down into the emotions and actions.

Stage 12: Yom Kippur

Day ten: her Yesod and Malchus, "made as one in a single moment." The nesirah is complete. "On Yom Kippur the daughter ascends to the mother." The Nukva rises to Imma, ceases ordinary eating and drinking (the five afflictions), and is nourished inwardly. Here the judgments are sweetened by the supernal mother, completing "His left hand is under my head."

Stage 13: Sukkos

"His right hand embraces me." The Chassadim of Imma spread through the finished Nukva. The moon, which was covered on Rosh Hashanah ("bakeseh l'yom chageinu"), is full on the fifteenth of the month.

Stage 14: Shemini Atzeres

"On the eighth day, Atzeres, there is the union itself." Face-to-face, full height, each drawing from Imma, two kings in one crown. Everything that was supposed to happen on the first Shabbos of creation.

Part Three: The Central Question and Its Answer

The Question

The sefer opens with one question and everything else serves it. The moon asked for two kings in one crown and was told to diminish herself. The Arizal says two kings in one crown is the final goal of all of creation. So: what was wrong with the moon's request? If she asked for the goal, why was she sent backward instead of forward?

And the question gets sharper when you add the Talmud's consolations. God did not say "your words were wrong." He gave her four gifts and said "bring an atonement for Me." The Arizal even speaks of the "shame" of the moon in the language of the Zohar. If the request was right, the diminishment looks like injustice. If the request was wrong, the consolations make no sense.

Two Kinds of "One Crown"

The first move in the answer is to notice that the Etz Chaim uses the phrase "two kings in one crown" in two different places with two different meanings. In Sha'ar 35, describing the Nukva's childhood growth, it says her Kesser and his Kesser were both carved from the light of his Tiferes: "from the light two crowns were made, and from the body two Tiferes... and all this in order to be equal in one equality." This is one crown in the sense of one source inside Ze'ir Anpin. In Sha'ar 36, describing the final goal, it says both will draw their Kesser from the Tiferes of Imma, "and then she will not need to receive her light through Ze'ir Anpin, but both will receive their light from Imma, each through himself." This is one crown in the sense of one source above both of them.

So there are two equalities. In the first, the two look the same but one is a piece of the other. In the second, the two look the same and each is complete in itself. The moon on the fourth day had the first and named the problem with it exactly: "two kings cannot use one crown," meaning that when one king's crown is carved from the other's body, there are not two kings. She wanted the second equality.

Why She Could Not Simply Be Given It

Baal HaSulam explains the missing piece. What she lacked was Chassadim. In his system, Chochmah (the light of wisdom, of height and stature) cannot be held unless it is "clothed" in Chassadim (the light of giving, of vessels). In the back-to-back state, everything she received passed through Ze'ir Anpin's partitions and arrived as "residue," and she remained, as the Arizal says, "entirely from the Gevuros, which are fire." Light without a garment cannot stand. Her equality of height was real, but it was unsupported, like a tall building with no foundation.

The Arizal and Baal HaSulam are saying the same thing from two sides. The Arizal: she must receive from Imma directly, not through him. Baal HaSulam: she must have Chassadim, not only Chochmah. These are one fact, because receiving from Imma directly is exactly what gives her the light together with its garment, "the mochin themselves" rather than their residue. Receiving through him gives her the light stripped.

So the answer to the question is: the moon's request was right in substance and wrong in timing. She asked for the crown of the final state with the vessels of the back-to-back state. There was no way to grant it. The only path to what she wanted ran backward through the point, because only from the point can new vessels be grown.

The Law of the Point

This gives the sefer its central law: there is no way from the back to the face except through the point. The sefer finds this law in three places in the Arizal. In creation: after growing to a full partzuf by the fourth day she returned to a point, and only from the point was she rebuilt on the sixth. In daily prayer: even after rising to a full back-to-back partzuf during the prayers, "in order to come face-to-face she must return to a single point beneath the Yesod, and then she rises." And in Rosh Hashanah: the point "had the power to stand with him face-to-face, because this point is her Kesser."

That last statement explains why the law holds. The point is essence without stature; the back-to-back partzuf is stature without essence; the final face-to-face is essence and stature. You cannot add essence to a structure built on borrowed essence. You can only return to the essence and build the structure again from it, so that the new structure carries the Kesser through it. This is why the Arizal insists the point "is never uprooted": it is the Kesser on which the whole building is built again and again, and it is what will finally be revealed when the two kings share one crown.

Independence That Is Not Separation

One last piece of the answer. A beginner naturally hears "she stops receiving through him" as "she breaks away from him." The sefer says the opposite. The Nukva's independence is a change in where she draws from, not a cessation of drawing. She stops receiving through Ze'ir Anpin in order to receive from Imma, which is the same source he receives from. The Arizal's phrase "they will not need each other" means they will not need each other for their existence; and exactly because of that they can want each other for their union. One who needs another in order to exist cannot be that one's partner, only that one's garment. Abba and Imma, who each draw from Arich Anpin, are the model: their union is constant precisely because each is whole.

This is the difference between nesirah and pirud (separation in the bad sense). In pirud the Nukva falls and receives from no one; that is exile and the klipos. In nesirah she rises to the root and receives from the source. From outside both look like "she no longer receives through him." Inside they are opposites. The whole work of the Ten Days, the sefer will say in Part Five, is learning to tell them apart in one's own life.

Part Four: The Calendar of Tishrei, Day by Day

This part collects everything the sefer says about the actual days, so that you can carry the ideas into the davening.

Erev Rosh Hashanah

On the eve of the first Rosh Hashanah, the sixth day of creation, the Nukva had been rebuilt back-to-back and Adam had been created. Adam's prayer had cut down the thorns. The stage was set. The sefer notes that the entire year's structure is a replay of what should have happened between that Friday and that Shabbos: "since the world was created on this day, therefore in every year on these days there is done all that was done when the world was created."

The Night of Rosh Hashanah

The dormita. Ze'ir Anpin's mochin withdraw, his soul rises, Abba and Imma unite. In the language of the sefer, the old order of the year is suspended. This is why the night of Rosh Hashanah has a quality of held breath: the mind of the world is "above its head."

The First Day

The nesirah of Kesser. All the Gevuros from Ze'ir Anpin's Kesser to his chest are given into the Nukva's Kesser, straight from Imma, unsweetened: hard judgment. The entire partzuf of Leah, and the Kesser of Rachel, are separated on this day. Then the shofar: the mochin return, Ze'ir Anpin awakens, and sweetened Gevuros flow to the Nukva through him.

The sefer highlights the Malchuyos (kingship) section of the Musaf prayer: "Say before Me kingship, so that you will make Me king over you." Kingship depends on a people, not because the king needs the people to exist, but because kingship cannot be revealed without a vessel to receive it, and the Nukva, built on this day from the judgments, is that vessel. "So that you will make Me king" is the act of a people who have faces of their own.

The moon is covered on this day: "bakeseh l'yom chageinu, which festival is it on which the moon is covered? Rosh Hashanah." The sefer reads the covering as the moment of the point: the moon returns to her beginning so she can be filled again.

When Rosh Hashanah Falls on Shabbos

This year (5787) the first day of Rosh Hashanah is Shabbos, and the shofar is not sounded. The Mishnah says that in the Temple they did sound it on Shabbos but not elsewhere, and the Gemara gives the reason as a rabbinic precaution against carrying the shofar in the public domain. The sefer asks the obvious question: if the whole structure depends on the shofar waking Ze'ir Anpin, what happens when there is no shofar?

Its answer builds on a principle the Arizal states about ordinary Shabbos: "on Shabbos she has automatically, through the holiness of Shabbos itself, what she had on weekdays through prayer." Whatever must be accomplished on a weekday by human action is accomplished on Shabbos by the holiness of the day. So on a Rosh Hashanah that is Shabbos, the return of the mochin and the awakening, which on a weekday require the shofar, happen through the Shabbos itself. The shofar is not missing; it is unnecessary. The sefer adds a deeper resonance: Adam's whole sin was that he did not wait for Shabbos, when "hard judgment" would have become "soft judgment" and the union could have been face-to-face. When Rosh Hashanah itself is Shabbos, the hard judgment of the day arrives inside the soft judgment of Shabbos, and there is a hint of what the first Shabbos of creation was meant to be.

For a person, the sefer suggests, this means that the arousal of will, which in most years comes through the sound of the shofar, must this year come from within, at the moment of receiving Shabbos. On the second day, when the shofar is sounded, comes the arousal of understanding, "after which there is no more sleep."

The Second Day

The nesirah of Chochmah. Soft judgment: the Gevuros come from below the chest and through the awakened Ze'ir Anpin. The second shofar. After it, "there is no more sleep." The sefer distinguishes an awakening of will (Kesser, day one) from an awakening of understanding (Chochmah, day two): one who is awake only in will may fall asleep again; one who is awake in understanding cannot.

The Third Day: Tzom Gedaliah

The nesirah of Binah. All the Gevuros gather in her Binah on deposit, the shofar is not sounded to sweeten them, "and therefore on that day Gedaliah ben Achikam was killed." When the third falls on Shabbos the fast is delayed to the fourth, because her Da'as (day four) has the same gathering.

The Fourth Through Eighth Days

Da'as, Chesed, Gevurah, Tiferes, Netzach: one sefirah per day. Each day some of the Gevuros settle into the sefirah being separated, moving from the head down through the emotions. These are the working days of the Ten Days: what was decided in the head on Rosh Hashanah is drawn down into the middos.

The Ninth Day

Hod, in which her Yesod and Malchus are included. "Whoever eats and drinks on the ninth is considered to have fasted on the ninth and the tenth": the eating of the ninth is what carries her up to Imma on the tenth.

Yom Kippur

Yesod and Malchus, together, in one moment. The nesirah is finished. "The daughter ascends to the mother." Five afflictions, because she is fed from within. The judgments are sweetened by Imma. "His left hand is under my head" is complete.

Sukkos

"His right hand embraces me." The Chassadim of Imma spread through her. The full moon.

Shemini Atzeres

The union. Face-to-face, equal height, one crown. What the moon asked for. What the first Shabbos was for.

Part Five: What This Means for a Person

The sefer's real aim is the fifth part of the Hebrew, and the reason it was written. Everything in the upper structure is mirrored in the human being, because "from my flesh I shall see God." Here are the main applications, stated simply.

You Are Malchus

Each person, and the whole community of Israel, is in the position of the Nukva. We have nothing of our own; everything we are is received. That is not an insult; it is the definition of Malchus, and Malchus is what makes the light real. But it raises the question the moon raised: is a life that is entirely received a life of one's own? Can there be two kings, God and the human being made in His image, in one crown? The sefer says yes, but not from the back.

Back and Face in Your Own Life

The "back" in a person is everything done because that is what is done: because it was handed down, because there is no alternative, because everyone does it. A person can be tall in this state, doing everything the great do, and still have no face, because he is not present in his actions. The "face" is what a person does from his own will and understanding. "The crown is recognizable only in the face": a person's Kesser, his real self, appears only when he acts from the front. Rosh Hashanah's Malchuyos, "make Me king over you," is a demand for a face. Only a being with a face can crown a king; a being without a face can only be ruled.

Go and Make Yourself Small

The way from back to face runs through the point. The person who wants to be rebuilt must first let his whole structure return to its root and stand as one point: the simple point of accepting the yoke of Heaven, with nothing else. This is "lechi u'ma'ati es atzmech," go and make yourself small.

But there are two kinds of smallness, and everything depends on which one you are in. On the fourth day the moon's sefiros went up to their root; at Adam's sin they fell to the klipos. In a person, there is a smallness of surrender from understanding, in which one takes down his own structure deliberately in order to rebuild it, and there is a smallness of collapse, in which the structure falls through sin and weakness. Both leave a person at the point. In the first, the nine sefiros are safe in the root and the new building is near. In the second, they are in the klipos and must first be pulled out. That pulling-out is teshuvah.

The moon's reply, "since I said a proper thing before You, I will make myself small," is the model of the first kind. She did not say her words were wrong. She accepted smallness because her words were right, because the goal she named was true and the only road to it went through the point. The righteous are called by the moon's name, Yaakov the small, Shmuel the small, David the small, because they know how to make themselves small from understanding rather than from falling, and all their greatness comes from that smallness.

Teshuvah as Rebuilding the Partzuf

The Rambam writes that among the ways of teshuvah is that the penitent "changes his name, as if to say, I am another and I am not that man who did those deeds." The sefer reads this literally. Teshuvah is not a repair of deeds; if it were, stopping the sin would be enough. It is the building of a new partzuf. The man who did those deeds was one structure; "another" is another structure; and there is no other structure except by returning to the point and being built again.

This is why these ten days belong to teshuvah. During them the world itself is in a state of dismantling and rebuilding: Ze'ir Anpin's mind withdraws, the Nukva is separated and rebuilt from a new source. A person who does the same in himself is moving with the world, not against it. And since the upper rebuilding waits on human action, as Adam's prayer cut the thorns, the person's teshuvah below is part of what builds the Nukva above.

The sefer adds a resolution to an old puzzle: how can teshuvah change the past? It cannot change what was done. It changes who did it. Since a deed belongs to its doer and not the reverse, when a new doer is built the old deeds have no owner. And as the judgments in Ze'ir Anpin's back become the Nukva's building material in the nesirah, so the deeds a person did "from his back," without his face, become material for the new structure. "Willful sins become merits" is not an erasure; it is a rebuilding.

The Nesirah and Free Choice

While Adam and Chavah were "two faces, back to back," there was no choice between them: their connection was forced by their creation. And yet the Torah says of that state "it is not good for the man to be alone." He was not alone; he was joined; but a forced joining with no separation is in fact a kind of aloneness, one being doubled rather than two beings together. Only after the sawing-apart, when each stood alone, could their joining be chosen: "and He brought her to the man." Only then could she be "a helper opposite him," about which the Sages say "if he merits, a helper; if not, opposite him." Choice, merit, opposition: none exist before the nesirah.

The sefer sees in this the pattern of God's relationship with us. He created us in a state of nesirah, as free beings not fastened to Him by necessity, though He could have made us fastened. He did not want that, "because He desires kindness," and kindness is what separates in order to leave room for a union that is willed. Rosh Hashanah, the day of nesirah, is therefore the day of choice as such, and that is why it is the day of judgment: there is no judgment except of one who can choose, and no choice except for one who has been sawed apart. To say "choose life" on Rosh Hashanah is to stand in the place of the separated Nukva and choose to return, freely, to the One from whom one was separated. That is face-to-face.

Return That Is Renewal

The last idea is that going back is not going backward. The Nukva rebuilt after the nesirah is not the Nukva before the diminishment; she is bogeres, with mochin "greater than at first without limit." Though she passed through the point, what came out of the point was new. "They are new every morning": the person who deposits his soul at night and receives it in the morning receives a soul renewed above. So Ze'ir Anpin waking from the dormita; so the person on Rosh Hashanah. The day is called the head of the year, not its end, because it does not summarize the past year but begins a new one from a point.

And so the first question is answered in full. The goal is two kings in one crown. There is no road to it from the back, because one who wants to equal the one he receives from can never equal him. Only one who diminishes himself to the point, accepts the judgments and the limit and the form, is sawed apart from what he clung to, and is rebuilt from the common source, can stand face-to-face as an equal, not equal in height only but equal in crown. This is done every year from Rosh Hashanah to Shemini Atzeres, every morning from sleep to waking, and in every teshuvah from "that man" to "another."

A Guide to the Sources

The Hebrew sefer cites its sources by chapter. For a beginner who wants to see the originals, these are the main ones, in the order in which they matter.

Etz Chaim, Sha'ar 35 (Sha'ar HaYareach, "the Gate of the Moon"), chapters 1–5. Rabbi Chaim Vital's record of the Arizal's teaching on the building of the Nukva: her four stages (na'arah, ketanah, bogeres, hei tata'ah), the entry of the Chassadim and Gevuros over "twelve years and one day," the splitting of the one measure into ten points, the nesirah as receiving mochin from Imma, and bogeres = Torah.

Etz Chaim, Sha'ar 36 (Sha'ar Mi'ut HaYareach, "the Gate of the Diminishment of the Moon"), chapters 1–4. The seven levels from point to "two kings in one crown"; the history from creation through the fourth-day diminishment, the sixth day, Adam's sin, the exodus, the two Temples and the present exile; the daily return to the point in prayer; and why the partzufim were first built back-to-back.

Sha'ar HaKavanos, Derushei Rosh Hashanah, Derush 1. Rosh Hashanah as the sixth day of creation; what Adam's sin caused; the dormita; the nesirah by Chesed; the two "backs" and the klipos; Adam cutting the thorns; Tishrei as "His left hand under my head... His right hand embraces me"; the Zohar's "hard at the beginning and soft at the end."

Sha'ar HaKavanos, Derushei Rosh Hashanah, Derush 3. The nesirah over the Ten Days, day by day; the mechanism (receiving from Imma not through Ze'ir Anpin is the nesirah); the shofar returning the mochin; why there are two days; hard and soft judgment; Tzom Gedaliah; eating on the ninth; Yom Kippur as "the daughter ascends to the mother."

Sha'ar HaKavanos, Derushei Rosh Hashanah, Derush 6. The year as a replay of creation, finished on Shemini Atzeres; Leah separated in one day, Rachel over ten.

Talmud and Midrash passages. Chullin 60b (the moon's complaint and God's consolations); Berachos 61a, Eruvin 18a and Bereishis Rabbah 8:1 (Adam created with two faces and "sawed apart"); Niddah 45b ("vayiven, He gave extra Binah to the woman"); Rosh Hashanah 8a ("the festival on which the moon is covered"), 16a ("say before Me kingship... and with what? with the shofar") and 16b ("four things tear up a person's decree"); Rosh Hashanah 29b (shofar on Shabbos); Yevamos 63a ("if he merits, a helper"); Yoma 86b ("willful sins become merits").

Rambam, Hilchos Teshuvah 2:4. "He changes his name, as if to say: I am another."

Talmud Eser HaSefiros (Baal HaSulam), Part 15, Ohr Pnimi. The explanation of the moon's complaint through the lack of Chassadim, and the reading of "two kings in one crown" as the resolution.

Quick Reference: The Terms at a Glance

Term · Hebrew · Short meaning

Sefirah · ספירה · One of ten channels of divine light

Partzuf · פרצוף · A complete ten-sefirah "face" or personality

Nekudah · נקודה · A point; the Nukva's minimal state and root

Middah · מדה · A single complete quality, less than a partzuf

Mochin · מוחין · The intelligence (Chochmah-Binah-Da'as) of a partzuf

Chassadim · חסדים · Five lights of giving, water, expansion

Gevuros · גבורות · Five lights of limit, fire, form; build the Nukva

Klipos · קליפות · Husks of impurity that grasp exposed "backs"

Ze'ir Anpin · זעיר אנפין · The male partzuf; the Holy One as He relates to the world

Nukva / Malchus · נוקבא / מלכות · The female partzuf; the Shechinah, Knesses Yisrael, the moon

Abba / Imma · אבא / אמא · Chochmah and Binah as father and mother

Achor b'Achor · אחור באחור · Back-to-back; receiving through an intermediary

Panim b'Panim · פנים בפנים · Face-to-face; each revealed, union possible

Shnei Melachim · שני מלכים בכתר אחד · Two kings in one crown; the moon's request and the goal

Chazeh · חזה · The "chest"; boundary of covered and revealed lights

Dina Kashya / Rafya · דינא קשיא / רפיא · Hard and soft judgment; days one and two

Mituk · מיתוק · Sweetening of judgment

Mi'ut HaYareach · מיעוט הירח · The moon's diminishment; return to the point

Dormita · דורמיטא · Ze'ir Anpin's sleep; withdrawal of the old mochin

Mayin Nukvin · מיין נוקבין · Arousal from below that calls forth flow from above

Nesirah · נסירה · Sawing-apart; judgments transferred, Nukva made separate

Shofar · שופר · Returns the mochin, wakes Ze'ir Anpin

Kista d'Chiyusa · קיסטא דחיותא · The spark of life that remains in sleep

Bogeres · בוגרת · The adult Nukva, face-to-face; equals "Torah" (611)