Wikipedia
Partzufim/Partsufim (, singular Partzuf, ), meaning Divine "Personae / Visages / Faces / Forms / Configurations", are particular reconfigured arrangements of the 10 sephirot (Divine attributes/emanations of Kabbalah) into harmonised interactions in Creation. Their names derive from mystical discourses in the Zohar, the foundational text of Kabbalah, where they appear as synonymous manifestation terms for the sephirot. Their full doctrinal significance emerges only in 16th century Lurianic Kabbalah in relationship to the cosmic processes of Shevirah-"Shattering" and Tikun-"Rectification". Each Patzuf is a Yosher-"Upright" scheme of all the sephirot around one of their number, analogous to the interrelated sephirot configuration in Man.
R. Isaac Luria, the Ari, recast Kabbalah into its second articulation, after R. Moshe Cordovero, the Ramak, had systemised differing Medieval interpretations of the Zohar. Philosophically influenced Medieval Kabbalah had described the 10 sephirot as Divine channels in a linear, emanated descending Creation. Lurianic Partzufim, instead, described dynamic interactions in Divine influence, where each Persona interacts and enclothes itself independently within the others, turning the unfolding of Creation into a dynamic scheme of spiritual enclothement, like a soul becoming enclothed in a body. In Lurianism, the original independent scheme of sephirot, described by Cordovero, precipitates the collapse of Tohu-"Chaos". Their reformation as Partzufim in the stable World of Atzilut begins cosmic repair. Man, whose soul embodies the harmonised order of Partzufim, achieves rectification of the three lower Worlds by redeeming the exiled Sparks of Holiness through Torah study and performance of mitzvot. The anthropomorphic metaphor of the Partzufim stressed the need by Kabbalists to divest the Lurianic concepts from false corporeal, materialistic analogy.