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.