Ein Sof
in Kabbalah, God is prior to any self-manifestation in the production of any spiritual realm
Ein Sof, or Eyn Sof (, 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.
Explanation
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...
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Ein Sof” as in Kabbalah, God is prior to any self-manifestation in the production of any spiritual realm. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Nov 11, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q2302121. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1021, 1070, 1160 and 1238.
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This entry incorporates text from “Ein Sof” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.