Tiqqune Zohar, 1, 18a

 

Bereshit- bet reshit. This is the “gate to the Lord through which the righteous enter” (Ps. 118-20). This is the gate for the righteous who have permission to enter there; others who are not righteous are driven out from there. In her are inscribed, depicted, and engraved the upper and lower images (diyoqnin). The form of a man is inscribed there, and this is the image of man. The form of a lion is there to the right, the form of an ox to the left, and the form of an eagle in the middle… The four letters of the holy name, YHWH, shine upon them. The king of all the beasts is man (’adam) which is numerically equivalent to YHWH. The image of man (demut ’adam) is the holy Shekhinah, for she is his image (deyoqneih); she is his seal (hotam dileih), concerning which it is written, “Let me be a seal upon your heart” (Cant. 8-6). Thus the Shekhinah says [to the Holy One]- Even though you ascend above your image is never removed from me, like the seal that is in the place to which cleaves the impression of the master of the seal. The image of the seal through which he is known is not removed from her… The seal of the Holy One, blessed be he, is certainly the Shekhinah.

Translated by Elliot Wolfson in Through a Speculum that Shines- Vision and Imagination in Medieval Jewish Mysticism, Princeton- Princeton University Press, 1994.

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