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Concept
Adam Kadmon
Summary
In Kabbalah, Adam Kadmon (אָדָם קַדְמוֹן, ʾāḏām qaḏmōn, "Primordial Man") also called Adam Elyon (אָדָם עֶלִיוֹן, ʾāḏām ʿelyōn, "Most High Man"), or Adam Ila'ah (אָדָם עִילָּאָה, ʾāḏām ʿīllāʾā "Supreme Man"), sometimes abbreviated as A"K (א"ק, ʾA.Q.), is the first of Four Worlds that came into being after the contraction of God's infinite light. Adam Kadmon is not the same as the physical Adam Ha-Rishon.
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.
Four Worlds and Seder Hishtalshelut
The first to use the expression "original man," or "heavenly man," was Philo, in whose view the 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 (), and of the first man, whose body God formed from the earth (), 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.
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.
Official source
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