With God's help we will act and succeed. Today, with God's assistance, we begin Sefer Yechezkel. Yechezkel chapter one: "And it was in the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, on the fifth of the month, as I was among the exiles by the River Kevar, the heavens opened and I saw visions of God." I will read two more pesukim, since we need them to begin understanding the chapter.
"On the fifth of the month, that was the fifth year of the exile of King Yehoyachin. The word of God surely came to Yechezkel son of Buzi the Kohen in the land of the Kasdim by the River Kevar, and the hand of God was upon him there." Regarding Sefer Yechezkel, the Gemara in Bava Batra 14b asks: who wrote it? The Men of the Great Assembly. They wrote Yechezkel and Trei Asar. And why not Yechezkel himself? Because prophecy was not given to be written down outside the Land. As we will soon see, Yechezkel was among the exiles, and therefore it was not fitting that the writing of the sefer be done by him, but specifically by the Men of the Great Assembly.
In the Targum Yerushalmi it appears that Yechezkel, even though in our text he is called Yechezkel son of Buzi, is the son of a prophet, the son of Yirmiyahu the prophet. So says the Targum Yerushalmi. Yechezkel is Yechezkel son of Yirmiyahu, son of Yirmiyahu the prophet. And why was Yirmiyahu called Buzi? Because they used to scorn him (mevazin oto). For that reason he was called Buzi. So in fact, this Yechezkel whom we know is actually the son of the prophet Yirmiyahu whom we all know.
"And it was in the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, on the fifth of the month, as I was among the exiles by the River Kevar." Rashi says: the prophet stated his words obscurely and did not explain who he was, nor did he explain by what reckoning he counted. "In the thirtieth year" - thirty years for what? It is not mentioned what the beginning was from which he counts thirty years. "In the fourth month, on the fifth of the month" is understood: the fourth is the month of Tammuz, the fifth of the month is the fifth of Tammuz, but thirty years for what? And who in fact is the prophet?
The Malbim says, excuse me, Rashi says, that therefore the following pesukim, which I deliberately read at the outset, are not the prophet's own words. Rather there is an interruption in his words here: Ruach HaKodesh breaks in and teaches us, come and hear for a moment who is being spoken about. It is like a person saying, "Rabbi so and so said," and then opening a parenthesis: who was Rabbi so and so, he authored such and such a book, lived in such and such a period, and then continues, and that Rabbi so and so said, and so on. Something like this is happening here. "In the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, on the fifth of the month" - here Yechezkel is speaking of himself in the first person, "as I was among the exiles by the River Kevar, the heavens opened and I saw visions of God."
Immediately afterward it says, "On the fifth of the month, that was the fifth year of the exile of King Yehoyachin" - here it is already Ruach HaKodesh speaking on his behalf, and it tells you the date: the fifth year of the exile of King Yehoyachin. And afterward, who is the "I"? In the next pasuk: "The word of God surely came to Yechezkel son of Buzi the Kohen in the land of the Kasdim." This is not Yechezkel speaking, for had he been speaking he would have said "to me," as he said earlier, "as I was among the exiles." Why then is it written "to Yechezkel son of Buzi"? Rather, as we said, this is Ruach HaKodesh speaking on his behalf, and it says: "The word of God surely came to Yechezkel son of Buzi the Kohen in the land of the Kasdim by the River Kevar, and the hand of God was upon him there."
Afterward, in pasuk 4, Yechezkel himself returns to speak on his own behalf, and Yechezkel says, "And I saw, and behold, a stormy wind coming from the north." Here he in fact continues the opening of his speech from the beginning of the chapter, pasuk 1, and pasuk 4 continues Yechezkel's words. But pesukim 2 and 3 are essentially a kind of parenthetical statement to describe and tell us who the prophet was and what his period was.
"As I was among the exiles" means outside the Land. "By the River Kevar" is the name of the place, the name of the river which was Kevar. "And I saw visions of God." Chazal say that he did not see through a clear lens, and therefore he calls it "visions of God," like a dream and not truly complete sight. All the prophets, indeed, also saw through a lens that was not clear, except for Moshe Rabbeinu, who is the only one about whom it says "and through the prophets I appear in likenesses," but with Moshe it was through a clear vision and not through riddles. Even so, among the prophets themselves there were levels. Shmuel was the head of the prophets; Yechezkel was like a villager who sees the king, whereas Yeshayahu was like a city dweller who sees the king. We will see this further on and also try to understand the meaning of these things. That is to say, we understand that there are levels within prophecies, and Yechezkel is considered of a low level among prophecies, among the lower levels of prophecies: "and I saw visions of God."
What is written, "visions of God," means great and wondrous visions. Why? Because usually, when a pasuk wishes to magnify something, it attaches to it the term for the Divine, or attaches to it a Name of God. As we say, "a city great to God." It wants to say enormous, so it says "to God." "Mountains of God" (harerei El) - again, they inserted the name of God there, and it means mighty, enormous mountains. "Cedars of God" (arzei El). "Ma'afelyah" means very intense darkness. "Shalhevetyah" means a very intense flame. Whenever they want to express something very powerful, they attach to it a Name of God, and thereby it indicates that the thing was immense.
"By the River Kevar" - what is this River Kevar? Rav Yehuda and Rav Huna. Rav Yehuda said: it is the Perat, it is Kevar. That is, it is the Euphrates River familiar to us, and it is called the River Kevar. And why then does it have two names? Perat, because it is fruitful and multiplies (parah v'ravah) - meaning its waters do not diminish but rather increase. Kevar, because its fruits are so coarse that they do not pass through a sieve (kevarah). A kevarah is a sifter. This river grew large and beautiful fruits, and these fruits, as it were, would not pass through the sieve; because of their great size and force they were substantial, and the holes of even a large sieve were such that the fruits would not pass through. Rav Huna, on the other hand, disagrees, and Rav Huna says: Perat on its own, Kevar on its own. These are two different rivers.
I checked in the encyclopedia. The researchers claim that the River Kevar was an artificial water canal, or actually a system of canals, built in Bavel in the first millennium before the Christian era, which means more than two thousand years ago, close to three thousand years ago, and it was intended to irrigate the fields as well as for transportation purposes. As is known, the ancients used canals extensively for irrigation purposes, for this was their way. The country most known as expert in this matter was Egypt. Egypt was built with canals upon canals in such a way that the Nile would rise, fill the canals, and from the canals the water would reach all the fields. So too here: the River Kevar was an artificial water canal with which they would irrigate the fields, and there were also boats sailing there, that is for transportation purposes. The route of the canal is not known with certainty today; there is a dispute among the researchers as to the route through which the canal ran. Even so, we have evidence regarding this river. The researchers found inscriptions on which is written "Naru Kabari," N A R yes, Naru Kabari, yes, which is an expression for that River Kevar which appears in our text.
"In the fourth month," describing, I was among the people of the exile by the River Kevar. Targum Yonatan details the period more, and it, I will translate it into Hebrew to avoid duplication: And it was in the thirtieth year from the time that Chilkiyahu the Kohen Gadol found the Sefer Torah in the Beit HaMikdash in the courtyard beneath the hall at midnight after the rising of the moon, in the days of Yoshiyahu son of Amon king of the tribe of the House of Yehuda, in Tammuz on the fifth of the month, the prophet said, the prophet said: I was among the sons of the exile by the river, by the River Kevar, the heavens were opened and I saw in the vision of prophecy that rested upon me a vision of the glory of the Shechinah of God.
That is to say, we are now speaking of a somewhat more defined period. This refers to thirty years after Yoshiyahu, after Chilkiyahu the Kohen Gadol found the Sefer Torah in the Beit HaMikdash. He found a Sefer Torah there. And what does "found there" mean? Not as some have thought, that the Torah was unknown to them and he found a Torah. That is utter nonsense, God forbid; about the Torah it says "it shall not be forgotten from the mouth of his descendants," it is impossible that the Torah was forgotten. Rather, Chazal say that he found the Torah open at "God will lead you and your king whom you set over yourself." And there it was open, and that was at the head of the parasha. This thing caused them dread, because a Sefer Torah, after they would read from it, a Sefer Torah of the Heichal, they would roll it back to its beginning. And here suddenly they see it rolled specifically to the place where it prophesies calamity. By the way, I told you in the past that this is very interesting, because only in the Yemenite Sifrei Torah is "God will lead you and your king" at the head of a column. In all the other sifrei it cannot be that this is at the head of a column, because at the head of a column there are always the "vavei ha'amudim," the vavs that open the columns. But the Yemenite Sifrei Torah are written according to the earlier tradition, which does not have the matter of the vavei ha'amudim, which is a later tradition, and there "God will lead you and your king whom you set over yourself" appears at the head of the column. So this thing aroused dread in them.
Following this matter, they went to the king, Yoshiyahu son of Amon. Yoshiyahu son of Amon was alarmed by this discovery, and he turned to seek out the prophet. And which prophet did he seek? He could have turned to Yirmiyahu, but he feared Yirmiyahu, because Yirmiyahu had prophecies of wrath. Therefore he said, seek out Chulda, since Chulda the prophetess was merciful, so ask her. That is, she is a woman, so perhaps she will be more compassionate and softer. This is a bit puzzling, since the prophet speaks the word of God, the prophet does not say things on his own, so what did he think? Perhaps that she would soften the message? I do not know; after all, the prophet speaks the word of God. In any case, he came to Chulda the prophetess, and Chulda the prophetess told him that the message was that indeed the Beit HaMikdash was destined to be destroyed and the king was destined to be exiled.
The Malbim follows this line, and the Malbim explains that this was, as we said just now, in the eighteenth year of Yoshiyahu king of Yehuda. The Malbim says that year was a Yovel year. So it appears in Seder Olam. That is, Yoshiyahu king of Yehuda began to reign eighteen years before the Yovel. In the eighteenth year of his reign was the Yovel. And then, in the Yovel, in the eighteenth year of his reign, the sefer was found which we just described as having been rolled to "God will lead you and your king." This made a great impression; as we said, they sent to Chulda the prophetess and she told them that the Beit HaMikdash was destined to be destroyed. In the twenty-sixth year of the Yovel, meaning twenty-six years after they found the sefer, Yehoyachin was exiled. And in the thirtieth year of the Yovel, meaning four years later than the exile of Yehoyachin, Yechezkel sees his visions of prophecy. And what is written here, "and it was in the thirtieth year," refers to thirty years from the time the sefer was revealed in the Beit HaMikdash, which was the Yovel year, which, as we said, was four years after the exile of Yehoyachin. And then Yechezkel describes to us that he was among the exiles by the River Kevar.
The meaning of this is: I was not at all prepared for prophecy. That is, in terms of place, outside the Land is not a place of prophecy. In terms of time, he says, after all it is a time of exile. A time of exile is not a time of Divine revelation. And only the heavens opened by themselves, without any preparation on my part, and then "I saw visions of God." The heavens opened, as it were, there was here an arousal from Above without preparation of an arousal from below.
"On the fifth of the month, that was the fifth year of the exile of King Yoyachin." "Yoyachin" is written in our text, and the Radak already says that Yoyachin is the same as Yehoyachin, Yonadav Yehonadav, Yonatan Yehonatan, and so it is in all these places. We can see many times that a name appears with a vav and sometimes without a vav, like Uriah Uriyahu, Yeshaya Yeshayahu, and so on in this manner. Likewise sometimes it appears with a heh and sometimes without a heh. The Radak elsewhere says that the variations in names that we see are because those same people were called by those names. That is, sometimes they would call him Yoyachin, sometimes they would call him Yehoyachin. Just as some call him Yaakov, some call him Yankele, some call him Yankev, and all sorts of other names, and it is all the same person. So too you can see in the prophets that many times a certain person is mentioned under several names, and it is actually the same person who had several names.
"The word of God surely came to Yechezkel son of Buzi the Kohen in the land of the Kasdim by the River Kevar, and the hand of God was upon him there." "The word of God surely came (hayo haya)" - Chazal say it means it had already been. What does this mean? Since the Shechinah does not rest upon a prophet outside the Land, the matter is puzzling: how does Yechezkel, who is in the land of the Kasdim, receive prophecy there from God? There are several explanations for this. One explanation says that it had already been: "the word of God surely came." The word of God had already come earlier, and consequently there is no impediment for a prophet who already began to prophesy to continue his prophecies even outside the Land. But a prophet who never prophesied and would begin to prophesy outside the Land, there is no such thing. Regarding this it was said that the Shechinah does not rest upon a prophet outside the Land; this refers to the beginning of his prophecy. But if he already began to prophesy here in the Land, then by the force of inertia he does continue to prophesy even outside the Land.
Rashi brings that we learned in a Baraita in the Mechilta: "Son of man, stand upon your feet" was the beginning of the sefer. That is, Yechezkel chapter 2 is really where the beginning of the sefer starts, chapter 2. Except that there is no chronological order in the Torah. Some say no, the beginning of the sefer is from chapter 17, "Son of man, pose a riddle." There are several opinions on this.
"The hand of God was upon me." What is "the hand of God"? Every expression of "hand" stated in this sefer, and in every expression of prophecy, is only an expression of overpowering force, that prophecy overpowers a person against his will, like a person acting madly. We have spoken more than once that prophecy is a vision of something immensely powerful that dominates the body, and it is somewhat like, if you will, if someone once saw a person receive an electric shock, the body jolts, the body jolts. That is to say, it is a mighty, powerful force acting from outside upon the person's body. And therefore suddenly the person's faculties are disrupted; he may lie on the ground with limbs sprawled out, he reaches a state in which his clothes are heavy upon him, as is written concerning Shaul. And therefore more than once we see that the prophet was called "the madman, the man of the spirit." "The madman" means a person who, at the time of receiving prophecy, appeared as a madman. And therefore he received this title. Prophecy, then, is the overpowering and force of a supernal power that rests upon the prophet. And therefore it comes under the category of "the hand of God." Most prophecies were in a dream. "In a dream I will speak with him." Most prophecies were by way of a dream, and then it is much simpler to receive prophecy since the powers of the body are dimmed. When a person is awake, we just saw what prophecy does: it in effect creates a shutdown of them. Somewhat like a person who has an epileptic seizure, the falling sickness, he lies on the ground devoid of strength - only, God forbid, that his orifices do not open, for then he could not receive prophecy. But in any case he loses his strength. And in sleep, from the outset, the powers of the body are dimmed and weak, and then this is the more accepted way of receiving prophecy, as I wrote about this in Mishnat HaChalomot.
The Radak adds another point: even when a prophet already has prophecy outside the Land, God speaks with them only in a pure place, over water. As is written, "by the River Kevar." Or as is written in Daniel, "and I was upon the Ulai," and I was beside the river. We see that even when God reveals Himself to them outside the Land, it is a revelation that is beside a source of purity, a source of water. Rabbi Elazar bar Tzadok brings an additional support, for it says, "Arise, go out to the valley." This teaches that a valley is fit. That is, not within the city, not in a place of idols, but either by the river or in a valley, for the valley means a distant field, and there was the vision of the dry bones. Know that the Shechinah is not revealed outside the Land. From where do you see this? "And Yonah arose to flee to Tarshish from before God." What, did he think one could flee from before God? No, rather he thought, I will flee to a place where prophecy will not rest upon me. And why? Because he boarded a ship on which there were idol worshippers. As we explained at length in Sefer Yonah, whoever wants can listen to the disc on Yonah, there we explain what his plan actually was and how in the end his plan was thwarted.
The Malbim explains that here this prophecy served to comfort the exiles. Here it speaks of a time after a period of exile, the fifth year of the exile of King Yoyachin. This is a situation in which people went from complete sovereignty of ours in Eretz Yisrael to a situation in which we are exiles, swept away and rejected, and this was difficult for them. Therefore the Holy One, Blessed be He, sent a prophecy here to encourage the exiled nation, so that they would know that God is with them, "and even this too, when they are in the land of their enemies, I did not despise them nor abhor them to destroy them, to break My covenant with them, for I am Hashem their God." So too here He shows us that He wished to tell them: the Shechinah is with you even when you are in the land of your enemies. And the speech was in the land of the Kasdim by the River Kevar, as we saw that there are opinions whether this is the Euphrates River; some say it was not the Euphrates River, as we already mentioned earlier.
Pasuk 4: "And I saw, and behold, a stormy wind coming from the north, a great cloud and a flashing fire with a brightness around it, and from its midst like the appearance of the chashmal from the midst of the fire." I will say at the outset: we are about to study Maaseh Merkava. And Maaseh Merkava is among the deep, inner matters that speak of the secrets of Creation. We will not study it according to the secret teachings, even though many of the commentators discuss it also in Kabbalah. We will study it with the explanation of the Malbim. The Malbim's explanation brings the matters closer to the understanding and comprehension of clods of matter like us, and we will study the matters and focus on the Malbim as is our way, for truly here one could expand greatly and see many topics, most of which would surely be lofty and exalted beyond our understanding. We are speaking here of visions of God, we are speaking here of the supernal chariot, so in practice we will try to stay close to the Malbim's explanation, and through this we will have at least one line of interpretation in explaining the matters here.
"And I saw, and behold, a stormy wind coming from the north." Rashi says: a stormy wind coming from the north, the chariot of the Throne of the Glory of the Shechinah, as we will see further on. And this chariot came in fury to destroy Yisrael. The Malbim too will follow this line, as we will see further on. And therefore it appears as a stormy wind and a cloud. A stormy wind is something that does not bring good with it. "Coming from the north" - what is "from the north"? Returning from the land of the Kasdim. The land of the Kasdim is in the north. It is written, "from the north the evil shall break forth." And why did it go there? In order to conquer, to conquer the entire world under Nevuchadnetzar. So that the Babylonians would not say, "You handed over Your children into the hand of a lowly nation." That is, the Kasdim were a lowly nation. It is written, "this people did not exist," as Yeshayahu says in chapter 23. He does not mean only the Pelishtim. "This people did not exist" - he speaks of the Kasdim. There was no such nation. So if so, they handed us over into the hand of a nation that does not even have what is called a name, it is not a nation at all. And since this was so, God's holy spirit went, as it were, there, went to conquer the entire world under the hand of Nevuchadnetzar; Nevuchadnetzar consequently became the lord of the world, and then we were handed over into the hand of an important king and we were not handed over into the hand of a lowly nation.
"And behold, a stormy wind coming from the north, a great cloud and a flashing fire with a brightness around it." A brightness around the cloud from the outside, which comes to hint, says Rashi, that they are destined to be redeemed from there. And there was like the appearance of the chashmal. What is chashmal? Rashi says: an angel by that name. Know that today, the researcher who went and named electricity by the name "chashmal" did so in complete contradiction to the will of the Sages of Yisrael. Because this expression chashmal is a holy expression, as we will soon see. And therefore you will see in the sefarim, in the Responsa literature, in the halachic works, that they do not use the word chashmal but rather use the word "elektri" or "elektrik." That is, this is the foreign term for the word chashmal, since the word chashmal has a holy and pure origin as we will soon explain, and it is impossible to take such a great, holy, and pure expression and use it to express something physical. And this is the foolish way of the fathers of Zionism and the revivers of the Hebrew language; they took a sports center and called it a Heichal (temple). We had a Heichal in Yerushalayim, it was a place in the Beit HaMikdash, there was the Azarah, there was the Heichal. Today they have a Heichal HaMishpat (Palace of Justice), yes, the courthouse, they have a Heichal HaMishpat. Heichal HaTarbut (Culture Palace), Heichal HaSport (Sports Palace), Heichal Nokia, and more, and they built halls, they built themselves all sorts of "heichalot." They took an expression that is a holy expression which conveys elevation and holiness, and they took it and made it physical and secularized it and desecrated it. So the same thing here with the expression chashmal. What is the expression chashmal? Chashmal, Chazal say, is the name of an angel. And it was something like the hue of this angel that he saw from within the fire. And this is what he says, "like the appearance of the chashmal." That is, he was familiar with how the angel called chashmal appears, and it was like that angel that I saw there within the fire.
Chazal say, there was an incident with a certain child, so Rashi brings, who was expounding on Maaseh Merkava and understood the matter of chashmal. This means he understood those spiritual attainments that Yechezkel attained. And a fire came out of the chashmal and consumed him. A fire came out of that angel, out of that supernal spiritual force, and consumed him. So first of all we see the significance of speaking about lofty matters when it says, as a rule: one who understands does not speak, one who knows does not speak, and one who speaks does not know. So we see that there was a problem there that the one who spoke also knew, and following this matter we see that he was severely harmed. Therefore all our attainments and all the matters we will see here further on are only external attainments to bring the matters closer to comprehension.
Chazal expound in an additional exposition: what is chashmal? That it is a compound word. What is chashmal? Rav Yehuda said: living creatures of fire that speak (chayot esh memallelot). Chashmal is like an acronym, a combination of three words. The chet is chayot (living creatures), the shin is esh (fire), and the mal is memalla (speaks). That is, speaking living creatures of fire, this is called chashmal. In a Baraita it was taught: at times silent and at times speaking. At the time when God, the speech comes forth from His mouth, then they are silent (chashot), they are silent. At the time when the speech does not come forth from the mouth of the Holy One, Blessed be He, they are speaking, meaning praising and lauding God. The chashmal, according to this expression, comes out to be from the expression of silence. Chet shin means to be silent (l'hachshot). As is written there, "I have long been silent (hecheshiti)." It means, be silent. So "to be silent" comes out, then, that in this word two things are included. One, from the expression "to be silent," and two, from the expression of speech, to speak. How do you explain the contradiction? At times silent, at times speaking. When God speaks, all are silent. Then they are silent, being silent. When God is silent, they speak the praise of their Master, they speak and utter the praise of God. Rashi brings a further explanation, that it is possible that chashmal is the name of the appearance. It is written, "like the appearance of the chashmal." Something like the appearance of fire; so there is the appearance of chashmal. Yes, like the appearance of chashmal, an appearance of fire enclosing it round about, like the appearance of radiance like the appearance of the chashmal.
The Metzudat David explains that the matter of being silent, meaning falling silent, is in the sense that one cannot describe the Holy One, Blessed be He, with any comparison. And therefore one must be silent: "To whom will you liken Me that I should be equal?" The meaning of this is that when you speak of God, you have no beginning of comprehension at all, because you are speaking of a dimension that is completely unfamiliar to you. All the dimensions familiar to you are physical dimensions. And you want to speak of the Holy One, Blessed be He - you are in fact speaking of something spiritual that is entirely beyond comprehension. And since this is so, in these matters it is preferable to be silent. So when speaking of the glory of God, one must be silent and refrain from articulation and speech, for He cannot be described by any comparison.
The Malbim explains, and as I said we will proceed according to the Malbim's explanation. And the Malbim's explanation is deep, so I ask you simply to maintain concentration and not disconnect, because afterward it will be difficult for us to understand. And before I begin with the Malbim's explanation, one must know that the worlds are divided into four. This is well known to all, it is ABiYA. When counting them from top to bottom, it is Atzilut, Beriah, Yetzira, Asiya. Atzilut is, as it were, His place, and it is a place that is emanated and exalted beyond our comprehension, beyond our grasp, "no evil dwells with You," it is a very high place. Afterward the world beneath it is the World of Beriah. The World of Beriah is also called the World of the Throne. As it were, there is the Throne of His Glory. And again, understand that all this consists of abstract concepts, not to picture a throne with a backrest and so on, no, not in these senses. They speak of the World of the Throne, they speak of a spiritual concept called the World of the Throne. Only, since, as I said, we are physical people, one must present it to us in parable. But do not be confused and think that this is truly so. We are speaking here of a parable. So beneath it is the World of Beriah, which is the World of the Throne. Beneath it is found the World of Yetzira. The World of Yetzira is the world of the angels. And we will soon see exactly where the location of the prophecy was, what exactly he attained. And beneath it, beneath the world of the angels, which is the seraphim, chayot, ofanei hakodesh, and so on, beneath it is found the world of the spheres, which is called the World of Asiya. Note that even when speaking of the World of Asiya, they speak of the spiritual World of Asiya. For only at its lowest point, and from it, unfolds the physical World of Asiya, which is our world, which is also called the World of Asiya. But when we spoke of four worlds, we speak of four spiritual worlds. Only that from the lowest point of the spiritual World of Asiya unfolds and descends the physical World of Asiya.
The Malbim says, then, that we already knew from the secret of the holy ones that the chariot that Yechezkel saw was in the World of Yetzira, which is the world of the angels. And if we counted from top to bottom, it is the third world. If we count from the bottom, it is the second world: Asiya, above it Yetzira. That is to say, you already understand that this is not a matter of a lofty reality but rather a lower reality. And this vision is lower than the vision of the chariot in which Yeshayahu saw. For Yeshayahu saw in the World of the Throne. The World of the Throne, we said, is the World of Beriah, which from below is the third world, from above is the second world. It is one world below Atzilut. So the vision that Yeshayahu saw, that he saw God sitting on a high and exalted throne with His train filling the Heichal, is a vision in which he too saw visions of God, but note, there he sees Him at a level one below Atzilut. Yechezkel, however, already sees at two levels below Atzilut. He saw in - Yeshayahu saw in Beriah, whereas Yechezkel sees in a lower world, in Yetzira, one world that is only a single level above Asiya.
When Yeshayahu sees the King, note, Yeshayahu was in Eretz Yisrael. He in fact saw the reality when Yisrael was still on its land. And the One who led us was the Holy One, Blessed be He, Himself. "A land upon which the eyes of Hashem your God are, from the beginning of the year to the end of the year." "God establishes His throne in the heavens, and His kingdom rules over all." And therefore he sees Him in the World of the Throne. He sees Him in the World of Beriah, in the high world as we explained. There Yeshayahu sees Him sitting on a high and exalted throne, which is the guidance of the system from Him without intermediaries, without auxiliary forces. It is from God. And there he sees seraphim standing above Him. The seraphim stand in the height of the world, in the World of the Throne, which is above the world of the chayot that Yechezkel saw. Like a king who sits in his house and the ministers of the kingdom stand before him. All this, as we said, is in the World of Beriah; there Yeshayahu sees. In contrast, Yechezkel sees the reality of God when he is in exile, he is outside the Land. So the Holy One, Blessed be He, does not lead in a wondrous way, in a miraculous way, but rather leads according to the orders of nature, according to the system, what is called the systems of the heavens, the stars, which are also called the ofanim. They are the movers of the system which are called the ofanim, and the ofanim, note, are already the World of Asiya. So he sees the reality as it is revealed to him in the World of Yetzira, which influences downward to the World of Asiya.
The Malbim continues and says: the world of the chayot, meaning the World of Yetzira, which is the world of the angels, is a world intermediate between the World of the Throne, which is Beriah, which is above it, and the world of the ofanim, which is the World of Asiya, which is found below it. The world of the spheres, it is called "spheres" also on account of the spheres that are in nature, yes, after all all the systems of the heavens and all the stars and everything are characterized by spheres, since it is a rotating system. They receive their power, power and abundance, from the Throne, from Beriah, and with this power He moves the ofanim below. It comes out, then, that the World of Beriah is the upper world, between them the intermediate is Yetzira, the lowest is Asiya. Yetzira, by the power of Beriah which is above it, leads Asiya which is beneath it. Like a medium, an intermediate. This world is intermediate, the World of Yetzira is intermediate between the World of the Throne and the lower world, the World of Asiya, to lead by means of the ofanim. And therefore he describes to us now that the attainment that he attained was in the World of Yetzira, he attained it in the chayot. As we will soon see the descriptions of the chayot. After this he will describe to us how this power passes from the World of Yetzira, as we said, to the World of Asiya, to the world of the ofanim that are beneath them, and how it receives strength and might from the Throne, which is the world found above Yetzira, from Beriah, from which it receives power, strength, and might and channels this, the World of Yetzira channels this downward to the World of Asiya.
The Malbim says: the Sefer HaKuzari, as we already learned in the fifth essay, there the Chaver explains to the king of the Kuzars that the prophets attain God in changing forms attributed to the action that He performs at that time. That is, according to the action that God performs at that time, so He is revealed to the prophets. For example it is written that at the sea they saw Him as a mighty warrior. And at Har Sinai like an elder sitting in a yeshiva, since then He teaches them Torah. And so on in this manner. That is to say, the revelation of prophecy is according to the message contained in the prophecy. And it gives an example there: at the time when He removes kings and establishes kings, meaning He removes kings and enthrones kings, see there Daniel, in Daniel chapter 7, "until thrones were cast down and the Ancient of Days sat." The thrones were cast down and the Ancient of Days, that is the Holy One, Blessed be He, sat upon His throne. Meaning He removed kings and set other kings in their place. So he sees Him upon a throne. By the way, we spoke more than once that "Atik Yomin" (Ancient of Days) is indeed a Kabbalistic term, but in its plain sense that "Atik Yomin" as mentioned there in Daniel, the meaning is not old, as they say today, or that He is very ancient, but rather "Atik Yomin" means removed (ne'etak) from the framework of days. We live under the framework of time. But in contrast the Holy One, Blessed be He, is above time. And therefore He is called Atik Yomin. Atik Yomin is not old but rather removed from the framework of days. The framework of days does not apply to Him, for He is, as we explained, above time.