Lurianic Shevirah (Shattering) and Tikun (Rectification)
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. However, he understood his new doctrine as no more than a new revelation-teaching of the true meaning of the Zohar. Lurianic Kabbalah became the dominant Kabbalistic system, displacing Cordovero's, and afterwards the Zohar was read in its light. Lurianic Kabbalists sought to integrate this with the Cordoverian scheme, seeing both as true, but describing different aspects ("Worlds") of the Divine process.
Medieval Kabbalah depicts a linear descending hierarchy of Divine vitality, the sephirot emerging from the Ein Sof to enact Creation. Lurianic Kabbalah describes enclothing processes of exile and redemption in the Divine flow, where higher levels descend into lower states, as souls to spiritual bodies. The first emanation in Creation leads to spiritual shattering of Divinity in a definitive "catastrophe" (Shevirat HaKeilim - "The Shattering of the Vessels"), and the exile of its "sparks" into the descending created realms. Cordovero had reconciled previous opinions of the Sephirot by describing each as Divine Ohrot ("lights") invested in 10 spiritual Keilim ("vessels"), adapted by Luria to his scheme. In Lurianic Kabbalah, the first vessels of the Sephirot shatter due to the sublime intensity of the light. Because each of the Sephirot act as independent forces, Isaac Luria's attribution of the Iggulim (independent "Circles" arrangement of the Sephirot) without cooperation, their immature vessels are weak. From the destruction of this primordial realm, the World of Tohu ("Chaos"), is built the subsequent World of Tikun ("Rectification"), characterised by lower lights and stronger vessels. The sublime lights of Tohu withdraw into the Ein Sof, while their Sephirot vessels shatter down Creation. Sparks of the original high lights remain attached in exile to the descending fragments, and the Messianic task is the redemption of all the holy sparks of Tohu. In the World of Tikun in contrast, the Sephirot vessels are mature, stronger and act together in harmony. 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). This systemised the classic concept of the Partzufim as the secondary, evolved arrangements of the Sephirot in Creation.
Isaac Luria related the transition from Tohu to Tikun to Genesis 1:1-3:
"In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth", the initial source in potential, from which all would unfold. "And the earth was Chaos (Tohu) and Void (Vohu), with darkness over the surface of the deep...", each sephirah acts independently causing the shattering (Shevirat HaKeilim). "...And God said let there be Light", the ability of the harmonised Sephirot of Tikun to reveal Divinity and ennact stable Creation.
The Lurianic doctrine of the shattering of the emotional sephirot vessels describes the esoteric meaning of Genesis 36:31 and I Chronicles 1:43:
"These are the kings who reigned in the land of Edom before there reigned any king over the children of Israel..."
Edom is described in Genesis as the descendents of Esau. In the Kabbalistic scheme, this is identified with unrectified Gevurah - Severity, the source of the vessels of the World of Tohu - Chaos. The eight kings listed who reigned in Edom before any king of Israel, embodied the eight sephirot of Daat to Malchut in the World of Tohu, the vessels that shattered. Of each it says they lived and died, death connoting the soul-light of the sephirot ascending back to its source, while the body-vessel descends-shatters. Attached to the broken vessels are the holy residues of the former light as Nitzot - "Sparks" of holiness, sustaining Creation by the Divine flow of Will. The sparks are the creative force of the Sephirot down the Four Worlds. The unabsorbed residue of the broken vessels in our physical, lowest World Assiah becomes the realm of Kelipot impurity. Genesis 1:2, "...And the Spirit of God hovered over the waters." Merachepet - "hovered" splits into the number "288 died", the root number of Divine sparks that then subdivide into innumerable fragments.
Read more about this topic: Sephirot