Luria_0s

In his commentary on the complete Zohar of Rebbi Shimeon Bar Yochai from second century Israel, 20th century QBLH scholar Rav Yehudah Ashlag explains the manner of the creation as occuring due to expansion / contraction, the effect of God breathing in and breathing out, which is called in Hebrew, "tzimtzum." According to the cosmology described in the Bereshit Beth volume of the 23 book long complete edition of the Zohar, supposedly copied down into print first by Moses De Leon in 13th century Spain from the oral traditions begun by Rebbi Shimeon Bar Yochai, there were 4 "tzimtzums" that occured to divide apart the upper-layers of each of the 4 elemental worlds of ha QBLH.