Question about Joseph the Righteous, Yoshke, and Capture and Enclothing by the Sitra Ahra

Question

Still aspects unanswered, please see edit at bottom of post if interested.

The book Divine and Demonic in the Poetic Mythology of the Zohar (p. 247) discusses the concept of the "Other side" "capturing" and "enclothing" the "Holy." Some examples it gives are: the rabbinic dictum that "Tyre was only filled from the ruins of Jerusalem," (p. 245, foonoted: Ets Hayim, II, 57b. See Tishby, Torat Ha-Ra, 89), Lilit enclothing the Shechinah (p. 247, footnoted to Kin'at Hashem, 96), and a tradition transmitted by the Talmud that Jeroboam engraved divine names on the mouth of an idol, empowering it to speak (Sotah 47a, Sanhedrin 107b). The author then continues:

Luzzatto also declares that it was from this sort of dynamic that other arch- villains were able to derive their power, like Jesus and the “evil Armilus,” in both of whom the Messiah-son-of-Joseph was enclothed.

This is footnoted to Ramhal's Qin'ath Hashem (p. 104), https://www.hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=51257&st=&pgnum=102&hilite=. The Hebrew is too difficult for me to parse. Can someone please explain the mechanics of this system of thought, and/or translate the relevant passages? Specifically I'm wondering: 1. why did MBJ's soul become enclothed in these arch-villains (i.e., maybe a Divine plan to destroy evil from within, a concept also discussed in Divine and Demonic? Maybe multiple reasons?), and 2. what dictates whether the 'enclothed' or the 'enclother' has agency (i.e. did MBJ's soul have any control over Yoshe's body and soul which "enclothed" it, or was it an inoperative prisoner or something in between)? Thank you. And also big thank you to @Deuteronomy and @Isaac Moses for helping me to edit down the question.

Edit: page 102 was linked by mistake, not 104, however, question seems to be addressed from page 102 to 105. I awarded one winning answer for summarizing page 102 about Joseph and Armilus, but still looking for answers about Joseph and Yoshke, and more mentioned here: Question about Joseph the Righteous, Yoshke, and Capture and Enclothing by the Sitra Ahra. If you're willing to translate those 4 pages, that would be the best answer, but I'm thankful for whatever answers ppl have time for!

Answer 1

Okay, I'm not a master of Kabbalah, but I read the link you brought and I think I can explain what he says on my very basic level of understanding:

1. Why did MBJ's soul become enclothed in these arch-villains?

Ramchal explains that Yerov'am (Jeroboam), being both a descendant of Yosef and Efraim and having a very holy soul, had the potential to be the Mashiach ben Yosef of his generation. The spirit of MBY still hadn't rested upon him, but since a certain link between the two had already been established, when he sinned - he caused a blemish to appear on the root of the spirit. In order to clean the blemish, it is therefore necessary for this spirit to do what Yerov'am did which caused the blemish in the first place:

Yerov'am clothed something holy with impure vessels - he wished to worship Hashem with golden calves. So the spirit must now clothe itself with impure bodies - kind of like minus times minus equals plus.

I gather that eventually the spirit of MBY will have purified itself enough to finally enter the true MBY person, but that person will then have to die - that's the last step of the purification process (and see Ramchal's Derech Hashem 1:3:9 and onwards) and only then will its true potential be unleashed.

2. What dictates whether the 'enclothed' or the 'enclother' has agency (i.e. did MBJ's soul have any control over Yoshe's body and soul which "enclothed" it, or was it an inoperative prisoner or something in between)?

It sounds like the spirit of MBY will be powerless within the body of the impure person. It'll act like a kind of super-battery, giving that person great power to do evil, but won't be able to act of its own accord. As the Ramchal wrote (my translation):

"and then it would come and be clothed within the evil Armilus. And from the power that he [Armilus] would receive from this enclothing, he would do wondrous¹ things in the world...and this would have been a great corruption, and would have brought chas v'shalom incomparable anquish to Yisrael."

It does not sound from here that the spirit has any control over Armilus.

Hope this makes sense.

---

¹ From the context, the term seems to refer to "wondrous" in a negative way (like managing to kill millions of people in a short time or something like that).