Ein Sof

Ein Sof, or Eyn Sof (/eɪn sɒf/, Hebrew: אֵין סוֹף‎ ʾēn sōf; meaning "infinite", lit. '(There is) no end'), in Kabbalah, is understood as God before any self-manifestation in the production of any spiritual realm, probably derived from Solomon ibn Gabirol's (c. 1021 – c. 1070) term, "the Endless One" (שֶׁאֵין לוֹ תִּקְלָה, šeʾēn lo tiqlā). Ein Sof may be translated as "unending", "(there is) no end", or infinity. It was first used by Azriel of Gerona (c. 1160 – c. 1238), who shared the Neoplatonic belief that God can have no desire, thought, word, or action, emphasized by the negation of any attribute.

This is the origin of the Ohr Ein Sof or "Infinite Light" of paradoxical divine self-knowledge, nullified within the Ein Sof before creation. In Lurianic Kabbalah, the first act of creation, the tzimtzum or self-withdrawal of the divine to create a space, takes place from there.

In Hasidic Judaism, the Tzimtzum is only the illusionary concealment of the Ohr Ein Sof, giving rise to monistic panentheism. Consequently, Hasidism focuses on the Atzmut "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.^{[citation needed]}

The Zohar explains the term "Ein Sof" as follows:

Before He gave any shape to the world, before He produced any form, He was alone, without form and without resemblance to anything else. Who then can comprehend how He was before the Creation? Hence it is forbidden to lend Him any form or similitude, or even to call Him by His sacred name, or to indicate Him by a single letter or a single point... But after He created the form of the Heavenly Man, He used him as a chariot wherein to descend, and He wishes to be called after His form, which is the sacred name "YHWH".

In other words, "Ein Sof" signifies "the nameless being". In another passage the Zohar reduces the term to "Ayin" (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":

Any name of God which is found in the Bible can not be applied to the Deity prior to His self-manifestation in the Creation, because the letters of those names were produced only after the emanation. ... Moreover, a name implies a limitation in its bearer; and this is impossible in connection with the "Ein Sof".