38. “The letter alef arose etc.” The letter alef arose but did not enter. The Holy One, blessed be He, said to her: Alef, alef, why are you not entering My presence like all the other letters? She said to Him: Master of the world! I observed that all the letters emerged from Your presence in vain; what would I do there? Furthermore, You have already given the letter bet this great gift, and it is unbecoming for the supreme King to transfer a gift that He has given to His servant and give it to another. The Holy One, blessed be He, said to her: Alef, alef, although the world was created with the letter bet, you will be the head of all the letters – there is no unification in Me other than through you. With you will all schemes will begin and all the works of the inhabitants of the world; and the entire unification is only through the letter alef.

Explanation: As you already know, all these questions from the letters are their raising of feminine waters, while the answers are the mystical meaning of the masculine waters, as stated earlier.¹ Now, this great wholeness found in the letter aleph could never be the result of an awakening from below, but only through an awakening from above. This is as written in the Zohar (Vayikra, 81) on the verse “fallen, the virgin of Israel will rise no longer” (Amos 5:2), that “she will not rise by herself, but the Holy One, blessed be He, will raise her”; see there. Therefore, both at the start of the emanation of the brains of the first three [sefirot], i.e., while they are still in the mystical meaning of "playing in the sanctuary" of Abba and Imma (father and mother, which is the focus of the Zohar in that passage), and also at the completion of the rectification, the letter alef will not awaken by raising feminine waters from below upwards, in the manner of the emergence of the brains of the first three [sefirot] during the six thousand years. Rather, everything will be only in the mystical meaning of an awakening from above. This is the mystical meaning of **“she will not rise by herself, but the Holy One, blessed be He, will raise her.”**² initiating in the form of feminine waters. He thus says here: “The letter alef arose but did not enter. The Holy One, blessed be He, said to her: Alef, alef, why are you not entering.” This shows that the alef was not awakened at all to raise feminine waters like the other letters, until “the Holy One, blessed be He, said to her,” which is the mystical meaning of “the Holy One, blessed be He, will raise her”;³. see the Zohar there, thoroughly. He says “alef, alef” twice, in reference to those two aforementioned occasions, the first when the letters were in the mystical meaning of playing, while the second alludes to the completion of the rectification, since then too “the Holy One, blessed be He, will raise her” Himself.

footnotes: ¹ This is explained in section 31 above. The concepts of feminine waters and masculine waters refers to the "awakening from below" and "awakening from above, " respectively. ² Since this awakening is from above, in the mystical meaning of the masculine waters, it is described as "the Holy One, blessed be He, will raise her, " as opposed to the aleph ³ This means to say that the statement indicating that the Holy One initiated and spoke first alludes to the dynamic of masculine waters in which the Holy One initiates and "raises" the aleph

[The Zohar continues: “I observed that all the letters emerged from Your presence in vain.” The reason why the alef did not dare raise the masculine waters on her own was that she saw all the letters leaving in vain, as it turned out that on all the levels there is “one thing corresponding to the other.”⁴. For this reason, she thought that she too was no better than them, and that she also had an opposite. This is why she said: “What would I do there?” For I have observed that I am no better than them.

footnotes: ⁴ As explained in the previous sections, this refers to the structural parallelism between the sides of good and evil, in which each force in the side of good has a corresponding aspect in the Sitra Aḥara

[Rav Hamnuna] next says: “Furthermore, You have already given the letter bet this great gift, and it is unbecoming for the supreme King to transfer etc.” The second reason why I did not dare raise the masculine waters is because I observed that You have already established the main structure of each partzuf with the attribute of the letter bet, in the mystical meaning of the verse: “The world is built through giving” (Psalms 89:3), as stated. Therefore, I had no doubt that any change would be impossible, as it is not the manner of the King to transfer a gift that He has given to one servant and to give it to another servant.

[Rav Hamnuna] continues: “The Holy One, blessed be He, said to her: Alef, alef, although the world was created with the letter bet, you will be the head of all the letters.” The meaning is as follows: It is true that the world was already created with the letter bet, and it is also true that I will not transfer her gift to another. However, only the aspect of six extremities without a head was created with her attribute, and therefore the letters are still lacking a head, since they are unfit to be fruitful and multiplying without it. Therefore, “you will be” used for drawing forth the head to “all the letters,” that is, the brains of the first three, which are the brains of face-to-face⁵ to reach the lower vessels and beings. and producing offspring.

footnotes: ⁵ This refers to the highest state of maturity in which the brains, the lights of the levels, are in their highest state, allowing the flow of the light of Ḥokhma

[Rav Hamnuna] then says: “The there is no unification in Me other than through you. With you will all schemes will begin and all the works of the inhabitants of the world.” Meaning, My unification is revealed in the world only through your attribute. In addition, the whole matter of reward, punishment, and repentance, through which the completion of the rectification will be revealed, will be only “through you.” I established the bet only as the essence of the partzuf, so that [these lower brains] will not be at all a function of the deeds of the lower [beings], such that even if they corrupt their works, no change in these brains would thereby result, as stated. By contrast, the brains within you are entirely a function of the deeds of the lower [beings]: If they corrupt their works, the brains of the first three [sefirot] in you will depart; and if they repent, they will draw the brains of the first three once again.

This is the meaning of the statement: “With you will all schemes will begin and all the works of the inhabitants of the world.” “Schemes” means “if they corrupt their works,” in the mystical meaning of the verse: “God made man straight, but they have sought out many schemes” (Ecclesiastes 7:29), since then the brains of the first three will depart. “And all the works of the inhabitants of the world” refers to raising feminine waters by means of good deeds, for then the brains of the first three will be drawn once more. “And the entire unification is only through the letter alef” alludes to the great unification of the completion of the rectification, which will also be “through the letter alef.”