The following is a translation (with some commentary added) by my friend Allen Hansen. The reference is:
R. Moshe Cordovero (1522-1570), "Enquiries Concerning Angels" 88-89 in Reuven Margolies, "Malachei Elyon,"Mossad HaRav Kook, Jerusalem 1945 (2022 printing).
Enquiries Concerning Angels
The Tikkunim[1]
interprets Michael as the prince[2]
of water, meaning the waters of Ḥesed, guiding the attribute of Ḥesed[3]
in the world of Yetzirah[4].
They also associate him with the High Priest because priesthood is through Ḥesed,
and he also offers up as sacrifice the souls of Israel, more on which later. It
says in the Tikkunim that Michael is EIK (Ein-Ketz, the sephirotic
configuration of Keter, Ḥochmah, Binah)[5],
and he is the perfect ruler, and for this reason Moses passed Israel through
the sea, where they praised God (Exodus 15:11). “Who is like unto thee, O LORD,
among the gods? (Mi Kamocha ba-Elim YHWH)” He is head of the letters in
the matter of EIK, head of single [letters] and dozens and hundreds.[6]
He is head to the guidance of single [letters], tens, hundreds, thousands, that
is the mystery of EIK. Indeed, its name comes up [through gematria] as AK (Adam Kadmon, the supernal or
primordial Adam)[7],
and in the small numbers [method] as EI (El YHWH, the LORD God), but are
combined to form EIK, as alluded to in the verse “Who is like unto thee, O
LORD, among the gods?” MI (Bina) the God of gods[8]
wanted this, because they had a miracle performed by the power of the name of
seventy-two letters[9]
from the side of Ḥesed. It is a name in Ḥesed which is why it was
done over water, to praise God in the prince of water. As the Tikkkunim further
expounds, he also receives the Shaḥarit prayers on weekdays[10]
because the prayer of the weekdays, its unification is in Metatron[11]
as explained by the mystery of his part in the prayer of Moses[12]
and the Shaḥarit prayer in Ḥesed. The prince of Ḥesed in
the creation of the world was Metatron Michael.[13]
If so, it is proper that they receive the prayers, to ascend through him.[14]
It is true that all the sephirot participate in unity,[15]
however, Michael is the standard-bearer[16],
in accordance with what we say about the sephirot and their guidance.
Another interpretation is that he is one of the four beasts which are (Ezekiel
1:10) the face of the lion on the right.[17]
Another explanation in the Halls of Pekudei, ”To the south is one
supernal light, the right hand of the whole world, from which Israel began to
embrace the mystery of faith – Michael, head of the legion of the supernal
light, cascading from the south, where light abides in its potency. Michael,
the right light, is Israel’s grand guardian. For when the Other Side[18]
rises to accuse Israel, Michael rises to argue with him, acting as advocate on
Israel’s behalf, and they are saved from that accuser, archenemy of Israel.
Notwithstanding the time when Jerusalem was destroyed, for then sins
prevailed, and Michael was unable to contend with the Other Side, Michael’s
claims on Israel’s behalf torn to shreds; and then applied the verse (Lament.
2:3) He has withdrawn his right hand...”[19]
Another interpretation. It says in several places that he is priest to the Most
High (El Elyon).[20]
Indeed he is a priest in that he dons priestly garments in order to officiate,
which means that both his officiating and his garments are contained in the
mystery of the golden garments[21]
which is the essence of the light of Binah in the fifty gates of Binah.[22]
Flashing through the fifty gates of Malkhut[23],
mingling below and flashing in the mystery of Argaman,[24]
which includes the fulness of the sephirot of the four beasts: Uriel,
Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, Nuriel. When the priest dresses in the mystery of
these garments, he takes the ascending righteous soul and offers it up, a burnt
offering, a pleasing fragrance to God in the mystery established above.[25]
The mystery of this unification is the hilula held for the righteous
[man Rabbi Shimeon bar Yoḥai] at his passing.[26]
As the Zohar expounds in several places, the mystery of this sacrifice
upon the altar is that when Michael, the high priest, is established in his
garments, the priesthood robes, to officiate upon the altar[27]
so that it will include the hall of love, Michael will enter through the
mystery of the unification of ”Blessed be the Name of the Kingdom of His Glory
forever and ever”[28]
into the chamber[29]
of the Holy of Holies and will bring the soul into it where it will be a
pleasant fragrance in Atzilut,[30]
where it will stand before the Ancient of Days[31]
forever and ever.
[1]
Tikkunei Zohar, a work written after the main body of the Zohar.
[2]
Angel.
[3]Ḥesed
is mercy. In the Kabbalah, the sephirot are the emanations of the
Godhead, the means by which Ein-Sof (Infinite), the perfect,
unobtainable, undifferentiated God of whom it is impossible to say anything
except by negation (you cannot say what He is, only what he isn’t)
interacts with the world. While each sephirah expresses a different aspect of
divine attributes, they all share in the same ontic status. See Scholem, “Kabbalah,”
88-116, and “On the Mystical Shape of the Godhead,” 15-56.
[4]
The world of creation, or formation, one of four realms of emanation. Yetzirah
is the realm of the angels, the realm above our own.
[5]
Ein-Ketz is similar to the revealed aspect of Ein-Sof. Keter is crown, Ḥochmah
is wisdom, and Binah, understanding.
[6]
Letters are the vessels of the divine light by which every was created. Their
combinations and permutations create the names of God.
[7]
See note 30.
[8]
Mi is read as mey, or water of (left indeterminate), which
represents Binah. The letter beith in Ba-Elim is read
numerically as the number two and the plurality of Gods is understood as
referring to another divine title.
[9]
A form of the Ineffable Name.
[10]
The morning prayers on any day that is neither the Sabbath nor a holy day.
[11]
Worth noting that Enoch/Metatron was considered a reincarnation of both Adams.
See Jonatan M. Benarroch, “The Mystery of (re)Incarnation and the Fallen
Angels”: The Reincarnations of Adam, Enoch, Metatron, (Jesus), and Joseph—an
Anti-Christian Polemic in the Zohar” journal of medieval religious
cultures, Vol. 44, No. 2, 2018.
[12]
Deuteronomy 3:23-28, where Moses pleads with God to let him into the promised
land. There are early midrashic sources having Metatron teaching Moses the
secrets of the Torah, as well as ones where he pleads with God not to let Moses
die. However, Cordovero has later Kabbalistic traditions in mind, which reach
the peak of their development in Nathan Neta Shapiro‘s Megalleh Amuqot.
For an extended discussion of Shapira’s treatment of Enoch and Moses, see also
Agata Paluch’s 2013 PhD thesis, ”The Enoch-Metatron Tradition in the
Kabbalah of Nathan Neta Shapira of Kraków (1585-1633),” 185-224.
[13]
A hypostasis of both.
[14]
Cordovero switches back and forth between the singular and the plural.
[15]
IE, they share the same ontic status, as noted above, although they have
differing roles and emphasis.
[16]
He is preeminent among them in the role of Ḥesed.
[17]
The right side is the side of Ḥesed.
[18]
The Sitra Aḥra, the demonic powers of evil and chaos.
[19]
Cordovero truncates the verse there. The south in Hebrew is the right side, and
thus the realm of Ḥesed. I have employed Wolski and Hecker‘s translation from volume 12 of the Pritzker Zohar.
In their introduction, they describe the Halls section as ”[A] mystical
praxis of worship. In this praxis, the prayer of an adept will pass through and
unify a series of celestial halls. The halls’ unification will then pave a way
for the union of Divinity’s male and female aspects, culminating in a
reinvigorating flow of divine being from within Divinity’s deepest recess and
out to the created world.”
[20]
This would link Michael to Melchizedek. See Genesis 14:18. Melchizedek
represents the Shekhinah in its function of priest, and El Elyon
is Binah. The priest draws down Ḥesed from Binah into the
world. See the Pritzker Zohar, volume 2, 187a-b.
[21]
The four garments of the high priest which incorporate gold: the ephod, the
breastplate, the robe, and the headplate.
[22]
In the Babylonian Talmud, t. Rosh Hashanna 21b, God created fifty gates of
understanding but only gave Moses forty-nine of them. In the Kabbalah this
means fifty ways that Binah draws down its influence into the other sephirot
and acts in the world. The 17th century follower of Cordovero,
Shabtai Sheftel Horowitz, explains in his Shefa Tal that the Fiftieth
gate is the mystery of how Keter, Ḥochmah, Binah unite in
each other. In other words, a mystery of the godhead.
[23]
Malkhut, kingship, is the lowest sephirah. These aren’t separate
gates, but, rather, how Binah’s light is drawn down to Malkhut.
This was associated with Shavuoth, the feast of the Pentecost, and the
cleansing of the children of Israel from forty-nine gates of impurity. See
Andrea Gondos, ”Kabbalah in Print: The Study and Popularization of Jewish
Mysticism in Early Modernity,“ SUNY
Press (2020), 122-125, for a lengthy explication.
[24]
The colour crimson, which functions as an acronym for the angels
Uriel/Urpaniel, Raphael, Gabriel, Michael, Nuriel. Sometimes only the later
four are mentioned, and they function as the beast of the Merkabah. See Tikkunim
127b.
[25]
’Established’ might be in reference to Yesod, a sephirah sharing the
same word, but it seems doubtful in context.
[26]Hilula
is Aramaic for party or celebration. From the root for praising or glorifying.
In the Idra Zuta portion of the Zohar (196b), when R. Shimeon bar Yoḥai - traditional author of the Zohar -
dies for revealing divine mysteries and his body goes up in flames, a heavenly
oracle invites his disciples to his hilula., implying their impending
deaths. See Pinchas Giller, “Reading the Zohar: The Sacred Text of the
Kabbalah,“ 95. This passage developed into a celebration at his tomb on the
holiday of Lag Ba’Omer every year. Such a mystical death was considered
something by kabbalists something to long for.
[27]
The rites of the earthly temple mirror the rites of the heavenly temple.
[28]
In the Mishnah Yoma 3:8 this is the blessing recited after the High Priest
pronounces the Ineffable Name on the Day of Atonement. It entered the midrash
as the words of Joseph blessing his sons on his deathbed, and into later Jewish
liturgy, including the prayers on the Day of Atonement.
[29]
The word used is hall.
[30]
Atzilut is the world of emanation, and its configuration of the sephirot
is mirrored in the configuration of the soul.
[31]Attik
Yomin. This is the Ancient of Days in Daniel 7, and a different sephirotic
hypostasis or configuration than Michael as Ein-Ketz, though for
Cordovero all of these share in the same ontic unity. ”The descriptions of the parzufim,
or divine countenances, have the literary center of the Idrot and their
main contribution to kabbalistic doctrine. These parzufim make up the
form of a great "primordial man," Adam Kadmon, an anthropos
that envelops all of creation and forms the structure of the universe. The
countenances are a series of anthropomorphic structures that sit uneasily on
the surface of Adam Kadmon. They overlap and interlock, forming a
hierarchy that runs from the apex of the Godhead down into present reality. The
first of these countenances is Arikh Anpin, which the Idra Rabbah
describes as an amalgam of the sefirot Hokhmah, Binah, and Da'at.
Arikh Anpin is the abstract Godhead, which, in philosophical terms, lies
above those divine emanations that can be signified or symbolized. Arikh
Anpin is also variously called Attika Kadisha and Attik Yomin.
In the Idra Zuta, the parzufim that correspond to the sefirot Hokhmah
and Binah are called Abba and Imma, literally
"father and mother." These two countenances provide a nurturing
energy that extends up and down the entire structure of the parzufim.”
Pinchas Giller, ”Reading the Zohar,” 105-106.
Here are the pages from the text Allen provided for those who would like to see the original language text:
Here is also the frontispiece of the work:
