#tsimtsum

It means briefly that the existence of the universe is made possible by a process of shrinkage in God. Luria begins by putting a question which gives the appearance of being naturalistic and, if you like, somewhat crude. How can there be a world if God is everywhere? If God is ‘all in all,’ how can there be things which are not God? How can God create the world out of nothing if there is no nothing? This is the question. The solution became, in spite of the crude form which he gave it, of the highest importance in the history of later Kabbalistic thought. According to Luria, God was compelled to make room for the world by, as it were, abandoning a region within [Themself], a kind of mystical primordial space from which [They] withdrew in order to return to it in the act of creation and revelation. The first act of En-Sof, the Infinite Being, is therefore not a step outside but a step inside, a movement of recoil, of falling back upon oneself, of withdrawing into oneself. Instead of emanation we have the opposite, contraction. The God who revealed [Themself] in firm contours was superseded by one who descended deeper into the recesses of [Their] own Being, who concentrated [Themself] into [Themself], and had done so from the very beginning of creation.

The first act, the act of Tsimtsum, in which God determines, and therefore limits, [Themself], is an act of Din [Gevurah] which reveals the roots of this quality in all that exists; these “roots of divine judgement” subsist in chaotic mixture with the residue of divine light which remained after the original retreat or withdrawal within the primary space of God’s creation. Then a second ray of light out of the essence of En-Sof brings order into chaos and sets the cosmic process in motion, by separating the hidden elements and moulding them into a new form. Throughout this process the two tendencies of perpetual ebb and flow—the Kabbalists speak of hithpashtuth, egression, and histalkuth, regression—continue to act and react upon each other. Just as the human organism exists through the double process of inhaling and exhaling and the one cannot be conceived without the other, so also the whole of Creation constitutes a gigantic process of divine inhalation and exhalation.

Tsimtsum - Ark

Side by side with this conception of the cosmic process [Tsimtsum], we find two other important theosophical ideas. Luria has expressed them in both mythical language, at times perhaps rather too bold. These two ideas are the doctrine of Shevirath Ha-Kelim, or “Breaking of the Vessels,” and that of Tikkun, which means mending or restitution of a defect. The influence of these two ideas on the development of later Kabbalistic thought has been as great as that of the doctrine of the Tsimtsum.

In the act of Tsimtsum, however, Din or Judgement [Gevurah] crystallized and became clearly defined, for inasmuch as Tsimtsum signifies an act of negation and limitation it is also an act of judgement. It must be remembered that to the Kabbalist, judgement means the imposition of limits and the correct determination of things. According to Cordovero the quality of judgement is inherent in everything insofar as everything wishes to remain what it is, to stay within its boundaries. Hence it is precisely in the existence of individual things that the mystical category of judgement plays an important part.

Luria’s theory has nothing of this inoffensive simplicity. It is based upon the doctrine of Tsimtsum, one of the most amazing and far-reaching conceptions ever put forward in the whole history of Kabbalism. Tsimtsum originally means “concentration” or “contraction,” but if used in the Kabbalistic parlance it is best translated by “withdrawal” or “retreat.” The idea first occurs in a brief and entirely forgotten treatise which was written in the middle of the thirteenth century and of which Luria seems to have made use, while its literary original is a Talmudic saying which Luria inverted. He stood it on its head, no doubt believing that he had put it on its feet. The Midrash—in sayings originating from third century teachers—occasionally refers to God as having concentrated [Their] Shekhinah, [Their] divine presence, in the holiest of hollies, at the place of the Cherubim, as though [Their] whole power were concentrated and contracted in a single point. Here we have the origin of the term Tsimtsum, while the thing itself is the precise opposite of this idea: to the Kabbalist of Luria’s school Tsimtsum does not mean the concentration of God at a point, but his retreat away from a point.

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