Ein Sof (Kabbalah)

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Ein Sof or Ayn Sof (Hebrew אין סוף, literally "without end", denoting "boundlessness" and/or "nothingness"), also known as "Divine Being", is the name for God within the Kabbalah of Judaism. This name signifies the unknown nature of God as the mysterious and ultimate source of all existence. All other existence flows, or emanates from the Ein Sof.

According to the Zohar, the ten Sefirot (the Divine "emanations") as found in the Adam Kadmon (the original "primal man" created by God) emanate from Ein Sof.

[edit] The Ten Emanations

The ten aspects of the Divine can be described as (also see Sephirah):

Keter (Crown; כתר)
Chokhmah (Wisdom; חכמה)
Binah (Intelligence; בינה)
Chesed or Gedulah (Love or Mercy); חסד)
Din or Gevurah (Power or Judgement); גבורה)
Tifereth or Rakhamim (Compassion); תפארת)
Netzach (Lasting Endurance); נצח)
Hod (Majesty); הוד)
Yesod (Basis or Foundation); יסוד)
Malkuth or Shekinah (Kingdom); מלכות)

(see Karen Armstrong, A History of God).

Source Ein Sof refers to a concept surrounding the very first line of the torah, "breshit bara adonai" which could mean; in the beginning God created, in the beginning of God's creation, or in the beginning ____ created God. The blank in the last translation is the ein sof or "nothingness" Rashi reminds us that we don't after all know when the darkness, void and chaos began (ein sof).

Theories of the relation between Ein Sof and all other realities and levels of reality may have been developed by the Jewish mystical thinkers of the Middle Ages, such as Isaac the Blind and Azriel who could have been influenced by concepts of Neoplatonism which they modified to conform to their own leanings.

Mathematician Georg Cantor labeled different sizes of infinity using the Aleph. The smallest size of infinity is aleph-null ( $\aleph_0$ ), the second size is aleph-one ( $\aleph_1$ ), etc. One theory about why Cantor chose to use the aleph is because it is the first letter of Ein-Sof. (See Aleph number)