Rabbi Hizkiya began: “It is written, ‘As a rose among the thorns.’” What is a rose? It is the Assembly of Israel, meaning Malchut. There is a rose, and there is a rose. Just as a rose among the thorns is tinged with red and white, the Assembly of Israel contains Din [judgment] and Rachamim [mercy].

Just as a rose has thirteen petals, the Assembly of Israel consists of thirteen qualities of Rachamim, surrounding it on all sides (Introduction to The Book of Zohar, “The Rose”).

Comment: The article “The Rose” is the first article in the Introduction to The Book of Zohar. When reading these lines, it is clear that something is encoded here. It probably says something important here if these are the first words in such a great book.

My Response: The fact is that the rose means an assembly of souls that receive some kind of fulfillment from above from the Creator and then distribute it among the lower layers of souls. In this way, it descends into our world.

Question: But why rose? We know that there is a root and a branch. That is, a Kabbalist sees some kind of root (spiritual state) and its consequence in our world. Why rose?

Answer: This is what the authors of The Book of Zohar saw. They felt, learned, and revealed that the entire spiritual system descending from above from the Creator to humanity is such a structure.

As a rose among the thorns, the mercy of the Creator, His influence on us, consists of two opposite forces, white and red. White is the quality of bestowal and love. Red, on the contrary, is the quality of rigidity and judgment.

Both qualities are being looked at relative to the upper system that governs souls sometimes by mercy, sometimes by judgment. This already depends on people. That is why they are told about this.

The authors of The Book of Zohar saw the assembly of all souls in our world in the form of a rose, how it blooms, how it is controlled by two forces, and how the descent of the upper forces on it, on the entire society, and on all of humanity depends on its internal state.
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From KabTV’s “Introduction to The Book of Zohar” 6/4/23

Related Material:
A Rose Among The Thorns
Two States of that Rose
Between Two Limits

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