Now, what Maimonides, of blessed memory, has said that the Holy One, blessed be He, His Essence and Being, and His Knowledge are completely one, a perfect unity and not a composite at all, applies equally to all the attributes of the Holy One, blessed be He, and to all His holy names and the designations which the Prophets and Sages, of blessed memory, have ascribed to Him, such as Gracious, Merciful, Beneficient, and the like. This is also true with respect to His being called Wise, as it is written, "And He is also wise,..." ; and with respect to His Will, [as it is written] "G‑d desires those who fear Him," and "He wishes to do kindness," and "He desires the repentance of the wicked and does not wish their death and wickedness," and "Your eyes are too pure to behold evil." His Will and His Wisdom and His attribute of Kindness and His Mercy and His other attributes do not add plurality and composition, G‑d forbid, to His Essence and Being, but His Essence and Being and His Will and Wisdom and Understanding and Knowledge and His attribute of Kindness and His Might and Mercy and Beauty— which is composed of His Kindness and Might— and likewise His other holy attributes, are all an absolutely perfect unity, which is His very Essence and Being.

And as Maimonides of blessed memory, stated: "This is beyond the power of speech to express, beyond the capacity of the ear to hear, and of the heart of man to apprehend clearly," for man visualises in his mind all the concepts which he wishes to conceive and understand— all as they are within himself. For instance, if he wishes to envisage the essence of Will or the essence of Wisdom or of Understanding or of Knowledge or the essence of the attribute of Kindness and Mercy and the like, he visualises them all as they are within himself. But in truth, the Holy One, blessed be He, is "High and exalted" and "Holy is His Name," that is to say, He is Holy and separated many myriads of degrees of separations ad infinitum, above the quality, type or kind of praises and exaltations which creatures could grasp and conceive in their intellect.

For the first quality and rank of creatures is wisdom, hence it is called "The beginning." For indeed, it is the beginning and fountainhead of all the life-force in creatures, for from wisdom are derived understanding and knowledge and from them flow all the emotion attributes of the rational soul, such as love and kindness and mercy and the like. As is seen clearly that the child, having no wisdom, is always angry and unkind. And even his love is for trivial things which are not worthy to be loved, because he has no wisdom to love things which are worthy of love, for [the quality of] love is according to [the level of] wisdom.

And from the emotion attributes of the soul words and letters of thought issue forth, for the soul thinks of that which it loves or [of] how to perform [deeds] of kindness and mercy. And so it is with the other emotion attributes. In every thought in the world, there is clothed some emotion attribute which brings it [the soul] to think that thought, and this attribute is the vivifying force of that thought. And from the letters of thought proceed letters of speech, and they [the letters of thought] are their very vivifying force. And speech brings to action, [as] of charity and kindness, e.g., the king who commands his servants to give [charity]. And even when a man himself performs some deed, the power of the soul and its life-force which clothes itself hi this deed, is as absolute nothingness in relation to the power of the soul and its life-force which clothes itself in the speech of man; [they are to each other] as the relation and comparison of the body to the soul. Likewise is the relation of the letters of speech to the letters of thought; and likewise is the relation of the letters of thought to the essence of the emotion attribute which is clothed in it and vivifies it; and likewise the relation of the essence and life-force of the emotion attribute in comparison with the wisdom, understanding and knowledge which together constitute the intellect from which this attribute was derived. All this applies to the soul of man and the souls of all the created beings in all the higher and lower worlds. In all of them, wisdom is the beginning and source of the life-force.