וגנזו לצדיקיםThe Light Stored Away

u-genazo la-tzaddikimIn Gamatria ↗

A seventh shines here; the rest waits for the righteous.

R. Yochanan reads 'let there be light, and there was light' as two great lights. God took one of them and hid it for the righteous in the time to come, as in Psalm 31:20, 'how great is Your goodness that You have stored away'. No creature could look at that first light. From its radiant goodness God took a portion, set thirty-two paths of wisdom in it, and gave it to this world as the treasury of the Oral Torah. In §160 God sees that no one can bear the light, puts a seventh of it here, and stores the rest away. 'The world to come' existed before creation.

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