Ma’amar ‘olam katan (Treatise on the Microcosm)
Menaḥem Azariah da Fano
First Half of the 17th Century
Section One
Let the entire soul praise the Lord (Psalms 150:6) concerning the four quarters of the component of the souls that approach the Lord; and they are in detail as follows: the greatest, which has precedence, and is praiseworthy and is extolled above all else is the first representation of man, in man as the upper image, the son of the King. This was emanated from the Lord, and it is magnificent in the eyes of [see Psalms 118:23] every winged creature, angel, ḥayah angel, and seraph. It contains within itself five aspects: Desire [nefesh], Will [ruaḥ], Wisdom [neshamah], Life [ḥayah], and Unique [yeḥidah], which numerologically add up to “Bless the Lord, O my soul.”1 And all of them are from the world of unity for all of the community of the group of Israel, the righteous of all the generations. One is from the upper mother; it is the choice one of the lower mother [see Song of Songs 6:9], for it is not separated and it does not transmigrate. It does not sin and is not punished, because it departs in cleanliness from the sinner before he becomes dark. It does not enter into purgatory, neither the upper, which is the Dinur River [“Fiery stream”; see Daniel 7:10], nor the lower, which is the valley of the shadow of death, except to rescue its fellow, for on its account, the righteous in the future will be called by the name of the Holy One. And it is written: By fire will the Lord execute judgment (Isaiah 66:16)—this is the end of the dispatch of this fire, which is then abolished. Thus the Torah has said [concerning an ox that had gored a person to death, in Exodus 21:29]: “If his owner had been warned,” the owner of the ox will come and will stand in judgment for the ox, for at the time that the ox comes out to be stoned, its owner is judged, as it is his possession. And we have learned from the Mishnah [m. Avot 6:11] that Israel is one possession of God. And it is written: For judgment shall return to righteousness. And all the upright in heart shall follow it (Psalms 94:15); see part one, chapter thirty-seven of my tract Yonat ‘elem. And then the earth was split with the sound of them (1 Kings 1:40). This is as it was in the kingdom of Solomon, and we have nicely clarified this in its place, according to its truth. [As was for Solomon], it is all the more so for the King who is the possessor of peace [shalom], as it is written concerning the Lord: Glorify the Lord in the regions of light (Isaiah 24:15) whose light is in Zion (Isaiah 31:9). These are the gates that are noted in halakhah for the dance of the righteous. And there are many luminaries in the light, for in the light of the King’s countenance is life (Proverbs 16:15); and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain (Isaiah 40:4). And this will clarify the different meanings of the word lights, according to their various denotations in the Bible.
Section Two
Second is the life in man, the upper image, the minister before the King. And it indeed is the second representation, which contains three separate likenesses, which are called by the names of the levels that are enclothed within them from the great campaign that we have mentioned. And these are only nefesh, ruaḥ, and neshamah (see my tract on the soul, chapter seventeen). For indeed, ḥayah and yeḥidah are within the secret of the head, and they do not need clothing; for clothing does not apply to them at all. And these likenesses emanate from beriyah [creation], yetsirah [formation], and ‘asiyah [action] to every citizen in Israel [i.e., among the Jews], and to the convert who is dwelling among them, who comes to seek refuge under the wings of the divine presence [shekhinah].2 And he [i.e., the convert] does not have a place in the first campaign, until those who dwell in his shadow return to be borne from the birth (Isaiah 46:3) thanks to the righteous who take care of them, such as Moses by Jethro, and Naomi by Ruth. This is the meaning of that which [the wise men of the Talmud in b. Shabbat 107a] have said: “If a bird flew under the flaps of one’s clothing on Shabbat, he may sit and guard it until darkness.” For the righteous are the secret of the Sabbath in every place, and a pure bird is the soul of the convert, which is certainly a bird that stretches out from the nine-hundred-and-seventy-four generations which did not find favor with the Creator. And a bird enters to take cover “under His wings” according to an equal number.3 And the righteous themselves are the wings of the shekhinah, the wings of the dove proper [see b. Shabbat 130a], for it flourishes within them in happiness and in good-heartedness, in its exalted heights. This righteous person who merits to be within the soul of the convert sits and preserves it until its sun becomes dark in this world, in order to enlighten it for the world-to-come; all his days, he is not distracted at all from his task of repair. In the meantime, he [i.e., the convert] is made into an additional gown for this [righteous] one who merits it, in addition to that rabbinic gown of every man. This is until the point when through the secret of the verse: I put on righteousness, and my justice clothed me (Job 29:14), both of them will merit being in the upper image, as it is written: The Lord reigns, He is clothed with dignity (Psalms 93:1) and the Lord is clothed with majesty (Psalms 104:1); and this is enough concerning this matter.
Notes
[Added together, these five names equal 1099, which is equivalent to the numerical value of the letters of Psalms 104:1—Trans.]
[Neshamah, ruaḥ, and nefesh are respectively formed in these unique manners of creation.—Trans.]
[“Under His wings” (taḥat kanfo) is numerologically 974.—Trans.]
Credits
Menaḥem Azariah da Fano, “Ma’amar ‘Olam Katan (Treatise on the Microcosm)” (manuscript, Fano, first half of the 17th century). Published as: Menahem Azariah da Fano, Sefer ʻasarah ma’amarot (Jerusalem: Bet ʻoved, 1988), pp. 486–500.
Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 5.
