Kabbalah · 1534–1572
Isaac Luria
Kabbalah of Safed · the school of the Ari · Etz Chaim · the Tree of Life (recorded by his student Chaim Vital)
The Holy Lion of Safed, who in a few short years overturned all of Kabbalah with the image of the shattered vessels.
The essence of the teaching: To create the world, the Infinite contracted and made room – tzimtzum. The light came down into vessels, they could not bear it and shattered, the sparks scattered into the darkness. The work of a human being is to gather them and to mend the world.
Transmission
Luria lived only thirty-eight years and wrote almost nothing down – it was his student Chaim Vital who carried the teaching out. Yet in two years at Safed he gave the tradition its heart. Ask, he would say, how did the infinite God leave room for a world? He contracted within himself – this is tzimtzum, a willing self-limitation. Into that emptiness he sent his light, but the vessels could not bear it and split apart. Ever since, sparks of holiness lie scattered everywhere, even in the lowest place. And when, with the right intention, you eat, you work, you forgive – you lift a spark back toward the Source. This is tikkun, the mending. You are no spectator in the world – you are the one through whom the world is gathered anew.
The full transmission — for members of the School. Here is its essence and its taste.
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