The Act of Tzimtzum, Part 2

 

Opening 24 (continued)

 

 

Part 2: …the Eyn Sof, blessed be He, willfully set aside His limitlessness… It is already clear to us that the Supreme Will in Himself is beyond all limits. Accordingly we must not think that He created only what He was able to create and that he was unable to create any more than this. He is certainly capable of much more, but He did not want to do more. He acted not in His aspect of omnipotence and limitlessness, but with precisely the degree of power that He calculated to be perfectly suitable to accomplish the intended purpose of His action. Thus we see that even though in Himself He is without limits, He set aside His limitlessness in order to bring about the creation. Accordingly, we may say that the power that is the cause of creation already lacks the aspect of limitlessness, which has departed from it.

 

To say that He set aside His limitlessness implies firstly that the Sefirot are not something new that was not already included in Eyn Sof, blessed be He. Prior to the Tzimtzum, the Sefirot already existed on a plane of limitlessness, and this is what He set aside in the Tzimtzum. The second implication of saying that He set aside His limitlessness is that as long as the Sefirot were totally subsumed in Eyn Sof, we cannot say they existed in the same way as they do now. We must say that they existed in some other way. For the difference between existence within limits and existence on the plane of limitlessness is not only one of quantity but also of quality. In their unlimited aspect, those same Sefirot had a different quality: they existed in a different way. If so, when they took on limits, they received a new quality. This is the sense in which they were an innovation. Through being revealed within limits, they came into being in the way they exist now, and this is the innovation.

 

Proof of these two inferences is as follows: The concept of limitlessness implies that every power which can possibly exist in the world and which might afterwards be found within bounds and limits must also exist on the plane of limitlessness without any boundaries at all. Accordingly, we must think of the limited power that brought the created realms into existence as being subsumed within the unlimited, and there its limits disappear. We may conclude from this that the pathway of limitation is included within the unlimited without boundaries.

 

It could be objected that if the pathway of limitation exists on the level of the unlimited without limitations and boundaries, this cannot be said to be the pathway of limitation. This objection may be answered if we distinguish between the kind of concept that includes another concept in the sense of affirming or maintaining its existence, and a different kind of concept that includes or involves another concept only in the sense that it is its very opposite and its negation. An example of the latter is death. The idea of death has no meaning without life, which death brings to an end. Death thus includes life in the sense that it is the negation of life, not that it sustains life. This is not so in the case of life, which does not include death at all.

 

Similarly, limitlessness includes limitations and boundaries — in the sense that it is their very negation. This is the way in which the Sefirot exist in Eyn Sof, blessed be He. For the entire way in which He acts now — within boundaries and limitations — was already conceived on the plane of limitlessness as a hypothetical possibility that was, however, negated by His very limitlessness. If so, the finite existed in the infinite as a hypothetical possibility. When Eyn Sof wanted that His intrinsic limitlessness should not touch this part, it came into being in the way that it exists now, within limits.

 

This is quite simple, for the pathway of limitation was conceived by Eyn Sof, except that at the level on which He conceived it, it was beyond limits and boundaries because His intrinsic limitlessness held sway and brought it back to His level, which is beyond limitations. However, when Eyn Sof, blessed be He, removed His limitlessness from it, it remained as He conceived it prior to the removal of His limitlessness, except that now it was an actual creation as opposed to a hypothetical possibility. Thus prior to the Tzimtzum, the Sefirot were including Eyn Sof — which is the first inference made above. However, on that level they existed not in the way they exist now but in a different way, which is the way of limitlessness. This is the second inference made above.

 

The way in which this appears in the prophetic vision is that Eyn Sof, blessed be He, contracts Himself in one place, leaving a place void of Him. This expresses how the work of creation is revealed with the aspect of limitlessness removed.

 

Part 3: …and adopted a path of limited action. This is called the Tzimtzum (contraction) of Eyn Sof, blessed be He. This indicates that the Tzimtzum is not only a matter of the absence of limitlessness. The Tzimtzum itself sustains the realm of boundaries and limitations in being. The Tzimtzum causes the disappearance of limitlessness, maintaining the boundaries and limits in being. In the realm of limits and boundaries thereby revealed lie the roots of Din, Judgment.

 

One may object: If the Tzimtzum is merely the departure of the aspect of limitlessness — a matter of negation — how can the Tzimtzum positively sustain or maintain anything in being? The answer is: It is the Will that wanted to reveal things in actuality (rather than their remaining as a mere hypothetical possibility) which brings all this about. What He wanted to reveal is His limited power. Accordingly He removed His aspect of limitlessness from it. If so, it is the act of Tzimtzum that actually sustains in being the limited realm revealed through it. This realm is revealed in accordance with His Will, through the removal of His aspect of limitlessness from the place of the Tzimtzum.

 

The way this appears in the vision is that in the place that remains contracted after the act of Tzimtzum, the root of Judgment is revealed, and this is what is maintained in existence through the Tzimtzum.