Contents • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Ein Sof [ ] The (lit: without end) is an important concept in Jewish Kabbalah. Generally translated as ‘infinity’ and ‘endless,’ the Ein Sof represents the formless state of the universe before the self-materialization of God. In other words, the Ein Sof is God before He decided to become God as we now know Him.

Baal HaSulam, 'Introduction to The Study of the Ten. Baal HaSulam, 'Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot' Available languages: All. Esser Sefirot Introduction. Study section 14 in depth and then go to learn with the asceticism mentioned. It includes all ten levels of. Understanding the Kabbalah. The Ten Sefirot is the fundamental pattern. Sefirot: The Kabbalistic Theory of the Divine Structure We will learn about one of the most central concepts of Kabbalah – the sefirot: a structure of ten divine powers. We will also explore the concept of God as En-Sof (the Infinite) and its relationship with the sefirot.

The Sefirot are divine emanations that come from the Ein Sof in a manner often described as a flame. The Sefirot emanate from above to below. As the first Sefira is closest to Ein Sof, it is the least comprehensible to the human mind, while in turn the last is the best understood because it is closest to the material world that humanity dwells on. Ten Sefirot [ ] Part of on.

• • • Sefirot ( ספירות, sfirot, singular ספירה sfirɔ), literally means 'counting, enumeration', but early Kabbalists presented a number of other etymological possibilities from the same Hebrew root including: sefer ('text' - ספר), sippur ('recounting a story' - סיפור), sappir ('sapphire' - ספיר, 'brilliance', 'luminary'), sfar ('boundary' - ספר), and sofer, or safra ('scribe' - ספרא, סופר). The term sefirah thus has complex connotations within Kabbalah. The original reference to the sefirot is found in the ancient Kabbalistic text of, 'The Book of Formation', attributed to the first Jewish Patriarch,.

Further references to the sefirot are apparent in the medieval Kabbalistic text of the, which is one of the core texts of Kabbalah. The sefirot are ten emanations, or illuminations of God's Infinite Light as it manifests in Creation. As revelations of the Creator's Will ( רצון rɔṣon), the sefirot should not be understood as ten different 'gods' but as ten different channels through which the one God reveals his will. In later Jewish literature, the ten sefirot refer either to the ten manifestations of God; the ten powers or faculties of the soul; or the ten structural forces of nature. In Kabbalah, the forces of creation are considered as autonomous forces that evolve linearly from one another. By contrast, in Lurean Kabbalah (the Kabbalah of ), the sefirot are perceived as a constellation of forces in active dialogue with one another at every stage of that evolution.

Luria described the sefirot as complex and dynamically interacting entities known as, each with its own symbolically human-like persona. Keter, the Crown, is the first sefirah. It is the superconscious intermediary between God and the other, conscious sefirot.

Three different levels, or 'heads', are identified within Keter. In some contexts, the highest level of Keter is called 'The unknowable head', The second level is 'the head of nothingness' ( reisha d'ayin) and the third level is 'the long head' ( reisha d'arich). These three heads correspond to the superconscious levels of faith, pleasure and will in the soul. In its early 12th-century dissemination, Kabbalah received who adhered to, for its alleged introduction of multiplicity into Jewish monotheism.