Ein Sof (Kabbalah)
Encyclopedia
Ein Sof (Hebrew
אין סוף), in Kabbalah
, is understood as God
prior to His self-manifestation in the production of any spiritual Realm
, probably derived from Ibn Gabirol's term, "the Endless One" (she-en lo tiklah). Ein Sof may be translated as "no end," "unending," "there is no end," or Infinite.
Ein Sof is the divine origin of all created existence, in contrast to the Ein (or Ayn), which is infinite no-thingness. It was first used by Azriel ben Menahem, who, sharing the Neoplatonic view that God can have no desire, thought, word, or action, emphasized by it the negation
of any attribute. Of the Ein Sof, nothing ("Ein") can be grasped ("Sof"-limitation). It is the origin of the Ohr Ein Sof
, the "Infinite Light" of paradoxical Divine self-knowledge, nullified within the Ein Sof prior to Creation. In Lurianic Kabbalah, the first act of Creation, the Tzimtzum
self "withdrawal" of God to create an "empty space", takes place from there. In Hasidism, the Tzimtzum is only illusionary
concealment of the Ohr Ein Sof, giving rise to Monistic Panentheism
. Consequently, Hasidism focuses on the Atzmus
Divine essence, rooted higher within the Godhead than the Ein Sof, which is limited to infinitude, and reflected in the essence (Etzem) of the Torah and the soul.
explains the term "Ein Sof" as follows:
In other words, "Ein Sof" signifies "the nameless being." In another passage the Zohar reduces the term to "Ein" (non-existent), because God so transcends human understanding as to be practically non-existent.
In addition to the Sefer Yetzirah
and the Zohar
, other well-known explications of the relation between Ein Sof and all other realities and levels of reality have been formulated by the Jewish mystical thinkers of the Middle Ages
, such as Isaac the Blind
and Azriel
. Judah Ḥayyaṭ, in his commentary Minḥat Yehudah on the Ma'areket Elahut, gives the following explanation of the term "Ein Sof":
, Ein Sof is the emanator of the 10 Sefirot. Sefirot are energy emanations found on the Kabbalistic Tree of Life
. Ein Sof, the Ancient of All Ancients, emanates the Sefirot into the cosmic womb of the Ein in a manner that results in the created universe. The three letters composing the word "Ein" indicate the first three purely spiritual Sefirot.
The ten aspects of the Divine
, with the relation to its precursor states of nonexistence, its self-realization stage called Tzimtzum
, and their immediate manifest reflection in the top three aspects with the gap between those exalted states of being and the lower more mundane types, along with Da'at, the 11th or uncounted aspect of the divine which is a path that is forbidden, can be described as:
Concerned with philosophical
criticism of any misinterpreted duality or multiplicity in God, the Kabbalists never tire of stressing that the Sephirot are bound up in the Ein Sof, and without the Ein Sof have no existence. Nonetheless, in Medieval Kabbalah, if the sephirot are only vehicles to manifest God, then why are they sometimes related to as Divine in themselves? Moshe Cordovero, who gave the first full sytemization of Kabbalah in the 16th century, adopts a compromise position; the sephirot consist of 10 lights invested in vessels. The vessels are differentiated vehicles for creation, while the light is undifferentiated light of the Ein Sof, in the manner that water is poured into different shaped vessels, or light streams through different colours of glass.
in the 18th century internalised the esoteric, transcendent emanations of Kabbalah into immanent, psychological perception and correspondence. The term in Hasidic philosophy
for the Divine source is "Atzmus" (Essence). While the Ein Sof of Kabbalah can only be infinite, Atzmus, rooted higher in the Godhead, is beyond finite/infinite duality. As the Etzem, it both transcends all levels, and permeates all levels. This is reflected in the paradoxical Acosmic
Monism
of Hasidic Panentheism
, and relates to the essence of the Torah and the soul. In Hasidic thought, Kabbalah
corresponds to the World of Atzilus, the sephirah of Chochmah
and the transcendent soul level of Chayah; Hasidic philosophy
corresponds to the World
of Adam Kadmon
, the sephirah of Keter
and the soul essennce of Yechidah. The Baal Shem Tov taught that the only reflection of Atzmus is the sincerity of the soul in performing the Jewish observances and prayer. Consequently, Hasidism gave new emphasis to the common folk, and to prayer and action over traditionally pre-eminant Torah study
, as Atzmus is most reflected in the lowest levels, the purpose of Creation in making a "Dwelling Place" for God in the lowest Realms. In response, Chaim Volozhin
, the main theological theorist of the Misnagdim
, opposed Hasidic Panentheism and re-emphasised Talmudic study.
Hebrew language
Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
אין סוף), in Kabbalah
Kabbalah
Kabbalah/Kabala is a discipline and school of thought concerned with the esoteric aspect of Rabbinic Judaism. It was systematized in 11th-13th century Hachmei Provence and Spain, and again after the Expulsion from Spain, in 16th century Ottoman Palestine...
, is understood as God
God in Judaism
The conception of God in Judaism is strictly monotheistic. God is an absolute one indivisible incomparable being who is the ultimate cause of all existence. Jewish tradition teaches that the true aspect of God is incomprehensible and unknowable, and that it is only God's revealed aspect that...
prior to His self-manifestation in the production of any spiritual Realm
Seder hishtalshelus
Seder hishtalshelus means the "order of development" or "order of evolution", where the word Hishtalshelus is derived from the reduplicated quadriliteral root ŠLŠL "to chain", and so literally means "the chain-like process"...
, probably derived from Ibn Gabirol's term, "the Endless One" (she-en lo tiklah). Ein Sof may be translated as "no end," "unending," "there is no end," or Infinite.
Ein Sof is the divine origin of all created existence, in contrast to the Ein (or Ayn), which is infinite no-thingness. It was first used by Azriel ben Menahem, who, sharing the Neoplatonic view that God can have no desire, thought, word, or action, emphasized by it the negation
Negative theology
Apophatic theology —also known as negative theology or via negativa —is a theology that attempts to describe God, the Divine Good, by negation, to speak only in terms of what may not be said about the perfect goodness that is God...
of any attribute. Of the Ein Sof, nothing ("Ein") can be grasped ("Sof"-limitation). It is the origin of the Ohr Ein Sof
Ohr
Ohr is a central Kabbalistic term in the Jewish mystical tradition. The analogy of physical light is used as a way of describing metaphysical Divine emanations...
, the "Infinite Light" of paradoxical Divine self-knowledge, nullified within the Ein Sof prior to Creation. In Lurianic Kabbalah, the first act of Creation, the Tzimtzum
Tzimtzum
Tzimtzum is a term used in the kabbalistic teaching of Isaac Luria, explaining his concept that God began the process of creation by "contracting" his infinite light in order to allow for a "conceptual space" in which a finite and seemingly independent world could exist...
self "withdrawal" of God to create an "empty space", takes place from there. In Hasidism, the Tzimtzum is only illusionary
Acosmism
Acosmism, in contrast to pantheism, denies the reality of the universe, seeing it as ultimately illusory, , and only the infinite unmanifest Absolute as real....
concealment of the Ohr Ein Sof, giving rise to Monistic Panentheism
Panentheism
Panentheism is a belief system which posits that God exists, interpenetrates every part of nature and timelessly extends beyond it...
. Consequently, Hasidism focuses on the Atzmus
Atzmus
Atzmus/Atzmut meaning "essence", is the descriptive term referred to in Kabbalah, and explored in Hasidic thought, for the Divine essence....
Divine essence, rooted higher within the Godhead than the Ein Sof, which is limited to infinitude, and reflected in the essence (Etzem) of the Torah and the soul.
Explanation
The ZoharZohar
The Zohar is the foundational work in the literature of Jewish mystical thought known as Kabbalah. It is a group of books including commentary on the mystical aspects of the Torah and scriptural interpretations as well as material on Mysticism, mythical cosmogony, and mystical psychology...
explains the term "Ein Sof" as follows:
In other words, "Ein Sof" signifies "the nameless being." In another passage the Zohar reduces the term to "Ein" (non-existent), because God so transcends human understanding as to be practically non-existent.
In addition to the Sefer Yetzirah
Sefer Yetzirah
Sefer Yetzirah is the title of the earliest extant book on Jewish esotericism, although some early commentators treated it as a treatise on mathematical and linguistic theory as opposed to Kabbalah...
and the Zohar
Zohar
The Zohar is the foundational work in the literature of Jewish mystical thought known as Kabbalah. It is a group of books including commentary on the mystical aspects of the Torah and scriptural interpretations as well as material on Mysticism, mythical cosmogony, and mystical psychology...
, other well-known explications of the relation between Ein Sof and all other realities and levels of reality have been formulated by the Jewish mystical thinkers of the Middle Ages
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
, such as Isaac the Blind
Isaac the Blind
Rabbi Yitzhak Saggi Nehor רַבִּי יִצְחַק סַגִּי נְהוֹר, also known as Isaac the Blind, has the Aramaic epithet "Saggi Nehor" meaning "of Much Light" in the sense of having excellent eyesight, an ironic euphemism for being blind. He was a famous writer on Kabbalah...
and Azriel
Azriel (Jewish mystic)
Azriel of Gerona, Azriel ben Menahem was one of the most important kabbalists in the Catalan town of Girona during the thirteenth century when it was an important center of Kabbalah...
. Judah Ḥayyaṭ, in his commentary Minḥat Yehudah on the Ma'areket Elahut, gives the following explanation of the term "Ein Sof":
The Ten Sefirot
According to Gershom ScholemGershom Scholem
Gerhard Scholem who, after his immigration from Germany to Palestine, changed his name to Gershom Scholem , was a German-born Israeli Jewish philosopher and historian, born and raised in Germany...
, Ein Sof is the emanator of the 10 Sefirot. Sefirot are energy emanations found on the Kabbalistic Tree of Life
Tree of Life
The tree of life in the Book of Genesis is a tree planted by God in midst of the Garden of Eden , whose fruit gives everlasting life, i.e. immortality. Together with the tree of life, God planted the tree of the knowledge of good and evil . According to some scholars, however, these are in fact...
. Ein Sof, the Ancient of All Ancients, emanates the Sefirot into the cosmic womb of the Ein in a manner that results in the created universe. The three letters composing the word "Ein" indicate the first three purely spiritual Sefirot.
The ten aspects of the Divine
Divinity
Divinity and divine are broadly applied but loosely defined terms, used variously within different faiths and belief systems — and even by different individuals within a given faith — to refer to some transcendent or transcendental power or deity, or its attributes or manifestations in...
, with the relation to its precursor states of nonexistence, its self-realization stage called Tzimtzum
Tzimtzum
Tzimtzum is a term used in the kabbalistic teaching of Isaac Luria, explaining his concept that God began the process of creation by "contracting" his infinite light in order to allow for a "conceptual space" in which a finite and seemingly independent world could exist...
, and their immediate manifest reflection in the top three aspects with the gap between those exalted states of being and the lower more mundane types, along with Da'at, the 11th or uncounted aspect of the divine which is a path that is forbidden, can be described as:
- 000. Ain (Nothing; אין)
- 00. Ain Soph (Limitlessness;אין סוף )
- 0. Ain Soph Aur (Endless Light; אין סוף אוֹר)
- -.TzimtzumTzimtzumTzimtzum is a term used in the kabbalistic teaching of Isaac Luria, explaining his concept that God began the process of creation by "contracting" his infinite light in order to allow for a "conceptual space" in which a finite and seemingly independent world could exist...
(Contraction; צמצום)- KeterKeter*Keter in Kabbalah, is one of the ten Sephirot *Keter or kether כתר is the Hebrew word for "Crown ", as worn by a king or queen* Keter Publishing House is a book publisher based in Israel...
(Crown; כתר) - ChokhmahChokhmahChokhmah, also sometimes transliterated chochma or hokhmah is the Hebrew word for "wisdom". It is cognate with the Arabic word Hikmah, which also means 'wisdom'. The word "chokhmah" and others derived from it may connote one of several things.-People:A "wise man" is a chakham...
(Wisdom; חכמה) - BinahBinah (Kabbalah)Binah, , in the Kabbalah of Judaism, is the second intellectual Sephirah on the tree of life. It sits on the level below Keter , across from Chokmah and directly above Gevurah...
(Understanding; בינה)
- Keter
- -.Daat (Knowledge; דעת)
- ChesedChesedThe Hebrew noun khesed or chesed is the Hebrew word for "kindness." It is also commonly translated as "loving-kindness," or "love." Love is a central Jewish value, and leads to many particular commandments. Chesed is central to Jewish ethics and Jewish theology...
or Gedulah (Loving Kindness or Mercy; חסד) - Gevurah or Din (Power or Judgement; גבורה)
- Tiferet (Beauty or Compassion; תפארת)
- Netzach (Triumph or Endurance; נצח)
- HodHod (Kabbalah)Hod in the Kabbalah of Judaism is the eighth sephira of the Kabbalistic tree of life. It is derived from hod הוד in the Hebrew language meaning "majesty" or "splendor" and denoting "praise" as well as "submission"....
(Majesty or Splendor; הוד) - Yesod (Foundation; יסוד)
- Malchut (Realm; מלכות)
- Chesed
Concerned with philosophical
Jewish philosophy
Jewish philosophy , includes all philosophy carried out by Jews, or, in relation to the religion of Judaism. Jewish philosophy, until modern Enlightenment and Emancipation, was pre-occupied with attempts to reconcile coherent new ideas into the tradition of Rabbinic Judaism; thus organizing...
criticism of any misinterpreted duality or multiplicity in God, the Kabbalists never tire of stressing that the Sephirot are bound up in the Ein Sof, and without the Ein Sof have no existence. Nonetheless, in Medieval Kabbalah, if the sephirot are only vehicles to manifest God, then why are they sometimes related to as Divine in themselves? Moshe Cordovero, who gave the first full sytemization of Kabbalah in the 16th century, adopts a compromise position; the sephirot consist of 10 lights invested in vessels. The vessels are differentiated vehicles for creation, while the light is undifferentiated light of the Ein Sof, in the manner that water is poured into different shaped vessels, or light streams through different colours of glass.
Atzmut-Essence
Hasidic JudaismHasidic Judaism
Hasidic Judaism or Hasidism, from the Hebrew —Ḥasidut in Sephardi, Chasidus in Ashkenazi, meaning "piety" , is a branch of Orthodox Judaism that promotes spirituality and joy through the popularisation and internalisation of Jewish mysticism as the fundamental aspects of the Jewish faith...
in the 18th century internalised the esoteric, transcendent emanations of Kabbalah into immanent, psychological perception and correspondence. The term in Hasidic philosophy
Hasidic philosophy
Hasidic philosophy or Hasidus , alternatively transliterated as Hassidism, Chassidism, Chassidut etc. is the teachings, interpretations of Judaism, and mysticism articulated by the modern Hasidic movement...
for the Divine source is "Atzmus" (Essence). While the Ein Sof of Kabbalah can only be infinite, Atzmus, rooted higher in the Godhead, is beyond finite/infinite duality. As the Etzem, it both transcends all levels, and permeates all levels. This is reflected in the paradoxical Acosmic
Acosmism
Acosmism, in contrast to pantheism, denies the reality of the universe, seeing it as ultimately illusory, , and only the infinite unmanifest Absolute as real....
Monism
Monism
Monism is any philosophical view which holds that there is unity in a given field of inquiry. Accordingly, some philosophers may hold that the universe is one rather than dualistic or pluralistic...
of Hasidic Panentheism
Panentheism
Panentheism is a belief system which posits that God exists, interpenetrates every part of nature and timelessly extends beyond it...
, and relates to the essence of the Torah and the soul. In Hasidic thought, Kabbalah
Kabbalah
Kabbalah/Kabala is a discipline and school of thought concerned with the esoteric aspect of Rabbinic Judaism. It was systematized in 11th-13th century Hachmei Provence and Spain, and again after the Expulsion from Spain, in 16th century Ottoman Palestine...
corresponds to the World of Atzilus, the sephirah of Chochmah
Chokhmah (Kabbalah)
Chokhmah in the Kabbalah of Judaism, is the uppermost of the Sephirot of the right line . It is derived from the Hebrew word chokhmah which means "wisdom". It is to the bottom right of Keter, and with Binah across it. Under it are the sephirot of Chesed and Netzach...
and the transcendent soul level of Chayah; Hasidic philosophy
Hasidic philosophy
Hasidic philosophy or Hasidus , alternatively transliterated as Hassidism, Chassidism, Chassidut etc. is the teachings, interpretations of Judaism, and mysticism articulated by the modern Hasidic movement...
corresponds to the World
Four Worlds
The Four Worlds , sometimes counted with a prior stage to make Five Worlds, are the comprehensive categories of spiritual realms in Kabbalah in the descending chain of Existence....
of Adam Kadmon
Adam Kadmon
In the religious writings of Kabbalah, Adam Kadmon is a phrase meaning "Primal Man". The oldest rabbinical source for the term "Adam ha-Ḳadmoni" is Num. R. x., where Adam is styled, not as usually, "Ha-Rishon" , "Ha-Kadmoni" ....
, the sephirah of Keter
Keter
*Keter in Kabbalah, is one of the ten Sephirot *Keter or kether כתר is the Hebrew word for "Crown ", as worn by a king or queen* Keter Publishing House is a book publisher based in Israel...
and the soul essennce of Yechidah. The Baal Shem Tov taught that the only reflection of Atzmus is the sincerity of the soul in performing the Jewish observances and prayer. Consequently, Hasidism gave new emphasis to the common folk, and to prayer and action over traditionally pre-eminant Torah study
Torah study
Torah study is the study by Jewish people of the Torah, Hebrew Bible, Talmud, responsa, rabbinic literature and similar works, all of which are Judaism's religious texts...
, as Atzmus is most reflected in the lowest levels, the purpose of Creation in making a "Dwelling Place" for God in the lowest Realms. In response, Chaim Volozhin
Chaim Volozhin
Chaim Volozhin was an Orthodox rabbi, Talmudist, and ethicist. Popularly known as "Reb Chaim Volozhiner" or simply as "Reb Chaim", he was born in Volozhin when it was a part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth...
, the main theological theorist of the Misnagdim
Misnagdim
Misnagdim or Mitnagdim is a Hebrew word meaning "opponents". It is the plural of misnaged or mitnaged. Most prominent among the Misnagdim was Rabbi Elijah ben Shlomo Zalman , commonly known as the Vilna Gaon or the Gra...
, opposed Hasidic Panentheism and re-emphasised Talmudic study.
See also
- God in JudaismGod in JudaismThe conception of God in Judaism is strictly monotheistic. God is an absolute one indivisible incomparable being who is the ultimate cause of all existence. Jewish tradition teaches that the true aspect of God is incomprehensible and unknowable, and that it is only God's revealed aspect that...
- Divine simplicityDivine simplicityIn theology, the doctrine of divine simplicity says that God is without parts. The general idea of divine simplicity can be stated in this way: the being of God is identical to the "attributes" of God. In other words, such characteristics as omnipresence, goodness, truth, eternity, etc...
- AtzmusAtzmusAtzmus/Atzmut meaning "essence", is the descriptive term referred to in Kabbalah, and explored in Hasidic thought, for the Divine essence....
- Ayin
- OhrOhrOhr is a central Kabbalistic term in the Jewish mystical tradition. The analogy of physical light is used as a way of describing metaphysical Divine emanations...