Oh, sorry Ahriman, didn't see Your note on him...
Well, as I study kabbalah during my Jewish studies, I can tell You more about it - but of course, only from the pure kabbalistic (Jewish kabbalah, there are later people who are "doing and building new theories and such" of kabbalah but it does not usually have anything to do with the original source) point of view.
And even I am not able to tell everything - cause there is still so much to find out in these hidden mysteries
That's also why I won't write about Shabtai Zvi/Sabtaj Cvi or any other mutation of his name in the different langs
His tradition is heretic for Jews and actually I never liked him that much to study him more. But yes, he was interesting and his life was taking strange ways
For those who would like to know just about the meaning of "Sitra Ahra" this is good answer:
http://www.kheper.net/topics/Kabbalah/kelippot.htmNow for the story about the origin of the Sitra Ahra...
As You might find on the wiki or elsewhere Isaac Luria lived 1534 – July 25, 1572. Which is just after the expulsion of Jews from West Europe and mainly - Spain and Portugal. Back then - bit earlier also started the inquisition etc.. and the suffering and most the exile made the Jews think of the existence of evil in world more than ever before. You have to understand (well, You don't have to of course) that for them the Exile was the most terrible tragedy!
And amongst "normal" people there were also the kabbalists thinking a lot about the theodicy (problem of existence of the evil).
The view before Isaac's theory was that it comes from the fall of the Human... mainly.
Isaac Luria came with something absolutely new into the kabbalah. In the times of his life many kabbalists started to think what was before the Creation. What was before Bereshit (Genesis) - that could be of course marked as heresy also but in such hard times the rules were more liberal than before...
Luria was one of those people who wasn't afraid to explore this and create his hypothesis... He comes with an idea that the Creation, existence and tikkun (tikkun olam - repairing the world) is great cosmic drama.
Creates two new concepts:
Tzimtzum = contraction or constriction
Shevirat ha-kelim = the breaking of vessels (as the vessel imagine here something more
like and Greek amphora "vase", or simply a bigger bowl)
With these thoughts he was mainly working with Sefer Zohar - just created the new concept. He was thinking how was G-d possible to create "something likely different" when he was everywhere? So he came up with theory that he had to limit himself => he made a tzimtzum = he limited himself into himself so he made like this and exile into himself - which created the "empty space" but where dwells the Shekhinah and where is able to place Creation
( He tried like this to accent like this the theory of "creatio ex nihilo").
So now, after this Luria thought out that only after that the G-d's middot. So now we can say that the exile is not only an "earth thing" but it's metaphysical
- now he connects into it the Tree of Life - Ilan ha-etz or Etz Chayim
if You wish.
The G-d is immanent and from him comes many emanations. The very first one was the
Adam Kadmon (or Adam ha-rishon). But the emanation of G-d's light (Ór Ein Sof) was so strong was too strong and too intensive that the vessels (sephirot) got broken, some were only damaged but exactly Malkuth (the one which si closest to our material world) got terribly broken.
And the pieces of the original vessels with some rests of the Ór Ein Sof (mhmmmm... imagine it like if You put in the amphora Campari and orange juice - the Campari gets settled down and when the amphora breaks some of the Campari lefts on th pieces) are so called kelippot, kliphoth etc... the Sitra Ahra side.
Thanks to these rests of the Light the kelippot are able of their own existence and they are trying to make their own Creation but because like only a broken pieces of china they don't have the real value on their own so they parasite on the energy of Ór Ein Sof.
----
Luria got a thesis that the rupture was was contemplated so thanks to it the Human can get the free will.
Sorry that it is so long but that's still "only" the extraction
it can be much more complicated and I am not far enough to discuss it more and actually I don't even want too
Please keep in mind that all this is just "LIKE" - he imagined it LIKE VESSELS, etc...
P.S.: No, blackrose - I will not discuss this stuff with you.
If someone is interested a lot I can recommend some literature
