The Kabbalah is a set of esoteric teachings meant to explain the relationship between God, the unchanging, eternal, and mysterious "Infinite One", and the mortal and finite universe (God's creation). According to the traditional understanding, Kabbalah dates from Eden, from Adam, the first man. Book of Genesis itself reveals mysteries about God, the true nature of Adam and Eve, the Garden of Eden, the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and the Tree of Life, as well as the interaction of these supernatural entities with the Serpent, which leads to disaster when they eat the forbidden fruit, as recorded in Genesis 3.

The existence of creation presents problems for theologians. These difficulties are threefold:

1. The act of creation involves a change in the unchangeable being of God
2. It is incomprehensible how the absolutely infinite and perfect being could have produced such imperfect and finite world;
3. A creation out of nothing is difficult to imagine.

The Kabbalah seeks to solve these problems and teaches that before God created anything God was “Nothingness”. Before He gave any shape to the world, before He produced any form, God was nothing, without form and without resemblance to anything else. He was infinite, boundless, without description, name, or limitation.

It is impossible comprehend how God was before the Creation? Before creation there was nothing and that nothing was God. But after God created the form of the heavenly man (Adam Qadmon) He used the heavenly man as a chariot wherein to descend into the material worlds, that was what gave rise to thoughts, knowing, and concepts. Later, I will talk more about this heavenly man.

Before the Creation, God was the Nameless Being. He had no name, no attribute, no knowledge, no wisdom, no power, because before the beginning of time there was nothing as such. There was nothing known as wisdom or knowledge or power before Creation. There was nothing such as concepts or thought or rules. There was only Nothingness. God was the Nothingness and the Nothingness was God.

It was therefore out of this Nothingness that God began to manifest Himself through the emanation of wisdom and knowledge. Out of the Nothingness came forth Ten Emanations of the Divine Being. This was the self manifestation of God. Out of the Divine Infinity came forth a projection of light that caused the contraction of the infinite God into finite forms that would latter condense into matter, time, and space.

Thus, God began His self-manifestation through Ten Emanations, namely:

1. The Crown
2. Wisdom
3. Understanding
4. Mercy
5. Power
6. Beauty
7. Triumph
8. Majesty
9. Foundation
10. the Kingdom

These are the Ten Emanations of God by which God manifests Himself. These Emanations are attributes by which the Infinite God reveals Himself and continuously creates both the physical realm and the chain of higher metaphysical realms. The Ten Emanations are gates or channels that the material universe uses to interact with the non-material God. The Emanations should not be understood as ten different "gods" but as ten different channels through which the one true God reveals His will.

Without the Ten Emanations it is impossible for a finite mind to comprehend the infinite God. We as finite beings, are only able to comprehend God, and relate with God through the Ten Emanations. For instance when people say that God is Merciful, we are only describing God using a human attribute, or rather, using one of the Ten Emanation which is Mercy. But the fact is God cannot be limited to or described by attributes because He is Infinite. When we say there is one God, we are only using our limited mind to relate with God; but God cannot be counted because God is infinite and you cannot count infinity. Therefore, we cannot truly say there is one God. The fact is, God is everything and God is nothing. God is everywhere and God is nowhere. This paradox is beyond our limited understanding therefore man needs the Ten Emanations to comprehend God and relate with God in a way that he can understand.

It is out of these Ten Emanations that God formed Adam Qadmon (the heavenly man) and the 4 parallel worlds. Matter is formed as the light of the Infinite God projects itself into a lower spiritual level and this produces a physical manifestation of God. The first spiritual entity that was formed when the divine light of the Infinite God was condensing into matter is Adam Qadmon (i.e. the heavenly man). All the four lower parallel worlds come out of Adam Qadmon.

Adam Qadmon is not a person. It is rather the first spiritual world that was formed as God was manifesting Himself through the Ten Emanations. Everything that exists began its existence in the mind of God as a thought and an idea. And God projects that thought by words (e.g. let there be light) that are subsequently condensed into matter as that the divine light is contracting itself into a lower spiritual level. The level where the conceptualization of matter occurs is known as Adam Qadmon, or the primordial world. Everything that exists in this material world must first exist in Adam Qadmon. Adam Qadmon is the source of all things. Adam Qadmon is the embodiment of all divine manifestations. It is the divine prototype of all creation. The reason that this spiritual world is known as the "heavenly man" is strictly because the whole of creation is for the sake of man. It does not suggest that Adam Qadmon is a spiritual man.

As the divine light descends from Adam Qadmon it creates four lower worlds namely:

1. The Archetypal/Causal World
2. The World of Creation
3. The World of Formation
4. The World of Action

The four parallel worlds is gotten from Isaiah 43:7, "Every one that is called by My name and for My glory (“in the Archtypal/Causal World", I have created ("in the World of Creation", I have formed ("in the World of Formation", even I have made ("in the World of Action".

Below the World of Action, the lowest spiritual World, is the Physical World, our Physical Universe, which enclothes its last two Emanations (Foundation and the Kingdom).

The creation is a manifestation of God. The infinite God is contracting himself through the divine light to create forms and shapes that condenses into matter, time, and space. God is said to have created the world through Ten Utterances, marked by the number of times Genesis states, “And God said.” Each utterance represents one of the Ten Emanations:

Gen 1:3 - "And Elohim said, 'Let there be Light.' and there was Light." (Crown)
Gen 1:6 - "And Elohim said, 'Let there be a firmament in the midst of the Waters, and let it divide the Waters from the Waters." (Wisdom)
Gen 1:9 - "And Elohim said, 'Let the Waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear.' And it was so." (Understanding)
Gen 1:11 - "And Elohim said, 'Let the Earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth.' And it was so." (Mercy)
Gen 1:14-15 - "And Elohim said, 'Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth.' And it was so." (Power)
Gen 1:20 - "And Elohim said, 'Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.'" (Beauty)
Gen 1:22 - "And Elohim Blessed them, saying, 'Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.'" (Triumph)
Gen 1:26 - "And Elohim said, 'Let us make Man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have stewardship over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air,and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.'" (Majesty)
Gen 1:28 - "And Elohim blessed them and Elohim said to them, 'Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and keep it: and have stewardship over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.'" (Foundation)
Gen 1:29-30 - "And Elohim said, 'Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat.' And it was so." (The Kingdom)