It's not a simple story, and it’s definitely not a comfortable one, but Jewish mystical tradition offers a fascinating, if complex, explanation. We find part of it in the ancient text, Kalach Pitchei Chokhmah – "138 Openings of Wisdom."
So, what does Kalach Pitchei Chokhmah tell us? Well, to understand the emergence of evil, we have to go back to the very beginning, before separate creations even existed. Remember, the Supreme Will – that initial divine impulse – wanted the flaws and the repairs to be distinct, separate events. It's like wanting to see the problem clearly before you try to fix it.
Initially, even after the vessels – the Sefirot – broke (a concept we’ve touched on before), everything was still contained within those Sefirot. So, when we talk about evil being "revealed" at this stage, it wasn’t actual evil, that fully formed Other Side we often call Sitra Achra. Instead, it was something more like the roots of evil. Think of it as the potential, the raw material: harsh judgments, flaws lurking within the very lights of creation.
The real, actual evil – the Sitra Achra – only emerged later, after the repair. After all the levels of creation were established in their corrected state, functioning as laws in the divine order. It was then that the separate creations came into being, and the Other Side emerged in accordance with those roots that were revealed when the vessels broke. In other words, the breaking of the vessels created the blueprint, the potential, for evil.
This breaking, as we discussed earlier (Opening 47), involved a separation into levels. Each level, in turn, refused to produce evil, passing the buck, so to speak. Until only the lowest level, Malchut of Asiyah (Kingship of the World of Action), was left to actually bring evil into being.
It was this lowest level of Malchut that brought forth evil into actuality. Think of it as the final processor, taking all those raw ingredients – the roots of evil from all the Sefirot – and manifesting them into the Other Side itself. Because this Malchut contains all those roots, it’s the one that ultimately brings their function into reality.
So, the emergence of evil wasn't a single, sudden event. It was a process. A process rooted in the divine will for distinction, played out through the breaking of the vessels and the gradual descent to the lowest level of creation. It’s a complex and even unsettling picture, but it highlights the idea that even evil has a source, a place within the grand scheme of creation.
And perhaps, understanding its origins can help us better understand its nature, and ultimately, its role in the larger story. Food for thought, right?