Zohar on the Torah

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Parshat Mattot Zohar Page 259b "And all of the girls who have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves" (Numbers 31,18). Rabbi Yehuda said that from here we learn that the world is only conducted by two "colors" that come from the feminine aspect of the spiritual world. This is the "wisdom of the heart" that governs the word as is written "All of the women who were wise hearted did spin with their hands, and brought that which they had spun, both of blue, and of purple, and of scarlet, and of fine linen" (Exodus 35,25). Now what was the purpose of bringing this particular offering to the dedication of the Tabernacle in the desert? The purpose was to rectify the colors of blue and purple which each include a mixture of white and red. This is also reflected in the verse "She seeks wool, and flax, and works willingly with her hands" . It is also written that the wise hearted women "spun with their hands" (Proverbs 31,13). What is this "spinning"? Rabbi Yehuda said that they spun together strictness and mercy. The colors referred too here are a code for the two basic sephirot that define the activity of the Divine in this world, namely "chesed" and "gevura" - kindness and strictness. These two sephirot are reflected in dimension by the directions right and left and by the colors white and red. The color purple signifies the mixture of white and red in the sphira of "tiferet" - "beauty" - which is in the middle of the tree of the sephirot between chesed and gevura. The color blue represents "malchut" the sphira of Kingdom that designates the way the world is conducted in fact. It is interesting to note that these colors are in fact used to represent these powers in society as we know it. Thus the highest judges in the British legal system wear white wigs, representing mercy, and red gowns, appropriate for their activity of judgement. Royalty is referred to as being "blue-blooded". White is also connected to light, which is the source of spirituality, referred to in kabala as the "Infinite Light". In a similar vein white wool represents chesed and stringy flax, gevura. The woman of valor (malchut) knows how to work both these materials into fabric, the fabric of a life mixing the right balance of kindness and strictness. Rabbi Yitzchak asked Rabbi Yehuda, why is the Hebrew word for woman "Ishah"? He answered that it is because the word includes both strict judgement and mercy. Look at it this way: Rabbi Eliezer said that every woman is called judgement, until she tastes the taste of mercy. This is as we have learnt, that the fetus receives the white from the male and the red from the woman. When a woman tastes the chesed of the male then she understands that chesed is preferable to gevura. The word "Ish" means man and "Ishah" means woman in Hebrew. This indicates that a girl, once she grows to become a married woman, combines the feminine aspect of gevurah with the masculine aspect of chesed. The result of the union of these two aspects is a fetus that contains white (such as bones and the whites of the eyes) and red (such as blood and skin).

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