In line with the kabbalistic tradition, R. Israel Ba'al Shem Tov (the Besht), the founder of Hasidism, perceived everything to be infused with Divine sparks: "It is a great principle that there are holy sparks in all there is in the world. Nothing is void of sparks, even trees and stones." (As related in Besht, Zava'at ha-Rivash, photocopy (Brooklyn: Otsar Hahasidim, 1991), section 141, p. 54 (Hebrew). Many of the sayings in this book are probably not attributable to the Besht but to R. Dov Ber, the Maggid of Mezeritch, his main disciple.) He further taught that such sparks are also in "all of man's actions. Even in man's sins there are sparks resulting from the breaking of the vessels." This panentheistic worldview, which sees elements of the Divine in everything, should not be confused with the panthe-istic doctrine that G-d and nature are identical.
The Origin of the Nitzotzin
Although the vessels of Tohu shattered and "died," a residue of the lights that had been contained in those vessels remained clinging to the fragments. These residual points of holy light are called nitzotzin — divine sparks. The initial number of these sparks, scattered from the vessels that broke, is 288.
This number is encoded in the opening verses of Genesis. The word merachefet (מרחפת) — "hovered," as in the Spirit of God hovered over the face of the waters — is read by the Arizal as a compound of two words: met (מת), meaning "dead," and rapach (רפח), whose numerical value is 288. The Spirit of God hovers over the deep precisely because 288 points of holy light are caught within the corpse of Tohu, and all of Creation as we know it begins as the patient work of their redemption.
"And the Earth was chaos and void… and the Spirit of God hovered (merachefet) over the face of the waters…" — Genesis 1:2
The Descent of the Sparks Through the Four Worlds
The fragments of the shattered vessels initially fell into the world of Beriya (Creation). As the process of tikun (rectification) began, the most refined aspects of these vessel-fragments were able to ascend and were absorbed into the world of Atzilut (Emanation). What could not be elevated into Atzilut remained in Beriya and became an integral part of it. What could not be absorbed into Beriya descended further into Yetzira (Formation) and Asiya (Action). The aspects that could not be received even in the lowest realm of holiness became the animating vitality of the realms of impurity — the kelipot, the husks or shells.
Thus the sparks descended through all four worlds, and everything in existence — from the highest spiritual realm to the densest material substance — contains within it some point of captive divine light awaiting release.
The Purpose of the Shattering
The shattering of the vessels of Tohu is not a cosmic accident or a flaw in the creative process. On the contrary, it serves a specific and essential purpose: to introduce diversity and multiplicity into Creation. Before the shattering, the lights existed as undifferentiated unity — overwhelming, absolute, unable to be received. The breaking of the vessels is what refracted that unity into distinct qualities and attributes, making a world of differentiated being possible.
In addition, the shattering gives rise to the possibility of good and evil, and thereby gives the human being the genuine freedom to choose. Through this choice, God's attributes of chesed (Loving-Kindness) and gevura (Strength/Judgment) — the sources of reward and consequence — are revealed in the world. This, according to the Arizal, is one of the primary purposes of Creation.
Tohu was, in the words of the tradition, "created in order to be destroyed, and destroyed in order to be rebuilt" in a superior form. The world of Tikun that followed is the rectified order — where light and vessel are calibrated to one another, where the sefirot work together as interdependent partzufim rather than isolated and absolute nekudot. The labor of the human soul is the gathering and lifting of the sparks back to their source: Tikkun Olam, the rectification of the World.
“Sparks — Nitsotsot in Hebrew — are fragments of divine vitality that are far from their original place. According to the Kabbalistic myth, the universe suffered a cosmic trauma during its creation. This trauma is known as Shevirat Ha-kelim — the shattering of the vessels. The mystical teachings describe a process in which the vessels that were prepared to receive and contain the divine light were not strong enough to withstand its power, and shattered. As Rabbi Hayyim Vital writes: “The vessel could not endure all of them, and broke and fell downward.” When the vessels broke, sparks of light that they could not contain scattered.”