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Part 1 - Chapter 4 - Note 23
The portions that have relevance to the Brit Hadashah ("New Testament")
appear in blue.
There is another, a female soul which is concealed in the midst of her hosts, to which is attached
Soncino Zohar, Bereshith, Section 1, Page 245b
the body, and through this body she shows her energy, like the soul in the human body.
Those hosts are the counterpart of the hidden joints above. There is another soul, to wit,
the souls of the righteous below. These come from those superior souls, the soul of the
female and the soul of the male, and therefore the souls of the righteous are superior to
all the heavenly hosts and camps. You may ask, if they are so transcendent from both
sides, why do they come down to this world to be afterwards removed from it? Imagine a king who had a son whom he sent to a village to be brought up
until he should learn the ways of the king's palace. When the king heard that his son was
grown up, out of his love for him he sent the Matron his mother for him, and brought him
into the palace, where he rejoiced with him every day. So the Holy One, blessed be He, had
a son from the Matron, to wit, the celestial holy soul. He sent it to a village, to wit,
to this world, to be brought up in it, and learn the ways of the king's palace. When the
king found that his son had grown up, and that it was time to bring him to the palace, out
of his love for him he sent the Matron for him and brought him into the palace. The
soul does not depart from this world till the Matron has come for her and brought her into
the king's palace, where she remains forever. And for all that, the inhabitants of the
village weep for the parting of the king's son from them. There was one wise man among
them who said: “Why are you weeping? Was he not the king's son, and is not his proper
place in his father's palace and not among you?” So Moses, who was a wise man, saw
the villagers weeping, and said to them: “Ye are sons of the Lord your God, ye shall
not cut yourselves” (Deut. XIV, 1). Now, if the righteous all knew this, they would
rejoice when their time arrives to depart from this world. For is it not a great honour
for them that the Matron comes for their sakes to bring them to the King's palace, so that
the King may rejoice in them every day? For God hath no delight save in the souls of the
righteous. Now the love of the Community of Israel for God is excited only by the souls of
the righteous here on earth, because they come from the side of the king, the side of the
male. This excitement reaches the female and stirs her love; and in this way the male
awakens the love and affection of the female, and the female is united in love with the
male. In the same way, the desire of the female to pour forth lower waters to meet the
upper waters is only aroused through the souls of the righteous. Happy, therefore, are the
righteous in this world and in the world to come, since on them are established upper and
lower beings. Hence it is written: “The righteous man is the foundation of the
world” (Prov. x, 25). Esoterically speaking, the Zaddik is the foundation of the
upper world and the foundation of the lower world, and the Community of Israel contains
the Zaddik from above and from below. The righteous one from this side and the righteous
one from that side inherit her, as it is written: “The righteous shall inherit the
earth” (Ps. XXXVII, 29).
The Righteous One inherits this earth, and pours upon it blessings every day, and
furnishes it with luxuries and delicacies in his flow. All this is hinted in the words:
OUT OF ASHER HIS BREAD SHALL BE FAT, AND HE SHALL YIELD ROYAL DAINTIES . It is from the
future world that the stream reaches this Righteous One which enables him to provide
luxuries and delicacies to this earth, thus transforming it from “the bread of
poverty” into “the bread of luxury”.