Kabbalah Library
Zohar for All, Volume 8
The Son of the Fallen
62. When the hole is open, anyone who falls in there does not come up. The Messiah son of David fell in there with the Messiah son of Joseph. The Messiah son of David is as it is written, “A poor man and riding a donkey,” and the Messiah son of Joseph is as it is written, “his firstborn ox.”
It is written, “If a man digs a hole and does not cover it, and an ox or a donkey falls in there.” This is why the Messiah is called “the son of the fallen,” and the Shechina fell with them, as it is written, “She fell; she will not rise again, the virgin of Israel.”
And you, Moses, are as it is written, “the owner of the hole will pay money in recompense to its owner.” “And the dead [animal] will be his”; this is the Messiah son of Joseph, who is destined to be killed.
63. There were four exiles. Three correspond to the three shells of the nut: 1) Tohu, a green line, the green shell of the nut. 2) Bohu, smooth stones, strong rocks from which the authors of the Mishna made several verdicts, and they grip them to extract water of Torah. This is why they are called “smooth stones,” since water come out from them. 3) And darkness, a thin shell of the nut, the third exile, which was small. 4) And darkness on the face of the abyss,” the very bottom, the hollow of the nut.
64. The fourth shell, the abyss, is called the hole where the ox had fallen, as it is written in regard to Joseph, “His firstborn ox—he has majesty,” and it is written about it “And they took him and threw him into the pit,” who is an evil Nukva of the shell. “Now the pit was empty” is the male of the shell. Empty means without Torah, which is called “water.” However, there are snakes and scorpions in it, and this is the fourth exile, which is empty, without Torah, a generation of wicked ones full of snakes and scorpions, who are as deceitful as snakes and scorpions, since they uprooted the words of the wise and pass false judgment. It is written about them, “Her adversaries have become the master.”
65. “He turned here and there, and saw that there was no person” from Israel, among those wicked ones in that generation, but rather, that they are a mixed-multitude. This will be at the end of the exile. And because of this, this end of the redemption pierces all the way to the very bottom, which is the fourth exile.
Moses, you went down there. “Chasm” is “the death” in reversed letters [in Hebrew], and death is but poverty, poverty of knowledge. But this was sorted above, before the Tanaaim and Amoraim, that they all went down to the abyss for you in the fourth exile, to help you.
