It’s a question that’s fascinated mystics for centuries. The Zohar, that foundational text of Jewish mysticism, dives deep into this, and Baal HaSulam, a 20th-century Kabbalist, helps us understand some of its most profound ideas in his "Preface to Zohar."
He starts by talking about the worlds of Beria ("Creation") and downward. In Kabbalistic thought, Beria is one of the spiritual realms, and Baal HaSulam focuses on what happens after Bina, the sefirah of Understanding, has been combined with Malkhut, the sefirah of Kingship or manifestation. He explains that the forms and images we perceive are drawn forth to us, the recipients – the souls.
Now, here’s a crucial point: these forms aren’t actually in Bina itself. Not at all. God forbid we should think that! Instead, they exist only in the place of the recipients, that is, from our perspective. What does this mean? It means that all the diversity we experience, all the “colors” of being, are ultimately due to how we perceive things. These permutations and forms are only from the perspectives of the souls, not manifest in their origin.
Think of it this way: from the perspective of the source, of the spiritual realms themselves, there’s only unity, only the "color white." The Zohar, in earlier sections (27-29), touches on this idea. But from our limited vantage point, we see a dazzling array of colors and forms. It’s like we’re looking at the world through a prism.
Then the Zohar makes an even bolder statement: "He then made the form of the chariot of the 'supernal man,' and descended and enclothed in the form of this man." In other words, the entire human form, with its 613 "vessels" – representing the 613 mitzvot (commandments) – is drawn from the vessels of the soul. The soul itself has 613 vessels, which are also known as the 248 limbs and 365 sinews.
These 613 parts are then divided into five sections, which correspond to the letters of the Havayah, the Divine Name (Yod-Heh-Vav-Heh), and the upper point of the Yod. So, we have: the head as Keter (Crown); from the mouth to the chest as Ḥokhma (Wisdom); from the chest to the navel as Bina (Understanding); and from the navel to the end of the legs as the two sefirot, Tiferet (Beauty) and Malkhut (Kingship).
What's Baal HaSulam trying to tell us here? He's inviting us to consider that the world we see is, in a sense, a reflection of our own souls. The forms, the colors, the very structure of reality as we experience it are intimately connected to our inner selves.
It makes you wonder, doesn't it? If the diversity we perceive is a product of our perspective, what would it be like to see the world from the perspective of pure unity, from that place of "white" before the prism breaks it all apart? Perhaps that’s the ultimate goal of the mystic: to glimpse that unity, to transcend the limitations of our individual perceptions, and to see the world as it truly is.