According to Kabbalah's analysis of Ezekiel's vision of the dry bones, the four constituent components of the human body–bones, blood vessels, flesh, and skin–correspond to the four letters of the Name Havayah. The fifth, spiritual level that gives life to the body, the spirit ("From four directions, come, O spirit, and blow into these corpses, that they may live"), corresponds to the fifth, transcendent level of the Name Havayah, the upper tip of the yud.
Similarly, with regard to the eye–the entire physical body and spirit of life is encapsulated in the eye–its four colors correspond to the four letters of the NameHavayah as do the four general constituent components of the human body: the white of the eye to the bones and the yud; the red to the blood vessels and the first hei; the color of the iris to the flesh and the vav; and the black pupil to the skin and the second hei. The eyes' power of sight corresponds to the life-giving spirit of the body and to the fifth, transcendent level of the Name Havayah, the upper tip of the yud. Here, the upper tip of the yud appears in the inner point of the second hei, in the secret of "the end is enwedged in the beginning, and the beginning in the end."
Our sages establish the correspondence of the spirit of life to the sight of the eye, as well as that of the father (chochmah) to the color white and the mother (binah) to the color red in the following description of the formation of man:
There are three partners in [the formation of] man: the Holy One, blessed be He, the father, and the mother. The father contributes the whiteness, which becomes the bones, the sinews, the nails, the brain in the head, and the white of the eye. The mother contributes the redness, which becomes the blood, the skin, the flesh, the hair, and the black of the eye. And the Holy One, blessed be He, contributes the spirit [of life], the soul, the form of the face, the sight of the eyes, the hearing of the ears, the speech of the mouth, the raising of the hands, the walking of the legs, understanding, and intellect.
To summarize (with regard to the eye):
God's Name
Sefirah
Aspect of eye
Archetype
upper tip of yud
keter
power of sight
Divinity
é
yud
chochmah
white
Abraham
ä
hei
binah
red (blood vessels)
Isaac
å
vav
da’at and the midot
color of iris
Jacob
ä
hei
malchut
black pupil
David
In the Zohar, the secret of the eye, the secret of sight, is seen to relate to the holy day of Shabbat. In Hebrew, the word for Shabbat is composed of three letters: shin, beit, and tav.
The letter shin is formed of three lines (three vavs, each with a head, a yud, at its top) rising out of a common base. These three lines allude to the three patriarchs of the Jewish people, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and so the letter shin is referred to as "the letter of the patriarchs."
The two remaining letters of the word Shabbat, the beit and the tav, spell the word bat, "daughter." The shin of Shabbat thus alludes to the three colors of the eye around the pupil, while the beit and tav of Shabbat allude to the pupil itself.
On Shabbat, the day that alludes to the revelation of the world to come, the rectified eye of man–which reflects all three patriarchs together with King David–merits to envision the Divine light of Shabbat, alluded to in the word Shabbat (which in the Zohar is taken to be a Name of God), which, when seen as a whole, manifests light that infinitely transcends that of its component letters.
To summarize:
Shabbat
Archetype
Eye
Sefirah
Shabbat
Divinity
power of sight
keter
shin
Abraham
white
chochmah
Isaac
red
binah
Jacob
color of iris
da’at and the midot
beit
David
black
malchut
tav
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