Kabbalah Part 3: The Zohar

(5) ‎Genesis 12,2. “I will make you into ‎a great nation, and I will bless you and make your reputation ‎great.” The Talmud (Pessachim 117) comments on this ‎verse that “making Avraham great,” meant that when referring ‎to G’d the Creator, people would describe G’d as “the G’d of ‎Avraham.” The word ‎ואברכך‎ is a promise that the Israelites when ‎praying will refer to G’d as “the G’d of Yitzchok,” whereas the ‎words: ‎ואגדלה שמך‎, “I will make your name great,” refer to the ‎Israelites referring to G’d as the “G’d of Yaakov” in their prayers. I ‎might have thought that when concluding the benediction they ‎would also mention the names of all the patriarchs; in order to ‎signal that this is not so, the Torah continues with ‎והיה ברכה‎, “be ‎a blessing!” (sing) i.e. that the signature of the benediction ‎contains only the name of Avraham, i.e. ‎מגן אברהם‎, “(Gd) the ‎shield of Avraham.”‎
There are three attributes that G’d employs in His continuous ‎relations with the creatures in His universe; they are ‎אהבה‎, “love,” ‎גבורה‎, “power,” and ‎תפארת‎, “harmony, splendour.” When G’d ‎relates to His creatures with the attribute of ‎אהבה‎, “love,” all ‎parts of the universe are filled with all manner of “good” ‎‎(welcome) phenomena. When He has recourse to the attribute of ‎גבורה‎, “power,” the result is that the creatures affected will feel ‎the opposite of comfortable. When G’d employs the attribute of ‎תפארת‎ in relation to His creatures, the world will also feel an ‎abundance of goodness, as it is G’d’s purpose and desire to be able ‎to glorify in His choicest creation, man. When G’d is able to do ‎this, He inundates the universe with love. We must not ‎misunderstand the attribute of ‎גבורה‎ by regarding it as something ‎negative. While the attribute of ‎גבורה‎, when active, may appear to ‎the people affected by it as something negative, unwelcome in ‎the extreme, it is designed to enable G’d to again relate to all His ‎creatures with love, once that attribute has accomplished its ‎purpose.‎
This is what we are told in Job 8,7 (by Bildad) ‎והיה ראשיתך מצער ‏ואחריתך ישגה מאד‎, “though your beginning may be small (painful), ‎in the end you will grow very great.” The overriding function of ‎the attribute of ‎גבורה‎ is to carry out retribution in the world so ‎that G’d will afterwards be able to pour out all His goodness on ‎His creatures. Historically, the person who had realized this better ‎than anyone else, was Nachum, nick-named, ‎איש גם זו‎, who ‎whenever something happened to him that was unpleasant, ‎painful, etc., immediately reacted by saying: ‎גם זו לטובה‎, “this too ‎will eventually be revealed as having been a positive, constructive ‎event.” (Taanit 21).‎‎).
It is generally known that Avraham symbolizes the attribute ‎of love, whereas Yitzchok symbolizes the attribute of power, and ‎Yaakov symbolizes a merging of these two attributes, resulting in ‎what we call ‎תפארת‎, harmony. When the Talmud in ‎‎Pessachim 117 first thought that it would be appropriate to ‎conclude the first benediction of the amidah prayer by referring ‎to G’d as the G’d of Avraham, Yitzchok, and Yaakov, it concluded ‎that the reason the sages who formulated this prayer did not do ‎so, was because they wanted to stress that ultimately, what G’d ‎is all about is the attribute of love, the attribute personified best ‎in the personality of Avraham. [The Maharshah on that ‎section of the Talmud points out that the letters in the word ‎והיה‎ ‎are the same as the letters in the tetragram, i.e. the name of G’d ‎symbolizing the attribute of Mercy. Ed.] The other two attributes’ ‎function is auxiliary, i.e. to help G’d be able to fully display His ‎attribute of love.‎