Kelipot and Nogah: The Shells and the Neutral Light

The word kelipah means “shell” or “peel.” A fruit has a skin, and the skin protects what is inside. Kabbalah uses the same image for the forces that cover and conceal holiness. The kelipot are not a separate creation that rivals the Divine. They are the covering around the fruit, and the Kabbalists teach that they exist so that the fruit can be reached.

The vision of Yechezkel

The source of the teaching is in the first chapter of Yechezkel (Ezekiel 1:4). The prophet sees “a stormy wind (ruach se’arah) coming from the north, a great cloud (anan gadol), and a flashing fire (esh mitlakachat), and a brightness (nogah) all around it.” The Kabbalists, following the Zohar and the Arizal, read these as four layers. The first three, the wind, the cloud, and the fire, are the three impure kelipot. The fourth, the nogah (brightness), is a different category (Etz Chaim, Pri Etz Chaim).

Why the nogah is different

The three kelipot are wholly impure. They cannot be raised. The nogah has both good and evil in it. It is the category of the permitted and the neutral, and its character depends on what a person does with it. When it is joined to a mitzvah, it is lifted and joins the holy. When it is used for a prohibited purpose, it falls to the three impure kelipot.

The Kabbalists apply this to the ordinary things of life. Food, money, strength, and time are not holy or unholy by themselves. They are nogah, and each use decides which way they go. Our article on Shevirat HaKelim describes how the sparks of light became trapped in this realm, and the work of raising them is the work of a Jewish life.

What the shells are for

A reader might ask why a world with shells was created. The tradition answers that holiness without any covering would be given as a gift. A person has to work to get past the shell, and in doing so, he earns what is inside. The shell is also what makes choice possible, since without it, there would be no difficulty and no free decision (see the article on The Divine Purpose of Free Will).

The Kabbalists also note that the shell protects. A fruit that has no peel spoils before it ripens. The kelipot delay the revelation until the person is ready for it.

Applying it

The image applies to the moments when something that should be easy feels impossible. The resistance at the start of a prayer, a task or a good deed is the peel, and it does not mean the fruit is missing. How the Kabbalists describe the forces on the other side, and protection from them, is covered in Dinim and the Sitra Achra and the spiritual worlds and protection from evil.