Background on the Ari
February 6th, 2008R. Itzchak Luria, the Ari (1534-1572), taught a small group of students in Safed for little over two years, and never wrote much. Yet his teachings hit the kabbalistic world like a shockwave. What he taught would take over sixty years of composition and editing to reach its final form, but it was to lay the foundation for Orthodox Jewish thinking for roughly the last four hundred years. The Ari transformed kabbalah from an elite occupation to the widespread basis for rabbinic thought and theology, and the drive behind such diverse movements as Chassidism, the Lithuanian and the kabbalistic yeshiva worlds, and Messianic Zionism.
The first rather shocking thing the Ari did, in terms of thinking about what God could possibly want with creation, was to overstep the 500 year old boundaries set by Medieval Jewish philosophers, starting with the Gaonim, concerning our knowledge about God. Chazal stated unequivocally that ‘whoever looks into four things, would be better off not coming into the world at all: what is above, what is below, what is to come, what came before’ (Chagiga 2:1). In the same spirit, the Jewish philosophers wrote that all we can know of God’s reason behind creation is that He wished to benefit His creatures.
To this the Ari’s response seems to be that creation is a process, an evolving entity, a message that the West only caught on to three hundred years later, and a major shift of consciousness. But a process must have a goal, and that means this goal is yet to be achieved. God without creation may be Infinite, but there is still something missing. For God has many names and titles; in fact, the whole Torah, we are told, is a name of God. But these names and titles cannot reveal themselves except in relation to creation. And so the process of creation begins with the drive towards perfection, and the full revelation of all the different qualities of the Divine.
In fact, the only “things” that are missing from Infinity are limit, lack, imperfection – which characterize anything that exists outside of the Infinite. Thus, the whole process of creation starts with a withdrawal of God’s Infinity, leaving a vacant round space where limited beings can exist. This is called the contraction or the tzimtzum (צמצום). Into that vacant space the divine then penetrates again in the form of a thin line that extends like a radius all the way to the middle. The line represents God’s interaction with the space of limitation, and all the created worlds are built along or around this line. In a sense, the whole of creation is nothing but the name of God, as expressed by the line within the space.
That is another important symbol for the Ari (based on his predecessor and the greatest product of Sefadian kabbalah, R. Moses Cordovero) – the symbol of light and vessel. Light is the only way to represent the Infinity of the divine – it is the most immaterial perception we can have, but it is in fact the basis of every perception. The vessel contains light, gives it limit and structure, which it does not (visibly) have. The vessel is taken to be the original divine root of matter in general, and the body in particular. Compared with creation, the Infinite assumes the role of a soul – a source of life and blessing.
The first thing that is created in the vacant space is the equivalent of God’s “body” – something both divine and created at the same time. That body is seen as a necessary medium for creation, and it is in the shape of a man, called Adam Kadmon (אדם קדמון) – the Primordial Man (or Adam). The divine assumes the human form in order to create, as if to say that we humans down below are designed to be able to take in and respond to all the levels of creation, and in particular to that divine form itself. In other words, the divine assumes a human form in order to be in contact with humanity.
But things are not so simple, precisely because the vessel is limited, finite and imperfect, even if it is a vessel for divine light. These limitations and imperfections come to play in the very process of creating the vessels. For in order to produce the vessels, the unlimited abundance of light must first separate from the vessels, and return later in a limited form. That took place already in the original tzimtzum, and then happened again when Adam Kadmon brings forth the ten vessels (for the ten sefirot of light) containing everything in creation.
But the seven lower vessels are not arranged correctly, which means they are imbalanced and fail to work together. As a result, these vessels shatter, or die, in a process known as shvirat ha’kelim (שבירת הכלים). Their shards fall down to the bottom of existence, and in their fall create the space for the four worlds of the kabbalistic cosmos. The lights remain hovering where the vessels used to be, but some sparks of light fall along with the broken shards, and keep them in their meager existence.
The separation of light and vessel, of soul and body, is thus most fully exemplified in death. Death and destruction are an integral part of the vessel, or, in other words, of matter and natural existence in general. They all come to be at the same time. Death is the final realization of imperfection and limitation, the most vivid opposite of God, a sort of negative eternity opposite the positive eternity of the divine. That negative eternity, effectively the first creation of God, is the realm of evil, called the klipah (קליפה) – the husk or shell.
As a result of shvirat ha’kelim, everything finds itself initially submerged within the klipah, fighting its way back towards its divine origin. This has been one of the most influential messages of the Ari. In Jewish history, the “last exile” that began with the destruction of the second temple parallels the shattering of the vessels. The land of Israel represents the realm of holiness; the people of Israel represent the shards that fell beyond the bounds of the divine, though some sparks of holiness still cling to them in exile.
The message is that life in exile is not a punishment but a mission. The people of Israel are living through a necessary phase within the process of creating the perfect vessel for divine light, in the form of the nation of Israel. Their mission in exile, in general terms, is tikkun (תיקון), restoration or restitution – to raise the whole of existence from the depths of evil and imperfection.
The tikkun begins when Adam Kadmon sends forth his last illumination. This illumination initially transforms the first three sefirot, the ones that never shattered and always remained in the realm of holiness, though they too were harmed as a result of the shattering. When that light reaches them, these three sefirot turn into partzufim (פרצופים) – complete human-like forms. Only then true vessels were formed, in the image of Adam Kadmon, which could take the lights that come from him, and have an interaction with the divine. Then this illumination extended downwards, and began the process of restoring the broken vessels.
From these vessels two further partzufim were formed – a masculine and a feminine one. But they were not formed at once, but in a continuous process of growth, paralleling the physical, mental and spiritual growth of a living person. It is these partzufim that together are called Adam (אדם) – Man, and in this material reality, we are clearly supposed to identify ourselves with them.
Thus, the last illumination of Adam Kadmon – the very essence of tikkun – has two primary effects: to turn the vessels into humanlike structures, and to enable a continuous process to take place. Humanity and Time are the bridges between the negative and positive eternities. Time makes it possible for humanity to be both good and evil, and to move from one to the other. Eventually, history holds the promise of positive eternity taking over the whole of existence, so that everything becomes perfectly good. Only then will the forces of divinity be fully revealed.
One significant result of this picture, which is particularly relevant to us, is that humanity is spiritually positioned in a very precarious place. We exist in the meeting point of good and evil. In our reality, everything is mixed with good and evil, and in everything we do we are forced to choose between them. In fact, we exist on the highest level of klipah – which has the potential to join the other klipot, or join the realms of holiness instead. This klipah, called Nogah (נוגה), is represented by the skin – an organic shield of the flesh, but also the organ that can come in contact with filth and danger and should be kept under watch.
It was the sin of Adam and Eve that drove the whole of existence into the klipah of Nogah. Ever since then, in terms of our psychophysical existence, we are not an immediate part of the divine realm, but rather of the klipah. In terms of our nature, we possess the knowledge of good and evil contained in the famous tree, which also represents the klipah of Nogah. Prior to the sin it was part of the realm of holiness, within the Garden of Eden. But it tempted Adam and Eve to eat it and bring their nature down to the level of klipah.
The instrument for our spiritual elevation is the Torah. The Torah is the channel for the inner soul and essence of humanity to descend into material existence and return reality to the confines of holiness. With the Torah we make our bodies and minds into instruments of holiness, and thereby restore our souls completely to their divine state. The Torah is in fact also a partzuf – a humanlike structure, since its 248 precepts that require action parallel the 248 organs of the human body, while its 365 precepts that forbid action parallel the 365 veins. Every organ must become a vessel for its corresponding light of the soul, through the fulfillment of the 613 precepts.
This is an ideal archetype, that then diversifies to explain every particular event in any individual’s life. Everything we do contains a moral dimension, a decision between good and evil, and an opportunity to reveal God in the world. Behind everything that happens lies a divine moral drama, that aims always to make the world a manifestation of holiness. God is primarily manifested in humanity, and in the nation of Israel and its way of life in particular. Mankind’s ability to recognize good and evil makes it aware of the imperfection of the world vs. the perfection of God. It Then comes to realize that its very role on earth is to resolve this conflict.
To know you are not alone…