new certainties and new mysticism 393
[following a decline in Jewish population after Jews were expelled in
1583], was on my account. Not only this, but even his current incarnation
was for no purpose other than to bring about my perfection. He did not
return for himself, as he had no need to do so. He also told me that it was
unnecessary for him to teach any other individuals besides me, and when
I have learned, there will no longer be any reason for him to remain in the
world. He also told me that my soul was superior to many of the exalted
angels, and that I could ascend above the firmament of Aravot by means
of my soul, through my deeds.It becomes clear from this diary that Vital had been convinced of his
own identity as the Messiah even before 1570 when Luria came to
Safed.^21
What, then, was the special nature of Lurianic kabbalah that so
aroused his already enthusiastic followers? The main novelty lay in the
concentration of speculation not on the nature of the cosmos as it has
been created by the eternal Godhead but in the achievement of perfec-
tion in the future, not only on the level of the individual (as in earlier
kabbalistic thought) but within the whole community of Israel. Where
Cordovero had talked about the concealment of the divine, Luria taught
that God had withdrawn into himself to allow space for creation. This
concept of tsimtsum (‘contraction’) accounted for creation despite the
infinite being of God and also for the continued presence of the vessels
containing the divine in the world. An impression of the divine remains
‘as the fragrance which lingers in the vial after it has been emptied of its
perfume’. At the same time, Luria evolved a powerful mythology to
explain the presence of evil in the world by positing a catastrophe,
before the universe even came into being, in which the vessels contain-
ing the divine light that poured out at the moment of creation had
shattered, scattering the sparks of light and leaving them captive to the
power of evil until they can be raised again by the efforts of Israel. The
services of kabbalists are particularly required for this process of setting
the world back to rights (tikkun olam ), through piety and systematic
meditation in all aspects of life. The individual soul, too, required tik‑
kun, since all souls had originally been contained within the soul of
Adam, whose fall constituted the alienation of humanity from God. In
the mid- seventeenth century the Portuguese kabbalist Jacob b. Hayyim
Zemach asserted that each soul brings on itself its individual exile by its
sins which may lead to reincarnation in a lower form of life: ‘Know that
an individual may at times be perfected by temporarily joining the body