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Godhead refers to the aspect or substratum of God that lies behind God's actions or properties (i.e., it is the essence of God), and its nature has been the subject of long debate in every major religion.
The closest corresponding term in the classical and modern languages of Jewish scholarship is אלוהות (elohút), meaning deity (essential nature of a god) or divinity.[ citation needed ] Max Kadushin notes that "The plural 'Elohim, gods, must not be confused with 'Elohut, Godhead. The latter is used with reference to God". [1]
The leading Jewish Neoplatonic writer was Solomon ibn Gabirol. In his Fons Vitae, Gabirol's position is that everything that exists may be reduced to three categories: the first substance (God), matter and form (the world), with the will as intermediary. Gabirol derives matter and form from absolute being. In the Godhead he seems to differentiate essentia (being) from proprietas (attribute), designating by proprietas the will, wisdom, creative word ("voluntas, sapientia, verbum agens"). He thinks of the Godhead as being and as will or wisdom, regarding the will as identical with the divine nature. This position is implicit in the doctrine of Gabirol, who teaches that God's existence is knowable, but not His being or constitution, no attribute being predicable of God save that of existence.
Kaufmann holds that Gabirol was an opponent of the doctrine of divine attributes. While there are passages in the Fons Vitae, in the Ethics, and even in the Keter Malkut (from which Sachs deduces Gabirol's acceptance of the theory of the doctrine of divine attributes) which seem to support this assumption, a minute examination of the questions bearing on this, such as has been made by Kaufmann (in Gesch. der Attributenlehre), proves very clearly that will and wisdom are spoken of not as attributes of the divine, but with reference to an aspect of the divine, the creative aspect; so that the will is not to be looked upon as intermediary between God and substance and form. Matter or substance proceeds from the being of God, and form from God as will, matter corresponding to the first substance and form to the will; but there is no thought in the mind of Gabirol of substance and will as separate entities, or of will as an attribute of substance. Will is neither attribute nor substance, Gabirol being so pure a monotheist that he can not brook the thought of any attribute of God lest it mar the purity of monotheism. In this Gabirol follows strictly in the line of Hebrew tradition.
In the philosophy of Maimonides and other Jewish-rationalistic philosophers, there is little which can be predicated about the God other than his "existence", and even this can only be asserted equivocally.
How then can a relation be represented between Him and what is other than He when there is no notion comprising in any respect both of the two, inasmuch as existence is, in our opinion, affirmed of Him, may He be exalted, and of what is other than He merely by way of absolute equivocation. There is, in truth, no relation in any respect between Him and any of His creatures.
— Maimonides, Moreh Nevuchim (Pines 1963)
In Jewish mystical thought (Kabbalah), the term "Godhead" usually refers[ citation needed ] to the concept of Ein Sof (אין סוף), the aspect of God that lies beyond the emanations (sefirot). The "knowability" of the Godhead in Kabbalistic thought is no better than what is conceived by rationalist thinkers. As Jacobs (1973) puts it: "Of God as He is in Himself—Ein Sof—nothing can be said at all, and no thought can reach there."
Ein Sof is a place to which forgetting and oblivion pertain. Why? Because concerning all the sefirot, one can search out their reality from the depth of supernal wisdom. From there it is possible to understand one thing from another. However, concerning Ein Sof, there is no aspect anywhere to search or probe; nothing can be known of it, for it is hidden and concealed in the mystery of absolute nothingness.
— David ben Judah Hehasid, Matt (1990)
There is a divergence of opinion among the kabbalists concerning the relation of the sefirot to the En Sof. Azriel (commentary on the Sefer Yetzirah , p. 27b) and, after him, Menahem Recanati (Ṭa'ame ha-Miẓwot, passim) considered the sefirot to be totally different from the Divine Being. The "Ma'areket" group took the sefirot to be identical in their totality with the En Sof, each sefirah representing merely a certain view of the Infinite ("Ma'areket", p. 8b). The Zohar clearly implies that they are the names of the deity, and gives for each of them a corresponding name of God and of the hosts of angels mentioned in the Bible. Luria and Cordovero, without regarding them as instruments, do not identify them with the essence of the deity. They argue that the "Absolute One" is immanent in all the sefirot and reveals himself through them, but does not dwell in them; the sefirot can never include the Infinite. Each sefirah has a well-known name, but the Holy One has no definite name (Pardes Rimmonim, pp. 21–23).
Kabbalah or Qabalah is an esoteric method, discipline and school of thought in Jewish mysticism. A traditional Kabbalist is called a Mekubbal. The definition of Kabbalah varies according to the tradition and aims of those following it, from its origin in medieval Judaism to its later adaptations in Western esotericism. Jewish Kabbalah is a set of esoteric teachings meant to explain the relationship between the unchanging, eternal God—the mysterious Ein Sof —and the mortal, finite universe. It forms the foundation of mystical religious interpretations within Judaism.
Abraham ibn Daud was a Spanish-Jewish astronomer, historian and philosopher; born in Córdoba, Spain about 1110; who was said to have died in Toledo, Spain, a martyr about 1180. He is sometimes known by the abbreviation Rabad I or Ravad I. His maternal grandfather was Isaac Albalia. Some scholars believe he was the Arabic-into-Latin translator known as Avendauth.
The doctrine or theory of immanence holds that the divine encompasses or is manifested in the material world. It is held by some philosophical and metaphysical theories of divine presence. Immanence is usually applied in monotheistic, pantheistic, pandeistic, or panentheistic faiths to suggest that the spiritual world permeates the mundane. It is often contrasted with theories of transcendence, in which the divine is seen to be outside the material world.
Sefirot, meaning emanations, are the 10 attributes/emanations in Kabbalah, through which Ein Sof reveals itself and continuously creates both the physical realm and the chain of higher metaphysical realms. The term is alternatively transliterated into English as sephirot/sephiroth, singular sefirah/sephirah, etc.
In the branch of Jewish mysticism known as Kabbalah, Daʻat or Da'ath is the location where all ten sefirot in the Tree of Life are united as one.
Azriel ibn Menahem ibn Ibrahim al-Tarās also known as Azriel of Gerona was the founder of speculative Kabbalah and the Gironian Kabbalist school. He is known for implementing Neoplatonic thought into mainstream kabbalistic tradition.
Ein Sof, or Eyn Sof, in Kabbalah, is understood as God prior to any self-manifestation in the production of any spiritual realm, probably derived from Solomon ibn Gabirol's term, "the Endless One". Ein Sof may be translated as "unending", "(there is) no end", or infinity. It was first used by Azriel, who, sharing the Neoplatonic belief that God can have no desire, thought, word, or action, emphasized by it the negation of any attribute. Of the Ein Sof, nothing ("Ein") can be grasped ("Sof"-limitation). It is the origin of the Ohr Ein Sof, the "Infinite Light" of paradoxical divine self-knowledge, nullified within the Ein Sof prior to creation. In Lurianic Kabbalah, the first act of creation, the Tzimtzum self "withdrawal" of God to create an "empty 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 Atzmus 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.
Chokhmah is the Biblical Hebrew word rendered as "wisdom" in English Bible versions.
The tree of life is a diagram used in Rabbinical Judaism in kabbalah and other mystical traditions derived from it. It is usually referred to as the "kabbalistic tree of life" to distinguish it from the tree of life that appears alongside the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the Genesis creation narrative and well as the archetypal tree of life found in many cultures.
In Kabbalistic and Hasidic philosophy, seder hishtalshelut or hishtalshelus refers to the chain-like descent of spiritual worlds (Olam/Olamot) between God and Creation. Each spiritual world denotes a complete realm of existence, resulting from its general proximity or distance to divine revelation. Each realm is also a form of consciousness reflected in this world through the psychology of the soul.
Lurianic Kabbalah is a school of Kabbalah named after Isaac Luria (1534–1572), the Jewish rabbi who developed it. Lurianic Kabbalah gave a seminal new account of Kabbalistic thought that its followers synthesised with, and read into, the earlier Kabbalah of the Zohar that had disseminated in Medieval circles.
The Four Worlds, sometimes counted with a prior stage to make Five Worlds, are the comprehensive categories of spiritual realms in Kabbalah in the descending chain of Existence.
In Judaism, God has been conceived in a variety of ways. Traditionally, Judaism holds that what is Hashem, the god of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and the national god of the Israelites, delivered the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, and gave them the Law of Moses at Mount Sinai as described in the Torah. Jews traditionally believe in a monotheistic conception of God "Hashem is One" is characterized by both transcendence and immanence.
Ohr is a central Kabbalistic term in Jewish mysticism. The analogy of physical light is used as a way of describing metaphysical divine emanations. Shefa "flow" (שפע) and its derivative, hashpoah "influence" השפעה), are sometimes alternatively used in Kabbalah, a term also used in Medieval Jewish philosophy to mean divine influence, while the Kabbalists favour Ohr because its numerical value equals ר״ז, a homonym for רז rāz "mystery". It is one of the two main metaphors in Kabbalah for understanding God, along with the other metaphor of the human soul-body relationship for the sefirot.
Ayin is an important concept in Kabbalah and Hasidic philosophy. It is contrasted with the term Yesh. According to kabbalistic teachings, before the universe was created there was only Ayin, the first manifest Sephirah ,and second sephirah Chochmah (Wisdom), "comes into being out of Ayin." In this context, the sephirah Keter, the Divine will, is the intermediary between the Divine Infinity and Chochmah. Because Keter is a supreme revelation of the Ohr Ein Sof, transcending the manifest sephirot, it is sometimes excluded from them.
Atzmus or Atzmut is the descriptive term referred to in Kabbalah, and explored in Hasidic thought, for the divine essence.
Partzufim or Partsufim, meaning "Divine Personas", are particular reconfigured arrangements of the ten sefirot, divine attributes/emanations of Kabbalah. Each partzuf is thus a configuration of disparate entities into a harmonious unit. The names of the partzufim are derived from the Zohar, the foundational text of Kabbalah. There, they are synonymous terms for the sefirot. Their full doctrinal significance emerged in 16th century Lurianic Kabbalah with reference to the cosmic processes of Tohu and Tikun, "Chaos and Rectification".
Arich Anpin or Arikh Anpin (Aramaic: אריך אנפין meaning "Long Face/Extended Countenance" (also implying "The Infinitely Patient One", is an aspect of Divine emanation in Kabbalah, identified with the sephirah attribute of Keter, the Divine Will.
Olam HaTohu and Olam HaTikun are two general stages in Jewish Kabbalah in the order of descending spiritual worlds known as "the Four Worlds". In subsequent creation, they also represent two archetypal spiritual states of being and consciousness. Their concepts derive from the new scheme of Lurianic Kabbalah by Isaac Luria (1534–1572), the father of modern Kabbalah, based on his interpretation of classic references in the Zohar.
Kabbalah, the central system in Jewish mysticism, uses anthropomorphic mythic symbols to metaphorically describe manifestations of God in Judaism. Based on the verses "God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them" and "from my flesh shall I see God", Kabbalah uses the form of the human body to describe the structure of the human soul, and the nature of supernal Divine emanations. A particular concern of Kabbalah is sexual unity between male and female potencies in Divinity on high, depicted as interaction of the two sides in the sephirot, between archetypal partzufim, and the redemption of the exiled Shekhinah from captivity among the impure forces below.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain : Isaac Broydé (1901–1906). "SEFIROT, THE TEN:". In Singer, Isidore; et al. (eds.). The Jewish Encyclopedia . New York: Funk & Wagnalls.