When the light reached Yesod, it received the light for two activities, one portion for its own sake and another portion for the sake of Malkhut, and the portion that it received for its own sake, so that it would be great, it could not bear and it was abolished, and the portion that it received for the sake of Malkhut remained in him and it was not abolished, and this is the secret of “the son of Jesse is living on earth” (1 Sam. 20-31), and Yesod is called “living.” When the vessel of Yesod was broken the light was revealed and it came forcibly to Malkhut and she, too, was broken but not entirely like the first ones, and thus she was made into a configuration (parsuf) after the rectification. Had the light come to Malkhut by way of the channel, she would not have been broken. … This is the secret of “thus it arose in thought,” the secret of “he created worlds and destroyed them,” the secret of the “world of chaos,” the “world of points,” and the secret of the kings who reigned and died.

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.