Ein Sof - The Ten Sefirot

The Ten Sefirot

According to Gershom Scholem, Ein Sof is the emanator of the 10 Sefirot. Sefirot are energy emanations found on the Kabbalistic Tree of Life. Ein Sof, the Ancient of All Ancients, emanates the Sefirot into the cosmic womb of the Ein in a manner that results in the created universe. The three letters composing the word "Ein" indicate the first three purely spiritual Sefirot.

The ten aspects of the Divine, with the relation to its precursor states of nonexistence, its self-realization stage called Tzimtzum, and their immediate manifest reflection in the top three aspects with the gap between those exalted states of being and the lower more mundane types, along with Da'at, the 11th or uncounted aspect of the divine which is a path that is forbidden, can be described as:

000. Ain (Nothing; אין)

00. Ain Soph (Limitlessness;אין סוף )

0. Ain Soph Aur (Endless Light; אין סוף אוֹר)

-.Tzimtzum (Contraction; צמצום)

1. Keter (Crown; כתר)
2. Chokhmah (Wisdom; חכמה)
3. Binah (Understanding; בינה)

-.Daat (Knowledge; דעת)

1. Chesed or Gedulah (Loving Kindness or Mercy; חסד)
2. Gevurah or Din (Power or Judgement; גבורה)
3. Tiferet (Beauty or Compassion; תפארת)
4. Netzach (Triumph or Endurance; נצח)
5. Hod (Majesty or Splendor; הוד)
6. Yesod (Foundation; יסוד)
7. Malchut (Realm; מלכות)

Concerned with philosophical criticism of any misinterpreted duality or multiplicity in God, the Kabbalists never tire of stressing that the Sephirot are bound up in the Ein Sof, and without the Ein Sof have no existence. Nonetheless, in Medieval Kabbalah, if the sephirot are only vehicles to manifest God, then why are they sometimes related to as Divine in themselves? Moshe Cordovero, who gave the first full sytemization of Kabbalah in the 16th century, adopts a compromise position; the sephirot consist of 10 lights invested in vessels. The vessels are differentiated vehicles for creation, while the light is undifferentiated light of the Ein Sof, in the manner that water is poured into different shaped vessels, or light streams through different colours of glass.