Kabbalah Library
Zohar for All, Volume 10
I Am Dark for Those Outside; and to the Internal Ones, Let Him Kiss Me
418. “And God said, ‘Let there be lights,’” written without a Vav, since the Sitra Achra was given a place to rule, and the light of the moon was covered like that nut where the shell covers the marrow, the nucleus, on all sides, and the shell grows strong outside like the foreskin that covers the circumcision. For this reason, the light of above was darkened.
419. Malchut says, “I am black, and lovely, O daughters of Jerusalem,” to those camps that were not in her decorations among the inner ones. But to the inner ones that decorated her, she does not say this. Only when she goes out to those rest of the camps does she say this.
420. To the internal ones, who know her decorations and have decorated her with several high decorations, she tells them “Let him kiss me,” meaning “How well and lovely am I corrected,” to receive kisses from the king. To those on the outside, who do not know her decorations, she says, “I am black,” from the side of the lower ones, since they are incorporated below, so they will not look with an evil eye to slander against the lower ones because of jealously.
421. Angels have no jealousy unless of the lower ones. When the lower ones are at a high degree, the angels envy them more than anything. But we learned that there is no jealousy among the angels? There is no jealousy among them, but toward others, they do have jealousy.
422. Because Malchut is over Israel like a mother over the children, that most lovely and beautiful correction, which is by the incorporation below, for which she rose up to Bina, she conceals it from the camps outside so they do not envy or slander Israel. Because of this, she tells them, “Do not see me, that I am dark,” meaning do not see this correction because I am dark.
423. But the truth is that in all her corrections, there is no correction that is handsome and worthy in its value to raise it to the Creator but that correction because of the incorporation of below. But she says all this to the camps, and not to her loved one. Hence, she tells them, “I am black, but lovely.”
