This description of God and His divine realm directly parallels the kabbalistic ten-headed sefirotic system, with Ein Sof (Hebrew אין סוף) beyond knowledge on the top, and the ten sefirot emanating downward; the lower the sefira, the more relatable it becomes.
Based at least partially in the Kabbalistic understanding of divinity, the Dönmeh believed that there was a three-way connection of the emanations of the divine, which engendered much conflict with Muslim and Jewish communities alike.
Isaac Luria reinterpreted and recast the whole scheme of Kabbalah in the 16th century, essentially making the second of two different versions of the Kabbalah: the Medieval (the initial, direct understandings of the Zohar, later synthesised by Moshe Cordovero) and the Lurianic.
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Wide discussion of the Partsufim is found in the Medieval Kabbalah of the Zohar, before Isaac Luria.
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To this reformed state, Isaac Luria attributed the former Kabbalistic concepts of Yosher (harmonised "Upright" arrangement of the sephirot), and the many Zoharic passages expounding the Partzufim (Divine "Personas/Configurations"-particular Divine manifestations).
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Their origins come from Medieval Kabbalah and the Zohar.
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In Medieval Kabbalah, the task of man is the Yichud-Union on High of the Male-Female principles of Divinity, healing the apparent separation and concealment of the Shechinah Female indwelling Divine presence that sustains this world from the "Holy One Blessed Be He", the transcendent Divine on High.
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In the Zohar and elsewhere, there are these four Worlds or planes of existence.
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It moved the origin of perceived exile in the Sephirot to Primordial Creation, before the influence of Man on supernal harmony, as in Medieval Kabbalah
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They are fully found in the Medieval Kabbalah texts, such as the central work in Kabbalah, the Zohar.
At the centre of Kabbalah are the 10 Sephirot powers in the divine realm, their unification being the task of man.
Sephirot |
In the Zohar, Atziluth is taken to be simply the direct emanation of God, in contradistinction to the other emanations derived from the Sephirot.
In the foundational Kabbalistic structure of the 10 Sephirot (emanations), Keter (Divine Will) transcends the intellectual Sephirot, and is the origin of All.
According to the Golden Dawn's interpretation of the Kabbalah, there are ten archangels, each commanding one of the choirs of angels and corresponding to one of the Sephirot.
Another influence on the Zohar which Scholem identified, was a circle of Kabbalists in Castile who dealt with the appearance of an evil side emanating from within the world of the sephirot.