Short answers, pulled from the story.
Moses de León began circulating the Zohar in the year 1280 while claiming it was written by Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai in the second century. De León was a Spanish mystic who introduced a complex cosmology where the universe was sustained by ten divine emanations called Sephirot.
Isaac Luria introduced the concept of Tzimtzum or divine contraction in the 1500s to explain why the world was broken. He taught that God withdrew His infinite light to create a void, leading to the Shattering of the Vessels where divine sparks were trapped in the shells of evil known as Kelipot.
The Zohar transformed Kabbalah from a fringe esoteric practice into the central metaphysical engine of Jewish thought after Moses de León circulated it in 1280. This work posited that the written Torah was merely the outer shell while the true mystical meaning lay hidden within its letters and narratives.
Partzufim or Divine Personas describe God as a complex family of interacting personalities rather than a distant abstract force. These personas include masculine and feminine aspects derived from the Sephirot that represent different stages of spiritual development and interaction.
Kabbalistic thought posits that the Hebrew language is the very fabric of creation with every letter word and accent containing hidden spiritual power. God created the world through the utterance of these letters and the study of the Torah allows access to the creative energy of the divine.
Gershom Scholem revolutionized the academic study of Kabbalah in the twentieth century by bringing the tradition into the realm of serious historical and philosophical inquiry. His magnum opus Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism revealed the depth and complexity of the tradition and challenged the view that it was merely superstition or heresy.