5. "Breaking of the Vessels" - The Story

In the earlier discussion of "tzimtzum," we saw how God made room for creation by contracting some of his infinite light and thereby creating a hollow void into which he dropped a ray of light. In this section, we'll take a closer look at the light as it evolves into the manifest world as we perceive it. In sum, this light was poured into "vessels" or containers. But these containers shattered because they were unable to hold the light.

Before presenting this in greater detail, I should mention that qabalistic authorities typically discuss "tzimtzum" and "the breaking of the vessels" separately, as opposed to presenting them as step 1, step 2, etc. of the same sequence. But recall that there is no single authoritative source of the qabala; there are many teachers with many variations. I do not think it is unreasonable for you to envision the light we'll be talking about here as the same one that descends in a ray from God down into the empty space he created by constricting part of himself.

The vessels into which the descending light pours are equivalent to the ten spheres of the Tree of Life. (Actually, the Hebrew refers to ten "sefira" but this word has no precise translation; sphere is a commonly accepted approximation and it's the one I'll use). The Tree will be presented in much greater detail in subsequent sections, but at this time, a very brief introduction is necessary. The ten spheres represent ten qualities of God which we can perceive. The spheres can also be seen as ten tools used by God to create the world. (Both of these frameworks will be discussed in more detail in a future section.) These ten traits/tools can be very briefly summarized as follows:

How do these spheres relate to one another? Do they each work independently of one another? Or is each one a necessary component of a single overall scheme? The answer: both of the above. Qabalists maintain that the interrelationship among the spheres is alluded to in the biblical story of Jacob and Laban (Genesis: 30-31), more specifically, the sheep and goats Jacob was to receive in payment from Laban for services rendered to him over the course of twenty years. Jacob was to receive three kinds of animals: banded animals (white bodies with dark bands around their legs), spotted animals (dark spots on white bodies), and streaked animals (dark animals with white bands around their legs, this being the opposite mirror image of banded animals).

At first, the ten spheres are in the "banded" stage. The white animals with dark bands around their legs have the appearance of being or tied up, or bound together. The spheres start out in precisely this condition. Ten traits/tools all bound together in one vessel. Then, they separate and become ten distinct, autonomous spheres. This is the spotted stage (each dark spot on a white animal is completely self contained having no relationship to any other spots.) In the spotted (Hebrew: Nekudim) stage, each sphere is completely oblivious to the presence or absence of any other sphere. It's every sphere for itself.

I mentioned that the spheres were also known as vessels, or in other words containers. Try to imagine light pouring into each vessel, just the way water would pour into a bowl. If you keep pouring water into a bowl, it will eventually overflow. But suppose there was some sort of attachment - a one way lid, for instance - that prevented excess water from spilling out over the edge. What would happen if more and more water was pumped into a finite bowl, but none was permitted to flow out? Eventually, the pressure inside the bowl would build to the point where it would burst. That's precisely what happened to the vessels of Nekudim. More and more light kept rushing in. But in the state of Nekudim (the "spotted" phase in which each vessel is a completely closed, self-contained unit) no light could leave. Eventually, the walls of the vessels were overwhelmed with the excess accumulation of light and they shattered. (Remember, this is a conceptual model, or a metaphor. It's not physics.)

According to Genesis 1:2, before God creates light, the earth is in a state of chaos and emptiness: ThHV VBHV (tohu v bohu; chaos and emptiness). The shattered vessels represent the world of tohu/chaos. Something that cannot cope with its circumstances is said to be in a state of chaos. And indeed, the vessels of Nekudim could not cope with the infinite influx of divine light.

Qabalists maintain that after the shattering, the fragments, which still contained remnants of the light (sparks, or in Hebrew, "Nitzotzot") fell to earth. Since we're dealing here with metaphor rather than physics, there is more than one way to assess what happens next.

(1) In one framework, the vessels are rectified, recreated in such a way as to enable them to receive as much light as God wishes to give. How can this happen? By reconfiguring the vessels in such a way that they don't hold on to all the light they get, but instead, pass it on someplace else. The vessels are now something more than things that only take. They take and they give. By giving, they attain a more God-like quality (since God, the source, is the ultimate giver). They no longer exist as the completely self-contained units we saw in the state of Nekudim. They are now joined with the other vessels. Each one functions as part of an overall system. Since they've been woven together, they now seem similar to the way they were in the initial banded stage. But it's not quite identical. They are no longer tied so intricately as to be virtually indistinguishable as independent vessels. Even so, they are still tied together. Hence we now have the final stage, the streaked phase (white bands on dark animals, which are similar to the pattern of dark bands on white animals, but differ in another respect -- the color scheme). Back to Genesis 1:2, these rectified vessels can be attributed to the world of bohu. We usually translate this as empty, but the word, spelled BVHV in Hebrew can also be read as the phrase BV HVA, which means "in it." In other words, the new take-and-give vessels are ready and able to accept light in them; they are empty, but each is ready for light to flow "in (into) it."

(2) In another conceptual framework, we focus not on the fact that the broken vessels have been rectified, but on the process through which the shattered vessels are brought to a state of repair. Under this conceptual model, envision the divine sparks, the Nitzotzot, falling to earth and mixing in with impure earthly husks (klipphot). It is the job of humanity to discover these sparks and raise them back so they can be used to repair the vessels. This process of rectification ("Tikkun") occurs through spiritual conduct, acts of love, righteousness, etc.

Why, you might ask, didn't the infinite, all powerful, deity simply create the vessels "correctly" the first time around. Why should God create flawed vessels? What's the point? That will be the subject of the next section which will discuss "The Implications" of the breaking.

Indeed, the essential lessons to be learned from the breaking of the vessels can be gleaned from what has been presented to this point. But before closing this portion of the material, I should mention that there are some additional subtleties relating to questions about which vessels actually shattered, that can be gleaned by going further. These are beyond the scope of what beginners really need to know. But for those who are interested, I'll mention them anyway since they, together with the two different post-shattering scenarios mentioned above, provide an interesting insight into the variability of qabalistic thought, and serve as a nice reminder of a point I made in the introductory material; that there are variations among specific teachers. More importantly, it drives home the point that it's probably more important to focus on the lessons to be learned from the general concepts, than to try to search for one single authoritative doctrine. So, going further...

The breaking of the vessels is typically associated with Genesis 36:31-39, wherein the Torah lists "the kings who reigned in the land of Edom before a king reigned over the Children of Israel." Eight kings are listed, one after the other. Qabalists attribute these pre-Israelite kings to the flawed vessels that broke. The qabalistic scholars also assume that Kether, Chochma, and Binah did work together, giving light as well as receiving it, and that they were not among those that shattered. But eight Kings/vessels are mentioned in Genesis 36. That adds to eleven (three vessels that did not shatter plus eight that did shatter). The solution: daath/knowledge, the so-called invisible sphere, was one of those that shattered.

There's another way to look at it. In the recitation of the kings of Edom, seven kings are listed, one after the other, as having ruled and died. But when we get to the eighth king, something different happens. The Torah does not specifically tell us he died, as it did for the preceding seven kings. And we are told the name of the eight king's wife. None of the wives of the other seven kings are identified. This has led some to believe that the eighth king was not part of the process of shattering. These authorities suggest that the last vessel/sphere, malkuth, did not shatter.

So we now have three alternative ideas about the shattering: (1) a basic, (non-mainstream) viewpoint that all ten vessels shattered; (2) all the vessels below binah shattered; or (3) the only vessels to shatter were the invisible vessel of daath and the six vessels, chesed through yesod, of the "world of formation" (a concept that will be addressed later on in this series).

Which answer is correct? Again, it's not physics, so nobody can say. Based on the structure of the kings of Edom material, I lean toward the third scenario, that malkuth did not shatter. This is also consistent with the idea that malkuth, the last vessel, is mainly a recipient (although even this point can be debated, as we'll see later on) and was, hence, properly constructed right from the outset. But it's just an opinion, not an authoritative statement of fact. Even so, the choice of a scenario is not trivial, since the different answers do imply different ideas on characteristics of some spheres. I believe it would be best for beginners to pick any scenario for now (it will not make a difference for purposes of understanding the next section), and then come back to this issue later on, after the spheres have been discussed in more detail.

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Copyright © Marc H. Gerstein 1998. Posted on March 29th, 1998.
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