March 18, 1961, Bnei Brak
Hello and all the best to my friend,
I am informing you that I received the five folios (sheets of paper) in your book and thoroughly enjoyed it.
This week, I said a commentary about a question presented in The Zohar (Tazria, item 9): “Rabbi Aba said, ‘We learned that the Creator sentenced that drop, which would be a male and which would be a female, and you said, ‘A woman who inseminates first delivers a boy.’’ Rabbi Yosi said, ‘Of course the Creator distinguished between a drop of a male and a drop of a female, and because He distinguished it, he sentenced it to be a male or a female.’”
Baal HaSulam interprets this in the Sulam [Ladder] commentary: “We learned that a woman who inseminates first delivers a boy. Rabbi Aha said, ‘We learned that the Creator sentences the drop to be either a male or a female, and you say, ‘A woman who inseminates first delivers a boy.’ This means that we do not need the sentencing of the Creator.’ Rabbi Yosi said, ‘Of course the Creator distinguishes between a drop of a male or a drop of a female, and because He distinguished it, He sentences whether it will be a male or a female.’”
He interprets that “there are three partners in a person, the Creator, his father, and his mother. His father gives the whiteness in him; his mother the redness in him, and the Creator gives the soul. If the drop is that of a male, the Creator gives the soul of a male. If it is a female, the Creator gives the soul of a female. It follows that the woman inseminating first, still did not make the drop eventually become a male if the Creator did not install in it the soul of a male. This distinguishing that the Creator distinguishes in the drop, that it is fit for a soul of a male or a female, is regarded as the Creator’s sentence, for had He not distinguished it and did not send a soul of a male, the drop would not eventually become a male.”
To understand it by way of ethics we can interpret that each birth can be only by male and female. It is so because the male is the power of bestowal in a person, and the female is the power of reception in a person, meaning one’s wish to delight himself, where his only concern is his own pleasure. Through these two forces, we have the work of choice—to choose the good, meaning for the Creator, and loathe the bad, which is to satisfy his lusts.
Concerning insemination, it is as though we place a seed in the ground and it does not bear fruit. Only when the seed that was placed in the ground has decayed and become annulled, it yields fruits. Therefore, in ethics, sowing means something that is cancelled.
By that we will understand all the above said. A woman inseminating first means that “first” means the thought. That is, if the first thought is to annul the power of receiving pleasure only for oneself, then she naturally “delivers a male.” That is, from the cancelling of the force of reception emerges the force of bestowal, for then his wish is to bestow contentment upon the Creator.
And if the man inseminates first, meaning that his initial thought is to annul his power of bestowal, then she naturally delivers a female, for then the act that the thought begets is to receive, to satisfy only his wishes.
This is the meaning of the Creator distinguishing the drop, meaning the thought—if the intention is for the Creator or for self-gratification. If it is a male, namely that he has cancelled his power of reception, which is the meaning of “A woman who inseminates first delivers a male,” then the Creator sentences the drop to be a male.
The thing is that only the Creator can discern and know the truth, if his intention was for the Creator, and then the Creator gives him the soul of a male, as our sages said, “He who learns Torah Lishma (for Her sake), etc., the secrets of Torah are revealed to him,” meaning that the Creator reveals to him the secrets of Torah. If he is a female, meaning that he has cancelled his power of bestowal, which is called a “male,” she delivers a female. That is, the act that he begets is only for his own pleasure, and then the Creator does not give him the assistance from above. Rather, it is as our sages said, “He who comes to defile, it opens for him.”
It follows that by the Creator distinguishing and sentencing, this is what really happens, for only the Creator knows the truth, since he can deceive himself and think that his intention is only for the Creator. But when the Creator brings him closer and gives him the attainment of the soul of Torah, he knows that he was born a male, that the act he is doing is for the Creator, and then he is rewarded with the revelation of the secrets of Torah and becomes an ever flowing fountain. At that time, he achieves the true completeness.
I will end my letter with wishes of a happy and kosher festival.
From your friend, who wishes you and your family all the best,
Baruch Shalom HaLevi Ashlag