Yesod, foundation, is the ninth Sefirah, on the central column, just above Malkhut. Elijah calls it "the completion of the body, sign of the holy covenant." It is the channel: everything the upper Sefirot have prepared passes through Yesod to reach Malkhut and, through her, the world. Proverbs says: "the righteous one is the foundation of the world," vetzaddik yesod olam; Yesod is called Tzaddik, the Righteous One, and it is also called "All," kol, because it receives from Binah the fifty gates, and kol equals fifty.
This is how the Zohar reads the verse of Chronicles: after the five names, David says "for all that is in heaven and on earth." The Pardes reports: "Ki khol: Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai explained it as Yesod"; the Targum translates "which holds to heaven and to earth," "and the meaning is that it unites Tiferet and Malkhut." Yesod is the link between Heaven and earth, between the Bridegroom and the Bride.
Its figure is Joseph. The Pardes says it: "Joseph is Yesod, and he is called by this name because he is a chariot for it"; and it gives the reasons: Joseph fed his father's whole house, "for this measure nourishes the world"; and he circumcised the Egyptians. Above all, Joseph is the one who kept the covenant by resisting Potiphar's wife; that is why he is called Yosef HaTzaddik, Joseph the Righteous. The Ohr Ne'erav sums it up in two words: "Joseph: Yesod."
The Tomer Devorah approaches Yesod through the guarding of the covenant, and first through speech. "A person must guard himself greatly from speech that leads to thought," so as not to come to impurity; it is not only a matter of obscene words, "but even of pure speech that leads to thought." He rests on the verse of Ecclesiastes: "do not let your mouth cause your flesh to sin." The Tikkunei Zohar calls Malkhut "the mouth"; Cordovero, for his part, reads "your flesh" as the sign of the covenant. Then comes the image of the bow: "Yesod is the sign of the covenant of the bow, and the bow is drawn above only to send its arrows toward Malkhut, which is the target." Likewise a man "shall not draw the bow" anywhere but toward the target that is right for him, "his wife in her purity." Guarding the covenant, in thought and in intimacy, is here a repair above: to guard the foundation is to guard the channel through which the world receives.
Keep Joseph's measure: the foundation is guarded in secret. No one sees a foundation, and everything rests on it. The purity of your words and of your intimate life is not a private matter; it is the channel of blessing for those who depend on you.
