Portal in the Sky

     ”The one who emanates G-dly light" the honored Rabbi Chaim Vital, of blessed memory. My words shall flow with the pleasantry and harmony of both together. "Hearken yea, and rejuvenate your souls" (Isaiah 55:3) with the words of the Arizal regarding the greatness of the Land of Israel. From just the edge of them you shall see visions of G-d. For are not his words based upon the passage from the Holy Zohar.

Crib Notes to be continued on other posts.

     G'vilon - a portal located in the firmament above the Land of Israel. It extends upwards until it reaches the Divine Throne.

     Megadon – 70 other portals with 70 guards at a distance of 2,000 cubits under G'vilon [main portal] – they don’t approach the main portal - From that portal [G'vilon ] towards all directions, until the gates of opening, is referred to as Megadon, where the end of the firmament of the boundary of the land of Israel lies."

     Large opening in the middle of this gate and opening which is in line with Eretz Yisrael.

     Around this large opening are 70 openings from which the 70 nations of the world receive their sustenance.

     In that very gate there is a holy curtain (which is a garment as well and being that it is holy, it is not revealed in our time) which prevents the forces of the Other Side from being nurtured from the influx – as mentioned in the Zohar (Teruma 141a).

     The opening is in the middle of the firmament and consequently influences the land underneath it. Yet there is another curtain [holding place for name] which functions as a preventative, so that the Other Side shouldn’t gain entrance to Eretz Yisrael.

     This entrance is in line with the middle of all the firmaments until it reaches the level of “yesod of malchut”, the holy essential point of all the realms up to the Holy Throne; this is the very path that all souls upon sleeping and prayers use to ascend.

     Even though the Zohar states elsewhere that “prayers ascend in the east and west”, that is in regards to the ascension through the airspace until they all meet under this portal.

     These firmaments are not moveable. They are permanent; therefore their openings are constantly aligned directly over Eretz Israel. Yet the heavenly bodies do rotate around in the firmaments.

     We find that our meaning of a “permanent firmament” refers to the one in which exists that portal.

     When we refer to the rotating bodies, the rotating is done by the bodies not the firmament.

     Rabbi Eliezer focused not on the path of orbit, rather the star that follows the path. For they have said, “the astrological zodiacal planetary force has a cycle, not the firmament”.

     For the orbit and planet on its path are referred to as the planet alone. For the planet is the point of the orbit – its soul.

     The orbit itself is of the aspect of the “Secret of the Igulim (circles) of each world.