Kabbalah Library

408) The Cherubim are gold because it comes from the side of the gold. Neither silver nor another color mixed with them. This is the greenish gold, the gold at the Rosh of Malchut. In the tabernacle, the colors gold and silver mix together, for gold and silver are right and left. They are incorporated in one another to make the upper one be in one. Bronze, too, mixed with them, meaning Tifferet, to be with them and to walk among them on all the sides, all three lines, so that wholeness will be in all as one, as it is written, “Gold, and silver, and bronze.”

409) Gold returned to silver and silver to gold. The right line, silver, was included in the left, gold, and also gold in silver, and all are included together and in one place. They returned in three colors.

When joy is required and not judgement, it is gold, left. And when mercy [mercy] are required, Hesed, it is silver, right. When the power of judgement is needed—to subdue the left so it will join the right, it is bronze, Tifferet, the middle line.

410) It is about that that Moses looked in the work of the bronze serpent, as it is written, “And Moses made a bronze serpent,” and he knew the place of the fusion of the gold, meaning the submission of the left line before the right through judgements of bronze, meaning middle line, since the word Nachash [serpent] comes from the word Nechoshet [bronze]. Also, he knew its place, since the Creator told him only “Make for yourself a fiery serpent,” but he came and made a bronze serpent.

411) However, he knew the place, which is the essence of the matter, since in the beginning, it is written, “And the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people.” It writes “fiery serpent” because their root was the primordial serpent. And because Moses knew the essence, the root, and the foundation from that place, he made a serpent and relied on it because Israel sinned with the tongue like the serpent, as it is written, “And the people spoke against God, and against Moses.” For this reason, “And the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people.”

412) Moses followed only the root, which is the serpent, and made a bronze serpent in that way that he needed, since his place is bronze. Also, the Creator did not tell him from what he should do, and Moses looked and made it of bronze, as is needed for his place, as it is written, “And Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on the pole,” on the inscription above, the judgements of the middle line, which is their place.

413) This serpent follows a virtuous woman everywhere, meaning the Malchut, and the harlot—the shell—wishes to set herself up as a virtuous woman but cannot. The inscription and the token of a virtuous woman is the letter Hey [ה], and so is becoming of her. The inscription and the letter of a harlot should be the letter Hey, but she was not set up to be so, and her letter is Kof [ק]. It is so because her letter was set up in the correction of the letter Hey, like the monkey with people, who follows people in order to resemble them but is unfit to do so. Similarly, Moses made that serpent on the inscription that befitted it, and it is always established for the worse. The sin of Adam is upon it, and it was expelled from the Garden of Eden, which was its abode, such as the abode above.