Komentaryong Sumisipi para sa Mga Awit 46:5

The Lord is the builder of Jerusalem – This song and the praises which it speaks are over the fact that the Lord Himself builds Jerusalem. That with His particular providence He is occupied with its building, that it should be “…the city of God, the holy place of the dwellings of the Most High…” (Psalms 46:5) And that He Himself will bring the scattered of Israel back into it, those driven to the four corners of the earth. (Or it is speaking about the ingathering of the tribes and their joining to one another in it, as it is written “The built-up Jerusalem is like a city that was joined together within itself,” (Psalms 122:3) as I explained there):

AND THEY SHALL MAKE AN ARK. The plural [and ‘they’ shall make] refers back to the children of Israel mentioned above.⁹⁶Above, Verse 2. But afterwards Scripture states: And thou shalt overlay it,⁹⁷Verse 11. And thou shalt cast for it⁹⁸Verse 12. — all in the singular, as Moses is the leader of all Israel. It is possible that [in using the plural — and they shall make] He is indicating His wish that all Israel should share in the making of the ark because it is the holiest dwelling-place of the Most High,⁹⁹Psalms 46:5. and that they should all merit thereby [a knowledge of] the Torah. Thus the Rabbis have said in Midrash Rabbah:¹⁰⁰Shemoth Rabbah 33:3. “Why is it that with reference to all the vessels it says, and thou shalt make, and in the case of the ark it says, and they shall make? Said Rabbi Yehudah the son of Rabbi Shalom: The Holy One, blessed be He, said, Let all the people come and engage themselves in the making of the ark, so that they should all merit [a knowledge of] the Torah.” The “engaging themselves” of which the Rabbi speaks means that they should each offer one golden vessel [for the making of the ark, in addition to their general offering for the building of the Tabernacle], or that they should help Bezalel in some small way, or that they should have intent [of heart in the making thereof].¹⁰¹Thus even the desire to help Bezalel in the making of the ark was already accounted as an act of helping in the making thereof (Kli Chemdah). It may also hint that a mere genuine craving for Torah is praiseworthy before the Creator.

A garden locked is my own, my bride: The shekhinah is compared to a garden, since a person plants and fences it, bringing in water to irrigate it and producing all manner of lovely herbiage and plants. The shekhinah’s fence is the cherubim, the plants are the seventy nations, the trees are the angels. All these are supplied by that spring which proceeds from Wisdom’s paradise, within which souls flower in joy. It flows forth without ceasing either day or night; on its account the world is sustained. As our sages said in tractate Yoma:¹²¹b. Yoma 38b. “On account of the righteous one is the world created and sustained,” as it says: “The righteous one is the world’s foundation” [Prov. 10:25].¹²²Zaddik or “the righteous” is yesod, the source of sefirotic energy as it flows into the shekhinah. Our sages also said concerning this: “The circumference of the tree of life is a journey of five hundred years and all of the waters of creation are divided forth from it.” Rabbi Yehudah said: “It is not the circumference of its bough, but its trunk that constitutes a journey of five hundred years.”¹²³Genesis Rabbah 15:7.
“A river goes forth from Eden to water the garden” [Gen. 2:10]. The garden constitutes the beginning of the differentiated universe. As it says: “from there it divides and becomes four branches” [ibid.]. The verse is in present tense, the process is eternal. Thus it says: “There is a river whose streams gladden God’s city, the holy dwelling-place of the Most High” [Ps. 46:5]. And “You make springs gush forth in torrents; they make their way between the hills, giving drink to all the wild beasts” [Ps. 104:10–11].
Concerning this spring, it states: “a garden spring, a well of fresh water, flowing streams from Lebanon” [Cant. 4:15]. Our Sages of blessed memory said: “‘a garden spring’: this is Jacob who is a spring for the garden. ‘A well of fresh water’: this is Isaac. ‘Flowing streams’: this is Abraham.”¹²⁴No such interpretation is found in the extant rabbinic sources. It is also found, however, in Zohar 1:135b, a passage possibly dependent upon R. Ezra. Everything is sated from that Lebanon which is divine Wisdom.¹²⁵The three patriarchs represent ḥesed, gevurah, and tiferet, way-stations in the flow of life from Wisdom, the primal sefirotic font, to the shekhinah.
Contemplate the wonders of this symbolism and you will know and understand what our Sages wrote, the manner in which their words constitute the height of completeness and perfection. Such truly befits sages like these, whose every word was uttered through the holy spirit in allegoric allusion, so as to arouse the consciousness of the Kabbalistic illuminati, rather than the fools, idiots, and confused who treat their words as if they were fox fables! Thus we find in the tractate Sanhedrin: “‘As I looked upon, thrones were set down …’ [Dan. 7:9]—one for God and one for David: these are the words of R. Akiba. R. Yose the Galilean said to him: ‘Akiba, how long are you going to profane the shekhinah!? Rather, one throne is for justice and one is for righteousness.’ R. Elazar b. Azaryah said to Akiba: ‘What are you doing occupying yourself with words of aggadah!? Desist from your discourse and occupy yourself with the laws of leprosy and tents.¹²⁶Return to your safe haven of halakhic expertise. Rather one is a throne and one is for a footstool: a throne upon which to sit, a footstool to rest the feet.’”¹²⁷b. Sanhedrin 38b. Surely these sages had no essential argument with one another, but they differed on whether it was appropriate to reveal the secret meaning. This occurs in several places where the rabbis are in dispute.