Parallels can be drawn between the symmetry breaking at the dawn of the Universe (the first few nano-seconds), when the unified force field gradually broke up into the four forces of nature, and the Kabbalistic doctrine about the Godhead (En sof) giving rise to the Emanations or Parzufs. The analogy does not quite hold: there are four forces and ten Parzufs (by some accounts). However, in the creation of other Universes, the Unified Field (En Sof) could have broken up in other ways, making up quite different forces and laws of nature. Our Universe is not necessarily unique; it may just be the only one (or one of a few) in which we humans can exist. So, by the anthropic principle, we need not be surprised at the fine-tuning to permit our existence. There is also the fact that string theory as a Theory of Everything (TOE) requires ten dimensions, 3 of space, 1 of time, and 6 curled up.
The cosmic symmetry-breaking was a series of sequential bifurcations, as the forces broke off one by one. (The term “bifurcation” is used later in prigoginian theory and catastrophe theory). Gravitational force broke off first and more fundamentally; gravitation or general relativity theory has not yet been reconciled with the unification theory for the other 3 forces, called GUT or Grand Unification Theory.
Therefore, I identify this bifurcation with En Sof’s creation of EI Kether, the One sYmbolized by a hair from En Sof’s forelock – a poetic image only, but indicating the great distance between these two faces of deity. EI Kether is more like the common conception of God (still genderless spirit, both Father and Mother), while En Sof is totally incomprehensible to the human intellect. I tend to think of En Sof as an ocean of light (again only a metaphor), the way the Prince of Darkness in the story “The Dark Land” by c.S. Moore (in the collection “The Venus Factor”) appears finally as an all-enveloping ocean of darkness, although It or He can also produce intelligible emanations of Itself. In the story it is described as a tremendous infinitely hot dark void, crushing and roaring – perhaps like the ylem of the Big Bang or the central singularity of a giant Black Hole. Perhaps it had come from light – the supersymmetric transformation of the Bose-Einstein condensate at the end of the universe. It was En Sof engaged in creation. From bosons to fermions. From energy to matter. From Omega to Alpha.
The next force to break off from what remained of the Unified Field was the strong nuclear force, which holds quarks together in the proton and neutron, and then holds protons and neutrons together in the atomic nucleus. I identify this with the first pair of Parzufs, Hokhma (Wisdom) and Binah (Active Intelligence). These are obviously the deities of cognitive functions, or of God’s omniscience (a pale reflection of it). We also see here for the first time a splitting of genderless spirit into its male and female aspects. The male version of cosmic intelligence is more like pure or abstract reason; the female version is more like practical or concrete reason. The former is like pure science for its own sake, the latter is like applications guided by an ethical sense. The splitting of atoms certainly requires, in our experience, a high sense of ethical responsibility. This pair seems to embody Sophia, the Spirit of Wisdom, trying to both understand and guide the Universe.
The ethical sense is further elaborated in the next pair of Parzufs, Gevurah (Stern Justice) and Hesed (Loving Mercy), again a male-female part. However, instead of being complementary like the first pair, this second pair represents a contradiction: sometimes justice and mercy clash, as we see today in the contraposition of the International Criminal Court idea and the Truth and Reconciliation commission idea as ways of dealing with the crimes of genocide. In Kabbalah doctrine, this clash is represented by “the breaking of the vessels”, the protective envelope which sheathed the emerging Divine Emanations. This was like the Fall of original Sin, but much earlier in the story of creation, only reflected later in an “as above, so below” manner.
It also reminds me of the breaking of the mirror carried by angels in the beginning of the “Snowqueen” story by Hans Christian Andersen. A fragment of the broken mirror got in the boy Kay’s eye, and he lost his sense of good and evil as a result. His moral sense was restored only by the love of his girl-friend Gerda, and only then could he spell “Eternity” with ice-blocks in the cold realm of the Snowqueen, and return home. It is a gender-reversal of the familiar theme in fairy stories of the prince bringing his bewitched beloved (Sleeping Beauty or Snowwhite) back to life by a kiss.
Is the creation of this second pair of Parzufs and the breaking of the vessels a parallel of the separation of the electroweak force into the weak nuclear and the electromagnetic force? The former is related to radioactivity and the latter to chemistry—so perhaps to death and life. But that may be too far-fetched. possibly this force separation should be postponed to the appearance of the lower Parzufs.
Between the two pairs of Parzufs (the pre-Fall wisdom and Intelligence and the post-Fall Justice and Mercy) is the gender less Tiferet, the Flower. I take it to represent Jesus who reconciled the Emanations separated by the Fall, being able to reconcile Justice and Mercy – Christians would say by His own sacrifice. Tiferet also, of course, recombines the male and female principles – Anima and Animus, according to Jung. As well, Jesus-Tiferet can heal all the previous sYmmetry-breaking and be in direct touch with the Unified Field. This action is the “above” instance of symmetry restoration. The “below” version comes later in the story.
The next pair of Parzufs, Hod (Majesty) and Nezah (Long-lasting Endurance, or we would now say Sustainability) represent the male and female aspects of living Nature, with the awesome wonder of Life and its property of surviving immense catastrophes through episodes of near-extinction. Perhaps this is where the comparison with the electroweak bifurcation would best fit in, as the nuclear forces dominating the Sun and the chemical forces dominating the Earth could cooperate, while remaining separate. For this pair too is reconciled by another genderless deity, Da’at, which symbolizes Death and Renewal, probably through the mechanism of sexual reproduction. Thus the qualities of divine genders get translated into the sexuality of plants and animals. “As above, so below.” Here we have the second instance of sYmmetry restoration.
The story of the Parzufs does not end there, as the symmetry-breaking of the Unified Field does. Hod and Nezah, the Father and Mother of Life (the Sun and the Earth?) give birth to Yesod (the Root), also called in other faith cultures Kundalini or Qi or Chi, and located, as the lowest Chacra (Root or Muladhara), at the Coccyx or the tail-end of the spine. And Yesod in turn begets Malkuth, the Kingdom, easily interpreted as the Five Kingdoms of Life on Earth according to Lynn Margulis. The corresponding Chacra, appropriately enough, is the Swadhisthana, located in the loin, and symbolizing the animal sexual function.
There then remains the last and most endearing (to us) Parzuf, Shekina, which, according to legend, accompanies humanity into exile – originally the Jews into Babylonian exile, but symbolically all humans into self-imposed exile from Nature and from God. I think of Shekina as “she and her kin”, or alternatively as the Holy spirit. She (or It since genderless) is our moral conscience calling us back from a life of sin, though not abandoning us even as we sin. Emanating from the Highest on High, the Spirit calls us to return home as the prodigal son.
The higher Chakras also have their analogies. The Navel or Solar Plexus may represent animal instincts or the reptilian brain, the Heart may be the mammalian brain, the Throat human speech, the Brow human abstract or symbolic thought, and the Crown spiritual connections. Shekina is in charge of the last three or four.
The disciples of Maharishi who founded the method of Transcendental Meditation, claim that humans can get in direct touch with the Unified Field, and greatly increase the coherence of the entire community, e.g. cutting down crime rates. The more advanced siddhi Program can even cause meditators to levitate, i.e. rise from the ground. If EI Kether represents gravitation, reaching beyond It to get to En Sof Itself could cause levitation.
Much of this “reasoning” by analogy and metaphor is pure phantasy. My left-brain integrator is working overtime. I don’t have a shred of empirical evidence. Yet the story resonates at many levels, and I allow myself to dream, without mistaking the dream for reality.