אִם יִרְצֶה הַשֵּׁם
כ״ד חֶשְׁוָן תשפ״ז
From Daily Zohar #5294 of Reb Zion Nefesh, Zohar Chayei Sarah. Yesterday: Who has the power to reveal secret (DZ 5293).
A map of the Daily Zohar, not a stenographic record. Neither this post nor these notes have been reviewed by Reb Zion Nefesh or the Daily Zohar.
They asked him
The friends found Rabbi Elazar revealing the taam: reason, of the tefillin. They said, If it is good before our master, let him say to us some matter.
They had already heard it from his father, Rabbi Shimon. HKBH, in the abundance of His love for Israel, said to them to make Him a Mishkan: tabernacle, like the pattern of the upper merkavah: chariot, of above, and He would come to dwell with them.
The reason is sealed
Ve-asu li mikdash ve-shachanti be-tocham: and let them make Me a sanctuary, and I will dwell among them (Exodus 25:8). And we heard from your father that here, in this verse, the reason of the tefillin is sealed.
The taam is not an extra verse. It is sealed in the command to build a house in the pattern of the upper chariot, so that He would dwell among them.
Two chariots
Rabbi Elazar said, Come and see. The Holy Temple was made like the pattern of the supernal one, in the forms of its holy chariots, and afterward HKBH caused His Shechinah to dwell with them.
The friends, the masters of the Mishnah, hinted the same taam in the tefillin. The man who puts them should be a likeness of the upper chariots: the lower chariot and the upper chariot, so that His Malchut should come and His Shechinah should dwell upon him.
From the chest
The Daily Zohar commentary reads both chariots as needed.
Union is practiced from the chest and above, where the face of man is. Revelation of Chochmah is practiced from the chest and below, where the face of man is lacking. Completeness is the two together. The lower chariot ascends and is included in the union above, and then Chochmah is revealed below.
There is no revelation of Chochmah except in the secret of Malchut, from the chest and below, called Shechinah. There is no union for the drawing of Chochmah except from the chest and above.
Intend both
The tabernacle and its vessels were arranged in this likeness. Then the lower chariot ascended to the place of the upper, and was included in the union there, and Chochmah was revealed in the lower chariot, the secret of the dwelling of the Shechinah among the lower ones.
The commentary says the man who lays tefillin intends these two chariots and the orders that are in them. Then Malchut comes, and HKBH causes His Shechinah to dwell upon him.
If the taam is already sealed in the Mishkan verse, and completeness is only two chariots together, what is the man doing in the laying itself: building the house, or becoming the place the Shechinah already said it would dwell?
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