Adam Kadmon

In Lurianic Kabbalah, the description of Adam Kadmon is anthropomorphic. Nonetheless, Adam Kadmon is divine light without vessels, i.e., pure potential. In the human psyche, Adam Kadmon corresponds to the yechidah, the collective essence of the soul.

In Judaism

Philo

The first to use the expression “original man,” or “heavenly man,” was Philo, in whose view this γενικός or οὐράνιος ἄνθρωπος, “as being born in the image of God, has no participation in any corruptible or earthlike essence; whereas the earthly man is made of loose material, called a lump of clay.” The heavenly man, as the perfect image of the ‘’Logos‘’, is neither man nor woman, but an incorporeal intelligence purely an idea; while the earthly man, who was created by God later, is perceptible to the senses and partakes of earthly qualities. Philo is evidently combining philosophy and Midrash, Plato and the rabbis.

Setting out from the duplicate biblical account of Adam, who was formed in the image of God (Genesis 1:27), and of the first man, whose body God formed from the earth (Genesis 2:7), he combines with it the Platonic theory of forms; taking the primordial Adam as the idea, and the created man of flesh and blood as the “image.” That Philo’s philosophic views are grounded on the Midrash, and not vice versa, is evident from his seemingly senseless statement that the “heavenly man,” the οὐράνιος ἄνθρωπος (who is merely an idea), is “neither man nor woman.” This doctrine, however, becomes quite intelligible in view of the following ancient Midrash.

Midrash

The remarkable contradiction between Genesis 1:27 and Genesis 2:7 could not escape the attention of the Pharisees, for whom the Bible was a subject of close study. In explaining the various views concerning Eve’s creation, they taught that Adam was created as a man-woman (androgynos), explaining “זָכָ֥ר וּנְקֵבָ֖ה” (Genesis 1:27) as “male and female” instead of “man and woman,” and that the separation of the sexes arose from the subsequent operation upon Adam’s body, as related in the Scripture. This explains Philo’s statement that the original man was neither man nor woman.

This doctrine concerning the Logos, as also that of man made “in the likeness,” although tinged with true Philonic coloring, is also based on the theology of the Pharisees. Genesis Rabbah:

Thou hast formed me behind and before’ (Psalms 139:5) is to be explained ‘before the first and after the last day of Creation.’ For it is said, ‘And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters,’ meaning the spirit of the Messiah ["the spirit of Adam" in the parallel passage, Midr. Teh. to cxxxix. 5; both readings are essentially the same], of whom it is said (Isaiah 11:2), ‘And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him.’

This contains the kernel of Philo’s philosophical doctrine of the creation of the original man. He calls him the idea of the earthly Adam, while with the rabbis the spirit (רוח) of Adam not only existed before the creation of the earthly Adam, but was preexistent to the whole of creation. From the preexisting Adam, or Messiah, to the Logos is merely a step.

Kabbalah

In Kabbalah, before creation began, all that existed was God’s Infinite Light. The first stage of creation began when God contracted His Infinite Light to create the vacuum. Then a ray of divine light penetrated the vacuum and the persona of Adam Kadmon was projected into the vacuum. The first stage of Adam Kadmon was in the form of ten concentric circles (igulim), which emanated from the ray. The ray of light was then enclothed by the anthropomorphic form of Adam Kadmon (yosher), which is a realm of infinite divine light without vessels, constrained by its potential to create future Existence. Adam Kadmon is sometimes referred to as ‘’Adam Ila’a’’ (Aramaic: “upper man”) or ‘’Adam Elyon’’ (Hebrew: “upper man”).

The soul of Adam HaRishon (“the first man”) was the supreme essence of mankind. It contained within it all subsequent souls. In the midrash, he is sometimes referred to as ‘’Adam HaKadmoni’’ (“the ancient man”), ‘’Adam Tata’a’’ (Aramaic: “lower man”) or ‘’Adam Tachton’’ (Hebrew: “lower man”).

The anthropomorphic name of Adam Kadmon denotes that it contains both the ultimate divine purpose for creation, i.e., mankind, as well as an embodiment of the Sefirot (divine attributes). Adam Kadmon is paradoxically both “Adam” and divine (“Kadmon-Primary”).

Adam Kadmon preceded the manifestation of the Four Worlds, Atzilut (“emanation”), Beriah (“creation”), Yetzirah (“formation”) and Asiyah (“action”). Whereas each of the Four Worlds is represented by one letter of the divine four-lettered name of God, Adam Kadmon is represented by the transcendental cusp of the first letter Yud.

In the system of the sefirot, Adam Kadmon corresponds to Keter (“crown”), the divine will that motivated creation.

The two versions of Kabbalistic theosophy, the “medieval/classic/Zoharic” (systemised by Moshe Cordovero) and the more comprehensive Lurianic, describe the process of descending worlds differently. For Cordovero, the sefirot, Adam Kadmon and the Four Worlds evolve sequentially from the Ein Sof (divine infinity). For Luria, creation is a dynamic process of divine exile-rectification enclothement, where Adam Kadmon is preceded by the Tzimtzum (Divine “contraction”) and followed by Shevira (the “shattering” of the sefirot).

Closely related to the Philonic doctrine of the heavenly Adam is the Adam Ḳadmon (called also Adam ‘Ilaya, the “high man,” the “heavenly man”) of the Zohar, whose conception of the original man can be deduced from the following passages: “The form of man is the image of everything that is above [in heaven] and below [upon earth]; therefore did the Holy Ancient [God] select it for His own form.”

As with Philo the Logos is the original image of man, or the original man, so in the Zohar the heavenly man is the embodiment of all divine manifestations: the ten Sefirot, the original image of man. The heavenly Adam, stepping forth out of the highest original darkness, created the earthly Adam. In other words, the activity of the original essence manifested itself in the creation of man, who at the same time is the image of the heavenly man and of the universe, just as with Plato and Philo the idea of man, as microcosm, embraces the idea of the universe or macrocosm.

The conception of Adam Ḳadmon becomes an important factor in the later Kabbalah of Isaac Luria. Adam Ḳadmon is with him no longer the concentrated manifestation of the Sefirot, but a mediator between the En-Sof (“infinite”) and the Sefirot. The En-Sof, according to Luria, is so utterly incomprehensible that the older Kabbalistic doctrine of the manifestation of the En-Sof in the Sefirot must be abandoned. Hence he teaches that only the Adam Ḳadmon, who arose in the way of self-limitation by the En-Sof, can be said to manifest himself in the Sefirot. This theory of Luria is treated by Ḥayyim Vital in “’Eẓ Ḥayyim; Derush ‘Agulim we-Yosher” (Treatise on Circles and the Straight Line).