ספר בראשית

‎[The subject is dealt with in a book called ‎עץ חיים‎ by Rabbi Chayim Vittal, foremost disciple of the ‎Ari’zal, in which most of the oral teachings of the Ari’zal have been recorded for posterity. It is ‎understood, based on psalms 104,34-35 ‎אנכי אשמח בה' יתמו חטאים מן הארץ‎, “as a result of my ‎rejoicing in G’d, evil will cease from the earth,” that it is the function of the righteous in our parts of ‎the universe to “repair” the damage the “Shechinah” sustained due to man’s first sin and to ‎restore it to its uncorrupted wholeness. Creation of a physical universe, by definition, required a ‎צמצום‎, voluntary contraction, of the Creator whose universe had previously been filled completely ‎with the holiness of the Shechinah. Since the universe had been “full,” prior to this ‎creation of the physical universe, G’d had to “empty” some of its “space” in order to make room ‎for the new creation. Ed.] The 288 “sparks” that separated from the Shechinah, are the ‎kabbalists’ way of illustrating this. [Possibly the numerical value of 288 being ‎רוח וחיים‎, ‎‎“spirit and life,” accounts for this number 288. Ed.] The tree of knowledge personified these 288 ‎sparks of the Shechinah after they had merged with secular matter, i.e. a mixture of ‎טוב ‏ורע‎, “good and evil,” in the lower part of the universe. G’d had to forbid man to eat from this ‎‎“tree,” in order for the way to remain open for man to “repair” the damage that the ‎‎“Shechinah” had sustained. If man were to eat from it, this would result in an impediment ‎to his ability to restore the Shechinah to its former wholeness. As it were, these “sparks,” ‎descended ever deeper into the physical universe as a result of Adam’s eating from it, and, instead ‎of him restoring the original spiritual light to its former brilliance, he caused the earth to become a ‎spiritually darker domain. The spiritual decline of the earthly environment may be what is ‎described in the Torah as the “death” that would occur, the process only beginning on the day ‎Adam ate, but not resulting in his literal death until many years later. [Needless to say, that man’s ‎task of finding a way to reunite these sparks with the Shechinah from which it had been ‎separated has not been abandoned; however it was made far more difficult as a result of Adam’s ‎sin Ed.] Our author quotes Sanhedrin 99 on B’rachot 34 where the Talmud describes ‎the “place” on which repentant sinners stand in the scheme of things as superior to the “place” ‎assigned to the righteous who never knew the taste of sin. If man has sinned, and in spite of this, ‎found his way back to G’d, this is a greater moral ethical achievement than never to have been ‎exposed to the allure of sin in the first place, so that one’s steadfastness in the path of temptation ‎had never been tested.‎