The experience of evil as a consequence of Adamic sin
Lorenzo Maitani (1275-1330) – The exile from paradise – Bas-relief, Cathedral of Orvieto, Umbria (Italy)

Published in: Osservatore Astrologico no. 8, February 1990

Italian version

This article delves into the origins of impurities of divine light, commonly known as “evil”. The choice of kabbalistic thinking as the representative form of ideas about evil stems from its orthodox and revolutionary character as a significant current of Jewish mysticism. Initially, it emerged as a movement to recover a mythical space that rabbinic Judaism had excluded. The God of the Jews creates an impassable abyss between himself and his creatures; his purity isolates him, rejecting any anthropomorphic representation. The popular sentiment, however, sought to break away from a doctrine that masks evil and suffering as pseudo-problems, thereby justifying a detachment from worldly impurities. Through an elaborate exposition of divine action in the world of creatures, the kabbalistic movement gained wide acceptance in cultural strata that lacked the dogmatic confidence of a rabbi and yet underwent the frightening experience of the diaspora.

The following text sheds light on the sources that influenced the speculations of the Spanish Kabbalists in the 13th century, who were the first to express Kabbalah in literary form. One of the richest sources of commentaries was the Pentateuch books, also known as the Written Torah, which contains the laws and commandments that Moses received from God on Mount Sinai. Through the biblical account of Adam’s sin in Genesis 3 and beyond, the Kabbalistic interpretation of original sin emerges as the central cornerstone of the conflict between the forces of purity and demonic contamination. In some passages of the Zohar, the apex of Kabbalistic literature, God is depicted as having sprouted two trees in Eden: the tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 2:9). The tree of life symbolises the Written Torah, representing the divine commandment in its absolute form, which is directly unknowable by human beings. On the other hand, the Oral Torah is open to a wide range of misunderstandings arising from its application and interpretation.

The relativisation of the Torah takes on particular significance in the Sefer ha-Temunah [1], The Book of the Form (of Hebrew letters and by extension of God’s image therein), which follows the Zohar. Unlike the Bible, the author no longer presents a creative process but a series of creations dominated by a sephirah, the dynamis of the living God [2]. Each sephirah forms a cosmic cycle (shemittah) lasting seven thousand years. When multiplied by the seven lower sephiroth of the Kabbalistic tree of life, it makes a total of forty-nine thousand years, after which humanity returns with the fiftieth millennium to primitive purity. According to the author of this late Kabbalistic work, who remains unknown, we live in the second of the three shemitteth, the aeon of Justice, which knows the serpent’s temptation and the severity of the divine command. In the previous aeon of Grace, the Torah contained no prohibitions, the serpent and evil instincts didn’t exist, and the word of God had not suffered the heresies of its application in the material world.

The Torah, despite its unalterable form, is read in various ways. According to some kabbalists, the Torah‘s different layers of meanings depend on the reader’s mystical perfection. Initially, the Torah is presented unintelligibly, audible only by the prophets and those mystically united with the divine source. The grounding of these layers of meaning in the transitory experience forms specific permutations and vocalisations with the consonants that make up the body of the Torah. The Torah is the word of God that creates the world. Therefore, some kabbalists believe it only takes moving a single letter to subvert the order of things.

In the field of Kabbalah, this phenomenon of transformism can be observed. A notable example of this can be found in the work of Abraham Azulai [3], a Kabbalist who provides commentary on a verse from the Torah. This verse states,

Do not wear clothes of wool and linen woven together

— Deuteronomy 22:11

and in Hebrew, reads as “sha’atnez tzemer u-fishtim“. The verse prohibits wearing sha’atnez clothing, made by weaving wool and linen together [4]. Adam was not believed to possess a physical body in the Earthly Paradise, which is often referred to as the “snakeskin” in mystical terminology. Consequently, he did not require clothing. Before the transgression, the same sentence was interpreted to have a different consonant combination: “satan ‘az metzar u-tefsim” or “not be possessed by the misery of the reckless Satan”.

The concept of matter originating from the progressive decay of the primordial unity, Adam Kadmon, and the subsequent inherent evil in today’s humanity present an overlap of meanings in Kabbalistic thought. The kabbalists view Adam Kadmon as the macrocosmic archetype of the earthly Adam, the progenitor of humanity. The Torah, as it stands today, caters to the instrumental needs of an existence that is answerable to the God of Justice. It is only in a future messianic age that humanity will be transformed, and a mystical approach to the divine source will enable man to comprehend the spiritual message of the Torah in its aspect of Grace and Mercy.

The time has come to investigate the root cause of this decline. The female aspect of God has a significant role in this regard, which Rabbinic Judaism has intentionally suppressed. However, Kabbalists have revived and revealed its symbolic significance. In Genesis,

He created them male and female and blessed them and named them Man at the time they were created

— Genesis 5:2

we witness the mystical union between the male and female aspects of God, which was present during the creation of Man. This union is further emphasised when God created a woman from Adam’s rib, as mentioned in Genesis 2:22. Interestingly, the woman is not given a proper name in the text despite being Adam’s companion. Later, after being exiled from paradise, Adam named her Eve, which means living, mother of all living beings, as mentioned in Genesis 3:20. This event marks the beginning of the decay process, where Adam and Eve had to wear clothes of skin instead of Adam’s “clothes of light” (kothnoth ‘er) that were present during the mystical union. Genesis states that

they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed

— Genesis 2:25

and

Unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins, and clothed them.

— Genesis 3:21

The concept of Shekhinah, the presence and abode of God in the world, encapsulates the rupture of masculine and feminine principles in Kabbalistic thought. While the Shekhinah has never been separated from God in Rabbinic Judaism, the Kabbalists ascribed to it the significance of a divine hypostasis. The Shekhinah is an aspect of God, an emanation of divine action, acting as a mediator, and is considered separate from God Himself. Initially presented in the Zohar as the tenth sefirah, it represents the immanent presence of God in His creation, which cooperates harmoniously with the forces of Grace and Justice during the creative act’s onset. However, Adam’s sin triggers the excess of the judicial element, causing the Shekhinah to “experience the other side, which is bitter, and then its face darkens,” as the Zohar puts it [5].

In philosophical and theological discussions, the concept of evil is often attributed to the excessive growth of the power of Justice. However, this happens only when the power of Justice violates the original unity and the belonging of Shekhinah to God is called into question. The origin of evil is not a matter of discussion here. Instead, the actual source of evil is the separation of the creature from its creator, which leads to the isolation of the lower from the higher. This abandonment of spiritual sense strips matter of its vital force, and the Tree of Life becomes the Tree of Death, klippoths – or shells – that prevent humans from receiving the divine light by confining them in a roughly material world in a demonic manner.