Christianity & Kabbalah
Ein Sof, the Sefirot, and the God Christians Confess
In Kabbalah, God in his deepest reality is Ein Sof, 'the Infinite' or 'Without End,' utterly hidden and beyond every name and concept. This hidden God becomes knowable and active through ten sefirot, emanations or powers arranged as the Tree of Life. Christianity too holds that God is infinite and beyond our grasp, but confesses him as a personal Creator, one God in three persons, who freely reveals himself. Here is a respectful comparison of the two pictures.
What Kabbalah teaches
Classical Kabbalah distinguishes God as he is in himself, Ein Sof, the Infinite, hidden beyond all knowing and naming, from the ways God makes himself known. Ein Sof becomes accessible through ten sefirot, graded emanations or attributes (such as Keter, crown; Chokhmah, wisdom; Binah, understanding; down to Malkhut, kingdom), pictured together as the Tree of Life. Through these, the unknowable God flows into relationship with the world. This is a subtle and reverent attempt to hold together God's utter transcendence and his real presence.
What Christians believe
Christianity shares the deep instinct that God infinitely exceeds us and dwells, as Scripture says, in light no one can approach. It guards that mystery no less carefully.
Yet Christians confess that this infinite God is personal, and that he is, in his own being, a communion of three: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, one God. He is not reached through a ladder of emanations but comes near of his own will, and has made himself known most fully in a person.
Where we agree
Kabbalah and Christianity agree that God is infinite, hidden, and beyond every human concept, and that reducing him to an idol we can master is a grave error. Both traditions hold together, in their own ways, that God is at once utterly beyond us and truly present to us.
Where we differ
Kabbalah pictures the knowable God as Ein Sof unfolding through ten sefirot. Christianity confesses one God who is eternally three persons, and who makes himself known not through a scale of emanations but by freely revealing himself, above all in Jesus. These are genuinely different pictures of how the Infinite becomes the God we can know.
Kabbalistic sources: the Zohar (13th century, traditionally ascribed to Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai; critical scholarship, following Gershom Scholem, attributes its main body to Rabbi Moses de Leon in 13th-century Castile) and later Lurianic Kabbalah (Rabbi Isaac Luria, 16th-century Safed). Concepts are summarized from recognized Jewish and academic sources; compare the texts at sefaria.org. Bible: King James Version.
The word itself
אֵין סוף (Ein Sof) → the Infinite
Ein Sof means 'without end' or 'the Infinite.' In Kabbalah it names God as he is in himself, beyond all names, attributes, and knowing, before and above the ten sefirot through which he becomes knowable. The term itself came into use in medieval Kabbalah.
Frequently asked questions
- What is Ein Sof in Kabbalah?
- Ein Sof (Hebrew for 'without end' or 'the Infinite') is God as he is in himself, utterly hidden and beyond every name and concept. This hidden God becomes knowable and active through the ten sefirot, emanations pictured as the Tree of Life.
- What are the sefirot?
- The sefirot are ten emanations, powers, or attributes through which the hidden Ein Sof makes himself known and acts in the world, arranged in Kabbalah as the Tree of Life (Keter, Chokhmah, Binah, and so on down to Malkhut). They are a way of holding together God's transcendence and his presence.
- How does the Christian view of God differ?
- Christianity also holds that God is infinite and dwells in unapproachable light (1 Timothy 6:16), but confesses him as personal, one God in three persons (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit), who reveals himself freely and supremely in Jesus (John 1:18), rather than through a scale of emanations.
Come and see
Kabbalah reaches for the hidden depths of God and the repair of a broken world. Jesus, a son of Israel, spoke of the same God, near and personal. The most honest way to know him is to read the accounts of his life. There is no pressure here.
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