📕 TUESDAY PRAYER: YESOD-MAIN READING OF THE WEEK – THE ZOHAR BOOK

READING: SUNSET MONDAY

Main Reading for PRAYER OF MANY, today with ENGLISH ZOHAR READING, page 250

ARVUT OF : Robin Anderson

The impure force, the selfish will to receive pleasure is called “a dog,” as it
is written: “The leech has two daughters (who demand): Give-give.” (Mishley,
30:15). They bark like a dog, and demand (to receive) both this world and the
next. And the Higher One ascends, the stronger this impure force, called Klipa,
becomes. And its strongest part corresponds to Ohr Yechida, opposite the lion
devouring its prey).
The lion represents mercy and bestowal, unwillingness to receive anything
for oneself. As it is written in The Ethics of the Fathers, 95: “A Chassid, the merciful
righteous one, says, ‘What’s yours is yours, and what’s mine is yours,’” so is the
impure force (dog) aimed wholly at reception, and has no aspiration to bestow.
As it is said in the Talmud (Bava Batra, 10:2), “The righteous among the nations
of the world: all their mercy is for themselves alone;” hence, they are connected
to the impure force of a dog. (Under no circumstances should any of this be
interpreted literally, for, as it was repeatedly explained, the whole of the Kabbalah
speaks only of man’s-prototype. Israel is one’s inner aspiration to the Creator,
and Goy (a gentile) signifies egoism (regardless of and unrelated to one’s origin).
Relate this to the above-mentioned corporeal and spiritual Temples, where there
is no connection between rocks and spiritual objects. It is also unclear to the
uninitiated why altruism is the property of a lion, while a dog, a loyal animal, is
the root of egoism and impurity).
It is therefore said that when Israel was perfect, it acquired the property of a
lion, and all the dogs left it be, for it gave Malchut the strength to raise Ohr Hozer
to great heights (devoured its prey, like a victor), and the impure force, like a
dog, was afraid to come near it, and would hide in fear of the lion.

97. Yet, when sins increased, he descended to the lower degrees and slew the
    lion. This was because the lion refused to give up its prey as before, and this
    is as though he killed it. Therefore, he struck the lion and threw it into a pit,
    to the Evil Side (according to his understanding). The Evil Side saw this and
    sent a dog to devour the sacrifices from the altar in the lion’s stead. What is
    the name of that lion? And what is the nickname of that dog? Baladan is its
    name; Baladan is formed by the words Bal-Adam, where the letter Mem is
    replaced by Nun, for he is not a human being at all, but a dog, and his face is
    like a muzzle of a dog.
    (“He” refers to Benayahu Ben Yehoyada Ben Ish Chai, Rav Paalim u Mekabtziel,
    in whom the degree of Atik, all of the Light, shines all at once.) Due to the
    disappearance of the screens of Malchut (BON) and Bina (SAG), Israel below could
    no longer raise MAN (the will to “bestow,” the screen, the lion’s nourishment).
    The Zivug stopped, and the Upper Light (lion) disappeared in its Root Above.