- The ascent of the soul during sleep is read by the Ari as a particular case of the idea of the souls of tzadikim being “m”n” to the shechina. which is itself a particular case of the law of the lower affecting the higher, which is another way of saying the yichud is always aroused by the feminine first.
- We went through some practical aspects of the Arizal’s idea of the soul ascending during sleep, as part of this general idea, and showed some practices he teaches for this.
- The idea of the yichud not working during churban except through the actual martyrdom of souls of tzadikim, in the secret of asara harugei malchut. (This is a very fascinating idea both in it’s historic application and in what it means spiritually, that when you can’t do things mentally you must do them physically, which has to do with the entire interplay of chitzonyus and pnimiyus etc. we should get into this more another time..)
- The idea of mesirus nefesh as a sort of “shortcut” which can atone all your sins and allow you to ascend to the yichud. So the ari says accept- meaning visualize – death at every yichud, in krias shema, and especially in krias shema sheal hamita.
- The idea of teshuva and viduy as a way to allow yourself in to heaven. Both basic teshuva in the sense of if my sin is a problem I repent, and both the inner meaning of viduy for the ari which means reliving yourself of the klipos created by sin which don’t let you ascend.
- including the souls of your friends and teachers who can do this better than you, and the tzadik including his acquaintances in his aliya. (Hiskashrus letzadikim, mesayin oso).
- [the shemos of ascent which are basically the shem mem bet in it’s different permutations, we didn’t learn this but you should know this..]
- The order of Nesira, which is a particular part of the way of having the z”a and nuk’ attain perfection, as we discussed last week
- The state of achor beachor, which means. 1. the nuk beginning 1/10 and growing to 10 which are really only 4/10 relative to z”a. 2. The nuk receives this from za and is dependent on him. 3. za looks at her (via a ‘hole’ in the back of his chest), which means hashgacha and a kind of shefa. 4. a level of yichud of achor beachor (usually read as the dependence itself)/
- The state of durmita and nesira. which means. 1. for the za: he loses all his mochin and reverts to the most basic state possible for him which is 6/10 with mochin dekatnus. 2. for za/nuk: the “cutting” of the nuk off from za, understood as losing her dependence on him. 3. for nuk: her growing her own partzuf to 10 full sefirot. 4. for nuk: her receiving the “looking” directly from arich anpin and not via za (this is really the same thing as the cutting of dependence). this #4 is the secret of ומאיר לאישון בת עין where the nuk has something at the time of sleep which she wouldn’t ever have normally.
- the state of return to panim bepanim. which means 1. for za: the return of his mochin. 2. for nuk: the loss of the looking of arich, and return to being dependent on za, but in a less needy way. 3. growth of the za and nuk to whichever level. 4. yichud panim bepanim.
- The kavana of hamapil and hamavir based on all that: are the parts of stage 2: המפיל חבלי שינה על עיני – the za loses shefa from arich. ותמונה על עפעפי – the za can’t give to nuk. ומאיר לאישון בת עין – the nuk receives light directly from arich. correspondingly in the morning המעביר שינה מעיני = za recives from arich ותנומה מעפעפי = and gives to nuk in the normal order. The remez for this where עב סג מה בן represent these levels.
- Dreams (touched on this shortly in question) are 1. the mochin dekatnut which remain in za during sleep. or part of soul which remain in body and are strengthened by not being distracted 2. the higher shefa given to nuk in this time. or directly to image. 3. without the conscious which might correspond to za. 4. the soul ascending to shechina and seeing what it see there. only this needs explanation how the dream gets back here.