Ima, "mother," is the partzuf of Binah, the first heh of the Name. Shaar HaKlalim plays on the letter mem: when Binah is united with Abba, she is like a closed mem, which receives all the lights and holds them; when she bends over her children to give to them, she becomes an open mem. And the text adds: when she is above with Abba, she is called female, the one who receives; but when she broods over her children and gives to them, she is called male, like the one who gives.
The Ari describes the birth of Zeir Anpin and the Nukva as a motherhood. First comes conception, ibbur: the Sefirot of Zeir Anpin, "three contained within three," stay nine months in the womb of Ima. Then nursing, yenikah, which lasts twenty-four months: as in the nurse blood turns into milk, the judgments remaining in Zeir Anpin are sweetened. Finally the mochin, the "brains," when Ima brings the powers of the intellect into her son. For this, says Shaar HaKlalim, she "bends and lowers herself" and enters him with these brains, for he could not receive them, so great is their light, unless they were first clothed in her own limbs.
Ima also protects. Etz Chaim applies to her the verse of the Torah: "As an eagle stirs up its nest, hovers over its young, spreads its wings." Fearing that the outside forces might attach themselves to her children, Zeir Anpin and the Nukva, she covers them on every side, even beneath their feet, as the clouds of glory covered Israel in the desert. This is also, says the Ari, the meaning of the formula "the Mother nests in the Throne": her light descends into Beriah.
Ima is all mercy. Etz Chaim specifies that if it is said of Binah that "judgments are aroused from her," this is only after Zeir Anpin and the Nukva have come forth from her; as long as she is above, everything in her is mercy. She divides into two partzufim, Binah and Tevunah.
Cordovero knows Binah as the source from which the neshamah comes, and he too quotes the formula "Binah nests in the Throne"; but the account of conception, nursing and brains belongs to Etz Chaim. Keep the image the Ari chose: the wisdom that comes down to us does not fall from above; it is carried, nourished and brought to our measure, as a mother does for her child.
