An irreversible shattering would give creation a built-in arrow of time

“What if the universe began not with a harmonious bang, but with a catastrophic crack? What if the Real is not an ordered whole, but the splinters left over from a disaster so foundational that it precedes time, matter, and meaning itself?”

“one after the other, are those primordial worlds which were successively convulsed and destroyed ; whilst the sovereigns of Israel denote the King and Queen who emanated from the En Soph , and who have given birth to and perpetuate the present world. Thus we are told : — 103 “ Before the Aged of the Aged, the Concealed of the Con¬ cealed, expanded into the form of King, the Crown of Crowns [i.e. the first Sephira ], there was neither beginning nor end. He hewed and incised forms and figures into it [i.e, the crown] in the following manner : — He spread before him a cover, and carved therein kings [i.e. worlds], and marked out their limits and forms, but they could not preserve themselves. Th”

“the qlippoth... are the representation of evil or impure spiritual forces in Jewish mysticism, the opposites of the sefirot.... The resulting darkness gave birth to the qlippoth. Reflecting this, they are thenceforth generally synonymous with "darkness" itself.”

“however, becoming solidified, like wax, when ex¬ posed to the air in the colder realms of reasoning oy of visible forms. These shells, envelopes petrified or cami- fied, were such an expression possible, are the source of errors or of evil which connect with the heaviness and 48 TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC hardness of the animal envelopes. In the book “Zohar,” and in that of the “ Revolution of Souls,” perverse spirits or evil demons are never named otherwise than as shells — cortices. The cortices of the world of spirits are trans¬ parent, while those of the material world! are opaque. Bodies are only temporary shells, whence souls have to be liberated; but those which in this life obey the body c”

“by new receiving vessels in the form of ten sefirot called the returning light.21The returning light is the supernal light that was rebuffed when it impacted against the partition>>. Since the supernal light is comprised of ten sefirot, so too is the returning light comprised of ten sefirot. Chapter 18 You should understand and thoroughly review these three principles, as well as their explanations as described above, for without them there is no comprehending even a single word of this wisdom. Now we will clarify five levels that are in the partition, on the basis of which the shiurei koma (literally, “dimensions of height”) change during the fusion through collision between the partition”

“each corresponds to one of the five levels discussed here. The level of Tiferet corresponds to the partzuf called Ze’er Anpin, which is the reason the author of the Sulam writes here that the lower forms of the five sefirot making up Tiferet are associated with this partzuf. Chapter 5 Light and Vessel5. It is impossible for light to exist in all the worlds without a vessel. The concept of a spiritual vessel is explained in Petiḥa LeḤokhmat HaKabbala, sections 3 and 4. Initially, there was only one vessel in the ten sefirot, which was Malkhut. When we say that there are five levels, namely, Keter, Ḥokhma, Bina, Tiferet, and Malkhut, all these are all only parts of Malkhut, which is called the”

“Isaac Luria's dynamic understanding and reformulation of the symbols of the Zohar, provides a theological scheme which cries out to be interpreted in psychological terms.”

“and they have force to end it because it possesses end and ‘it was created with ten utterances’. And similarly ‘the righteous ones are upholding it’ [Pirkei Avot 5:1], because if it wouldn’t have possessed end, the righteous ones would not be upholding it nor the wicked ones ending it. For this it is necessary that it [= the world] was created with ten utterances, and this is the emanation of ten rungs so that it possesses end, and the wicked one perished and destroyed and is returning to his dust and is restored, and the righteous one departed with honor to correspond to his Father in the heavens and to eat the fruits of his deeds. Truly difficult for this reason is that if it is so, that”

“can therefore enclothe only one light, which is the light of Malkhut, and this structure will lack the four lights of Keter, Ḥokhma, Bina, and Tiferet, just as it lacks four vessels, which are the opacity of the fourth level, the third level, the second level, and the first level. Thus, the shiurei koma (literally, “dimensions of height”) of each partzuf is precisely dependent on the measure of opacity in the partition, as the partition of the fourth level generates a structure up to the height of Keter, that of the third level generates a structure up to the height of Ḥokhma, that of the second level generates a structure up to the height of Bina, that of the first level generates a structu”

“by new receiving vessels in the form of ten sefirot called the returning light.21The returning light is the supernal light that was rebuffed when it impacted against the partition>>. Since the supernal light is comprised of ten sefirot, so too is the returning light comprised of ten sefirot. Chapter 18 You should understand and thoroughly review these three principles, as well as their explanations as described above, for without them there is no comprehending even a single word of this wisdom. Now we will clarify five levels that are in the partition, on the basis of which the shiurei koma (literally, “dimensions of height”) change during the fusion through collision between the partition”

“collision can be discerned in the partition, corresponding to its five measures of opacity:Fusion through collision against a complete partition, which is formed with all five levels of opacity, gives rise to returning light that is sufficient to enclothe all ten sefirot – that is, until the level of Keter. When there is fusion through collision against a partition that lacks the opacity of the fourth level, and has only the opacity of the third level, the returning light that it raises is sufficient to enclothe the ten sefirot only up to the level of Ḥokhma and does not include Keter.If it contains only the opacity of the second level, its returning light is smaller and is only enough to en”

“His own substance. He stretched before Him a veil, and in that veil He sculptured the kings, and traced their limits and their forms; but they could not subsist. Therefore it is written: these are the kings that reigned in 72 Genesis, ch. XXXVI, 31-40.. Te HRA BIRCA BoA 173 the land of Edom before a king reigned over the children of Israel. Here are dealt with the primitive kings and _ primitive Israel.7* All the kings thus formed had their names, but they could not subsist until He (the Ancient) descended to them and veiled Himself for them.’ There can be no doubt that these lines refer to a creation which anteceded ours, and to worlds that preceded ours. The Zohar itself tells us so in th”

“can therefore enclothe only one light, which is the light of Malkhut, and this structure will lack the four lights of Keter, Ḥokhma, Bina, and Tiferet, just as it lacks four vessels, which are the opacity of the fourth level, the third level, the second level, and the first level. Thus, the shiurei koma (literally, “dimensions of height”) of each partzuf is precisely dependent on the measure of opacity in the partition, as the partition of the fourth level generates a structure up to the height of Keter, that of the third level generates a structure up to the height of Ḥokhma, that of the second level generates a structure up to the height of Bina, that of the first level generates a structu”

“Kabbalah emerged from earlier forms of Jewish mysticism in 12th to 13th-century Occitania, specifically in Languedoc, among the Hachmei Provence ('sages of Occitania'), as evidenced by the Bahir.”

“of the serpent and will be arranged as is proper; and then the world will return to its [proper] arrangement, and His divinity will reveal itself in the lower ones [= degrees] as is suitable and proper, and the sons of man will increase strength with their knowledge of Him. And then it is said (Jeremiah 31:33): “And man will not teach his neighbor etc., …. because they all, from small to great, will know Me”. And then the light of the Torah will reveal itself and its hidden things and its mysteries as is fitting and as is proper, and the emanated entities will connect themselves [in] perfect union, as Scripture establishes, as it is written (Zechariah 14:9): “And HaShem will be king for al”

“aware-all this through the diminution of the moon. When the moon was restored, the letters of meoroth (lights) were reversed to form imrath (word), as it is written, “the word (imrath) of the Lord is tried, he is a shield to those that trust in him” (Ps. 18, 31), i.e. He is a shield against all those evil spirits and demons that wander about the world at the waning of the moon, unto those that hold fast to their faith in the Holy One, blessed be He. King Solomon, when he “penetrated into the depths of the nut garden” (as it is written, “I descended into the nut garden”, S. S. 6, 11), took a nut-shell (klifah) and drew an analogy from its layers to these spirits which inspire sensual desir”

“its cause, and similarly from Beriah to Yetsira and similarly from Yetsirah to Asiya until the celestial spheres/planets. And see the order of the celestial spheres, the astronomers, those of dark vision, imagined that the celestial sphere is [so] close to its neighbour that there is no space between them. But this is not the opinion of the masters of Torah and of those who see with the light of the world, but [they hold] that between firmament and firmament there is a (diurnal) distance of five hundred years, and even when this space is between them, yet the subject teaches the equivalence of Creation and its necessity, and that it is not possible that there is less between planet and plane”

“Kabbalah presents a description of Creation that is very different from the description that appears in the first chapter of Bereishit. This does not imply any contradiction between these two accounts of the same event. Rather, the two versions emphasize different features.”

“absolute state (Meir says in our version that the Rabbi said this, and it may be inferred). And that light was then contracted and withdrew to the sides surrounding the central point, and then a void, air, and empty space were left, from a central point just like this <illustration>. And behold, this contraction was equal on all sides of the central point, so that the space was perfectly circular from all sides, without any square corners, because the blessed Ain Sof contracted Himself in a perfectly circular form from all sides, and the reason was that since the light of the Ain Sof was absolutely equal on all sides, it was also necessary for Him to contract Himself in a completely equal ma”

“According to Isaac Luria, the ten vessels that were originally meant to contain the emanation of God's light were unable to contain that light and were hence either displaced or shattered. As a result of this cosmic catastrophe, the Sefirot, the archetypal values through which the cosmos was created, are shattered and out of place, and the world within which we reside, is composed of the shards of the these broken values.”

“can therefore enclothe only one light, which is the light of Malkhut, and this structure will lack the four lights of Keter, Ḥokhma, Bina, and Tiferet, just as it lacks four vessels, which are the opacity of the fourth level, the third level, the second level, and the first level. Thus, the shiurei koma (literally, “dimensions of height”) of each partzuf is precisely dependent on the measure of opacity in the partition, as the partition of the fourth level generates a structure up to the height of Keter, that of the third level generates a structure up to the height of Ḥokhma, that of the second level generates a structure up to the height of Bina, that of the first level generates a structu”

“While the domains of quantum physics and Jewish mysticism seem to have little in common, what they share is the idea that many entities exist that cannot be directly perceived by humans. Within this commonality, there are a surprising myriad of parallels, with the traditions of Kabbalah encouraging and inspiring inquiry into phenomena that may not be readily tangible to us.”

“According to Isaac Luria, the ten vessels that were originally meant to contain the emanation of God's light were unable to contain that light and were hence either displaced or shattered. As a result of this cosmic catastrophe, the Sefirot, the archetypal values through which the cosmos was created, are shattered and out of place, and the world within which we reside, is composed of the shards of the these broken values.”

“Since the time of the kings of Edom until today, the World of Chaos is in a state of instability and prefers to wallow eternally in the swamp of bachelorhood...”

“Present throughout are also dire warnings against the dangers of the flesh – a sense of anxiety often surrounds matters of the body. This study examines how the central notion of the body as created in God’s image relates to the negative zoharic characterizations of the body and further, how notions of gender and Jewish religious affiliation are reflected in the zoharic views of the body. The results show that characterizations of the body can work to reinforce boundaries and define the own group.”