And the Lord God Made

725. “Thus says God the Lord, who created the heavens and stretched them out.” When the Creator created His world, He created them from nothing and realized them, and made them real. Wherever there is the word “Creator,” it is about something that He created existence from absence and realized it.

726. From where were the sky created? Were they not created from the same light of above? The body of the sky was from absence, and their form was from existence, from the light of above. So is man.

727. We find that there is creation in the sky, creation and then doing, as it is written, “creator of the heaven,” meaning existence from absence, the body of the sky. Doing, as it is written, “to the Maker of heaven,” from something real, from the light of above, which is the form of the sky. Doing means correction of the matter into more greatness and merit than it had, as it is written, “And David made a name.” For this reason, it is written “Creator of the heaven” about the Guf [body]. “To the Maker of heaven” is written about the form, which is the completeness and the merit.

728. “And the Lord God formed.” “Formed” is written with two letters Yod. All the other “and formed” are written with one Yod. However, everything that the Creator created in His world, He created only in merit, in Bina, except for man, in whom He placed power from the upper ones to know and to recognize and distinguish between good and evil. He is crowned with honor and glory, as it is written, “You shall crown him with honor and glory,” and he reigns over all the works of his hands, as it is written, “You have made him to have dominion over the works of Your hands.” After all the praise, when he remembers that he is dust and will return to dust, everything becomes worthless before him and he says “Woe.” “And formed” has the letters of “Woe that He formed” the man. “Woe the Lord God formed the man dust from the ground,” and he will return to dust, as he was.

729. “And the Lord God formed the man dust from the ground.” He formed him with two inclinations: the good inclination and the evil inclination. This is unlike the rest of creations, in order to test the man and to open for the righteous, who ordain the good inclination over the evil inclination, an outlet to speak, and not give the wicked, who are taken after the evil inclination, an outlet to speak.

730. It is written HaVaYaH, and then Elokim [God]. “And the Lord God formed.” The name HaVaYaH is truly His name, the name of existence. It is said about the soul of the person that it exists in a person. Elokim is a common name to the Creator, as well as to created beings, as it is written, “You shall not curse God,” which is written about man’s body, in which the created beings have partnership since there are three partners in a person.

731. The name of existence, the name HaVaYaH, decrees and rules over His creations, and compared to Him they are as chaff that the feet blown away. This name is not lent to another like the name Elokim, which is why the name HaVaYaH is not mentioned in the work of creation, but only one letter of His name, the bottom Hey, as if saying, “He created them with Hey.”

732. The Hey of “When they were created” is the name of the Shmita [7^th year remission]: Burden, sunburned, the king’s torn [part], a government in which He left a small signet to rule under it, as it is written, “Who is like you among the gods, Lord?”

The world was created with the small Hey, the judgments in her in the first state, when she was Hochma without Hassadim, and the main part of Malchut in the first state in her, although she is all judgments. This is so because in the second state, she has nothing of her own, and she has only what ZA gives her. For this reason, it explains the Hey of “when they were created” in the form of the judgments in Malchut during her first state.

The Hey of “when they were created” is Malchut in the state of Shmita, when there are no sowing or harvesting in her and she does not yield fruits, which is the first state. At that time, she is called “a burden,” when it is as hard to bear the judgments in her as a heavy burden. And “sunburned,” for it is written about that state, “Do not see me that I am dark, that the sun has burned me.” She is the king’s torn part, since then she is torn off from ZA and adheres to the left line of Bina. She is a government in which there is a small signet, a small governance, the governance of the night. To rule under Him, since at night, Malchut rules instead of ZA, since ZA rules only during the day.

It brings evidence that without the Hey of “when they were created,” it would be impossible to create the world, from the verse, “Who is like You among the gods, Lord,” that gods could not create the world until He took the letter Hey from His name and in it, the world was created and the Elim [gods] became Elokim [God].

733. “And the Lord God formed the man.” “The” comes to include all the forces in the man, “Dust from the ground.” How can the man exist in this world, since the Torah testifies about him that he is dust?

734. He was created from dust and not from matter, clay. If he were from clay, he would be more sustainable, since a building that is built from clay can exist, but from actual dust, it cannot exist, as it is written, “since from dust you are, and to dust you will return.” It is not written “since you are clay.” It is also written, “Even dwellers of clay houses, whose foundation is in the dust.”

735. However, that verse was said about this world, which is not so in existence. This is written about people, whose dwelling is in this world, and whose buildings are from clay, which is why He calls them “dwellers of clay houses.” Since the building is from clay and can exist, the appropriate element is, as it is written, “big stones, precious stones to establish the house.” But it is not a strong building if the building is clay and the foundation is dust, and for this reason, it does not exist, as it is written, “Even dwellers of clay houses, whose foundation is in the dust,” which is unsustainable.

736. “And He breathed into his nostrils the soul of life.” The Torah yells at Adam HaRishon, “See what this Adam did, since the Creator placed in him a holy soul, to give him life in the next world, and he, with his iniquities, was returned to that living soul, which is the beastly soul that the earth extracted for the beasts and animals, as it is written, ‘Let the earth bring forth a living soul after its kind.’”

737. It is not written, “And He made the man into a living soul,” but rather “And the man became a living soul,” teaching that he himself, by the sin that he sinned, returned to that force of the beasts that is derived from the ground, and left the force of the soul that is derived from above and which gives life to its owner.

738. It is written, “Thus says God the Lord, who created the heavens and stretched them out.” He created the body of the sky existence from absence, and then stretched it out like a tent, giving it shape, as it is written, “and spreads them like a tent to dwell in.” This implies that He stretched them out like a tent, for it is written, “who stretches out the heavens like a curtain.”

739. “Who spread forth the earth and its offspring,” meaning that all the forms and forces in it were scattered in the earth. “Who gives a soul to the people on it,” meaning after the earth had made the body of the man, I will place the soul in him. “On it,” on that deed of the body of Adam that she did. “On it,” to those who rule over the forces of the earth, who subjugate the earthliness in them, to them I have given the soul.

740. “And spirit to those who walk in it.” Those who participate in it, in its forces, which are drawn after the earthliness, have only the living soul, called “the spirit of the beast, which goes down to the earth.” This is why it is written, “who gives a soul to the people on it,” to those who rule it, its forces, they have a holy soul that is derived from above. But to those who walk in it, who participate with it in its forces, they have only the spirit of the beast that goes down, as it is written, “and spirit to those who walk in it.”