Tzimtzum describes divine withdrawal to make room for a finite world in Lurianic Kabbalah.
Imported citation, not independently checked: Chaim Vital, Etz Chaim; L. Fine, Physician of the Soul (2003)
religion · Shared topic · Revision 0
What Is Tzimtzum?
What Is Tzimtzum?
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The current answer
How the Infinite makes room for a world by contracting from itself, and why later thinkers split over whether to read it literally.
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Earlier Kabbalah, including the Zohar, had pictured creation mainly as emanation: the hidden God unfolds outward through the ten Sefirot like light through a graded series of vessels.
Imported citation, not independently checked: Zohar; G. Scholem, Major Trends (1941)
Isaac Luria, called ha-Ari ("the Lion," 1534-1572), taught in the Galilean town of Safed for only about the last two years of his short life and wrote almost nothing himself.
Imported citation, not independently checked: L. Fine, Physician of the Soul, Healer of the Cosmos (2003)
When a source quotes "Luria" on the contraction, it is almost always quoting Vital's record of Luria.
Imported citation, not independently checked: Chaim Vital, Etz Chaim
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