Tastes [Taamim], Dots [Nekudot], and Letters [Otiot]

14) “And the educated will shine,” like the tastes that play [music], and the letters and dots follow their tune. The ten Sefirot are divided into three main parts: tastes, dots, letters. Tastes are Keter, dots are Hochma, and letters are YESHSUT and ZON. But this is only regarding the vessels. In regard to the Mochin, tastes are considered Hochma, dots are Bina, and letters are ZON.

The difference between the Mochin and the vessels extends from the two Partzufim of AK, since the vessels extend from Partzuf Keter of AK, where the lights are properly clothed in their vessels. However, the Mochin extend only from Partzuf AB of AK, where their lights are inverted in the order of their clothing in the vessels because it is lacking Malchut of vessels and Keter of lights. For this reason, the light of Hochma clothed there in his vessel of Keter, the light of Bina in the vessel of Hochma, and the light of ZA in the vessel of Bina.

For this reason, regarding the Partzufim and the vessels that are extended from Partzuf Keter of AK, tastes are discerned in Keter, dots in Hochma, and letters in Bina. However, it only relates to the Mochin, which extend only from AB of AK, that the light of Hochma is clothed in his Keter, the light of Bina in his Hochma, and the light of ZA in his Bina. Thus, tastes are from light of Hochma, dots are from light of Bina, and letters are in ZON.

Tastes are the brightness of the firmament, dots are Holam, Shuruk, and Hirik in Bina, and letters are in the two Partzufim of ZON, which are as it is written, “The heaven and the earth.” The tastes, dots, and letters are themselves divided into tastes, dots, and letters: tastes, dots, and letters in tastes, in dots, and in letters, and they are three discernments, RTS [Rosh, Toch, Sof] in each of the tastes, dots, and letters.

RTS of tastes are upper tastes, middle tastes, and lower tastes, meaning tastes above the letters, like Pshat and Revi’i. Inside the letters there are comma and dash, and below the letters, they are like Mercha and Tipcha.

It is similar in the dots above the letters, like Holam, and inside the letters, like Shuruk, Melafom, where the dot is inside the letter Vav, like this, וּ and below the letters, like the Hirik. It is also likewise in the letters, which are ZON.

First, The Zohar brought three discernments in the tastes, which are the three kinds of brightness: 1) Brightness that is more hidden than all that is hidden, the brightness of Atik. This is so because Atik is Keter of Atzilut, and therefore he is tastes of tastes. 2) The brightness of Beresheet, AA, the middle tastes, dots of tastes. 3) The hidden brightness, YESHSUT, lower tastes, letters of tastes.

Here it begins with Atik, Keter, as it speaks of Partzufim and vessels that extend from Partzuf Keter of AK. Afterwards, it brought the three kinds of brightness once more, which it interprets over the names EKYEH Asher EKYEH [I will be that which I will be], Mochin HBD, in regard to “In the beginning God created.”

He changes the order there:

The first brightness is brightness of Beresheet, AA, and not Atik. This is so because the Mochin are extended from AB of AK, in which there is light of Hochma in vessel of Keter. It follows that the tastes are Hochma, AA, and upper AVI are tastes of tastes, the first EKYEH.

The second brightness is a hidden brightness, YESHSUT and Bina, which are dots of tastes, and middle tastes.

The third brightness is a brightness that includes all the letters and colors, ZON, the Daat, the last EKYEH, letters of tastes.

The dots, YESHSUT, which are Asher, which came out of Resheet, divide into upper ones, middle ones, and lower ones, RTS, tastes, dots, letters of dots. This is because the Holam, MI, is the upper dots, tastes of dots, the Shuruk, ELEH, is the middle dots, dots of dots, and the Hirik, ZON that are attached to ELEH, the bottom dots, are letters of dots. All those are included in the word “created.”

The letters, ZON, are divided into two phases of ZON, as it is written, “The heaven and the earth.” The letters are also divided into three phases of RTS [Rosh-Toch-Sof], which are tastes, dots, letters in the letters. Since the great ZON—included in the “The heaven”—are tastes of letters, great letters, the great VAK, the small ZA, Jacob, is the middle letters, dots of letters, and the small Nukva, Rachel, is small letters, letters of letters.

It follows that the word Beresheet is tastes, which are AA and upper AVI, and there are three phases of brightness in them: tastes, dots, letters in tastes. Their own essence is tastes of tastes; what they illuminate to YESHSUT in a hidden brightness are dots of tastes; and what they illuminate to ZON in the brightness that includes all the letters and colors are letters of tastes.

The word “created” is dots, YESHSUT, themselves divided into three discernments—tastes, dots, and letters in dots. What they receive from AVI is regarded as upper dots, Holam, tastes of dots, and their own phase is the middle dots, Shuruk, dots of dots. What they shine to ZON are letters of dots, Hirik.

The words “The heaven and the earth,” considered letters, are divided into tastes, dots, letters of letters, RTS of letters. The great ZON is “the heaven,” tastes of letters, which receive from AVI, and the small ZA, Jacob, is dots of letters, which receive from YESHSUT, Vav, in the verse “And the earth.” The small Nukva, Rachel, is letters of letters, the essence of the letters themselves.

This is why it was said, “The educated,” the letters, “Will shine,” with their dots, “Like the tastes that play.” And according to the tune of the tastes, the letters and their dots follow them like armies after their kings.

The tastes are upper AVI, and dots are YESHSUT. Letters are ZON. ZON, which are called “educated,” shine with the Mochin that they receive from YESHSUT, which are called dots, according to the light of tastes, which are upper AVI, where YESHSUT and ZON are drawn and follow AVI like armies after their kings. This is in general.

Letters are Guf, and dots are Ruach to them. They all travel in their journeys after the tastes, and receive their sustenance, since dots and letters are similar to a body with the vital spirit in it. Letters without dots are like a body without a spirit. Likewise, ZON, letters, all the vital spirit in them extends from YESHSUT, for were it not for YESHSUT who illuminates in them, there would be no vital spirit in them at all. However, YESHSUT—the vital spirit of ZON—also receive their sustenance and vitality from upper AVI, which are the tastes, while the letters and the dots travel in their journeys after the melody of the tastes, receiving from them their entire vitality and the height of their level.

When the tune of tastes travels, the letters and dots travel after it. When the tune of tastes stops, they do not travel, as it is written, “By the word of the Lord they journey; by the word of the Lord they camp.” If the tastes journey, giving their lights to the dots and letters, they journey. If the tastes camp, arresting their bestowal upon the dots and letters, the dots and letters camp.

It is as we find in the tune of the tastes that it flips the words, which are the punctuated letters, from one end to the next. It is likewise with the bestowal of AVI, the tastes, they govern the Mochin of YESHSUT and ZON, to turn them from one end to the next. For example, when a person tells his friend, “I will give you an important book,” this could have a context of giving and expansion from him to his friend, if they are in a tune of contentment, but it could have the opposite meaning, negation and arrest of giving, if he said it in a tune of surprise.

Thus, the words have no meaning in themselves, but only according to the tune and their tastes. So is the impact of the Mochin of AVI on YESHSUT and ZON. There is no meaning to the Mochin, neither positive nor negative, but only according to the illumination of AVI to them.

15) “And the educated will shine as the brightness of the firmament, and those who lead the many to righteousness are as stars.” “And the educated will shine” are the illuminating letters and dots. “As the brightness” is the tune of the tastes. “The firmament” is the expansion in the sound of the melody—all those tastes that spread in the expansion of the tune. “Those who lead the many to righteousness are tastes that stop, ceasing the journeying of the melodies of the tastes, for which the meaning of the word is clearly heard.

“And the educated will shine” are letters and dots. The educated are letters, ZON, whose brightness and vitality are entirely from the dots, YESHSUT. The brightness of the dots, YESHSUT, is according to the brightness that they receive from the tastes, AVI.

Also, there are two tenets in the melody of the tastes. There are tastes that indicate existence and giving, or indicate negation and cessation of giving. The firmament indicates the tastes that indicate expansion and giving, when he says the phrase in a melody of contentment, when they go in a tune of expansion to the receiver.

The name “Those who lead the many to righteousness” dots to those tunes of tastes, which indicate negation and cessation of the abundance, which stops the expansion of abundance to the receivers in a melody of surprise. It follows that those are the tastes that stop the journeying of the dots and the letters, since they arrest their abundance and vitality.

Hence, on the whole there are two phases of tastes: The first is called “expansion of the melody,” which indicates giving and expansion of the abundance. This is called “The brightness of the firmament.” The second is called “cessation of the tastes,” indicating cessation of the abundance and negation. They are called “Those who lead the many to righteousness.”

Those tastes that stop are as necessary as the expansion of the melody, since through the tastes that stop, the words are heard, like the comma and the dash in the tastes, which are placed between words. Without them, the world would be mixed and would not be understood.

“Will shine” means the letters and the dots that illuminate as one in the journeys in concealment, in a journey through those hidden paths. Letters are ZON, dots are YESHSUT, and journeys are the ways of the expansion of the abundance. In concealment, YESHSUT is called “a hidden brightness.” “Hidden paths” are three sowings—Holam, Shuruk, and Hirik.

We have already explained the three phases of brightness:

1) The brightness of Beresheet, AA and upper AVI, to which the word Beresheet implies, and which are called tastes.

2) The hidden and concealed brightness, which is the Asher that came out of Beresheet, the three dots—Holam, Shuruk, Hirik—three sowings and concealments. Holam is Bina that came out of Rosh of Bina of AA into VAK without a Rosh. Asher went out of Beresheet, leaving only MI in her, and the three letters ELEH descended to ZON.

Shuruk is the return of the letters ELEH to her degree with the ZON attached to them. It is her return to Hochma, to Rosh of AA, where she obtains concealment, for lack of light of Hassadim because AA is entirely Hochma. Even the Hochma cannot receive from him, for lack of clothing of Hassadim. Hence, Bina is considered a hidden and concealed Elokim.

Hirik is the diminution of Bina by the force of ZON, which are attached to her letters ELEH, as they are of inferior value compared to Bina and diminish her. Because of those three sowings, that Bina, YESHSUT, is regarded as a hidden brightness and dots.

3) A brightness that contains all the letters and colors. It is the level of coupling that extends from upper AVI to Bina on her screen of dots Hirik, at which time a voice came out, the Daat, complementing with it the three dots in full. It is so because through the level of Hassadim that emerged on the screen of Hirik, the light of Hochma clothed in that illuminating clothing, and now YESHSUT can receive the light from AA, completing the name Elokim.

Daat is regarded as a voice because before the coupling on the dot of Hirik of ZA is done, the Mochin are not heard. They were not known to the lower ones and were concealed in the Holam, Shuruk, Hirik of Bina in a hidden brightness, deep and concealed in his name. However, after the coupling on the concealment of Hirik, screen of ZON, was made, and the level of Hassadim appeared, Hochma clothed in Hassadim, and the Mochin of the three dots appeared in full. This is considered that the voice was heard.

This is why the ZON are called “sound,” since were it not for their screen, which clung to the letters ELEH of Bina, all the Mochin of Bina would remain in a whisper, unknown to the worlds. This is why this brightness of the Daat is regarded as brightness that contains all the letters and colors, since after the Hochma dresses in the level of Hassadim of Daat, four colors are made in her, HB HG.

Tifferet is called Hassadim, as it is considered light of Hassadim. Malchut is called Gevurot, as she is the screen. Thus, the voice, ZON and Daat, include all the colors, for without him these four colors would not be. He also includes all the letters, since ZON himself is called “letters.” And because he complemented the four colors to Bina, he takes into his letters all those four colors HB HG. It follows that the ZON includes all the letters and colors. Afterward, ZON comes out of the palace of Bina and comes to their own place.

Thus, the three kinds of brightness have been clarified: 1. the brightness of Beresheet, tastes, 2. the hidden brightness, dots, and 3. the brightness that includes letters.

Those three kinds of brightness are HBD, as it is written, “I will be that which I will be,” “The Lord our God, the Lord,” and “In the beginning God created,” since AA and upper AVI are the brightness of Beresheet, tastes, from whom all the Mochin of Hochma and Hassadim are extended. They are also the first EKYEH [I will be], Hochma, the first HaVaYaH. Bina, YESHSUT, is a hidden brightness, “created,” Asher, “Our God,” and the three dots—Holam, Shuruk, and Hirik. The ZON is brightness that includes all the letters and colors, the last EKYEH, Daat, the last HaVaYaH, Elokim in “In the beginning God created.” It is so because through the third brightness, the name Elokim was completed in Bina, and when the ZON exit Bina and come to their own place, they are called “The heaven and the earth,” letters.

All the Mochin are included in the tastes, which are the first brightness of Beresheet, AA and upper AVI, since they take the Bina out in a hidden brightness in the three dots—Holam, Shuruk, Hirik. Also, the coupling that is done on the dot of Hirik, screen of ZON extends from the level of Hassadim of upper AVI, tastes. Hence, the tastes consist of three phases, called “upper,” “middle,” and “lower.”

Upper tastes, like Pashta Revi’i which is above the letters are considered AVI themselves.

The middle tastes, comma and dash, which come inside the letters, are from the incorporation of YESHSUT in AVI, the elicitation of Bina in three sowings. A comma is an incorporation with the dot of Holam, the taking out of Bina, who remains in MI, and the letters ELEH descend to ZON, which is why it is called Psik [comma], for it Posek [splits] the degree of Bina into two halves, MI and ELEH.

A dash is an incorporation with the dot of Shuruk, when the tastes illuminate and return ELEH to Bina, by which the dot of Shuruk in Bina is made.

The lower tastes, below the letters, such as Tvir and Etnachta, are an incorporation with the Hirik, through the ZON that were drawn with ELEH upon their return to Bina. The coupling, too, done on the screen of ZON, are extended from the lower tastes.

This is why “The educated will shine” are letters and dots, ZON and YESHSUT, and illuminate with all three phases of tastes—upper, middle, and lower:

1) As the brightness, the melodies of the tastes, the upper tastes above the letters.

2) The firmament is the tastes that expand in the expansion of the melody. They are lower tastes, below the letters, the level of Hassadim for clothing of Hochma, at which time the Mochin spread to the lower ones in their entire wholeness.

3) “Those who lead the many to righteousness” are those ceasing tastes, comma and dash, which stop the melody as they journey. These are the middle tastes inside the letters, since the comma and dash are inside the line, which is an incorporation of the three sowings in them. This is why the word is heard, when the Mochin are heard and dispensed upon the lower ones.

Once he has clarified the three kinds of tastes in the verse “As the brightness of the firmament, and those who lead the many to righteousness,” who give the Mochin of YESHSUT and ZON to all their phases, he explains once more the essence of the Mochin of YESHSUT and ZON. He says that the letters and the dots, ZON and YESHSUT, illuminate as one in their journeys in concealment, since out of the act of concealing of the middle tastes, comma and dash, the ZON acquire the power to illuminate with YESHSUT as one.

It is so because through the comma, the letters ELEH of YESHSUT descend to ZON and cling to them in their place into a single degree. Therefore, when the dash returns the letters ELEH to the degree of YESHSUT, the ZON rise with them to the place of YESHSUT and illuminate with them as one.

This is why it was said, “Will shine,” the letters and the dots that illuminate as one in the journeys in concealment, in the journey in those hidden paths. It is so because all those great Mochin come out in the three sowings of Holam, Shuruk, Hirik, which are hidden paths, for were it not for those three sowings, it is inconceivable that ZON and the lower ones would obtain Mochin.

Everything expanded from all the Mochin in the ZON and the worlds emerging in the three paths. These three parts of the brightness that we said in the tastes, AVI—the brightness, the firmament, and those who lead the many to righteousness—are only transference in AVI, and bestowal upon YESHSUT and ZON, and not at all for themselves, since AVI are always in pure Avir [air], called light, or air, but not “brightness.”

“The educated will shine” for the pillars and foundations of that palanquin. The educated themselves are the upper pillars and foundations, who observe with wisdom to bestow all that the palanquin needs, and what its foundations need. Pillars are HGT, and the foundations are NHY, since the brightness is the illumination of Hochma. That brightness is received only in the pillars and foundations of the Nukva of ZA, who is called “palanquin,” and not at all the degrees above her.

The educated ones themselves are the upper pillars and foundations, the Sefirot from Chazeh of ZA and above, which themselves do not receive anything from that brightness, which is Hochma, since they receive only light of Hassadim to give all that is needed to the Nukva, who is called a “palanquin.” She needs illumination of Hochma, and they receive that brightness for her needs, although they do not need it.

This is why they look with wisdom to give all that the palanquin needs, for although they themselves do not need that brightness, they still receive it for the palanquin, since the palanquin is completed only in that light of Hochma. This is implied in the verse “Happy is he who educates the poor.” The one who educates is ZA, the poor is his Nukva. He receives the brightness for the poor who needs it.

“Will shine” are the upper VAK of ZA since if they do not shine or illuminate, then they will not be able to examine and look upon that palanquin to correct it in all that is needed. If they did not have the need to correct the palanquin, they would not receive that shining light at all because for themselves, they receive only light of Hassadim, like GAR of Bina.

16) They illuminate like the brightness of that firmament that stands over those educated ones, of which it is written, “And an image over the heads of the animal, a firmament such as the terrible ice.” This is the firmament of YESHSUT.

That brightness of the firmament illuminates to ZA in general, called Torah. It also illuminates to the heads of that animal, called “palanquin,” meaning illuminates to the pillars and foundations from Chazeh of ZA and above, which are the heads that give illumination of Hochma, called “brightness,” to the palanquin.

Those heads—which are the pillars and foundations, upper AVI, called “educated”—always shine, incessantly. They look toward that firmament to receive the light that comes out of there.

Two kinds of light are discerned in that firmament: 1) illumination of Hochma, called “brightness,” 2) light of Hassadim in the form of pure air of upper AVI, whose coupling never stops.

But the first light, called “brightness,” is a coupling that stops and does not always illuminate. And although the educated receive illumination of Hochma from the firmament to give to the palanquin, and their coupling had to be intermittent, so they do not always illuminate, it is still not so. Rather, they always illuminate in a never-ending coupling because they receive the light of the pure air, whose coupling never stops. In respect to that light, they always illuminate.

It is said that they look toward that firmament to receive the light that comes out of there, and it is not said, “That brightness that comes out of there,” indicating the second light, included in the firmament, which is called “light” and not “brightness.” This, too, is a light of ZA in general, called Torah, who always illuminates, incessantly. That is, ZA in general does not receive the brightness for himself, but only that light which does not stop.