25. “From here, whoever wants etc.” From here it is derived that whoever wants to say a falsehood should begin with a foundation of truth, and then the falsehood will be maintained for him. For the letter shin is a letter of truth, the letter of truth through which the forefathers were united, as the three lines in the shin allude to the three forefathers, who are Ḥesed, Gevura, and Tiferet, while kof-resh are letters that are visible on the evil side, because the Sitra Aḥara is cold [kar], without the heat of vitality, since [the Sitra Aḥara] suckles from the Malkhut when she is a frozen sea (as stated in Bereshit I, page 47, s.v. Yama de-kafu). In order to survive, [the kof-resh] take the letter shin within them, which forms the combination kesher [“bond,” kof-shin-resh], a term of strengthening and sustaining**. When she**, the shin, saw that, she departed from Him.

Explanation: As was explained previously, the illumination of Ḥesed, Gevura, and Tiferet of Bina, which are given to [Nukba] through Yesod of Ze’er Anpin, constructed the end point of the Nukba into a vessel and a receptacle for the one hundred blessings from Ze’er Anpin. Ḥesed, Gevura, and Tiferet are called “forefathers.” This is the meaning of the statement: “Through which the forefathers were united,” and it is for this reason that [the shin] is called “a letter of truth,” as stated above; see there.

“Kof-resh are letters that are visible on the evil side.” This was already explained in the adjacently preceding section, that [kof and resh] are the two sources of the Sitra Aḥara. Thus, the Zohar says, “In order to survive, [kof and resh] take the letter shin within them, which is kesher.” By erasing the corner [of the roof] of the dalet of eḥad [“one”], they expropriate to within themselves the Yesod of Nukba of holiness, which is the shin, and the Yesod of Nukba of kelippa is constructed in the letter shin. They thereby have a very strong hold on holiness, which is called kesher, since a bond [kesher] indicates that the grasp is very strong and hard to detach.