Kabbalah Library

167. All the guardians of the holy covenant should be seen before the holy king, since they are seen only in order to show that they are members of the holy covenant. This is why it is written, “All your males shall be seen,” who are the members of the holy covenant. “Your males” and not “your male,” with a Zayin with Hirik, since the meaning is males and not your memory [in Hebrew the two words are spelled similarly]. “Your males,” specifically males. All those who guard the holy covenant and do not sin in it are the king’s children. He is praised by them and always remembers them. Therefore, “your males” means one in whom there is the holy covenant, that the king remembers him each day, as there is no praise before the high king as one who guards that covenant.

168. Therefore, they must be seen before him three times a year. Three times for the first fathers, who received this covenant before all the commandments of the Torah. Abraham received a covenant; Isaac received a covenant; Jacob was the most complete of all, since Abraham and Isaac correspond to right and left, and Jacob corresponds to the middle line, which incorporates both. This is why it is written about him, “And Jacob was a Tam [complete] man,” meaning complete in everything.

169. Abraham is called Tamim. He was not so complete, but Tam is complete in everything. It is written about Noah, that he “was a righteous man, Tamim in his generations,” that he was registered with a holy impression between them. Wherever it is written Tamim, it means that one is registered with a holy impression in the token of a sign of the circumcision. And because he kept the covenant, he was called Tamim in his generations, where not everyone were so, as they did not keep the covenant since they corrupted their ways.

170. This is why it is written, “Noah walked with God.” Who can walk with God? Anyone who keeps the holy covenant, the Shechina [Divinity] connects to him and is present over him. This is why it is written, “Be Tamim with the Lord your God.” “Be Tamim,” then “with the Lord your God,” in one connection. Since he keeps that covenant, he will be with the Lord and will not retire from Him.

171. It is written about Abraham, “Walk before Me and be Tamim,” the word of the token of the covenant, called Tamim. “Walk before Me” means that a man should not walk behind a woman but before her; this is the right way. But it is written, “Behold, I will send forth an angel before you,” meaning the Shechina. Thus, did the Shechina walk before them and they behind her?

Abraham, who was uncircumcised, she pushed him ahead of her and did not let him walk behind her. This is why it is not written, “Be Tamim and walk before me,” but rather “walk before me as long as you are not circumcised, since you are unworthy of walking behind me until you are Tamim, until you are circumcised.” It is likewise with all the people: When a person is Tamim and guards it, the Shechina is immediately in front of him and he is behind her, since he is fit for it.

The Hochma is received from Malchut only from her posterior vessels. If a person is unworthy of it, meaning uncircumcised, and might draw the Hochma from above downward, he is forbidden to walk behind the Shechina, so as not to draw Hochma from her posterior. It was implied about that that a man is forbidden to walk behind a woman. Conversely, after he is circumcised and keeps the covenant, when he is certain that he will not draw the Hochma from above downward, he is worthy of walking after the Shechina, worthy of receiving the illumination of Hochma from her posterior.

172. Noah was circumcised and was Tamim. There was no Priaa [removal of the foreskin] in him. This is why it is written, “Noah walked with God,” and not “behind God,” since he was not in front of the Shechina because he was circumcised. He was not behind the Shechina since he did not make a Priaa. Rather, “with God” means next to Him, but he cannot look at his posterior since he is not so fit.

173. It is written about Israel, “And the Lord walked before them by day in a pillar of cloud, and by night, in a pillar of fire.” They would walk after the Lord. Since Israel said, “Are there no graves in Egypt, that you took us to die in the desert? For we were happy serving the Egyptians.” It is as though the mind grew weaker. This is why it is written, “And the angel of God that walks before the camp of Israel journeyed, and he walked behind them,” meaning they were repelled from the Creator. “Journeyed,” to take revenge against them.

174. The Messiah was happy about that. How did Daniel know, for he said, “Your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians.” He knew this from the letters of the inscription. “Persians,” as it is written, in Daniel, is the address that is written, “Mene, Mene, Tekel, and Parsin.”

This implies the matter of the Messiah king. “Your kingdom is divided by the other Messiah, Messiah son of Joseph. Afterwards, king of Peres will rule and conquer many kingships, and will rule over the holy land for twelve months. He will control and kill many, among whom there will be Messiah son of Joseph. Afterwards, the king of Peres will fall, and the upper holy ones will receive the kingship. Hence, here, too, the word “Persians” means that he is the king of Persia.

175. There is much joy in that wellspring. All kinds of trees grow in that wellspring, which the Creator planted in the Garden of Eden, and they all stand for healing, the leaves, the fruits, and the branches, and always for the joy of the heart. There is never hunger or worry or sigh among them. Happy is the people for whom all this awaits, and for whom all this is concealed.

176. There are some of those wonders in the floor of the Temple. It is embroidered on that wellspring, but there is no one who can look at it. At times, its light is light, and at times darkness; at times it is in crimson color, and they glitter until the eyes cannot look up. That ground of the Temple is hidden inside the Jordan.

177. Jordan, Yesod of Malchut, enters and is drawn once a year. At one time, it is one line of the three times a year, which are three lines, and it is the left line inside that river that comes out of Eden, Yesod of ZA. The beginning of the coupling is on the left line, and not from among those four rivers that expand from it, but actually in it, in the river that comes out of Eden itself.

When it reaches it, it is extended and expands and enters into the Jordan, the left line first, in appeasement. When it reaches the ground of the Temple, the Malchut of Malchut, it stays there for three days, three lines, and does not expand and is not extended to another place. When it returns to its place, that river that comes out of Eden leaves there, in the ground of the Temple, all kinds of depictions that the Creator makes in the Garden of Eden, which are depictions that are concealed under their place.