Tzimtzum

An ongoing series exploring Arizal's Tzimtzum narrative in Chabad thought

How did a scholarly disagreement amongst the Mediterranean kabbalists in the late-1600s morph into the explosive debate between the Chassidim and their Mitnagdic opponents more than half a century later?

I long struggled with the kabbalistic map of the cosmos, convinced that these mysteries could be grasped in a more relevant way. A single class on tzimtzum opened up an entire world of insight and discovery.

If you were to create a world, the first thing you would need to master is tsimtsum. Tsimtsum is a way of being present in your absence. Get that one down, along with creating something out of nothing, and everything else is a piece of cake.

Compassion is imbued into the very fabric of existence.

Finally, Rabbi Infinity gives away his key secret: How does he manage to teach the deepest Kabbalistic secrets of the universe to a four year old? It's all, you see, in the letter Lamed.

The Kabbalah of creating a world and charging your phone.

A discussion of the notion of reciprocal love to G-d as developed in Tanya, chapters 46-49, and the centrality of the non-literal interpretation of tzimtzum (“contraction”), as discussed in chapter 48. To create space for the other is not to absent yourse...

The little child jumping rope outside, the construction worker drilling steel girders, the ocean’s roar and the big blue sky will all speak of the oneness that breathes within all of them, without the need to sit and ponder. It will be the foreground expe...

He’s in the heavens, and He’s here on earth. He’s in the ethereal world of the philosopher, and He’s in the pragmatic world of the trucker speeding down Interstate 86. He’s in the putrid world of the worker digging out the city sewers down the street, and...