Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism

For Luria, in other words, tzimtzum yields divine absence; for the sages, in contrast, it yields intensified presence.

we can say that Ḥabad cosmology espouses an apophatic panentheism: the One is affirmed in everything to the extent that everything is negated in relation to the One, but the One is negated in relation to everything to the extent that everything is affirmed in the One.

the innermost element of secrecy entails the expansion of consciousness, designated by the technical term da‘at, which I rendered as “mindfulness,” to the point that the soul is bound to the Infinite, a prolepsis of the messianic future.

Heliodorus, a priest of the Mysteries, explains: Philosophers and theologians do not disclose the meanings embedded in these stories to laymen but simply give them preliminary instruction in the form of a myth. But those who have reached the higher grades of the Mysteries they initiate into clear knowledge in the privacy of the holy shrine, in the