Ein Sof — The Infinite Without End
The Teaching
The Ein Sof has no will, no intention, no desire, no thought, no speech, no action. Even ‘thinking’ about it seems a blasphemy. Above all, it has no name of its own.
From the Zohar: Before the Holy Ancient One had prepared the formations of the King, beginning and end were not yet existing. Therefore the spirit struck the hollow space and this strike caused a point to shine. Beyond this point nothing is known. And therefore it is called Reshit — Beginning.
The vessels could not contain the light. They shattered — Shevirat HaKelim. And from the shattering the sparks fell into the world. The task of every soul is Tikkun — repair — gathering the divine sparks back to their source.
Commentary
Ein Sof, without end, without boundary, without attribute. The language used to describe it is identical to Plotinus’s One, the Taoist Tao, the Upanishadic Nirguna Brahman (Brahman without qualities), the Buddhist Sunyata as ultimate ground.
The Lurianic myth of Shevirat HaKelim, the shattering of the vessels, and Tikkun Olam, repair of the world, gives us a cosmological frame for the human spiritual project: we are all recovering the divine sparks that fell into the world, restoring wholeness through conscious living.
This maps beautifully onto the Gnostic myth: divine sparks trapped in matter, awaiting the Gnosis that will return them to the Pleroma (fullness). Same myth, different cultural container.
Themes
Connections 18
Arose apart
No known transmission between Judaism and Taoism while these teachings took shape.
Travelled
Neoplatonism reached Judaism by 900 CE. Isaac Israeli (c. 900) and Ibn Gabirol (11th c.) brought Neoplatonism into Jewish thought, and early Kabbalah drew on it.
Arose apart
No known transmission between Buddhism and Judaism while these teachings took shape.
Arose apart
No known transmission between Hinduism and Judaism while these teachings took shape.
Unsure
The Gospel of Thomas was lost from late antiquity until 1945, though some of its sayings also survive in the canonical Gospels.
Unsure
C. H. Dodd (1935) read the Poimandres as drawing on Genesis. Argued.
Travelled
Judaism reached Gnosticism by 100 CE. Gnostic myths retell Genesis. Whether Gnosticism began inside Judaism is argued.
Travelled
Judaism reached Christianity by 30 CE. Christianity began as a movement within Judaism.
Travelled
Judaism reached Christianity by 30 CE. Christianity began as a movement within Judaism.
Arose apart
No known transmission between Hinduism and Judaism while these teachings took shape.
Arose apart
No known transmission between Indigenous tradition and Judaism while these teachings took shape.
Arose apart
No known line from Judaism to this scientific work.
Unsure
No documented reading of Judaism by Alan Watts.
Unsure
No documented reading of Judaism by Terence McKenna.
Travelled
Sufism reached Judaism by 1080 CE. Bahya ibn Paquda’s Duties of the Heart (c. 1080) draws on Sufi ethics, and Abraham Maimonides (13th c.) led a Jewish Sufi circle in Egypt.
Travelled
Sufism reached Judaism by 1080 CE. Bahya ibn Paquda’s Duties of the Heart (c. 1080) draws on Sufi ethics, and Abraham Maimonides (13th c.) led a Jewish Sufi circle in Egypt.