In chapter 43 of Isaiah, G-d speaks of His people: "All that is called by My name, for My glory I created him, I formed him, and I also made him." Three verbs, bara, yatzar, asah, where one would have been enough. Massekhet Atzilut sees in it the source of the four worlds: the verse "teaches that the Holy One, blessed be He, created four worlds, corresponding to His blessed Name, which has four letters." The first, Atzilut, is the place where "His Name and His glory" are, the two words that open the verse. Then come "I created him," the world of Beriah; "I formed him," the world of Yetzirah; "and I also made him," the world of Assiyah.
Cordovero, in the Pardes Rimonim, relies on the same verse to establish the order of the last three worlds, from the most subtle to the thickest: creating, then forming, then making. And he reads its opening precisely: "called by My name," but not My name itself.
The four worlds correspond to the four letters of the Name. Etz Chaim gives the correspondence: the yod in Atzilut, for "You made them all with wisdom"; the first heh in Beriah, for "the Mother nests in the Throne"; the vav in Yetzirah, for "six Sefirot nest in Yetzirah"; the final heh in Assiyah, for "Malkhut nests in the ofan." Gate 3 adds that Adam Kadmon is the tip of the yod, above the four letters.
The same verse speaks of the soul. The Tikkunei Zohar read it this way: "I created him, this is the holy soul, which is the world of thought; I formed him, this is the speaking spirit; I made him, this is the nefesh, where action is, which dwells in the two hundred forty-eight commandments." Neshamah, ruach, nefesh: three levels of the soul beneath the three verbs.
Etz Chaim completes the ladder: "Atzilut is Abba, and it is the chayah; Beriah is Ima, and it is the neshamah; Yetzirah is Zeir Anpin, and it is the ruach; Assiyah is the Nukva, and it is the nefesh." Above, the tip of the yod is the yechidah, which Chaim Vital describes as a tiny spark of divinity clothed in a very fine soul, intermediate between the Creator and the creature. Cordovero, for his part, attaches neshamah, ruach and nefesh to the Sefirot Binah, Tiferet and Malkhut. Keep the conclusion these texts share: the worlds above and the levels of your soul have the same structure, and the four-letter Name runs through them all.
