Why I Love Jewish Mysticism

Just one example of many, this quote is from an article by Rabbi David Cooper from an article in Parabola magazine.

Many of these teachings, nonetheless, were revealed publicly in the Zohar, the Book of Splendor, published around 1300 C.E. The Zohar teaches for all to see that the initial Hebrew words of the Bible, Bereshit bara Elohim, have, in fact, two contradictory translations. One way to translate the opening line, as described above, is to treat the word Elohim, one of many Hebrew names of God, as the subject of the sentence, thus rendering the translation as the familiar phrase: “In the beginning, God created….”

The other grammatically correct way to translate these words, however, is to treat Elohim as an object, thus rendering the translation: “In the beginning ____ created God…” The blank in the sentence has an assumed “It,” which compels us to read the opening, “In the beginning, [It] created God, heaven and earth.”

If one chooses to accept the first translation, with Elohim (God) as Creator, we are immediately ensnared in a well-known series of difficulties that result from having a Creator that precedes and is separate from its Creation. Serious questions arise: If God is all good, how or why would it create evil in the universe? If God is all powerful, why doesn’t it end war forever? Moreover, if God knows everything then there can be no free will. For two thousand years, philosophers have discussed many contradictions like these and most have concluded that such paradoxes will never be resolved and thus the idea of God, as presented in the Bible, can never be proven nor disproven.

On the other hand, if one chooses to consider the mystical translation, that Elohim is part of the Creation rather than the Creator, we must ask, what is the hidden “It” that created God (Elohim)? This extraordinary “It” that precedes the God-name Elohim was a core element of hidden esoteric teachings that were first openly acknowledged in the twelfth century C.E. by a Jewish mystic named Isaac the Blind, who was also the first to give Kabbalah its name. Isaac’s kabbalistic teachings rapidly spread in a way that within a hundred years led to the publication of many parts of the Zohar.

Isaac the Blind referred to the mysterious “It” as Ein Sof (literally: without end, or Boundlessness), which he defined as “that which can not be conceived by thought.” This is a difficult teaching, for it stipulates that there are no words, no thoughts, no way to describe Ein Sof, which should not even be called an “It,” for that implies an entity.

You can read the rest of the article, here.

Cheers!