Arikh Anpin
The Long Face — head / Keter
Arikh Anpin (אריך אנפין, 'Long Face' or 'Long-Suffering Face') — the head of Adam Kadmon, the partzuf encompassing Keter (the topmost sefirah, 'crown'). The Idra Rabba is dense with body-imagery for this region: the white hair of Arikh Anpin, the thirteen curls of his beard, the channels of mercy descending from his forehead to lower regions of the body. Daniel Matt's commentary in the Pritzker edition emphasises that the body-imagery is to be read theologically — the 'long face' names a divine quality of patient, far-extending mercy, not a literal anthropomorphism. In Lurianic cosmology Arikh Anpin is the first partzuf to emerge after the tzimtzum (the divine self-contraction that opens space for finite being); it is the source from which the channels of mercy descend toward Zeir Anpin and from there into the lower world. We render the rendered point at the third-eye / glabellar landmark, the canonical iconic locus of the divine face on a body-silhouette diagram.
Point 1 of 5 in Adam Kadmon — Cosmic-Body Mapping (Lurianic)
Cross-tradition overlaps
No overlapping points are registered for this point.
Sources
Zohar — Idra Rabba Naso 128a–145a (primary_canonical)
“The hair of his head is hair upon hair, all white as snow. From his head streams of mercy flow forth into all the worlds.”
Chayyim Vital, Etz Chaim, Sha'ar Arikh Anpin (primary_canonical)
This gate records Luria's description of Arikh Anpin as the supernal partzuf of Keter/Atik and the channel of the thirteen attributes of extended mercy. The locator is Sha'ar Arikh Anpin; chapter and paragraph divisions vary among printings of Etz Chaim.