The cause of this “breaking of the vessels,” which releases the whole complexity of the cosmological drama and determines man’s place in it, appears in Luria’s and Vital’s doctrine under varying aspects. In the immediate sense, the event is traced back to certain technical flaws in the structure of the Sefirotic atom-cosmos from which the ‘accident’ follows with necessity. In a profounder sense, however, the event is due to what I propose to term, with Tishby [a pupil of Scholem’s], the cathartic cause. For Luria, the deepest roots of the Kelipot, or “shells,” i. e. the forces of evil, existed already before the breaking of the vessels and were mixed up, so to speak, with the lights of the Sefiroth and the above mentioned Reshimu, or residue of En-Sof in the primordial space. What really brought about the fracture of the vessels was the necessity of the cleansing of the Sefiroth by eliminating the Kelipot, in order to give a real existence and separate identity to the power of evil.