Tohu and Tikun

The implications of tohu and tiqqun underlie the origin of free will and the evil realm of the qlippoth caused by the "Shattering of the Vessels" (Hebrew: שְבִירַת הַכֵּלִים, romanized: Šəḇīraṯ hakkēlīm), the processes of spiritual and physical exile and redemption, the meaning of the 613 commandments, and the messianic rectification of existence.

Tikkun also means the esoteric sifting or clarification (בירור) of concealed divine sparks (ניצוצות) exiled in physical creation.

This new paradigm in Kabbalah replaced the previous linear description of descent by Moses ben Jacob Cordovero with a dynamic process of spiritual enclothement, where higher souls invest inwardly in lower "vessels".

The cosmic drama of tiqqun in Lurianic Kabbalah inspired the 16th-18th century popular Jewish imagination, explaining contemporary oppression and supporting messiah claimants.

The revivalist Hasidic Judaism from the 18th century onwards, internalised esoteric Lurianism through its concern with experiencing divine omnipresence amidst daily material life.

The terminology of the modern ideal of tikkun olam "repairing the world" is taken from the Lurianic concept but applied more widely to ethical activism and justice in contemporary society.

Isaac Luria stated that only subsequently can, for example, previously absent Mitzvot be fulfilled, and this is the thing related to both tiqqunim, which are different in terms of work carried out and the areas to which they refer.

Lurianic Kabbalah, in contrast, describes dynamic processes of exile and redemption in the flow of Ohr, where higher levels descend into lower states, as souls to spiritual bodies.

In the Lurianic scheme, Creation is initiated by a primordial and radical divine tzimtzum "self-withdrawal", forming a symbolic space in which only an imprint remains of the withdrawn Ein Sof.

The fragments become the absorbed, animating source of the subsequent Four Worlds in stable Creation (called the realms of Tikkun "rectification").

Rectification of the independent lower three worlds of Beri'ah "Creation", Yetzirah "Formation", and Assiah "Action" is the task of humanity.

Adam Kadmon incorporated the collective souls of humanity before eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, a manifestation in Kabbalah of the sefirot.

The election of the Israelites through the Law given to Moses at Sinai in the section Mishpatim of the Book of Exodus, recollected the 600,000 root souls from Adam.

National and individual spiritual failures in Jewish history delay redemption by introducing further exile of Divine vitality to the realms of impurity.

The messianic redemption combines the advantages of the lights of tohu in mature rectified vessels of tiqqun and the unity of God and Creation.

Moses ben Jacob Cordovero, in his comprehensive systemization of Medieval Kabbalah, had reconciled previous Kabbalists' opinions of the sephirot by describing each as Divine ohr ("light") invested in ten spiritual keilim "vessels."

[2] As Igulim, ten concentric "circles," the sephirot act sequentially and independently from each other, from Keter in closest proximity to the Ein Sof, to Malkhut at the centre.

The potency of Lurianic scheme, with its new doctrines and paradigm, arises from its power to systemise and unify previously unexplained and unrelated Kabbalistic notions.

Akudim is the initial stable stage of Olam HaTohu (the "World of Chaos"),[6] the first emergence of the sephirot in undifferentiated unity, 10 lights encompassed in one vessel.

Luria read this as Genesis 1:1 "In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth", the initial vital source from which all would unfold.

This state, Olam haTohu was read by Luria in Genesis 1:2 "And the earth was tohu wa-bohu (Chaos and Void), with darkness over the surface of the deep.

In tohu, the lack of sharing between the vessels makes them immature, undeveloped and weak, while the divine illumination overflows their capacity to contain.

Attached to the broken vessels are residues of the light, Nitzutzot-"Sparks" of holiness, as all Creation only continues to exist from non-existence by the Divine flow of Will.

The sparks are the creative force of the Sephirot down the Four Worlds, giving life to the broken vessels, that become the descending beings of each realm.

"The Holy Ancient of Days" or "The Long Visage," two of the different personas, are not just alternative adjectives for God but are particular spiritual manifestations, levels and natures.

Lurianic Kabbalah focused on the role of the personas as the fully evolved stage of the primordial evolution of the sephirot at the beginning of Creation.

The name of each persona denotes that the sephira from which it derived has now become an independent scheme of 10 fully functioning Sephirot in the "Upright" (Yosher) form of "Man".

In the personas, rather than each sephira partially inter-relating by latently incorporating the other powers, as in Berudim, instead, all harmonize fully around one of their numbers as complete autonomous Yosher schemes.