On the Nature and Origin of the Doctrine of Emanation among the Kabbalists

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Therefore, this threefold relationship arises, through which the Kabbalists speak of the Firstborn of the Divinity. They call him, in part, a light from light, in which the three primal forces of the Godhead reside; in part, the sum of all beings, or the sacred image of man Adam Kadmon: In Kabbalah, the "Primordial Man," a macrocosmic figure who represents the spiritual blueprint for all of creation, in which all things are joined together like the limbs of a living body ⁶); and finally, they consider him as male and female, insofar as his light encompasses all other lights, and his spirit of life—or breath of life—contains all other spirits of life within itself.

From this, his relationship to the world, or to everything that has existence, is determined. Just as he is, in relation to the Eternal, the Anointed of the Most High the Messiah and His holy veil: so too, in relation to creation, he is the guide and shepherd of all souls, who fills all spaces by means of his spirit and gathers to himself everything that waits for liberation and redemption in the depths or within hard shells and coverings original: "in corticibus et involucris duris"; a reference to the "Kelipot," the husks or shells that conceal the divine light within the material world ⁷).

Through this Firstborn of the Divinity, the possessor of all divine powers, there now arose, by means of

⁶) In this, they rely on certain visions of the prophets, for example, on Ezekiel 1:20 and similar passages. See I, 3, 36. II, 25, 508–511.
⁷) I, 2, 30. I, 5, 42. II, 10, 174–199. 33, 727.