God’s Omnipresence: Selections from the Kabbalistic Zohar, Part 1 of 2

Today, we would like to present selections from the Greater Holy Assembly, a volume of the Zohar where Rabbi Schimeon led a group of holy sages through a discussion on the attributes governing the laws of physical reality as symbolized by the features of Microprosopus. Although the human mind is separate from the Divine, it receives sparks of benevolence and understanding from the Divine, as symbolized by Macroprosopus, the creator of Microprosopus.

CHAPTER 39 CONCERNING THE BODY OF MICROPROSOPUS IN GENERAL, UNDER THE CONDITION OF AN ANDROGYN

“The Ancient of the Ancient Ones exists in Microprosopus; He is the all-existent One; He was all, He is all, He will be all; He will not be changed, neither is He changed, neither has He been changed.”

“For it is written, Psalms 25:14: ‘The secret of Tetragrammaton is with them that fear Him.’ Also it is written, Genesis 2:7: ‘And Tetragrammaton Elohim formed the substance of man, completed (him) formation by formation from the most ethereal (portion) of the refined (element of) earth.’ […]

Wherefore? There is an Arcanum of the Most Holy Ancient One, and an Arcanum of Microprosopus. What did (Tetragrammaton Elohim) form? […]

[…] In the supernal beard (otherwise, in this supernal form which is called (the supernal) man; the man who comprehends Male and Female equally). And therefore is it written: ‘the substance of man,’ because it comprehends equally the Male and the Female, […] so as to extend and exaggerate the species which is here produced. Most assuredly here therefore is it as Male and as Female.

‘From the dust of the ground,’ dust, form within form (otherwise, from the most ethereal portion of the refined element of earth, one within the other). But wherefore are all these things so? Because that from the supernals there was sent down into him (Man) the Arcanum of the supernal Arcana, even the end of all Arcana. This is that which is herein written: ‘and breathed into his nostrils the Neschamath [soul] of (their) lives.’

Their souls, from which all things living, superiors and inferiors, alike depend, and wherein they have their existence. ‘The Adam was formed into a living Nephesch [sentient being],’ so that it (the physical Nephesch [sentient being] form) might be attached to himself (otherwise, so that it might be developed in him), and that he might form himself into similar conformations; and that he might project himself in that Neschamah [soul] from path into path, even unto the end and completion of all the paths. So that in all this Neschamah [soul] might be found, and that it might be extended into all, and that it itself might be still one. […]”