Etz Chaim (The Tree of Life)עץ חיים

The Lurianic system as recorded by Chaim Vital: tzimtzum, the shattering, the partzufim, the tikkun — the whole cosmic drama in engineering detail (Luria himself wrote almost nothing; he said the sea of his teaching would not fit the straits of a page). The Everest of kabbalistic texts: forbidding, technical, and the source of nearly everything after it. The Shemonah She'arim (Eight Gates) organize the rest of Vital's transcript.