Kabbalah Library

10. Bowing means he does all that Moses did, making a prayer, litanies, pleas, and bowing, as it is written, “And I fell down before the Lord.”

But after he finished the prayer and entered all the high degrees, and the bride, Malchut, was tied in all of them, he should go down to the place of Malchut. When he goes down, there is bowing in Aleph-Bet, in a psalm that is arranged according to the alphabet, as it is written, “To David, to You Lord, I raise my soul.”

11. Since he has already prayed his prayer and confessed his iniquities, from here on he will see himself as one who has given his soul to his master with love. He will say, “To David, to You, Lord, I raise my soul.” This pleases the desire of the side where there is death, Malchut, when she receives from the left, and not from the middle line, and he brings her contentment by this.

12. In the alphabet of the psalm “To David, to You, Lord, I raise my soul,” there is a secret for the wise. In this alphabet, there is no Vav, which is the tree of life, the middle line. Instead, there is Peh in it, as it is written, “God redeemed Israel from all his troubles,” which is doubled at the end of the psalm, which is a prayer that the absence of Vav will not do harm. Afterwards, Reish is written twice in it, and there is no Kof in it.

13. What is the reason that there is no Kof in it? It is because this bowing, when a person gives up his soul to dying, he should aim his will to bring contentment to the side where there is death, Malchut, when she is adhered to the left line and not to the middle line, as the monkey does in the ruins and in the mountains, pretending to be dead, and showing himself as dead before an animal it fears.

When that animal approaches it and wants to kill and bite it, it sees it and falls to the ground as though dead. It thinks that it is dead, and then the animal turns back and does not attack it. This is why the two letters Vav Kof departed, for only the Creator knows in them.

The psalm, “To David, to You, Lord, I raise my soul,” is Malchut that is adhered to the left, and not to the middle line, and then death is present in her, and then she is in the state of Kof.

Malchut that is adhered to the middle line is the shape of the letter Hey. At that time, she is adhered to the tree of life. When she is not adhered to the middle line, she is in the shape of a Kof, which means that the left leg of the Hey descended and was drawn down to the shells, as it is written, “Her legs go down to death,” and the Hey becomes the shape of a Kof.

The correction is to give up his soul to death, and then he redeems Malchut from drawing the leg of the Kof to the shells. This is what the allegory about the donkey brings, that it shows itself as dead so that a bad animal will not kill it.

Likewise, when a person gives himself up to death, the judgments of Malchut do not control them. The absence of the Kof from the alphabet implies this, since she must hide herself from the suckling of the shells since her leg is extended downward, and to pretend to be dead, as though she is gone.

This is why the two letters Vav Kof departed, for only the Creator knows in them, since the Creator is the middle line, and if He guards the Kof, then she is unafraid of the shells. And since Malchut is not adhered to the middle line in this psalm, there is no Kof in her since the shells will grip her, and there is no Vav in her since Vav is the middle line, and she is adhered to the left.

Instead of Vav, there is a double Peh, and instead of Kof, there is a double Reish. This is so because Reish indicates poverty and judgments, from the words, “Give me neither poverty nor riches,” since when Malchut is in that state of the left, judgments and poverty are extended from her in order to drive away the shells and the wicked ones so they do not suckle from her.

It follows that through these judgments, she has redemption from the shells in the place of the salvation of the middle line. In the alphabet, it is not a Vav, which is the tree of life, the middle line, which saves Malchut from the shells. Instead, she has a Peh, Pidyon [redemption], through a double Reish, multiplication of the judgments. Reish is written twice in it, and there is no Kof in it since instead of the missing Kof due to the fear that the shells might grip her, the Reish, the judgments, is doubled and through the judgments, she has redemption from the grip of the shells.

14. Nevertheless, by the will of the heart, he should put himself to the Creator, giving his soul to Him with love, and the Creator considers it for him as though He took his soul from him. For this reason, he should fall to the ground as though dead when he says the bowing, since there are sins that one does that are atoned for only through death, as it is written, “This iniquity will not be atoned for you until you die.” And now that it is considered for him that the Creator took his soul and he gave it voluntarily, at that time, she stands to atone for his iniquities and complete all the sides, and to the left side.

15. Yet, the prayer rises from the left state, and rises in the middle line between the two arms right and left, with an embrace of love as it should be. It is as it is written, “incensed with myrrh and frankincense, with all the fragrant powders of a merchant.”