Tzimtzum, Sh'vira, Tikkun

Contraction, collapse, concentrating ra Breaking of the vessels, Disassociating, Fragmentating Tik un Restoration, Repair, Healing 1. Tzimtzum-Shevira-Tikkun are terms from Lurianic Kabbala which describe the process of Creation as a birth process. Tzimtzum, is a contraction which concentrates the mind and energies in the birthing-specific task. Every process which has gotten overinflated, lost, overly abundant, requires a Tzimtzum for its rebirth. Shevira, the breakage occurs when the Tzimtzum gets intense. As the water bag bursts in birth, so must the eggshell be pierced by the chick. If you open the cocoon for the butterfly, it may not have developed the strength to fly. Each must burst their own old shell to develop their strength. Tikkun restores, heals and repairs parent and child after the initial radical changes. 2. These three terms changed the face of life's meaning for all Jews. After hearing that the world was created with a process of fragmentation (Shevira) producing a falling of holy sparks (Nitzutzim- see later) into hidden places in the world and that the purpose of the Torah was to set the guidelines to help us recover those sparks, Jews were able to reframe the exile. From being thought of as a rejection by God, a terrible long-lasting punishment, galut became reframed as an essential part of God's mission to help in the co-production of a healed world. punishment was transformed into a treasure hunt. 3. The dynamics of Tzimtzum-SheviraTikkun are thought of as a) something that happened a long time ago; b) something that is happening now, part of the fabric of the energetic flow of the universe, as if, for example, the Big Bang was not an event but an ongoing process; c) A dynamic which is within every situation, interaction and process. If the pulsing of the universe is to breathe by shrinking and expanding, then the ongoing birthing of all things and events is in a constant state of labor, breaking (of the water and of the previous pregnant state) and of fixing the birthed one. Then we are all mothers (of all things, events and situations) with God.