Ibn Tabul, Derush Hefsi

 

The worlds in which he is garbed are called “his name,” and if we contemplate the matter we will find that the blessed One is called by his name, that is, the Tetragrammaton as is known, for all is one in relation to the Tetragrammaton. “And the Lord is in his holy abode” (Hab. 2-20), for Malkhut, which is the garment, becomes the soul for all the worlds … and all of these worlds and Malkhut were contained in the supernal world in ’Abba’ and ’Imma’, and thus all were contained in Keter and in the containment of Ein-Sof, blessed be his name. All the worlds were swallowed up in it, for naught but it was discernible. His name indicates a minimal disclosure, and it is the aspect of judgment, but his essence is entirely mercy, and everything was a complete unity, and all was Ein-Sof, blessed be his name.

Translated by Elliot Wolfson in “Divine Suffering and the Hermeneutics of Reading- Philosophical Reflections on Lurianic Mythology,” in Suffering Religion, 101-162, Edited by R. Gibbs and E. R. Wolfson. New York and London- Routledge, 2002, from Ibn Tabul, Derush Hefsi Bah in Simhat Kohen (Jerusalem, 1978), 1a.

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