Here’s how Ari depicted the “break”. (We’ll backtrack and discuss Ramak then fast-forward to Ramchal after this for obvious reasons.) Based on deep reflections of the Zohar, most especially the Iddrot and Sifre D’Tzniuta [1], on revelations granted him by Eliyahu [2], on traditions he was privy to in Egypt before he came to Tzefat, and on his own visions and keen discernment, Ari offered the following [3].
God suddenly brought about a Tzimtzum in His Being [4] which, if one may say as much, had His Being push itself aside (or conceal itself) to the sides of the center of His Being which then allowed room for the existence of empty space — space devoid of Him, whereas before all there was, was Him. Understand of course that all of this, as well as what’s soon to follow, is fraught with possible obfuscation and misinterpretation given that God doesn’t occupy space, is unaffected by time and change, etc. But we’ll go on.
God allowed something of a residue of His Being to remain in the void, and also allocated a single beam of light to emit from His Being into the center of this void, which then formed ten concentric circles, Partzufim, and a primal replication of the human figure known as Adam Kadmon (“Primordial Man”). “Lights” then emitted from Adam Kadmon’s countenance which then formed an entire realm that eventually lead to the formation of four primordial Worlds out of which devolved this physical world.
Ramak, though, touched upon very little of this. He certainly allowed for the formation of Sephirot and, unlike others before him, he even addressed Partzufim in a later work [5], but he went no further [6]. That was said to be so because while the earlier Kabbalists only addressed “The World of Chaos” (i.e., the anarchic non-perfected state of things) Ari addressed “The Rectified World” [7].
Notes:
[1] The Iddrot (“The Assemblies”) are terse and pithy Zoharic statements of the makeup of the Upper Realms. Iddra Rabba “The Greater Assembly”) is found in Zohar 3, 127b-145; Iddra Zutta (“The Lesser Assembly”) is in Zohar 3, 287b-296b; and Sifre deTzeniuta (“The Book of Concealment”) is in Zohar 2, 176b-179a.
[2] See R’ Reuben Margoliot’s discussion of that in Sha’alot u’Teshuvot Min HaShamayim pp. 36-41.
[3] We’ll explain this all in more detail both later in this section and elsewhere in the book.
[4] This can legitimately be translated either as a “contraction” or “concealment” depending on your perspective as we’ll explain.
[5] See his Elimah Rabbati.
[6] Thus while Ramak might be taken to have gone straight from God to the Sephirot before touching on this world (though he really didn’t, as we saw in the previous note), and Ramchal can be seen as doing that too, at least as far as our reading of Klach goes for now, that too is really not true. Klach is out of order, for several good reasons; Ramchal will certainly backtrack to discuss Ari’s other themes — his own way.
[7] R’ Shimon Ashkenazi said this in his second introduction to Eitz Chaim in the name of Ari himself.
(c) 2011 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman
Feel free to contact me at feldman@torah.org
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