Union of Roots

1 · “And They Shall Be One”

“Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother, and cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh.” This is the first time that the Torah speaks explicitly of zivug, of a man and woman joined in covenant, and it is with these words that the Torah seals the narrative of the first human being and his mate.

At first glance, the verse seems entirely directed to the halachic and emotional structure of marriage in this world. The Torah establishes that the bond between husband and wife is such that it reconfigures the natural hierarchy of relationships: “al ken ya’azov ish et aviv ve’et imo,” that the connection of son to parents, which is rooted in his very coming-into-being, is nevertheless to be surpassed by a new bond, that of “vedavak be’ishto,” cleaving to his wife. And the culmination of this cleaving is described in the words “vehayu le’vasar echad,” that the two distinct persons become “one flesh.” Thus, it would seem, the verse is teaching that the union of husband and wife establishes a new primary identity, a single “flesh” in place of the former duality.

However, when we consider more deeply the specific expressions of the verse, and how the Torah frames this as a consequence of the creation of Adam and Chavah, there arise several matters which require understanding.

For the verse opens with “therefore” – “al ken” – indicating that what is being said here is not merely a command or a blessing for future generations, but a direct derivation from the immediately preceding narrative: that HaShem caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, took one of his sides, built it into a woman, and brought her to the man. Upon this, Adam declares, “This time, bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh, she shall be called ishah, for from ish she was taken.” And then the Torah says, “Therefore a man shall leave…”

We must understand: what is the inner connection between the taking of Chavah from Adam, and the fact that “a man shall leave his father and his mother and cleave unto his wife”? Seemingly, the consequence of the narrative should have been that a husband and wife know themselves to be originally one, that their love is rooted in a primordial unity. But why is the conclusion that the son leaves his parents? Moreover, the verse does not say “therefore a man shall cleave unto his wife and they shall be one,” but introduces the detail that he leaves “his father and his mother,” which are not mentioned in the story of Adam and Chavah at all. What is the necessity for this “leaving,” and why is it the precondition for “one flesh”?

Furthermore, the Torah’s choice of language—“basar echad,” “one flesh”—is itself wondrous. It would have been more fitting, it would seem, to say “one person” or “one being”; and if the Torah wishes to emphasize the depth of their unity beyond the merely physical, then all the more so, it should have said “one soul,” “neshamah achat.” For the true essence of the human being is the soul, and it is known that every Jewish man and woman who are zivug rishon are two halves of one neshamah. Why then does the Torah express the culmination of their union in the coarse term “flesh,” which refers to the lowest, most external dimension of the person?

Indeed, our Sages (in the Gemara) have already addressed this expression “basar echad,” explaining that their “one flesh” is realized in the child who is born from them, that the child is the “one flesh” in which the father’s and mother’s flesh are joined. This is the well-known explanation brought in the maamarim of Chassidus, that the true manifestation of the oneness of husband and wife is in their offspring, who carries within himself both of them as a single existence.

And yet, even with this explanation, the question is not fully resolved. Firstly, according to this, the verse is speaking of a possibility which is not always realized—for there are unions from which children are not born—whereas the verse seems to define the very essence of marriage as such, that the zivug itself is “one flesh,” independent of any later result. Secondly, the wording “vehayu le’basar echad” implies that the man and woman themselves become one flesh, not that a third being will later come into existence from them. The child, after all, is a separate person, and although he is indeed formed from the flesh of his parents, this does not make the father and mother themselves into “one flesh” in a simple sense. It remains, then, that the simple, inner meaning of the verse is that the marital union itself transforms the two into a single “flesh,” and we are left with the question: why is the definition of this unity expressed specifically in terms of “flesh,” and not “soul”?

We might wish to answer, in a way of p’shat, that since the Torah wishes to emphasize the physical aspect of conjugal union, which is the point at which the two bodies are literally united, therefore it uses the term “flesh.” But such an answer is not sufficient, for the Torah is exact in every word, and certainly in a verse that serves as the archetype for all marriages for all generations, the expression “basar echad” must indicate not merely a description of physical contact, but a deep, inward truth, one that touches the very root of the being of man and woman.

This necessity for a deeper understanding is further strengthened when we recall the teaching of our Sages about the first Adam and Chavah. The Midrash says that originally Adam and Chavah were created as one being, a single body with two faces, back-to-back, and only afterwards were they separated, as it is written “and He took one of his sides.” According to this, their unity preceded their separation; their two-ness is a later phenomenon. If so, what is the meaning of the verse “and they shall be one flesh”? They were, in their first state, more than “one flesh”; they were literally one body. It would then seem that the union of husband and wife is not establishing a new oneness, but returning to an earlier, more essential unity that was concealed through their separation.

And this itself requires explanation: if the most perfect state is that they be one, why were they created as a single being and then divided? Why not leave them in their original unity? From the fact that the Holy One, blessed be He, chose to separate them and only afterwards command and bless that “they shall be one flesh,” we must say that there is an advantage specifically to a union that comes after separation, a oneness that is achieved between two beings who know themselves as distinct. This is the type of oneness that the verse calls “one flesh.”

Here another saying of our Sages enters: “Ish ve’ishah, zachu, Shechinah beineihem; lo zachu, eish ochaltan.” Man and woman, if they merit, the Shechinah dwells between them; if they do not merit, a consuming fire. They base this on the letters of their names: ish and ishah both contain the letters alef and shin, “eish” (fire); the man has additionally a yud, and the woman a hei, which together form the Name of HaShem. When they merit, the yud–hei is manifest between them, so that their fire becomes a holy fire, and the Shechinah rests upon them.

Now, this also requires understanding. The dwelling of the Shechinah is generally associated with lofty levels of holiness, with the Mishkan and the Beis HaMikdash, with prophecy and ruach hakodesh. How is it that the Gemara says about a simple Jewish man and woman, in their earthly home, that if they merit, the Shechinah dwells between them? And more: the context in which this is said is precisely the union of ish and ishah as husband and wife. We are compelled to say that the Torah’s description “one flesh,” and the Sages’ statement “Shechinah between them,” are not two separate inyanim, but a single matter: that the very being of “one flesh” is itself a dwelling of the Shechinah; that the Torah is hinting that in the place of physical union, when it is in kedushah and in the way of “zachu,” there is a revelation of the Shechinah that is unique, not found in any other bond between created beings.

This is in accordance with what is revealed in the holy Zohar, that all zivugim in this world correspond to, and are drawn from, supernal unions—yichuda ila’ah and yichuda tata’ah, the higher and lower unifications. The Zohar speaks of the constant avodah of uniting Kudsha Brich Hu and His Shechintei, that above there is a union of masculine and feminine aspects, and that the completion of this yichud is drawn down and reflected in the union of husband and wife below. From the Zohar it is clear that what appears in this world as a natural, physical phenomenon of marriage is in truth a branch and reflection of sublime unifications in the highest realms.

Yet, here the matter becomes more wondrous. If the union below is a tzelem and reflection of supernal zivugim, which are called “yichud Kudsha Brich Hu u’Shechintei,” then in truth the essence of the matter is not the physical flesh, but the spiritual oneness of godly middot and sefiros. Why then does the Torah choose precisely the language of “one flesh,” and not “one soul,” when it is hinting to a union whose root is in the unity of Elokus with His Shechinah? It would have been more fitting, in terms of the inner content, to write “and they shall be one spirit” or “one nefesh,” and from there we would understand that the physical union is only the outer garment of a spiritual oneness. The fact that the Torah does not speak this way, but instead fixes the expression “basar echad,” indicates that there is here a deep secret: that the very category of “flesh” itself, the lowest and most material level, is bound up with a primordial union that precedes and grounds all the yichudim above.

In the maamarim of Chassidus it is indeed explained that “basar echad” refers, in its revealed dimension, to the child, who unites the flesh of father and mother, and also to the act of union itself, which establishes a single body in the sense of halachah (for they are called “one body” in several dinim). But these explanations, while true, remain within the world as we know it. They do not yet answer the question: why is the Torah’s verse, which concludes the creation of man, formulated in such a way that the ultimate description is “one flesh”? This indicates that the Torah’s intent is not only to describe a halachic status or an emotional closeness, but to allude to something more primordial, a “oneness of flesh” that is not a result of their union, but its very supernal root and purpose.

We are therefore forced to say that when the Torah speaks of “basar echad,” it is not only speaking of flesh as we commonly understand it, but hinting to a cosmic secret—that the category of “flesh,” of embodiment and tangibility, has its origin in a most hidden yichud, and that the very possibility of there being “two that become one” in a revealed, bodily way is itself an imprint of a union that stands at the head of all seder hishtalshelut. The Midrashic image of Adam and Chavah as one being, back-to-back, then separated and brought face-to-face, is not merely a story about the first man and woman, but a parable for a supernal reality: an original oneness that divides itself in order that there be a later, conscious union, which is deeper than the primal state.

If so, all the zivugim in this world, and all the yichudim of which the Zohar speaks—yichuda ila’ah and yichuda tata’ah—are but reflections and branches of that first union. And it is this that the verse “and they shall be one flesh” is hinting to: that the union of man and woman is not only a social or emotional necessity, but a reenactment, in “flesh,” of an ancient oneness that precedes worlds.

But if so, we must now ask: what is that original union? Where, in the beginnings of the Torah’s account of creation, is its root? For if every lower zivug is a tzelem and reflection, there must be a prototype, a supernal male and female whose bond is the source

2 · Male and Female He Created Them

of all the others.

And behold, we find that the Torah itself already speaks, at the very beginning of creation, in such a language of duality that is one. “And G‑d created the man in His image, in the image of G‑d He created him; male and female He created them.” At first glance, the verse is difficult: it begins in the singular—“created him”—and concludes in the plural—“created them.” Furthermore, it appears to repeat itself: if already it has stated “in the image of G‑d He created him,” why add immediately, “male and female He created them”? Would it not have been sufficient to inform later that the human race is divided into male and female?

From this we are forced to say that “male and female He created them” is not merely an incidental, biological detail, but part of the very definition of “image of G‑d.” The tzelem Elokim in man is not only in his intellect or in his free choice, but in that he is “male and female.” The Divine image, as it is revealed in creation, is itself configured as a polarity of zachar and nekevah.

However, this itself is not yet understood. For how can we say that the Infinite G‑dliness, which transcends all form and definition, is described as “male” and “female”? G‑d forbid to ascribe to Him any corporeal or emotional gender. Moreover, even in the spiritual realms, before there is any gross materiality, Chazal have taught that “there is no eating and no drinking, no procreation and no giving in marriage.” How then can we speak of a Divine image that is “male and female”?

It is therefore understood that “male” and “female” here are not to be taken in the coarse sense, but as names for two general modes of revelation, which are found in every level of seder hishtalshelut. And this is what is called in the language of Chassidus mashpia and mekabel—the influencer and the recipient.

To explain: In every process of revelation, there is that which initiates and that which receives, that which gives and that which is given to. The mashpia is characterized by a point-like, concentrated outflow, coming from above to below; the mekabel is characterized by a broadened, encompassing capacity, rising from below to above, to receive, to internalize, and to bring into actuality that which was contained in potential in the mashpia. These two are not merely opposites, but two halves of a single dynamic; without a recipient, the influence remains hovering and unactualized, and without an influencer, the recipient remains empty and barren.

And this, in brief, is the inner meaning of zachar and nekevah. The masculine, in its root, is the power of point-like transmission; the feminine, in its root, is the power of expansive reception and birthing. When the verse says “male and female He created them,” it intimates that the Divine image is essentially this dynamic of mashpia and mekabel, and that man, as he exists in this world in two bodily forms, is the lowest reflection of that supernal structure.

This is also alluded to in the teachings of Sefer Yetzirah, which speaks of “ten sefiros belimah… and their end is enwedged in their beginning, and their beginning in their end, like a flame bound to a coal.” And further it explains the structure of these sefiros upon three axes—length, width, and depth. Now, the sefiros themselves are not yet described there with the particular names known later, but the very notion of axes already indicates that the Divine emanation is not a simple, undifferentiated light; it is structured in directions of extension and of reception.

For length is the vector of from above to below, a drawing forth, a reaching out; width is the spreading and expansion to the sides; depth is the dimension inward and outward, from inside to outside and from outside to inside. In all these there is a movement of giving and of receiving. Thus Sefer Yetzirah, in its concise and hidden language, hints that the ten sefiros are not ten identical points, but ten modalities bound in relationships of mashpia and mekabel, “their end in their beginning and their beginning in their end”—each one both giving and receiving, but in a particular dominance.

And this is explained at greater length in the teachings of Chassidus concerning the sefiros. Chochmah is called the point of insight, a nekudah bilti musag, a flash that comes as something from above, without prior preparation. Therefore Chochmah is in the aspect of mashpia. Binah, by contrast, is the power of expansion and analysis; she takes that point and broadens it into a full structure of understanding, “spreads it out in all its sides,” until the matter is grasped. Therefore Binah is in the aspect of mekabel. And yet, paradoxically, it is precisely Binah that then becomes a mashpia to the middos, for she gives them form and content, while they are recipients from her.

Likewise, in the lower configuration, the middos as they are bound together and harmonized in a small visage, and the attribute of Malchut that stands to receive from them, are described as a masculine and feminine pair. The six middos, in their collective, are the side of hashpa’ah; they are the dynamic of outward relation, of love, fear, compassion, victory, acknowledgment, bonding. Malchut, by contrast, has “nothing of her own,” only that which she receives; her nature is pure receptivity and expression, to take in all the prior attributes and to bring them into speech, into actuality, into worlds. Therefore she is the archetype of the feminine.

And on this the Sages have already hinted, in their statement that “ish” and “ishah” contain within them the letters of the Name. For “ish” contains the letters alef and shin with the yud, and “ishah” contains alef and shin with the hei. If they merit, the yud and hei—which are the beginning of the Tetragrammaton—are between them, and the Shechinah dwells; if not, G‑d forbid, what remains is only the “esh,” the fire that consumes. The intent in this is not only a moral teaching, but also an ontological one: that within the very words for male and female is inscribed the secret that they are vessels for a Divine Name, two halves of a single configuration. The yud is known as the point, the seminal letter, the aspect of Chochmah; the hei is the letter of breadth and expansion, the aspect of Binah and of Malchut. Thus the Sages, by placing yud in the man and hei in the woman, are indicating that the human male and female are outer garments for these inner modes of mashpia and mekabel.

From all the above it is clear that the polarity of masculine and feminine is not something that appears only at the level of physical bodies, nor even only in the lower sefiros. Rather, “every thing that the Holy One, blessed be He, created in His world, He created male and female.” That is, every hishtalshelus is structured as giver and receiver. In the world of intellect, there is that which flashes and that which expands; in the world of emotions, that which initiates and that which absorbs; in the world of speech and action, that which projects and that which manifests. In all of them, the inner form is the same: a point that descends and a field that rises to meet it; a seed that is sown and an earth that bears fruit.

This is the secret that “He created him… He created them.” The original human, as described there, is at once singular and dual, one and two. For the very notion of “man in G‑d’s image” is that he includes within himself, in a concealed way, both giver and receiver, and that this inner duality then unfolds outward into the distinction of male and female in the revealed world. The body’s differentiation is a tzelem, an image, of an inner differentiation of powers.

Yet, even after all this, there remains a further question. For everything we have described—the Chochmah/Binah relation, the configuration of middos and Malchut, the structuring of the ten sefiros upon axes of extension and reception—belongs to seder hishtalshelut as it is already revealed, as it is already described in the language of sefiros and olamos. But since “male and female He created them” is said on the sixth day of creation, before any explicit mention of sefiros, and since we have learned that all these configurations are only branches and garments of a more primordial order, it is necessary to ask: what is the root of mashpia and mekabel before all these differentiations?

For if, as we established, the very notion of “image of G‑d” is bound up with “male and female,” then this polarity must have its shoresh not only in the known sefiros, but in the very first revelation after concealment. Where, then, is the first point in G‑dliness where we may speak of a “point that gives” and a “space that receives,” before intellect and before emotion, before even the ten sefiros as they are known to us? To this we now turn.

3 · Adam Kadmon Concealed

To approach this root we must first recall what is known from the teachings of the Ari, as arranged in Etz Chaim, concerning the beginning of all hishtalshelus. For there it is explained that before all emanations and creations there was only the simple light of the Ein Sof filling all, without beginning and without end, in a manner that leaves no place, so to speak, for anything other than its own peshitus. And in order that there be worlds, that there be any possibility of finitude, of form, of relations of mashpia and mekabel at all, there was enacted the well‑known inyan of tzimtzum ha’or – the withdrawal and concealment of that revealed simplicity from a certain “place,” leaving a chalal.

Into this chalal there then extends the kav, a measured line of light from the Infinite, and from this kav all the worlds are drawn in their order. And the first configuration, the first seder that is formed from the kav within the chalal, is what the Ari calls Adam Kadmon.

Now, at first glance, this very naming is astonishing. For why is the first seder called by the name Adam – a term that in all of Torah connotes form, likeness, a tzelem, and even more: the human tzelem? One would think that such a name belongs only to much lower levels, where there is already a delineated structure of sefiros, of head and body, of right and left and center. How does it apply in the very first revelation after the tzimtzum, where all is still in a state of utmost simplicity relative to all that follows?

Yet this is precisely what the Ari teaches: that Adam Kadmon is a form, a tzurah, within which all later forms are encompassed in potential. It is not yet the detailed partzufim that will emerge afterward; nevertheless it is already called Adam, because the very possibility of an “image,” of a structured likeness, is first gathered there in a hidden way.

And to explain this, Etz Chaim sets forth the inyan of iggulim and yosher. That is, that after the tzimtzum, before the configuration of Adam Kadmon, there is a seder of iggulim – concentric circles, so to speak – in which the light is drawn equally in all directions from the center, without distinction of up and down, right and left. This is a mode of revelation in which all points are equidistant from the center, and therefore there is no place yet for relationship, for greater or lesser nearness, for line and axis. It is a light that surrounds equally, makif in the most radical sense.

But Adam Kadmon is already yosher – a straightness, a linear form. The kav does not remain in the mode of circle alone, but arrays itself as a “figure,” with rosh, guf, and raglayim, with levels of higher and lower, inner and outer. Not that these are yet the sefiros as they will be in Atzilus, Heaven forbid to confuse the levels, but that within the chalal there now appears an order in which the light is not equal on all sides, but is drawn according to a pattern of distance and proximity to the Ein Sof, a pattern that is the root of all future distinctions.

Thus, Adam Kadmon is the first yosher after the iggulim. And therefore it is called Adam, for the human form is also yosher: a figure that stands upright, that has a head above and feet below, right and left sides, inner organs and outer limbs. All these human distinctions are but a dim reflection, far below, of that primal “standing” of the kav in the chalal as a yosher.

And nevertheless, with all this, it is emphasized in Chassidus that Adam Kadmon is not a partzuf in the ordinary sense, but rather makif ha’kol – it surrounds and includes all that will ever be. It is described as ratzon haklali, the all‑inclusive will, in which all future details are contained not as particulars but as a single, simple tendency of the Infinite toward revelation. Like a person’s general will regarding his life’s direction, in which all the myriad specific desires and plans are included in a non‑differentiated way, so Adam Kadmon gathers within itself the potential of all worlds and all partzufim, but only in a klali, supernal mode.

From this it is understood that we must hold together two seemingly opposite descriptions. On the one hand, Adam Kadmon is called Adam and is depicted as yosher, as a form with head and body, which is the very root of structure and differentiation. On the other hand, it is equated with ratzon haklali and makif ha’kol, which sounds like the very opposite of form, more akin to an all‑embracing, undefined surrounding that does not yet enter into details.

And indeed, this is its wondrous inyan: that Adam Kadmon is the meeting‑point between makif and pnimi, between the encompassing equality of the iggulim and the articulated particularity of the future partzufim. It is still close to the simplicity of Ein Sof, and yet from it will come all finitude. It is therefore called by the name Adam – likeness – and yet it is altogether beyond the likeness that we can grasp in the lower worlds.

According to this, we can begin to see how all male and female that will ever be must be rooted there. For if, as explained earlier, the notion of tzelem Elokim is inseparable from “male and female,” and if all the configurations of Chochmah/Binah, middos/Malchus, mashpia/mekabel, are but branches of a primordial order, then surely their very first shoresh must be in that level where the entire seder is yet a single will. There, in Adam Kadmon, must lie the most subtle origin of all giving and all receiving, all point and all expansion.

However, when we look at the description of Adam Kadmon as it is given in Etz Chaim, a difficulty arises. For its depiction is almost entirely in terms of a single, straight kav; a singular Adam‑form, standing alone. The later partzufim – Abba and Imma, Ze’er Anpin and Nukva – are all drawn from specific aspects of Adam Kadmon, from its ears, its nose, its mouth and so forth. But Adam Kadmon itself is not presented there as a pair, as a “male” and “female.” It is a solitary yosher, an Adam that seems to encompass all within itself, without any mention of a corresponding “other.”

More than that: the very language in which Adam Kadmon is spoken of – as kav, as yosher, as ratzon – seems, at first glance, to align with the side of hashpa’ah, of outgoing movement. The kav “enters” the chalal, “extends” from the light of Ein Sof inward. The image of Adam standing within the space is that of a presence entering an absence, a light filling a vacancy. All this, in our terms, sounds like the masculine pole, the mashpia, while the “place” that is entered and filled is not, in these passages, given a distinct name or standing. It is the background, the chalal in which Adam Kadmon stands.

If so, we are faced with a sharp question. We have posited that the male/female polarity is essential, that already “in the image of G‑d” it is present, that from the highest to the lowest there is no revelations of tzelem without this duality. Yet when we arrive at the very first seder after tzimtzum, at Adam Kadmon, the description appears one‑sided: a lone Adam, a lone kav, with no explicit mention of a feminine counterpart, of a primordial mekabel. Where then is the root of the feminine in this highest order? Where is the first nekudah of receiving, if all we see is a straight line of giving?

One might attempt to answer that in Adam Kadmon itself there is no division at all, that it is beyond the distinction of masculine and feminine, and that these only begin at the level of the later partzufim that emerge from it. According to this, Adam Kadmon would be a kind of supra‑gendered unity, and the polarity we seek would not have its root there, but only below.

However, such an answer is difficult, for two reasons. Firstly, it contradicts the very meaning of the name Adam as used here. If Adam Kadmon were purely undifferentiated, beyond any form, then it should not be called Adam at all, but would remain in the category of simple light and circle. The fact that it is called Adam and yosher indicates that it is already the place where form begins. And if so, how can we say that there is no trace there of the most fundamental form of all, the relation of mashpia and mekabel?

Secondly, even if we were to say that Adam Kadmon is above the division into masculine and feminine as they are known to us, nevertheless, since all lower revelations are its outgrowths, there must be within it at least a hidden root, a he’elem, of this duality. For nothing can emerge in the branch that is totally absent from the root. If later there will be a “male” and a “female” partzuf, with all their intricate relations, then there must be in Adam Kadmon itself a source‑point from which both are derived, even if there it is in a mode that is entirely beyond our comprehension. To say otherwise would be to uproot the principle that “there is nothing below that does not have its root above.”

We are thus compelled to say that Adam Kadmon, as ratzon haklali and makif ha’kol, includes within itself, in a hidden way, the potentiality of all later masculine and feminine – that the entire order of mashpia and mekabel is there, but only as one undivided tendency. It is like the will in a person that includes within itself, before any conscious thought, the will to understand and the will to feel, the will to speak and the will to act – all future faculties are contained there in a single point. So too, in Adam Kadmon, the capacity to give and the capacity to be received, the power to project and the power to be mirrored, are present as one.

Yet this does not resolve our question; it only reframes it. For if indeed Adam Kadmon is such an all‑inclusive point of will, if it is the source wherein all opposites are still one, then we must ask more precisely: what is the inner structure of that will? How can we speak of a “root of receptivity” within a level that is described as kav, as entering and extending? Where, in the language of tzimtzum and chalal and kav, in the very first act of Divine self‑limitation and re‑entry, is there a gesture that is not only going‑out but also making‑room, not only Adam but also the capacity for “otherness”?

In other words: when the kav stands as Adam Kadmon within the chalal, is the chalal merely a neutral absence which the kav fills, or does the very existence of that “space” already imply a positive quality of receiving, a primordial field that stands in relation to the kav as mekabel to mashpia? And if so, how is that quality rooted in the Divine itself, and not only in the “vacated” side?

These questions cannot be answered within the simple reading of Adam Kadmon as a solitary yosher. They press us to return to the beginning of the inyan, to the tzimtzum itself and to the relation between the chalal and the kav, and to seek within that first concealment and first line a deeper articulation. For if Adam Kadmon is truly the root of all “He created him… He created them,” then within its very being must be concealed not only the archetype of the masculine, but also the first, most hidden nekudah of the feminine – though as yet unnamed and unrecognized.

To uncover this, we must look more finely at the nature of the chalal, at the residue that remains within it after the tzimtzum, and at the way the kav enters and relates to that residue. There, in the very womb of space, will be found the co‑root that stands opposite Adam Kadmon; but this belongs to another stage in our discussion. Here we have only sharpened the necessity: that the apparent singularity of Adam Kadmon cannot be the full picture, and that the search for the feminine at the very origin of emanation remains before us.

4 · Chavah Kadmonah and the Womb of Space

To approach this, we must return to the very lashon in which the beginning of hishtalshelus is given over to us by the Ari. For there it is explained that before all emanated worlds, the Or Ein Sof filled kol ha’metzius in a manner of peshitus gamur, with no room at all for any otherness. And when it arose in His simple will to emanate the worlds and to be called by the name of Elokim, Dayan and Melech, then He constricted His light, as it were, to the side, and there remained in the middle a chalal panui, an empty, vacated “space,” within which the seder ha’olamos could unfold. Afterwards a kav dak, a thin measured line of light, was drawn from the Or Ein Sof back into that chalal, and this kav is the root of Adam Kadmon.

Now, in the simple reading, the whole emphasis is on the kav: that it is the measured revelation, the yosher, the Adam. The chalal, by contrast, appears as only a negative condition, a lack, an absence of light. But if so, we have not truly understood the tzimtzum. For, as is known, the Or Ein Sof is bligvul mamash; how then can there be any “place” empty of Him, chas veshalom? And if we are forced to say that even the chalal is not truly devoid of Elokus, only that the previous gilui is not revealed there—then already it is clear that the chalal is not a simple nothingness, but a certain inyan, a certain mode of relation of Ein Sof to the possibility of otherness.

Moreover, the Ari himself adds a decisive detail: that the tzimtzum does not leave the chalal bereik mi’kol, completely empty, but that there remains within it a reshimu, a trace and impression of the original light. This reshimu is the shoresh of all measures and boundaries that will ever be, the hidden root of all keilim, of all forms of receptivity and limitation. If so, the chalal as “vacated” and the reshimu as “remaining” must be considered together: the “space” is not a sheer void, but a field structured by a subtle, concealed memory of the infinite light that once filled it.

And here we can begin to sense that in the very description of tzimtzum and reshimu there is, at least in potential, the language of mekabel standing opposite the kav as mashpia. For the kav is drawn into something; it does not hang in the abstract. It is re-entering a chalal whose entire inner being is now defined by the capacity to be engraved, to be impressed, to be filled. The chalal with its reshimu is the “place” of receiving.

To deepen this, we turn to the early words of Sefer HaBahir, which, as is known, are among the roots of the Ari’s inyanim. The Bahir speaks of a makom she’bo ha’olam nachak, a “place in which the world is engraved.” It does not say only that the world was drawn or emanated, but that it is carved and inscribed into a pre-existing place. This makom is compared there to a block into which letters are engraved, or to a wax into which a seal is pressed. The form of the world is not suspended in nothingness; it is a tziur engraved in a receptive substrate.

Furthermore, the Bahir gives the parable of the flame hidden in the coal: that there is a black coal, dark and seemingly inert, and within it is concealed a potential fire. When one blows upon it, the flame emerges. The coal is not nothing; on the contrary, it is the very condition for the fire’s revelation, the womb, so to speak, that bears the hidden light until the moment of its external manifestation. And the coal itself participates in the fire; it is consumed and becomes glowing ember.

Similarly, the Bahir speaks of the great tree whose root is in a nekudah setumah, a closed hidden point, and whose branches and fruits spread outward into revelation. The root is not itself the visible tree, yet without that concealed point there could be no trunk, no foliage, no fruit. It is a hidden, inward point that bears and nourishes all manifestation.

If we now bring these images back to the language of tzimtzum, it is impossible to say that the chalal panui is a mere lack. For the chalal is precisely that “place” in which the worlds are engraved; the reshimu is that hidden coal in which the future light is asleep; the first subtle point of measuredness within the chalal is like that closed root from which the tree of worlds will one day grow. The kav that enters is like the breath that fans the coal; its light does not create ex nihilo but awakens, defines, and draws forth what is already latently present.

And if so, we can say that the whole dynamic between chalal–reshimu and kav–Adam Kadmon is already, in its deepest inwardness, a dynamic of mashpia and mekabel, of masculine and feminine. The kav is the line, the thrust of measured giving from the bligvul. The chalal with its reshimu is the wide, surrounding, all-embracing “place” that can be impressed, that can be carved and receive within itself infinite forms. This is not only a passive emptiness, but an active capacity for hospitality, for bearing and shaping what enters it.

However, one must be very precise here. When we speak of the chalal and reshimu as mekabel, we do not mean, chas veshalom, that there is some independent substrate outside of Elokus. The tzimtzum is also only in the manner of His light and revelation; the “space” is itself only a new mode of Divine self-relation. Therefore the receptive capacity we are describing, this power to be “place” and to be “engraved,” is itself a Divine middah, a primordial quality within the Ein Sof’s own self-concealment.

In other words: just as the kav and Adam Kadmon are the first articulation of Divine mashpia-hood, the primal will to reveal and to give form, so too the chalal and reshimu are the first articulation of Divine mekabel-hood, the primal will to make room, to receive within self-imposed limitation the worlds that will emerge. These two are not subsequent to one another in time, but two inseparable faces of the very first turning of Ein Sof toward finitude. There is no kav without chalal, and no chalal without the kav that is destined to enter it.

On the basis of this, there is room to say, in the way of chiddush, that just as the Ari calls the kav in its first yosher configuration by the name Adam Kadmon, so too the chalal ha’panui im ha’reshimu she’b’socho can be called by the name Chavah Kadmonah. For Chavah, as is known, is called em kol chai, the mother of all life; she is that from which all living forms are born and which receives the seed and nurtures it into actuality. And here, at the very beginning of seder hishtalshelus, we find a “place” that is mother to all worlds, that contains within itself the hidden measure of every form, and that receives the kav’s light in order that from their interaction the entire tree of existence should grow.

This name, Chavah Kadmonah, is not mentioned explicitly in the words of the Ari, but it is demanded by the inner logic of his system when read together with the mashalim of the Bahir. For the Ari insists that the reshimu is not an incidental residue, but the essential root of all gevul, all form and definition. Without it, the kav could not produce keilim; the line of light would have nowhere to stand, no “wall” to reflect from, no inner boundary in which to clothe itself. The Bahir, for its part, insists that all worlds are engraved in a makom. Taken together, these teachings compel us to recognize that the chalal–reshimu complex is not merely “background” for Adam Kadmon but his covenantal partner, his opposite number.

Thus we can re-interpret the tzimtzum not only as an act of withdrawal, but also as an act of self-wombing, as it were: Ein Sof contracts His revealed infinity in order to bring forth within Himself a new dimension, a “spatial” capacity that can be engraved and receive. This inwardly carved “space,” structured by the reshimu, is the original Rechovah, the primordial breadth, the archetypal feminine field. And when the kav descends, Adam Kadmon stands within Chavah Kadmonah, as a line inscribed in a scroll, as a trunk emerging from a root, as a flame drawn out of the coal.

According to this, the first union in all being is not that of any two sefiros, nor even of any two partzufim, but the hidden yichud between Adam Kadmon and Chavah Kadmonah: between the kav and the chalal-reshimu, between the power to reveal and the power to make room. Before there is any “up” and “down,” any “right” and “left,” there is already this deeper polarity of “within” and “entering,” of “being place” and “filling place.” All later masculine and feminine, all later zivugim, are only branches on the tree that grows from this concealed root.

And this returns us to the question that remained at the end of the previous inyan: where is the first nekudah of the feminine? We can now say: it is not “later” than Adam Kadmon, as though first there were a solitary Adam and only afterwards a mate was fashioned for him. Rather, in the very act by which Ein Sof brings forth Adam Kadmon, He simultaneously forms within Himself the receptive field in which Adam Kadmon stands. The kav and the chalal–reshimu are born together. The very possibility that there be an “Adam” is grounded in there already being a “Chavah,” a makom that can be “help opposite him,” ezer kenegdo, to receive and respond to his light.

Still, all this remains for the moment in a very klali and hidden state. We have only said that there is a primordial feminine field co-originating with Adam Kadmon, and have named it Chavah Kadmonah. We have not yet understood how, from the interplay of these two, the structured seder hishtalshelus of iggulim and yosher, of olamos and sefiros, is generated; nor have we yet traced how this root-polarity later crystallizes into the familiar forms of Yesod and Malchus, of concentrated giving and articulated receiving. To reach that, we must contemplate more precisely the manner in which the kav interacts with the reshimu, how the line “measures” itself according to the latent forms in the trace, and how the “womb of space” opens, as it were, to bear world after world.

This belongs to the next stage: to see how from Adam Kadmon and Chavah Kadmonah there emerges not only the fact of worlds, but an ordered flow, a seder of relationships, in which the very powers of union—of attaching and of containing—are already inscribed at the root.

5 · Yesod and Malchut at the Root

However, even after all the above, there still remains a certain concealment in the way we have spoken of Adam Kadmon and Chavah Kadmonah. For we have described them in very general terms—as kav and chalal–reshimu, as mashpia and makabel—but the listener has not yet a clear grasp of their inner form, their particular kochos, in a manner that can be related to the seder hishtalshelus as we know it from the sefiros. It is therefore necessary to fix their inyan in vessels that are already familiar to us, so that we can recognize in the highest roots the same pattern that later becomes revealed and articulated.

And this is the inyan of Yesod and Malchus.

To understand this, we must first recall what is the general definition of Yesod and what is the general definition of Malchus, in all places where they are mentioned. For we find that Yesod is never an isolated middah for itself, but is rather the collector and channel of all the middos that precede it. The six middos—chesed, gevurah, tiferes, netzach, hod, and Yesod—are not six separate “feelings,” chas veshalom, but six stages in the flow of hashpa’ah. Chesed is the expansive will to bestow; gevurah is the tzimtzum and measure; tiferes is the harmony and beauty that results; netzach is the drive to prevail and continue; hod is the hachna’ah, the submission and acknowledgement that allows the hashpa’ah to adapt and bend. And all of these, with their richness and nuance, must ultimately be gathered into one clear, directed point of connection, one tzino r through which they can actually pass from the mashpia to the mekabel. This concentrating, unifying point is Yesod.

Yesod thus stands at the end of the series of middos, but its “end” is not an end of depletion, rather the end that is a sum total, a klal. All the colors of the spectrum of middos are taken up into it, unified and focused as one simple flow of hashpa’ah. It is not chesed, and not gevurah, and not tiferes, but the kesher that gives each of them an outlet, the point where the relationship to the other becomes actual. Hence also its name “Yesod,” foundation, for the whole edifice of relationship, of giving into another domain, stands upon this power of collected, concentrated transmission.

Malchus, by contrast, is defined in all places as ein lah m’garmah klum, it has nothing of its own, but receives from all that precedes it. This is not a lack, but its very perfection. For the ultimate kli is that which has no agenda of its own, no color of its own, and therefore can reveal purely the content that enters it. Malchus is the “place” into which the hashpa’ah comes, and by virtue of its bitul it allows the hashpa’ah to appear in a new mode—revealed, articulated, manifest. In sefiros, Malchus is the power of dibbur, speech, in which the hidden thoughts and feelings become explicit words. Malchus is also the inyan of “olam,” world, the structured field in which what was previously only a desire or middah in the mashpia now stands as a reality with its own laws and boundaries.

Thus we can say: Yesod is the concentrated point of giving, the kesher of all the upper middos, and Malchus is the pure receptivity and the expressive articulation that receives Yesod’s hashpa’ah and thereby brings forth a “world.”

This relationship is alluded to also in the language of Sefer Yetzirah, where it speaks of three inyanim: sefer, sfar, and sippur. The simple meaning is book, number, and story; but as is known, these are not three separate things, rather three aspects of one process. The inyan of sfar, number, is the counted measure, the precise quantification of content. When the many details of understanding or will are reduced to a clear count, to a measure that can be transmitted, this is sfar. Sefer, book, is the fixed form, the letters in which that measure is inscribed. And sippur, story, is the unfolding of those letters into a narrative, a world of events, in which the inner content becomes felt and experienced.

From this we may understand that the power of sfar, of number and measure, is akin to Yesod, which takes all the previous inyanim and fixes them in a defined, transmissible measure. And the inyan of sippur, the story that unfolds in time, is akin to Malchus, in which the counted content becomes a living reality that can be told, that can be “inhabited” by worlds. Sefer itself is the form common to both—the letters that stand as the vessel of transmission—but the dynamic from sfar to sippur is precisely the passage from Yesod to Malchus.

And this is also the inyan that is hinted in Sefer HaBahir with respect to the tzaddik and the aretz. The Bahir speaks of a “tzaddik, yesod olam,” a righteous one who is the foundation of the world, and of the “earth” that receives all seeds and brings forth fruit. The tzaddik is the power that joins, that connects heaven and earth, condensing the upper hashpa’os into a single, straight path, while the earth is the utterly humble mekabel, who takes whatever is given and, by its utter receptivity, multiplies it and reveals its hidden potential. The tzaddik sows; the earth bears.

We thus see that already in the oldest sources, before the language of detailed sefiros is articulated, there is the recognition of two essential kochos: a concentrated, foundational giving power, and a receptive, world-bearing field. These are nothing other than Yesod and Malchus in their most general form.

Now, according to what was explained earlier, that Adam Kadmon is the kav, the measured line of hashpa’ah, and Chavah Kadmonah is the chalal–reshimu, the receptive womb-space, we can now say a chiddush: that within this very relationship there is already the form of Yesod and Malchus. That is, the kav of Adam Kadmon is not only mashpia in the general sense, but specifically bears within it the quality of Yesod—the collection and concentration of all the hidden ratzonos that precede his revelation. And the chalal–reshimu of Chavah Kadmonah is not only a general makom, but specifically the inyan of Malchus—the pure receptivity that, through its very emptiness and trace, gives form and articulation to what it receives.

For when we say that Adam Kadmon is ratzon haklali, the all-inclusive will, this itself needs explanation: how can we speak of a “will” that is all-inclusive, not yet divided into particular desires? The answer is that this “will” is already a certain measure, a certain direction, within the Ein Sof. It is the determination that there should be worlds at all, that there should be finitude, relationship, revelation, concealment. All the later particular wills—that there be such-and-such a world, such-and-such a order, such-and-such a creature—are contained within this first, encompassing will as details in a general desire.

The kav that emerges after the tzimtzum, which we call Adam Kadmon, is thus the condensation of all these potential wills into one simple gesture of hashpa’ah. It is like the power of Yesod that gathers all the colors of the middos and brings them into one clear flow. In this sense, the inner nekudah of Adam Kadmon is Yesod at the root: the foundational, unified point from which all measured giving proceeds.

Parallel to this, the chalal–reshimu is not a shapeless void. The reshimu, the trace that remains after the tzimtzum, is the latent form of all measures, the hidden script according to which the kav will later be inscribed. The space is “empty” of revealed light, but full of capacity, of potential structures. It is the ultimate bitul: ein lah m’garmah klum, it has nothing revealed of its own, and precisely thereby it can receive every form, give a place to every world. This is the very definition of Malchus—pure receptivity that becomes the “world” in which the hashpa’ah is lived.

We can thus rephrase the whole first act of emanation in the language of Yesod and Malchus: Ein Sof, in order to reveal His kingship, first forms within Himself a Malchus, a makom of pure receptivity delineated by a hidden trace; opposite this He concentrates all the potentials of will into a Yesod-like kav, a single foundational line of transmission. The union of this kav-Yesod with this space-Malchus is the supernal zivug from which all seder hishtalshelus is born.

According to this, the emergence of worlds is not merely a “technical” consequence of there now being a space and a line of light, but is itself a result of the deepest intimacy: Yesod pouring itself wholly into Malchus, and Malchus receiving wholly from Yesod. The kav measures itself according to the reshimu—that is, the Yesod of Adam Kadmon gives itself according to the latent forms in the Malchus of Chavah Kadmonah—and in this measuring, in this mutual correspondence, worlds are engraved and brought forth.

We can now understand also a nuance in the imagery of Sefer Yetzirah mentioned above. The move from sfar to sippur, from counted measure to unfolding story, is not one-directional only. The story, once told, itself reveals retroactively the depth of the count. Likewise, Malchus is not a passive end, but by expressing the hashpa’ah it has received, it becomes a “world” that reflects back, so to speak, to Yesod, eliciting further measures, further hashpa’os. This is the sod of zivug: not only a one-way giving, but a reciprocal relationship in which the mekabel, by its very receiving, arouses and shapes the hashpa’ah of the mashpia.

So it is also in our inyan. Chavah Kadmonah, in her essence as Malchus at the root, is not merely a background field in which Adam Kadmon stands, but the very condition that draws forth and specifies his Yesod. The kav is kav davka because it stands in relation to the chalal–reshimu; its straightness, its measure, its direction are all according to the capacities and contours inscribed in the space. The more refined the Malchus, the more measured and inward the Yesod; the two stand in perfect correspondence.

From this it follows that the entire seder hishtalshelus, from the first iggulim and yosher until the lowest worlds, is nothing other than the continuous unfolding of this one primordial zivug of Yesod and Malchus at the root. Every subsequent measure of light that enters the space, every new “world” that appears, is another moment in the story of this embrace: Yesod further condensing, Malchus further opening, the count of sfar giving rise to ever more intricate sippur.

And this gives a new taste to the statement of the Bahir, that the tzaddik is the foundation of the world. For if Yesod at the root is the foundational kav from which all hashpa’ah issues, then truly the “world”—Malchus, the totality of all revealed realms—is born of this one tzaddik-like gesture, and continually stands upon it. The “earth” of Chavah Kadmonah receives without limit, bearing fruit upon fruit, only because the Yesod of Adam Kadmon unceasingly unites with her.

According to all the above, we have now fixed the inyan of Adam Kadmon and Chavah Kadmonah in the familiar language of Yesod and Malchus. We have seen that the very origin of seder hishtalshelus is itself a sacred union: the foundational power of concentrated giving joining with the absolute power of receiving, from which all worlds emerge as a single, ongoing act of intimacy.

Yet, all this we have spoken still in the most general and primal level, prior to any division into detailed sefiros and configurations. It remains to understand: how does this root-Yesod and root-Malchus unfold into the many particular Yesodim and Malchuyos known to us in the later structures? How is this one embrace mirrored and diversified in the many yichudim that the Ari details in the seder of partzufim? This belongs to the next inyan.

6 · Partzufim as Echoes of the First Embrace

However, before coming to the world of man, we must first contemplate how this one root-embrace expresses itself in the seder of partzufim that the Ari revealed. For at first glance, the multitude of partzufim and their yichudim seems to introduce a great complexity, almost, so to speak, a crowding of unions—Arich Anpin and Atik, Abba and Imma, Ze’er Anpin and Nukva, each with its own seder of mochin and zivugim, each with its own times and conditions. And it would appear, superficially, that we have left the simple primal yichud of Adam Kadmon and Chavah Kadmonah and entered a different domain.

But according to what was explained above, that the entire hishtalshelus is only the further branching of the one zivug of Yesod and Malchus at the root, we are forced to say that also the seder of partzufim is nothing other than the elaboration of this same inyan. Only that here it is manifest in a particular, structured form, according to the needs of the worlds that are to be brought forth.

To understand this, we must first recall briefly the order of the partzufim as brought in the writings of the Ari. After the bechinah of Adam Kadmon, in which all is still in a most general and concealed mode, there is the hislabshus and hisgalus of the lights in the four worlds of Atzilus, Beriah, Yetzirah, and Asiyah. In Atzilus itself, the Ari speaks of the partzufim of Arich Anpin, Abba and Imma, Ze’er Anpin and Nukva. Each of these is not a mere middah or sefirah, but a complete configuration—rosh, toch, sof—composed of all ten sefiros in its own way, with its own Yesod and its own Malchus, and with its own possibility for zivug.

Arich Anpin is the partzuf of the supernal ratzon and ta’anug that extends over all Atzilus in an all-encompassing manner. Abba and Imma are the partzufim of Chochmah and Binah as they stand in a state of da’as and zivug between them, generating mochin for the lower. Ze’er Anpin and Nukva are the partzufim of the middos and their Malchus as they are revealed toward the worlds of Beriah, Yetzirah, and Asiyah. And the Ari details at length how the various yichudim between these partzufim—Arich with Atik, Abba with Imma, Ze’er with Nukva—elicit new mochin, new measures of Divine consciousness, which are then drawn into the worlds.

Now, on the surface, each of these zivugim appears as a separate process: the zivug of Abba and Imma to bring mochin to Ze’er Anpin; the zivug of Ze’er Anpin and Nukva to bring hashpa’ah into the lower worlds; the special yichudim of Shabbos, when Ze’er and Nukva rise and unite in a higher way; the yichudim of Yom Tov, when additional mochin are given, and so on. But, as is known from the ma’amarei Chassidus, the inyan of partzufim is not to multiply entities, chas veshalom, but to reveal the inner structure of one Elokus as it is manifest in different bechinos. The multitude is only in the kelim; the or is one and simple.

Accordingly, we must say that also the multiplicity of zivugim is only a multiplicity in the outer form; in the inner pnimius they are all the very same inyan: the point of Yesod uniting with the field of Malchus; the kav measuring itself into the makom according to the reshimu. Only that in each partzuf, this same form is expressed in a different “key” and at a different “scale,” according to the level and the tachlis.

And this is hinted in the language of the Bahir, which speaks of “roots and branches,” that the lower things are but branches that extend from a single root above, and that in each branch you can find the image of the root inscribed within it. For a branch is not merely something that grew later; it is the root itself extended outward, maintaining the same inner form, only now in a more particular and external manner. So too, every pair of partzufim—Abba and Imma, Ze’er and Nukva—is but a branch of the first pair, Adam Kadmon and Chavah Kadmonah, and contains in itself the same structure of Yesod and Malchus that was at the root.

We can now understand in a deeper way the well-known inyan that the zivugim of partzufim serve to elicit mochin. The Ari explains that when Abba and Imma unite face-to-face, in a state of complete hisachdus, they give birth to new mochin for Ze’er Anpin; and when Ze’er Anpin and Nukva unite with these mochin, they can draw down hashpa’ah into the lower worlds. In Chassidus, this is explained not only as a “supernal event” but as a process within the neshamah: the unification of Chochmah and Binah (Abba and Imma) produces a new da’as; the unification of middos (Ze’er) with Malchus, speech and action, expresses that da’as in avodah.

But according to what was explained above, we can say that this whole seder of mochin and middos is itself a repetition of the first pattern: the root-Yesod of Adam Kadmon drawing into the root-Malchus of Chavah Kadmonah according to the measure of reshimu within her. Just as there, the zivug is what elicits a new seder—another world, another level of sippur—so here, the zivug of Abba and Imma elicits a new seder of da’as in Ze’er Anpin, and the zivug of Ze’er and Nukva elicits a new seder of worlds in Beriah, Yetzirah, and Asiyah.

In other words: each partzuf contains its own Yesod, gathering and concentrating all that precedes it, and its own Malchus, ready to receive and reveal. When there is zivug de’Yesod and Malchus within that partzuf, a new “world” emerges relative to it—a new state of consciousness, a new configuration of middos, a new order of revelation. This is simply the same primordial embrace, but now refracted through the specific kelim and functions of that level.

This is especially revealed in the yom menuchah of Shabbos. The Ari teaches that on Shabbos there is an aliyah of the worlds: Ze’er Anpin and Nukva ascend to be included in Abba and Imma; their zivug is then not merely on their own level but in a much higher makif. Therefore, there is an additional union—zivug gadol—and through this are drawn mochin de’gadlus into all the worlds for the entire week. According to our inyan, this means that on Shabbos the lower “branch” of Yesod and Malchus is re-included in a higher “branch,” closer to the root. The same pattern of giving and receiving is enacted, but now its measure is widened and its depth increased, because the Yesod and Malchus that unite are themselves closer to Adam Kadmon and Chavah Kadmonah in their subtlety.

Similarly, on Yom Tov, when there are particular yichudim corresponding to each chag, there is, in the language of the Ari, a hischadshus of certain mochin in certain partzufim. Chassidus explains that each Yom Tov reveals a particular middah—Pesach, chesed; Shavuos, tiferes; Sukkos, malchus, and so forth—and that the yichudim of that Yom Tov are the inner unity of these middos with their mochin. But at their root, all these varieties of yichud are a single type: Yesod, the concentrated point of a middah, uniting with Malchus, the power to articulate and manifest that middah in an olam. The difference between chag and chag, and between Shabbos and Chol, is only which aspect of the root-yichud is being expressed as a branch in that time.

We can thus say, in the way of chiddush but founded on these inyanim, that the system of partzufim as a whole is “fractal”—that is, each part contains an image of the whole pattern. Adam Kadmon and Chavah Kadmonah are the all-inclusive root of Yesod and Malchus. From them emerge, in a more particular form, Arich Anpin and his Malchus, Abba and Imma, Ze’er Anpin and Nukva. Within each, the same root-relation of kav and chalal, of sfar and sippur, of tzaddik and eretz, is inscribed. The many yichudim that the Ari counts are not different in their essential nature; they are the many “tellings” of one story, the many blossoms of one tree whose trunk and root are the first embrace.

According to this, we gain also a new understanding of what Chassidus explains regarding yichudim: that they are not merely “kabbalistic techniques” but inner unifications of mochin and middos in Elokus. For when we speak of uniting Chochmah and Binah, or middos and Malchus, this is simply the way in which the one zivug of Yesod and Malchus is experienced within the soul and within the worlds. The fact that the Ari describes these yichudim in such great detail—what rises, what descends, what mochin are received—is precisely because each detail is another expression of the root-form, another branch that reveals something of the root.

On the basis of all this, a further question arises with strong force. If all these supernal unions, from the primal Adam Kadmon–Chavah Kadmonah until the zivugim of Ze’er Anpin and Nukva in Atzilus and the yichudim of Shabbos and Yom Tov, are but one pattern repeated at higher and lower levels, and if this pattern is the very secret of seder hishtalshelus—then what is the place of the zivug in the lowest world, the union of ish and ishah of flesh and blood? Is that, too, only a distant symbol for these supernal yichudim, an outer mashal that points upward but remains outside the inyan? Or must we say, to the contrary, that since the Torah itself calls their joining “basar echad” and Chazal say “Shechinah beineihem,” that also this lowest zivug is one of the branches in which the root-embrace of Adam Kadmon and Chavah Kadmonah is enacted and revealed?

To clarify this, we must now turn from the world of pure structures to the tzelem Elokim as it is embodied in nefesh and basar, and see how the same Yesod and Malchus are inscribed there. This is the next inyan.

7 · Tzelem Elokim in Flesh and Soul

According to this, we are compelled to say that when the Torah speaks of man and woman below, it does not speak only of two creatures among the creatures, but of a tzelem and a merkavah for that very root-embrace which stands at the head of all the worlds.

And this is the inner meaning of what is written at the beginning of Creation: “In the image of Elokim He created him; male and female He created them.” At first glance, this verse is difficult. It begins with the singular—“He created him”—and concludes with the plural—“He created them.” And if the intent is only to inform us that mankind is comprised of both sexes, it would have been sufficient to say simply that “male and female He created them,” without preceding it with “in the image of Elokim He created him.”

However, according to the above, the language is precise. “In the image of Elokim He created him”—this speaks of the general tzelem, the Divine form that is one. This is the imprint of Adam Kadmon as the all-inclusive yosher, in whom all the later differentiations are still in the mode of a single, simple will. Then, immediately, the verse interprets and unfolds this “him”: “male and female He created them.” The one tzelem that is called “him” is revealed, when it descends to the level of actual creatures of flesh and blood, specifically as “them,” as two. And these two are not an addition to the tzelem but are themselves the way that the tzelem becomes manifest in the world of division.

In other words: the very being of “male and female” is itself the tzelem Elokim. The polarity of mashpia and mekabel, which in the supernal order is Adam Kadmon and Chavah Kadmonah, Yesod and Malchus at the root, is engraved also in the human nefesh and basar, such that the human couple is not merely similar to the supernal zivug but is its branch and vessel.

This is also the inner intent of the sayings of Chazal that husband and wife are “one body” and “one soul in two bodies.” Prima facie, there is a contradiction here: are they one body, or are they two bodies with one soul? But the explanation is that there are two levels. In their inner root in Elokus, they are indeed “one soul”—a singular nefesh Elokis that is divided in its descent into two bodies; and this corresponds to the general tzelem of “He created him.” Yet the very fact that this one soul descends into two distinct bodies—into two forms of embodiment, mashpia and mekabel—this is not an accident and concealment only, but an expression of the Divine intent that the unity should be revealed precisely through the joining of two. Therefore Chazal say also “one body,” for the tachlis is that through their union below, the two bodies themselves should become a merkavah for the one soul within them, until in the moment of zivug they are literally “one body,” as will be explained.

To understand this more, we must recall what is taught in Chassidus concerning the human form as a tzelem of the sefiros. The head, with its brain and the three chambers of intellect, corresponds to Chochmah, Binah, and Daas; the two arms, right and left, correspond to Chesed and Gevurah; the torso and its central line to Tiferes; the two thighs to Netzach and Hod; the organ of procreation to Yesod; and the mouth, the faculty of speech, to Malchus. This is not merely a homiletic correspondence but expresses that the structure of the soul as it is garbed in the body is itself a reflection of the Divine structure of the sefiros.

Accordingly, when we speak of the organ of connection as Yesod, this is not only because through it the person gives forth seed to bring about offspring. Rather, its entire being in the tzelem is to be the point in which the entire life-force of the upper powers—intellect and middos—is gathered and transmitted outward. It is the collector of all that is above and the channel through which the person exits from himself toward another. And in parallel, the faculty of Malchus in the human being is not only the mouth as an individual organ but the entire capacity of the person to receive, contain, and articulate that which comes from above—whether in the realm of speech, of emotion, or of physical receiving.

From this it is understood that in a man and a woman there is, each one, a full tzelem of sefiros. The man possesses also Malchus, the woman possesses also Chochmah and Chesed, and so on. Nevertheless, in the way that their tzelem is expressed outwardly, in their mission within creation, there is a dominance of the Yesod-aspect in the man and a dominance of the Malchus-aspect in the woman. This is why the Torah calls him “ish,” from “eish,” a fiery outgoing force, and her “ishah,” in whom the Divine Name is revealed as a house and a vessel. Their essential partnership is that the male becomes the primary merkavah for the mashpia-side of the tzelem, and the female becomes the primary merkavah for the mekabel-side.

According to this, we can now understand more deeply the statement that they are “one soul in two bodies.” For the one soul that divides is precisely the tzelem of Adam Kadmon–Chavah Kadmonah as it is to be embodied. Above, in the root, the Yesod of Adam Kadmon and the Malchus of Chavah Kadmonah are two aspects of one Divine self-disclosure. When this archetype descends to become a nefesh Elokis suitable to be enclothed in physical flesh, it too divides along the lines of mashpia and mekabel, such that there is a masculine soul-root and a feminine soul-root, each half of the one image. In their descent, each half of the soul is drawn to a different body, a different garment. Yet their essential relation remains that they are two expressions of one tzelem.

Now, since the nefesh is in the body “as a candle in a lamp,” it follows that the way the soul is structured determines also the form and tendencies of the body. Therefore the male body is shaped as a merkavah for the Yesod-aspect of the soul, and the female body as a merkavah for the Malchus-aspect, in a revealed way. When, then, these two bodies join in the act of zivug, this is not only that two physical organisms interact, but that the Yesod of the masculine tzelem unites with the Malchus of the feminine tzelem, and through them the Yesod of Adam Kadmon unites with the Malchus of Chavah Kadmonah in a new, revealed branch of the primordial embrace.

And this is the meaning of what the Sages say that “zivug gufani draws down mochin into the neshamot.” For if we would think that the bodily union is only an outer mashal pointing to some spiritual closeness that exists in the souls, then the direction would be only from above to below: the soul’s unity would be primary, and the body would reflect it. But Chazal say the opposite: that through the bodily joining, new mochin, new lights in the level of intellect and consciousness, are drawn down into the souls. This shows that the guf itself, in its tzelem-composition, is a keili for a supernal yichud, and that specifically through the Yesod–Malchus contact of flesh and blood, there is an awakening and drawing down in the root-souls above.

We can express this more sharply. Every zivug of partzufim in Atzilus, as explained earlier, produces mochin—new configurations of Divine awareness that then descend to enliven lower worlds. Here, in the lowest world, the zivug of ish and ishah plays the same role, but in the most extreme opposite of revelation, in basar gashmi. When they join in accordance with the Divine form engraved in them, then in that moment their Yesod and Malchus are not only similar to, but are literally acting as, Yesod and Malchus of Adam Kadmon and Chavah Kadmonah as these have descended through all worlds and clothed themselves in nefesh and basar. Therefore the consequence of their union is a drawing down of new mochin, both in their own neshamot and, when it is the will of Hashem, in the form of a new neshamah that is born into the world.

Here is the place of the great chiddush: that the mapping of Yesod and Malchus from the supernal root to the human couple is not merely by way of analogy. Rather, the Yesod of the man, as it is inscribed in his sefiros-body, is a limb of the tzelem Elokim that extends all the way back, through all the partzufim, to the root-Yesod of Adam Kadmon. And the Malchus of the woman, as it is expressed in her bodily and psychic capacity to receive, hold, and articulate life, is a limb of the tzelem that extends back to the root-Malchus of Chavah Kadmonah. When these meet in holiness, it is one continuum of Yesod and one continuum of Malchus encountering one another—from the highest kav and chalal until the lowest basar. Their contact is therefore a single zivug stretched across all worlds.

This is also alluded to in the double language “He created him” and “He created them.” For “He created him” refers to the tzelem as it is above the division into male and female, as the general Adam Kadmon–Chavah Kadmonah. But “He created them” indicates that this tzelem is not complete until it is actually divided and then reunited in the lowest, such that the two become one. The perfection of the image is only when the one becomes two in order to become one in a way that reveals what could not be revealed in the pristine unity of above—namely, that the Ein Sof is present also in otherness and return, in distance and closeness.

On this basis, we can now revisit the expression “one body.” During zivug, when the man and woman are united in their Yesod and Malchus, their bodies become literally one keili for the one soul that unites them above. The boundaries that ordinarily separate their individual tzelem-structures are, for that moment, reconfigured into a single tzelem: the Yesod of the mashpia and the Malchus of the mekabel form together one whole configuration of sefiros, one complete Adam. In that wholeness, the Shechinah rests, for the Shechinah is precisely the revelation of the Divine in a complete tzelem.

And from here it is understood also why the Torah speaks of “one flesh.” For the novelty here is that the union is not only in the soul, which in any case is one in its root, but that the flesh itself, the lowest level of the tzelem, becomes the place where the primordial unity is played out and revealed. The basar, which in itself is the greatest concealment, becomes a merkavah for the highest yichud. The act called “zivug gufani” is thus, in its essence, the descent of the Adam Kadmon–Chavah Kadmonah embrace into the most physical expression.

However, from the greatness of the thing we also understand its danger. For just as, above, the zivug of Yesod and Malchus must be in proper order and alignment, with appropriate garments and measures, so that the light that flows be settled and not destructive, so too below. The fact that the couple’s union is structurally a participation in the primordial zivug does not yet mean that it is revealed as such. It may be concealed, distorted, or even inverted, chas v’shalom, if the kelim are not prepared.

Therefore, after establishing the ontological status—that the human couple and their bodily union are a true branch and vessel of the supernal embrace—it is necessary to explain what it means for this union to be “sacred.” What are the conditions, in halachah, in middos, and in daas, that make of the zivug a merkavah for Shechinah, so that the drawing down of mochin into their neshamot and into the world should be in a way of light and blessing? To this we now turn.

8 · Kedushah as Vessel of Union

According to all the above it is understood that the zivug gufani, in its etzem, is a continuation of the supernal yichud. Yet, as mentioned, this etzem can remain concealed; the same act which in its root is a keli for Shechinah can, in its revealed state below, be an act of mere basar, or even of eish ochaltan, chas v’shalom. It depends on the kelim.

To understand this more, we must preface a general inyan in avodas Hashem: the relationship between oros and kelim. It is known that the or, the Divine light, is be’etzem beyond hispashtus in metzius ha’olamos; it is pashut b’tachlis hapshitus, without ta’aroves of tzurah and gvul. The keli, by contrast, is the inyan of gvul and tzurah, of specification and definition. Seemingly, then, the keli is only a tzimtzum and concealment of the or. However, the explanation given in Chassidus is that davka through the keli is the or nitfas and revealed in a way of pnimiyus; without kelim, the or remains makif, transcendent and not livingly present in the recipient. Thus the keli is not a mere concession to limitation, but the very possibility of giluy.

And this is the meaning of kedushah in general—which the Torah expresses in the command “kedoshim tihyu.” Chazal explain, “perushim tihyu,” that kedushah is an inyan of havdalah and hafrasha, to separate oneself from certain inyanim even in reshus, and certainly from issur. At first glance, this separation appears only as a “no,” as a withdrawal. But according to the above it is understood that this very act of delimiting and holding back is the formation of a keli; through the havdalah, a pure, clean, and defined makom is formed into which the or ha’elyon can be nimshach. Kedushah is not the diminishing of life, but its shaping into a vessel capable of receiving higher chiyus.

This klal applies in all areas of Torah and mitzvos, and in particular in the inyan of zivug, where the or is exceedingly great, as explained. Therefore, the Torah surrounded this area with many halachos of gevulin and gedarim, especially the dinim of taharas hamishpachah. Not, G‑d forbid, as an indication that the inyan itself is low and needs to be fenced in, but on the contrary—because it is very high, and a very great or demands very precise kelim.

For in the halachos of family purity we find a wondrous paradox. On the one hand, the Torah renders forbidden a physical closeness between husband and wife for set times, to the extent that even light forms of kiruv are included in the issur. On the other hand, precisely through this alternation of separation and reunion comes a taharah and aliyah in their zivug, as is known from the words of Chazal that the husband becomes beloved to his wife like a chassan who comes out from under the chuppah. The same Torah that separates them is the Torah that renews their love.

According to the above this is very understood. The periods of separation are not a negation of union, but the creation of a new keli for a higher union. Through the restraint in deed, speech, and even certain thoughts, a new depth of ratzon is engraved in the heart; the yearning that is not discharged in immediacy becomes an inner kav hamida—a measured line of desire—that will later be able to flow in a more pnimiyusdike way. The very havdalah carves, so to speak, a more refined chalal within Chavah Kadmonah; and correspondingly, the or of Adam Kadmon is drawn in a more measured, more inner kav. In simple language: the discipline of family purity shapes the couple’s Malchus and Yesod into truer images of their supernal roots.

This is also the inner dimension of the saying “ish ve’ishah, zachu, Shechinah beineihem; lo zachu, eish ochaltan.” The letters ish and ishah share the letters eish, and when the yud and hei of the Shem are present, the eish is sweetened and becomes a light of Shechinah; when the yud and hei are absent, the eish remains a consuming fire. The “zachu” here is not merely that they happen to be meritorious people; it is that they have refined themselves, in body and soul, to be proper kelim. Then the same element of eish—the same passion, desire, and heat that in its raw state can burn and destroy—becomes a vehicle for giluy Shechinah.

And what is this purification, this “zachus,” in the context of zivug? It is, in halachic terms, the observance of the gedarim of kedushah: the times of issur and hetter, the way of approaching union, the tznius in conduct and speech. And in the inner state, it is the birur of their midddos: that the love between them not be a love of yeshus and self-seeking, but a love that is mixed with kavod, with bittul, with a sense that in their union something Elokusdike is taking place.

Here it is necessary to clarify the place of ahavah and yirah in marriage. Generally, ahavah and yirah are spoken of in relation to man’s bond with the Eibershter. However, since, as explained, the zivug of husband and wife is a true branch of the supernal zivug, it follows that the same midddos that define the bond to Hashem must be present, in their human form, within the bond between them.

Ahavah in this context means more than emotional warmth or natural attraction. It is a ratzon pnimi for the good of the other, a yearning to give, to gladden, to be mashpia in a way that the mekabel truly receives. Such ahavah is already a reflection of the ahavas Hashem that is described as “kirvas Elokim li tov”—that one’s good is in the closeness of the other, not in one’s own metzius. Yirah in marriage means not fear in the coarse sense, but a standing with awe and sensitivity before the other’s pnimiyus, a feeling that one must not trample or use the other as a keli for oneself, G‑d forbid. This is akin to yiras haromemnus—the awareness that one stands before something higher than oneself.

When ahavah is without yirah, the Yesod of the mashpia can become unbounded, pouring forth in ways that overwhelm, objectify, or self-indulge. When yirah is without ahavah, Malchus can close into coldness and distance. Only when both are united—chesed sweetened by gevurah, ratzon tempered by busha and kavod—is there a keli that resembles the balance of Yesod and Malchus in their supernal root. Then the hashpa’ah is measured according to the true capacity and desire of the mekabel, and the mekabel receives in a way that expands and does not diminish.

This is alluded to also in the Sefer Yetzirah, where, after speaking of the sefiros and their boundaries, it states: “Im ratz libcha, shuv la’makom”—if your heart runs, return to the place. The “running” of the heart is ahavah, the hispashtus outward beyond oneself; the “returning to the place” is yirah, the return to the proper gvul and makom. Without the “shuv,” the “ratz” can burst the vessels; without the “ratz,” the “shuv” can congeal into lifeless form. The teaching there is that all hispashtus of sefiros must be within the bounds of place, of makom hagvul, in order that they be sefiros belimah—lights that dwell within vessels.

So too in the union of husband and wife. The heart naturally “runs” in the time of closeness. The avodah is to “return to the place”—to remember the makom of the other as an olam bifnei atzmo, to remember the Makom ha’olam, the Eibershter, Who stands in their midst. This remembrance is not to diminish the passion but to give it tzurah, to make of it a sefirah and not a shapeless flood. The halachic boundaries, and the inner middos of respect and awe, are the “shuv la’makom” that allows the “ratz” of love to be true sefiros, true channels of Elokus.

We can now return to the inyan of family purity from this perspective. During the days of separation, the heart may “run”—there is longing, there is desire for closeness. Yet halachah commands “shuv la’makom”: one must return to the place, to the present boundary, and not cross it. In doing so, the couple’s inner Yesod learns to be measured; it becomes accustomed not to push beyond the vessel of the moment. And Malchus, the receptive side, learns to trust and to feel safe, that closeness will come in its time and not through coercion or compulsion. Thus, when the time of taharah comes and union is permitted, the Yesod and Malchus that meet are already more aligned with their supernal roots: a Yesod tempered by gevurah and yirah, a Malchus that is open in bittul and not in fear.

From this it is also understood that tznius is not a set of external customs devoid of inner content. Tznius in dress, in speech, and in conduct between husband and wife, is the expression of this yirah and kavod. It is the refusal to turn the deepest inyanim of giluy Shechinah into hefker, into a public spectacle or a casual matter. By covering, by concealing from strangers that which is most intimate, they affirm that this inyan belongs to the inner chamber of the Shechinah’s dwelling. The more the couple guards the privacy and dignity of their relationship, the more that relationship becomes a keli for pnimius ha’or, rather than a place where the light is squandered outward.

It emerges, then, that all the halachic and behavioral boundaries around intimacy are not “around” it at all, but are its very tzurah as a keli. Without them, the act remains an undifferentiated eish, which, even if coming from a place of natural affection, does not yet fix itself as a sefirah of Yesod within a Malchus, as a true tzelem Elokim. With them, the same eish is elevated and shaped into an or that can bear the Shem within it—the yud and hei between ish and ishah.

And since, as explained in the earlier sections, the human Yesod and Malchus are continuations of the Yesod and Malchus of Adam Kadmon and Chavah Kadmonah, it follows that the entire structure of kedushah is, in truth, nothing other than an alignment of these lower kelim with their higher roots. When the couple separates in purity, they are reenacting, in miniature, the original tzimtzum that formed the chalal; when they reunite in taharah, they are reenacting the kav entering the reshimu-space. Their restraint, their ahavah with yirah, is the human form of the delicate balance of or and keli established at the very beginning of seder hishtalshelus.

Accordingly, we can now define, at least in a general way, what it means that their union is “sacred.” It is not merely that the act happens to be technically mutar, nor even that they have holy thoughts in that moment. Rather, it is that the entire structure of their relationship—their observance of family purity, their tznius, their mutual respect and bittul—has fashioned in them a Yesod and Malchus whose very nature resonates with Adam Kadmon and Chavah Kadmonah. Then, when they come to zivug, the physical contact of basar is simply the last link in a long chain of alignment; the Shechinah can dwell “beineihem,” between their Yesod and Malchus, because those limbs have been trained to be limbs of the supernal partzufim.

And this prepares the way to understand the inner avodah at the time of union itself. For once it is clear that the kelim are not adjuncts but the very possibility of or, then it becomes possible to speak of a conscious da’as in that moment, in which the couple can experience their zivug as a revelation of the supernal yichud, and thereby draw down new mochin and neshamot. To this avodah of da’as, bittul, and simchah in the time of union we now turn.

9 · Avodah of Sacred Intimacy

If so, after all the above—that the kelim of kedushah form in them a Yesod and Malchus congruent with their supernal roots—then we can understand that the avodah at the time of union is not to create something new, as though beforehand there were no connection, but to reveal and draw into consciousness the oneness that already exists in their tzelem. The zivug is then not merely an act within time, a passing moment, but a point in which all the lines of seder hishtalshelus meet in their basar, and this is dependent primarily on the middah of da’as.

For behold, concerning the first union of man and woman in Torah it is written, “And the man knew (yada) Chavah his wife.” And it is explained in Chassidus that this expression of “yedi’ah” is not a refined euphemism alone, but a precise description of the inner content of zivug—that its essence is da’as, connection. Da’as in the soul is the koach that binds the seichel with the middos, and more generally, that binds the person to that which he comprehends, until it is not merely known as an idea standing over against him but becomes davuk and meyuchad with his very metzius. Thus it is said “v’Adam yada” to teach that in true zivug the ish and ishah do not merely encounter one another externally, but there is a yedi’ah, a da’as, in which each one’s pnimiyus becomes attached to the other in a bond of oneness.

However, this requires explanation. Da’as is usually a faculty of the mochin, of consciousness and awareness. How then is it said of an act that is so bound with chomer and ta’ava, with the drives of the nefesh habehamis, that its essence is da’as? Would it not seem that in such a moment the da’as is specifically in danger of being concealed, for the person can become so drawn into the passion of the guf that he forgets his own inner awareness and even the existence of the other as an “other” with a neshamah?

But according to what was explained above, that Yesod and Malchus at every level are not two strangers but two halves of one structure, we are compelled to say that the da’as here is not an addition to the act but its very soul. For da’as, in its deepest definition, is the revelation of the unity that is always already latent between the knower and the known. Before da’as, the seichel is bekoach; with da’as, its connection is begilui. So too here: even when husband and wife are distant, each one remains essentially bound to the other, for they are “one flesh” in potential and “one soul in two bodies.” The avodah of da’as at the time of union is to make this hidden oneness felt and manifest.

And this is also why the term “yedi’ah” is employed, for yedi’ah in Torah is not only an intellectual act below, but the very name of Da’as Elyon, the supernal da’as which binds all the sefiros in oneness. When we speak of yichudim de’partzufim, the essential point is that there is an aliyah in Da’as Elyon, a new bond between mashpia and mekabel in the worlds. Thus the “yedi’ah” of Adam and Chavah is a tzelem of the supernal da’as, and the avodah of the couple is to allow their inner da’as to align with that Da’as Elyon, until their zivug becomes a living re-enactment of the yichud of Adam Kadmon and Chavah Kadmonah.

To understand more the nature of this da’as, we must preface what is explained in Chassidus, that da’as is bound with bittul. For Chochmah is the nekudah of bittul as it is above understanding; Binah is the expansion of the light within the person’s own keilim; and da’as is that the person gives himself over to what he understood, until his very selfhood is taken up within it. Thus, da’as without bittul becomes stubbornness, attachment to one’s own mitzius; true da’as is the opposite, it is the cleaving of the self to that which transcends it.

So it is with zivug. When the union is driven primarily by the ego of each one, the desire to take, to be gratified, then the inner da’as remains in exile, and the act, though sharing the same external form, does not become a keli for giluy Shechinah. But when each one approaches the union with bittul—each one’s intention being to give, to gladden the other, to be a merkavah for the ratzon ha’elyon that is enclothed in this mitzvah—then specifically in that bittul the true da’as can shine, and the zivug becomes a ladder whose head reaches the heavens.

And this is the meaning of the Zohar that speaks concerning union “b’chedva u’b’richimu,” with joy and with love. For “chedva”—simchah—is the expression of bittul; when the person feels himself as a separate, grasping being, he is weighed down by concern for his own lack and satisfaction, and there is no room for true simchah. Simchah is when the self expands beyond its own boundaries and is filled with the light of something higher. “Richimu”—love—is the drawing close of pnimiyus to pnimiyus. The Zohar therefore requires that zivug be with both simchah and love, for without joy there is no bittul, and without love there is no inner contact of souls.

This simchah and love are not merely emotional adornments; they are the very kelim of da’as in this avodah. For da’as without simchah is not da’as but tension; da’as without love is not connection but grasping. When husband and wife enter their union in an atmosphere of calm joy—gladness that they are fulfilling the will of Hashem together, gratitude for the gift of the other—and with a love that is not only passion but also respect, then the da’as that awakens between them is already of the nature of Da’as Elyon, in which middos are sweetened and unified.

According to this we can understand the statement of the Ari that zivug elyon draws down neshamot. In the writings of the Ari it is explained that when there is yichud between the supernal partzufim, new lights descend which are the source of neshamot Yisrael. Seemingly, this concerns only the yichudim above; what relevance does it have to the human couple? But from all that has been explained, that the human zivug is itself a branch and limb of those same supernal yichudim, we must say that in their union as well there is a drawing down of neshamot—not only when a child is conceived, but even when, for whatever reason, there is no conception in the plain sense.

For the neshamah that descends in response to zivug elyon is not only the neshamah that enclothes in a guf; it is also an or neshamah, a new expansion of mochin and pnimiyus that can be revealed in the souls of the couple themselves and in the world around them. When their zivug is with da’as, bittul, love and joy, and in a state of kedushah as explained above, then they become a conduit through which higher levels of Da’as Elyon are drawn down into the lower worlds. Sometimes this takes the form of a literal new neshamah of a child; sometimes it is the revelation of new depths of connection, of ahavah and yirah, within their own souls, or a new light that they can shine in their home and surroundings.

And this is also part of the kavvanah of “Shechinah beineihem.” For earlier it was explained that when ish and ishah are zocheh, the letters yud and hei of the Name rest between them. Now it is understood that this is not only a static presence, as though the Shechinah merely watches over them from above, but that the union of Yesod and Malchus in their basar becomes a small mikdash in which the Shechinah is newly revealed. The da’as that each one has in that moment—that they are standing in the presence of Hashem, and that their togetherness is itself an avodah to Him—creates a keli in their consciousness for the or of Shechinah that is being drawn down through their very union.

Therefore, the inner kavvanah of the couple at the time of zivug, in general terms, is twofold. First, there is the awareness that they are a tzelem of Adam Kadmon and Chavah Kadmonah; that their Yesod and Malchus are not merely private limbs but are continuations of the primordial Yesod and Malchus which generated all worlds. Without entering into intellectual complexity at that moment, this can be held as a simple da’as: “We are now enacting a yichud that has its root in the highest, and through us the supernal yichud is being revealed below.”

Second, there is the bittul that follows from this awareness. For when a person grasps—according to his capacity—that his act is a limb of seder hishtalshelus, he cannot remain in the same self-centered stance. He is then moved naturally to put aside his own ego and to let the ratzon ha’elyon be the main thing, which here expresses itself in the will to give pleasure to the other and to Hashem. In practice this means that each one’s focus is not on what he will receive from the union, but on how he can bring joy, comfort and attachment to the other, and on how, through their togetherness, they can be a dwelling for the Shechinah.

In this way, their ta’ava itself is sublimated and illuminated. For Chassidus does not demand that the drives of the guf be uprooted; rather, that they be elevated and revealed in their true shoresh, which is the Divine delight in the revelation of oneness in the lowest realms. When the couple’s intention is thus turned outward—to the other, and upward—to Hashem, then their natural passion becomes like the flow of the kav itself, which, though intense and powerful, is entirely in a mode of hashpa’ah according to the measure of the keli. The receiving of pleasure by each one is then experienced not as something they grasp, but as a gift they are given through the other and through Hashem’s presence between them.

This is also the deeper meaning of seeing the union as a yichud of Yesod and Malchus. For Yesod, as explained, is the collector and transmitter of all the preceding middos; Malchus is the pure receptivity that expresses and manifests. When the husband inwardly aligns himself with the middah of Yesod—not as domination, G‑d forbid, but as focused, giving presence that gathers all his love, respect and warmth into a single stream of hashpa’ah—and the wife inwardly aligns herself with Malchus—not as passivity, G‑d forbid, but as active, conscious reception that opens in bittul to reveal and articulate the light she receives—then their union becomes a clear image of the supernal pattern.

This inner alignment is not a technical kavvanah in many words, but a simple turning of the heart: that the husband seeks to be entirely present and giving, and the wife seeks to be entirely present and receiving and revealing. Both are equally avodah; both require bittul; both are aspects of the Divine in whose image they are made. In this da’as, the external differences of role do not create separation but highlight the deeper unity, that together they form one complete tzelem.

And from this it is understood that the more their da’as is expanded, the more their union can become a channel for new mochin and neshamot. For da’as is the gate through which mochin enter the middos. When their da’as at the time of zivug rises from mere bodily awareness to an awareness of Shechinah, of their being a tzelem of Adam Kadmon and Chavah Kadmonah, then the mochin of that supernal yichud can be drawn into them. These mochin may later express themselves as new understanding between them, as a deepening of trust and tenderness, as a strengthening of their shared avodah and emunah, or as the neshamah of a child that will itself become a bearer of Divine light.

All of this shows that the moment of union, far from being a descent from avodah into mere physicality, can be one of the deepest peaks of avodah, when understood and lived in this way. The very place which seems, to the external eye, most removed from ruchniyus becomes, through da’as and bittul and simchah, the most direct place of giluy. And from here it is only a small step to understand that such unions, when they are truly “and they shall be one flesh” in this sense, have consequences far beyond the private life of the couple—that through them, the inner kav of creation is drawn ever more fully into the chalal of existence, advancing the fulfillment of the original Divine intent. To this, and to the cosmic outcome of “one flesh, one world,” we now turn.

10 · One Flesh, One World

And with this we can return to that which we began, the verse, “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother and cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh.” At first we understood this only as a command and a description concerning the life of man below; then we probed its inner questions, why “one flesh” and not “one soul,” why the emphasis on leaving and cleaving, why the Torah chooses davka the lowest expression, basar. Now, after clarifying that the zivug of ish and ishah is a true branch and continuation of the first yichud of Adam Kadmon and Chavah Kadmonah, we are able to hear these same words as a statement about all worlds.

For “and they shall be one flesh” is not merely that two bodies become, as it were, a single bodily reality, but that the entire seder hishtalshelut—which began with the first concealment and with the drawing of the kav into the womb of space—is seeking that there should be basar echad: that the very thickness of the lowest, the basar of this world, should itself become one with Elokus, a keli that is transparent to Ein Sof. The verse couches this in the language of marriage, for the primary place where this inward oneness can be manifest in a revealed and felt way is in the zivug of husband and wife; but in truth, through their zivug, the whole world is drawn along with them into this oneness.

This is the secret hinted in the words “leave his father and his mother.” For in penimiyus, “father and mother” allude to the supernal mochin, to those levels of Elokus in which the light is still more inward than world, more inward than basar. The kav in its first emergence is like a son that yet cleaves only to the father and the mother, to the higher sefiros. But the kav’s ultimate intent is not to remain above; “al ken ya’azov”—therefore it must “leave,” meaning it must descend and extend until it reaches the furthest tachton, until it enters into the lowest basar. And it is there, when it cleaves to the mekabel in the uttermost outwardness, that “they shall be one flesh.” So the leaving is not a departure from holiness, G‑d forbid, but the very fulfillment of the hidden ratzon of the mochin themselves—that there should be a dira lo yisbarach betachtonim.

And this is according to the well-known teaching in Chassidus, that the kavana of all seder hishtalshelut is dira betachtonim, that the Holy One, blessed be He, desired that His essence be revealed not in the lofty worlds where there is already giluy, but in the lowest world, where at first glance He is most concealed. There are many mitzvos and avodos through which this dira is built, but there is a special inyan in those mitzvos that touch the basar mamash, the very substance of the body and of the physical house. For dira is not in the seichel of the person, nor only in his middos, but in his “dwelling place,” in that which from its own nature is coarse and separate, becoming a home and a vessel to Elokus. And therefore the union of husband and wife, in which not only their thoughts and feelings but their very flesh becomes a keli to Shechinah, is among the most revealed fulfillments of dira betachtonim.

This is also hinted at in the teaching of Sefer HaBahir concerning the tree and its fruit. The Bahir speaks of a tree whose branches, leaves, and fruit allude to the unfolding of the Divine middos, and it says that from the fruit one knows the root, that the taste of the fruit reveals the taste of the root. Be’ofen ha’pnimi, this means that the lowest expression is not only an outcome but a revelation of the deepest origin; the fruit at the end of the branch carries within it the tam, the inner flavor, of the concealed shoresh. In our context, the “tree” is the whole seder hishtalshelut from the first tzimtzum and the yichud of Adam Kadmon and Chavah Kadmonah, through all the partzufim and all the worlds; and the “fruit” is the basar echad of ish and ishah in this lowest world.

According to this, when a couple unites in kedushah, with the da’as and bittul that we have explained, their zivug is the fruit in which the taste of the root is revealed. In that moment, the originally hidden tam of the first embrace, the pleasure of Ein Sof in making a makom for Himself, is tasted in the physical flesh of two finite creatures. The fruit does not only resemble the root; it discloses it. And this is the inner meaning of “one flesh”—that in the one flesh, the oneness of the Ein Sof that preceded every differentiation is manifest, not as an abstract idea but as a lived, embodied reality.

And this is also why the Torah chose the expression basar and not neshamah. For neshamah, even when it is clothed in a body, remains in its nature close to Elokus, a “chelek Eloka mima’al mamash.” If the verse would have said “one soul,” it would have indicated a unity in the realm that is already naturally disposed to unity. The chiddush, however, is that the basar itself can be drawn into such oneness, that the lowest keli, in which the tzimtzum is felt most strongly, can become a gate for the revelation of the Ein Sof. “One flesh” thus points to the completion of the kav’s journey into the chalal, to the moment when the furthest point of separation becomes a place of yichud.

And according to this we can also understand more deeply the connection between such unions and the Geulah. For it is known from the Zohar that “in the merit of righteous women our fathers were redeemed from Egypt, and in the merit of righteous women we will be redeemed in the future.” The simple meaning is the emunah and mesirus nefesh of the nashim tzidkaniyos in the time of exile. But in penimiyus, “righteous women” refers to the feminine aspect of Malchus, to Chavah Kadmonah as she is manifest in the souls of Jewish women, and “their merit” is the purity and kedushah with which they fashion the home and the union within it.

For exile itself is but the elongation of the tzimtzum, a world in which the chalal seems empty and the kav is hidden, in which basar feels itself separate from Elokus. Geulah, by contrast, is the giluy that the chalal was from the beginning a womb, that even the hester was only a preparation for a deeper giluy. When a Jewish home is established in taharah, when the woman guards the mikdash me’at with tznius and with an inner sense of Shechinah, and when husband and wife live their zivug as we have described—as a conscious reenactment of the supernal yichud—then in that home the truth of Geulah is already shining. The walls of that house, the table, the bed, the very basar of those who dwell there, are no longer in exile from their Source; they have become a dira for Him.

Thus each such home is like a small world brought to its tikkun, and all these homes together form the great body of Knesses Yisrael, in which the Shechinah will be fully revealed in the time of Moshiach. The future Geulah is not something foreign to our present avodah, but the flowering of the tree whose fruit we taste in every act of kedushah. When a couple becomes basar echad in holiness, they are, without noise and without fanfare, hastening the moment when “the earth will be filled with the knowledge of Hashem as the waters cover the sea,” when the whole olam hagashmi will be one great basar echad with Elokus.

On the basis of all the above we may say, in a way of klal, that the entire seder hishtalshelut—from the first tzimtzum and the emergence of Adam Kadmon and Chavah Kadmonah, through all the worlds and all the yichudim—is like a great circle that begins and ends in union. It begins with the hidden embrace of kav and chalal, with the Divine self-contraction and self-giving, and it travels through innumerable stages of concealment and revelation, all for the sake that there should be at the end of days a created being of flesh and blood who, in his or her free choice and conscious da’as, will reenact that first union and reveal its secret.

At the beginning, the yichud was entirely on the side of the Ein Sof, with no other present; at the end, the yichud is between two finite beings who, precisely because they are other, can choose to align themselves with that supernal ratzon. The circle is closed when the lowest, by its own avodah, becomes what it always was in potential: a living image of Adam Kadmon and Chavah Kadmonah, a gate through which the Ein Sof shines without tzimtzum into the place that had seemed farthest from Him. Then the first concealment is revealed as the beginning of a greater giluy, and “they shall be one flesh” is seen to be “Hashem is One and His Name is One.”

This gives a new depth to the sense of responsibility and awe that should accompany every aspect of married life. For it emerges that the private chamber of a Jewish husband and wife is a place where the most hidden intentions of creation are playing out; their words to one another, their mutual respect and kindness, and above all the way in which they live their union, are not only personal matters but events in the cosmic story of yichud. When they choose to sanctify their relationship, to make of their basar a vessel to Elokus, they are, in that moment, completing the circle of creation, drawing the first light of Adam Kadmon into the last corner of the chalal, and preparing the world for the day when the yichud will be open for all to see.

And this is the inner meaning of “and they shall be one flesh”—that from the yichud of ish and ishah in kedushah there comes not only one flesh, but one world.