One account of ztimtzum — today’s conception:

In the finite world, impurity is a matter of exclusion of inessentials.

But infinity is essentially absolute, unconditional inclusion.

When finite being attempts to approach the infinite, any exclusion from the infinite is an impurity.

Yet, finite being is somehow entirely of the infinite without itself being infinite.

Pure infinitude precludes exclusion.

We subsist finitely as impurities to the infinite.

Infinitude’s capacity for finitude depends on nihilitude, the principle of impurity — of self-exclusion from infinitude — within infinitude.

Nihilitude is the nacre which coats the infinite ocean with accreting layers of protective oblivion, sheltering tender finitude from dissolution into what it is not, yet is. An infinitessimal universe-size spark.

Nihilitude is the nacre which coats each defined concept with the distinction “as opposed to”. A refracted spark filling heaven with stars, worlds, sun, moon, earth, oceans, lands, people.

Nihilitude defines finite against infinite, then defines finite against finite. Nihilitude’s self-exclusion everts the relationship between the finite-and-infinite, rendering it everything-or-nothing.

Nihilitude is creation. All creation is ex nihilo.

Nevertheless, infinitude continues to penetrate oblivion, leaving halo-traces at concentrated strike points. Infinitude crisscrosses each finite being as dimensions of time space and self. The intersection of this crossing is the threefold present.

Oblivion is something that creates apparent nothingness, and is therefore not an impurity at all, but which also makes apparent impurity possible, without defiling infinitude with exclusion. Tzimtzum.