Kabbalah Creation

Tzimtzum

This concept refers to God's retreat from Himself into Himself. Tzimtzum (“contraction”) allows finite things to be differentiated and to appear. It is this contraction within God that opens up a metaphysical place for being.

According to Isaac Luria, prior to creation, there was only Ohr Ein Sof, the light of the infinite divine, filling all existence. There was no empty space. Ohr Ein Sof is the garment used by God to conceal himself. “He wraps himself in light as with a garment” (Psalm 104:2). God then constricted his infinite light, distancing it to the sides surrounding the central point, so that there remained a vacated space in the middle of the light. The restriction of the light is referred to in Psalm 18:12: “Thick clouds shielded the brightness around him.” Without this act of restriction, there would be no possibility of independent existence. The vacated space is sometimes referred to as the lamp of darkness. As Psalm 139 states: “Even darkness is not dark to You. Night shines like the day – light and darkness are the same." A trace of divine light, known as reshimu, remained in the empty space. Then a ray (or kav) from Ohr Ein Sof entered the empty space.

Adam Kadmon

The form of the divine produced by this first ray of light is known as Adam Kadmon (literally, “Primordial Adam”).

Adam Kadmon is sometimes viewed as the embodiment of the ten sefirot. Or else he is seen as the mediator between the Ein Sof and the sefirot. In the Kabbalah, Adam Kadmon is essentially indistinguishable from God. But at the same time his body is said to both emanate and constitute the world. Man, having been created in God’s image, is said to be comprised of the sefirot, which comprise the "body" of Adam Kadmon. In the Lurianic Kabbalah, Adam Kadmon is the first being to emerge from the empty space, from whom the ten sefirot emanate. When it is said that man was created in the image of God, this refers to the form of Adam Kadmon.

The lights shining from Adam Kadmon's "eyes" were separated into different sefirot and, as such, required special vessels or kelim. The kelim, made of a "thick" light, were to serve as "shells" for the purer light. But some of the vessels were unable to contain the pure light and they shattered under the pressure. The broken pieces were scattered, thereby forming the “stuff” of creation. Luckily, only six of the ten sefirot were fully shattered. Had Keter, Chochmah and Binah not remained intact, the universe would have collapsed into chaos. Gevurah, Chesed, Tifiret, Hod and Netzach were broken and are in need of repair (tikkun). Malchut, the lowest sefirot, was only partially broken. Most of the light returned to their divine source, while the remainder fell below into the empty space and attached themselves to the broken shards of vessels.

According to Lurianic tradition, Adam (the man) had the power to return the fallen traces of light to their divine source, leaving the shards to sink below the lowest spiritual worlds. The cosmos would have achieved the primordial state of communion with the divine light. However, Adam's disobedience in the Garden of Eden interrupted and reversed the process of rectification.  Reality in the lower world of Asiyah became materialized, good and evil were enmeshed and the soul of Adam fragmented into 600,000 souls, all of which became trapped in the shards (kelim). Our job is to break open the pieces to release the divine light contained therein. The shell is like a peel around the orange. The peel protects or holds together the orange, but in itself it is useless. The outside of the kelipah or shell is sometime referred to as the “side of impurity” or sitra achra. Once all the light is returned, existence will return to its original spiritual condition (i.e. the messianic age).
The Ohr Ein Sof represents the Chayah (the fourth level of soul) of Adam Kadmon. Beyond this is the Yechida (fifth level of soul) of Adam Kadmon, which is the absolute unity of everything in Ein Sof, the infinite divine or Endless One. (Ein on its own refers to no-thingness, i.e. nothing at all, not even God. God, therefore, must have brought Himself into being.) The central point of the vacated space represents the Nefesh (third level of soul) of Adam Kadmon. The ray (kav) corresponds with the Ruach (second level of soul) of Adam Kadmon.

Rabbi Isaac of Homil explained that Adam Kadmon is in a dream state or, to put it another way, we are the dream of God. This means that nothing has any separate reality.

Breaking of the vessels (shevirat ha-kelim)

According to Lurianic Kabbalah, the lights shining from Adam Kadmon's "eyes" were separated into different sefirot and, as such, required special vessels or kelim. The kelim, made of a "thick" light, were to serve as "shells" for the purer light. But some of the vessels were unable to contain the pure light and they shattered under the pressure. The broken pieces were scattered, thereby forming the “stuff” of creation. Most of the light returned to their divine source, while the remainder fell below into the empty space and attached themselves to the broken shards of vessels. Our job is to break open the pieces to release the divine light contained therein. Once all the light is returned, existence will return to its original spiritual condition (i.e. the messianic age).

Luckily, only six of the ten sefirot were fully shattered. Had Keter, Chochmah, and Binah not remained intact, the universe would have collapsed into chaos. Gevurah, Chesed, Tifiret, Hod and Netzach were broken and are in need of repair (tikkun). Malchut, the lowest sefirot, was only partially broken.

According to Lurianic tradition, Adam (the man) had the power to return the fallen traces of light to their divine source, leaving the shards to sink below the lowest spiritual worlds. The cosmos would have achieved the primordial state of communion with the divine light. However, Adam's disobedience in the Garden of Eden interrupted and reversed the process of rectification.  Reality in the lower world of Asiyah became materialized, good and evil were enmeshed and the soul of Adam fragmented into 600,000 souls, all of which became trapped in the shards (kelim).

Soul analogy: God as glassblower

The decision to blow (emanating from the innermost will) is the level of Yechida. It corresponds to the level of Adam Kadmon and the apex of the Yod. The moment he is about to blow out is the level of Chayah. This corresponds with the Atzilut and the Yod. The breath in the mouth (of God) is the neshamah; the air in the tube is the ruach (the lower aspect of the neshamah); and the air in the expanses part of the glassware is the nefesh (completely in man’s body. The pure breath of God (the neshamah) cannot enter man’s body in its entirety because its full intensity is not humanly sustainable. The highest two levels of breath are not yet separated from the divine source. 

The Tanya

Another way of talking about the soul of man is the concept outlined in the Tanya, a work of Hasidic philosophy, by Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, the founder of Chabad Hasidism.

The animal soul (nefesh habehamit) is the soul that gives life to the physical body and is the source of animalistic desires within a person.

The animal soul is attached to worldly, physical pleasures. It is not necessarily evil – it merely seeks pleasure.  It can, however, be trained to seek out spiritual pleasures through Torah study and observance of mitzvot. In its refined state, it is termed the nefesh hachiyunit, the life-giving soul.

Until it is transformed into a life-giving soul, the animal soul is in conflict with the divine soul (nefesh ha'elokit), which naturally seeks out spiritual pleasures. Every person must strive to conquer the animal soul and make it serve the divine soul.

Between the animal soul and the divine soul is the mind. If the mind is in total possession of the divine soul and the divine soul manages to subdue and eradicate the animal soul, then the person is a tzaddik. The complete tzaddik is one who has transformed his animal soul so that he is without material temptation and experiences only love and awe of God. The incomplete tzaddik still has a spark of desire for very subtle evil.

If the animal soul has taken possession of the mind and the divine soul is subverted, the person is a rasha – a person who is driven by self-centered and egotistical drives. The incomplete rasha is one who sins but does good deeds as well; the total rasha is a person who sins so frequently that his thoughts, speech or actions are completely controlled by his animal soul.

The beinoni is one whose divine soul controls the thinking mind, but the animal soul has in no way been refined or sublimated. On the contrary, the animal soul is constantly attacking and seeking entry into the thought process, only to be held at bay by the divine soul. The result is a person who is actually controlled by the divine soul but is constantly challenged by the animal soul and its impulsive demands.

The basis of everything that would ever be brought into existence was made and blessed by God during the six days of creation. "There is nothing new beneath the sun" (Ecclesiastes 1:19).

The Sefer Yetzirah (“Book of Creation”) lays out a five dimensional universe consisting of the three dimensions of space and a fourth dimension of time ("beginning" to "end"), as well as a fifth spiritual dimension running between good and evil. Even though Einstein mathematically unified space and time into a single continuum, from the standpoint of perception they still exist as separate dimensions. It is the nefesh that combines the two through the cognitive process.

The world is an illusion

"When HaShem will bring the return of Zion, we will have been as dreamers." Psalm 126:1

Our senses create for us an illusory image of a world that seems to exist outside of us. What we perceive through our memory and our five senses is called “this world.”  The world is only a fraction of what really is. “Even though we see everything as actually being in front of us, every reasonable person knows for certain that all that we see is only within our own brains.” (Baal HaSulam, Preface to The Book of Zohar)

We are all one soul

 There is only one soul in the world, called Adam HaRishon, literally the “first man.” The whole universe and the soul of Adam HaRishon are built from the name of God, YHVH. The soul of the Adam HaRishon was broken into 600,000 souls following his disobedience in Eden. Over the generations, it continued to break into smaller parts. These souls refer to the neshamah, not the nefesh.  The Talmud states that the human race was created as a single human being (i.e. Adam) as opposed to animals which were created en masse. 

Moreover, each person is a hologram in the sense that they contain creation in its entirety. According to the Zohar, to kill a person is to destroy an entire world. From the point of view of the individual subject, there is only him/her and God. In the words of David Bohm: “In some sense man is a microcosm of the universe; therefore what man is, is a clue to the universe. We are enfolded in the universe.”

(Prior to the eating of the forbidden fruit, Adam HaRishon was immortal. His soul and body co-existed without tension. And because the soul was immortal, so was the body. Following the temptation, Adam’s soul and body were alienated from each other. Disconnected from its spiritual counterpart, the body experienced pleasure as an end in itself and became subject to the toils of decay and death.)