There is a concept in cabbala, the Jewish mysteries, called "tzimtzum", which I would like to compare to a phenomenon in quantum cosmology; I take my information on quantum cosmology from a book called Hyperspace by Dr. Michio Kaku.
It is suggested that our universe was composed of ten dimensions before the beginning of time, something dubiously called the "Big Bang". This ten-dimensional state allowed a sort of cosmic "oneness", or, to make things perfectly unclear, interdimensional travel was possible for any created forms that existed in its spacetime matrix. Somehow this ten-dimensional universe ruptured, or "cracked". It was rent asunder, and the resulting halves were one four-dimensional universe (ours) and an infinitesimal six-dimensional universe. One "perfect" ten-dimensional universe broke to create from itself the cosmos we currently inhabit (read--grew from).
It seems to me that the cabbalistic Rabbis understood a similar form of this concept. Here's the background: Everything we know about God comes from His decision to expose some of Himself to us, whether that is by direct revelation, like Moses and the burning bush, or through scripture. These glimpses must represent only a tiny fraction of the entirety of God. All of the other aspects of Him we may not be sure of; they are unknowable to us. The idea of 'everything-that-is-unknowable-about-God' is called the Ein Sof, "Limitless Light" or more literally "Light of Limitlessness", by the cabbalists. Before the creation of our universe, this Limitless Light was all that existed, since the Creator necessarily existed before His creation.
When the Ein Sof began the creation of our cosmos, it was necessary to render a place for it to be: the cosmos cannot co-exist with the Light, the infinite glory of God would destroy the profane base-matter. So the Ein Sof contracted within itself to create a void. This is the process called tzimtzum, and it explains the reason for the character trait of harsh judgement in God's person (called "Din", judgement, the fifth Sephirot). Id est: the sacrifice of tzimtzum created a sort of 'vacuum'--the absence of His glory--attracting obedience to His Divine Will and destroying rebellion.
These two abstractions seem remarkably similar. They begin with an integral whole--both are pictures of an infinite and perfect "oneness". Then there is a cataclysmic tearing of that whole, from whence comes the energy that fills our universe. How remarkable, then, that one theory has been in place for many centuries, and the other for only about a decade. Probably not either of these word-pictures accurately describe the pre-existential cosmology, but their similarities contrasted by their wildly different sources, one coming to us from an ancient Jewish oral tradition, the other from post-modern quantum physicists, one highly theological and the other entirely atheist, suggests a measure of accuracy or legitimacy to the concept.
--22 May 2007
