Kabbalah Library

29. The commandment after that one is to marry his betrothed, since she is certainly coerced from two sides. There is one who is coerced because of his love for her, but she does not love him, and there is one who is coerced because she loves him but she is afraid to bond with him without matrimony and blessing, and she does not want if he is a layperson. It is written about him, “and she shall be his wife.”

30. Allegory: There is a soul who is a queen, meaning extended from Malchut of Atzilut, and there is a soul who is a handmaid, extended from the world of Beria, as it is written, “Should a man sell his daughter to be a maidservant,” and then there is a soul that is an uneducated maidservant, from the world of Assiya.

Man is also like that. There is a person who is a servant, a slave maidservant of the soul. Sometimes, the soul is reincarnated because the man sinned with it in the previous incarnation. Then, as it is written, “And the dove found no resting place for her leg,” meaning that the soul finds no rest in him because of the iniquities in the previous incarnation, and the evil inclination chases her to enter a body that is a maidservant of the evil inclination.

The power of iniquities that there is in this body from the previous incarnation is regarded as a maidservant of the evil inclination. It is a Jewish demon that is subordinate to the evil inclination. The soul, Yod, is called a “Hebrew maidservant” since she is from the world of Beria. In her, that demon, the power of the iniquities of the previous incarnation, is inverted into being Shaddai since it guarded the soul and repented through it, and blesses the Creator with it each day with “Blessed.” He sanctifies the Creator with it with “Holy! Holy! Holy!” and unifies the Creator with it in the Shema reading.

31. After he does all that, that which was a demon, a harm-doer, the power of iniquities in the body, returns to being his angel from the phase of Matat, and returns to being Shaddai, since Matat has the number of Shaddai (314). Then, the verse, “And she will be to Him for a wife; he will not be able to send her away all his days,” immediately comes true in him regarding the soul.

If he does not repent, the soul is enslaved in him for the iniquities that he had done, and the verse “The woman and her children will belong to her master” will come true in him, meaning that the soul will exit him to her root. And that demon, who is his debtor, the power of the iniquities in the body from the previous incarnation, it is written about it, “and will go out alone,” leaving without correction. That demon is like Moses’ staff that turned from a staff into a serpent and from a serpent into a staff. Likewise, this demon turns from a demon to an angel and from an angel into a demon according to man’s actions.

32. Some of the demons that come from that demon that become an angel are as the ministering angels, disciples of the wise, who know what was and what is destined to be. In their form, they are in the earth below. These are the philosophers, Israel’s fortune tellers, who know what was and what is destined to be according to the signs of the sun and the moon and their eclipses, and they know every star and sign that the world shows.

33. Some of the demons are as a beast, which multiply as beasts. Their form is below, on earth; they are uneducated ]ignoramus], they are reptiles and their daughters are vermin. It is written about their daughters, “Damned is he who lies with any beast.” They hate disciples of the wise, authors of the Mishna, who are truly the ministering angels, and for this reason, the authors of the Mishna explained about the man, “If he is as an angel of the Lord of hosts, let them seek teaching from his mouth; and if not, let them not seek teaching from his mouth,” since disciples of the wise are truly as ministering angels.