Time in the Teachings of Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi

Habad
, 74-77. 
51
Sefer yetsirah
1:7. 

---

218 
aspects.
52
Masculinity and femininity are presented as mutually dependent, a rule 
underscored by frequent use of the talmudic saying that [
b
Berakhot 60a]: “If the man 
first emits seed, the child will be a girl; if the woman first emits seed, the child will 
be a boy.” In some contexts Rashaz refers to this passage to show that the influence 
of the masculine divine name 45 is feminine, while that of the feminine name 52 is 
masculine; in others, the passage underpins the idea that the male, which currently 
stands higher than the female, was feminine in its source.
53
Just as the genders are mutually related and cannot function in isolation, so 
Adam must be complemented by his female partner – Eve, for “without Eve he is not 
called Adam at all.”
54
Rashaz refers here to the numerical value of the name of 
Adam (45 – related also to one of the divine names), and divides it into two 
substrates: the Tetragrammaton (numerical value – 26) and Havah (19).
55
Elsewhere, 
Rashaz identifies the lack of balance between feminine and masculine as the essence 
of the sin of the spies:
56
all the spies were men, deriving from the world of the 
masculine [
‘alma di-dekhura
],
57
and as such, they did not find it necessary to 
conform to the feminine Upper Land (
erets ‘elyonah 
– an alternative term for 
Malkhut
of the World of Emanation [
atsilut
]),
58
which on the practical level meant 
that they did not want to move on from performing the commandments spiritually (in 
thought) to actually performing them materially (by means of speech and deeds).
59
To sum up, in some contexts, the interconnection between the genders is seen by 
52
For the balance between the male and female aspects in the 
Zohar
, see Liebes, “Ha-mashiah shel 
ha-
Zohar
,” 198-203; Tishby, 
Wisdom of the Zohar
, i, 426-8. 
53
Seder tefilot
134b. 
54
Seder tefilot
115b, based on the zoharic saying [Ziii, 145b] that “Adam includes equally male and 
female.” 
55
See also, for example, LT 
Va-yikra 
3d and
Vital, 
‘Ets hayim
, Sha‘ar 10, ch. 3, 140, Sha‘ar 38, ch. 2, 
203. 
56
See Nm 13:1-14:9. 
57
See LT 
Shelah
41b; TO 44b. The world of the masculine [
‘alma di-dekhura
] corresponds to 
Binah
in the sefirotic system, whereas the world of the feminine [
‘alma de-nukba
] represents the 
sefirah 
of 
Malkhut
. See Wolfson, “Min u-minut,” 232; idem, 
Circle in the Square
, 89 and 99-100; Scholem, 
“Le-heker kabalat r. Yitshak ben Ya‘akov ha-Kohen,” 40-41. 
58
See TO 43d. 
59
See LT 
Shelah
38b. 
Binah 
corresponds to thought,
 
and 
Malkhut 
to speech and deeds. 

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219 
Rashaz as a relation between two forces that need to be balanced; alternatively, 
Rashaz shows man to be a male entity that needs the female – a woman – to 
complement him and achieve wholeness, quite the reverse of the image discussed 
above of the imperfect female in need of complementation by the male. 
On the one hand, the association of the female with the material world 
connects her to the evil side, but on the other hand, it presents her as a tool of 
creation, of the creation coming into being from concealment to revelation, and as an 
accumulation of all the divine powers, rooted more deeply in the divine than the 
male:
60
“The meaning of “bride” [