A teaching on the section "Tazriah" from the Book of The Zohar
The Holy Zohar(Tazriah, pg. 3, and in theSulam ot 9) asks: “should the woman ejaculate first, she will bear a boy”, Rabbi Acha says, this teaches us that the Creator decrees on the gamete, whether it is a male or a female, and you say should the woman ejaculate first, she will bear a boy. If so, then the decree of the Creator is superfluous. Rabbi Yossi says, certainly the Creator distinguishes between a gamete, of a male and between a gamete, of a female, and since He makes this distinction, He decrees as to whether is shall be a boy or a girl.”
And there the Kabbalist Y. Ashlag, “the Sulam,” explains: “Since there are three partners in a person, the Creator, his father, and his mother - that his father gives the lo’ven (the white portion), and his mother the o’dem (the red portion) in it, and the Creator gives the soul – and if the gamete is male, the Creator gives a soul of a male person, and if it is a female, the Creator gives it the soul of a female person etc., and this determination that the Creator distinguishes between a gamete which is fitting to be a soul of a male person, or a female person, is considered to be the decree of the Creator, since if He wouldn’t make a determination in this, and would not send a soul of a male person, the gamete would not be finished to be a male person, and it turns out that the two teachings are not contradictory one to another.
Rabbi Acha said, “and she gave birth to a girl”, and is that because she ejaculates first that she is gives birth?! Is not the matter dependant on pregnancy? And it should have said a woman that conceives and bears a boy etc. Rabbi Yossi said, a woman, from the day she conceives and becomes pregnant up until the day she gives birth, all she talks about is whether her child will be a boy.
It is necessary to understand all of the above subject, and what does this information 'should a woman ejaculate first', etc., tell us and also that which he said that the greatness of the Creator is that He knows how to distinguish between the gamete of a male person from the gamete of a female person; is this the greatness of the Creator, that from this a person will receive inspiration, and by this he will accept upon himself to be at the service of the Name)?
And similarly, it’s necessary to understand that which Rabbi Acha asks, a woman that conceives and bears a boy should have been said, and Rabbi Yossi answers that a woman from the time she is fertile and becomes pregnant, until the day on which she gives birth, her talk is only about if her ospring will be a boy; i.e., that she is concerned that her child should be male.
And what does this information give us, that which is the topic of the woman's conversation, and what will be if we know the woman's concern over which she worries, that her ospring should be a male.
In order that we should understand all this, we will explain that which is written in the Introduction to the Wisdom of the Kabbalah (pg. 15, ot 57): “Because everything which was desired from the restriction which was made in the fourth phase was in order to correct it so that it would not have in it any change of form, with its receiving of the Upper Light. That is to say, in order to create the spiritual body of the soul from this fourth phase, and with his involvement with Kabbalah, with the intention to bestow spiritual satisfaction to his Creator, the power to receive which in the fourth phase should be transformed so that it should be on condition to bestow, that in this way he equates the form of receiving to complete giving, and then will be the complete correction, since with this the fourth phase will return to being a vessel fit to receive the Upper Light, and will be in a compete union with the Light without any distortion of form at all, etc., and for this matter it is necessary that man should have included in him also from the upper aspects (a measure of character perfection), which are above the fourth phase, in order that he should have in him to do good deeds of bestowal etc., since the fourth phase, which is essentially the root of the person was completely below like a vacuum devoid of light, being opposite in form to the Upper Light, which is considered for that reason to be in the aspect of separation and death; and if man had been created from it, he would not have been able to correct his actions at all, because he would not have in him any sparks of bestowal, etc.”
And in order to correct this, there was the matter of the partnership of Mercy and Judgment since from the side of Judgment the world is not able to be established, as above, and as it is written (in ot 58): “He saw that the world would not be established, i.e., as above. That in this manner there would not be any possibility for man, who needs to be created from this fourth phase, that he would be able to make use of actions of bestowal, through which the world would be able to be established in the measure of the desired correction, etc., that by means of this joining in partnership the fourth phase, which is the is Judgment, in full measure, is also made to be included with sparks of bestowal which are in the vessels of Binah, that by this the spiritual body, which comes out from the fourth phase, is made prepared to have included in it also a measure of (non-judgmental) bestowal, so that then it will be able to do good on condition to bestow spiritual satisfaction to its Creator, until the measure of reception within it is transformed so that it will be completely in order to bestow, that by this means the world is established, to the desired correction, from the creation of the world.