Beating Up the Bad Guys

This piece is a continuation from last year's article, Day Worker.

Now if you say that this angel Meta‑tron is a commoner, this is only correct when compared to the Master of all blessings [G‑d]. We are warned not to take the blessing of an ordinary person lightly, and that "ordinary person" is a commoner compared to a King; [this commoner is] the servant Meta‑tron. Now Adam, the first man, didn't safeguard the honor that was given to him.

Adam was originally created with consciousness of all four spiritual worlds, but by eating from the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil, he fell from the consciousness of absolute truth and instead became conscious of only the lowest world, Asiya, the world of good and evil. The distribution of abundance in this world is governed by the angel Meta‑tron, which represents a constriction of G‑d's powers into the world of imagination, the world of good and evil.

So Adam was [reduced from his station above the angels and] forced to eat with his donkey.

In Hebrew, the root of the word for "donkey", "chamor", also relates to the word for "physicality", the material. Thus, Adam was made to physically eat, becoming involved with the material world, as a result of his falling from the spiritual heights for which he was designed.

He said [to G‑d after being told that his food would be from the earth that would sprout thorns and thistles], "Will my donkey and I eat in the same stall?" (Pesachim 118a.)

And Issachar, by [his effort in learning] that material [the Torah], became worthy to be called in Gen. (49:14) "a bony donkey."

"Bony" in Hebrew, "garem", also means "to cause". By his Torah learning, Issachar caused the breaking of the shell of physicality and reconnecting to its spiritual source. Thus his partner tribe, Zebulun, was very successful in business, since the merit of his partner's learning caused the divine abundance to flow directly to him, rather than through Meta‑tron.

And you Rabbis, masters of Mishna, [know] that it is said of the Queen [malchut of Atzilut] in Psalms 103:19, "His kingdom [malchut] rules over all." After Queen Esther was clothed [in malchut], she ruled over Ahasuerus and all his subjects, and it is written about [Israel] that they killed their enemies.

Malchut of Atzilut rules over all ten sefirot of the kelipot. Once this force is empowered in this world, as was the case with Queen Esther, it gave her the power to destroy Haman, who represented the power of Satan (Samael), including his ten sons, who corresponded to the ten sefirot of evil. Thus the struggle of revealing the power of good in the world depends on the right individuals reaching the point where they can destroy the powers of evil. However, they can only do so if they are worthy enough to have this force, malchut of Atzilut, dwell within them. [Note that the word "clothes" in Hebrew is "levush." The similarity between this word and the English "blush" flows from the fact that G‑d dressed Adam after he became embarrassed by his nakedness. Thus, clothing is connected to humility, and a ruler, to be worthy of success against the powers of evil, must possess this trait to be clothed in the spiritual power enabling the defeat of evil. S.T.]

Zohar, parashat Ki Tetzeh, p. 276a; translation and commentary by Simcha-Shmuel Treister

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