Differences in form act spiritually much as the axe acts physically to separate things. The distance [between the two spiritual things] will be proportional to the difference in form. Understand, as discussed, that souls are imbued with a desire to receive pleasure, which, as we demonstrated, does not exist at all within the Creator. Heaven forfend! From whom could God receive?! This change in form that the souls acquire serves to separate them from God’s essence, much as the axe separates a stone from the mountain. This change in form detaches the souls from God, and they become creatures separate from Him. Still, anything that the souls acquire from God’s light flows from a pre-existing reality, from God’s essence.

If so, it follows that from the perspective of the divine light received by the vessel – which is the desire to receive – there is absolutely no difference between the soul and God’s essence, as it [the divine light] flows from the pre-existing reality of God’s essence directly to the souls. The entire difference between the soul and God’s essence is that the soul is only a part of God’s essence. The limited amount of divine light received by the vessel, the desire to receive, becomes a separate entity from the Divine due to this change of form. Through it [this change in form], the light transformed from being in the category of “All” to being in the category of “part.” Thus, the only difference between them is that one is “all” and the other is “part,” like a stone that is quarried from the mountain. Study this carefully, since I cannot expound more about such lofty things.