476) “And they saw the God of Israel.” Who could have seen the Creator? But it is written, “For man shall not see Me and live.” But here it says, “And they saw.” However, the rainbow of bright colors appeared to them, meaning the Shechina, who receives from three colors, white, red, and green. Anyone who looks at a rainbow, it is as though he is looking at the Shechina, and it is forbidden to look at the Shechina.
477) This is why it is forbidden for one to look at the fingers of the priests as they stretch their palms. It is forbidden to look at the rainbow, both the rainbow above and the rainbow below.
478) It is forbidden to look at the rainbow above, at its colors—white, red, and green—which are three lines that shine in the Shechina. Anyone who looks at its colors, it is as though he looks at a high place, and it is forbidden to look at, so he will not be disrespectful toward the Shechina. The rainbow below is the sign of the covenant that is imprinted in man, and anyone who looks at it is being disrespectful toward above.
479) Why is it written, “Please put your hand under my thigh”? Did he not swear him by that sign? He said to him, “Let the fathers of the world be, for they are not as the rest of the people.” Moreover, it is written, “Please put your hand under my thigh,” and it is not written, “Look under my thigh.” For this reason, it is forbidden to look at the rainbow without cause.
480) “And they saw the God of Israel” means that the rainbow appeared to them in beautiful and bright colors, blazing to every direction. This is the Shechina. It means that it is written, “The God of Israel,” and it is not written, “And the God of Israel saw.” The Shechina is called “the,” meaning the light of the light of the Shechina, the one who is called “youth,” Matat, who serves the Shechina in the Temple. This is why it is written, “the,” since it is the name of the Shechina, who includes Matat from her servant.
481) “And they saw the God of Israel, and under His feet there appeared to be a pavement of sapphire,” since a brick was inscribed in him under his place, from among those bricks that they would build in Egypt. A woman gave birth in Egypt and Pharaoh’s ministers would come to throw him in the river. She put him in the place of one of the bricks in the building, and a piece of hand came and gripped him, and he was inscribed under the feet of the Shechina. She stood before him until the Temple below was burned, as it is written, “And has not remembered His footstool,” which is the pavement of sapphire.
482) The pavement of sapphire is the light of sapphire, the keys of the perfumed wine, meaning the screen that is sweetened in Bina, a key, which opens the Mochin called “the perfumed wine.” High engravings above that blaze in seventy-two directions, since the name AB [Gematria 72] appears from the screen of the key. “As the very sky” is ZA, engraved in seventy-two branches blooming to all sides. The name AB shines in both Hochma and Hassadim. Here, too, the vision of that very sky is as the vision of the sky itself, which is ZA. All is inscribed in the light of the vision that is carved from the side of the Shechina.
483) There are sixty that surround the Shechina, as it is written, “Sixty mighty men around her.” However, those sixty illuminated from the twelve boundaries in ZA and never moved from around the Shechina. The twelve engraved upper boundaries amount to the weight of the great and strong tree, the three lines that illuminate in the four directions, HG TM, which are twelve, and they all shine in the queen, the Shechina, when she bonds with the King, ZA. “As the very sky” means that she receives all that there is in the sky, ZA, and all those lights and paths illuminate in him in the light of the Shechina.
484) The light of sixty mighty men around the Shechina are inscribed in him, in the youth—Matat. Their names are “sixty strikes of fire that blaze in judgment,” which clothed in them from the side of the Shechina, as it is written, “Sixty mighty men around her.”