A Religion about Nothing

A Religion about Nothing

Most commentators translate the first three words of the Bible “Bereshit bara Elokim” in one of two ways: a. ‘In the beginning God created’, or b. ‘When God began to create’. Either way, God is the subject of the sentence, the creator. But, the kabbalists gave these three words a daring (and rather outrageous) interpretation. They translated: “In the beginning Elokim/God was created”. Why did they do that? 

Both the mystics and philosophers of the middle ages struggled with the idea that whatever we say about God we are limiting God. Even to give God a name, like Elokim, is a limitation, because names are meant to define the limits of a person or object—where they end, and something else begins. But, God has no limits. How do we refer to God in a way that doesn’t limit God, the way calling a tiger by its name implies they are not a bear? 

The mystics solved this by referring to God in God’s ultimate essence as ‘ein sof’/limitlessness or ‘ayin’/nothingness. And, elokim, God as God is named, is actually a lower manifestation of God, an emanation of ein sof, otherwise called a sefirah.

 

Here is one way of thinking about the difference between ein sof and elokim. Imagine a table. How was that table created? First there was a generally felt need for something that would function like a table. Then there was an idea of how to create a table. Perhaps next there was the name table. And, only later is there an actual physical table that results from this process.  

The mystics say the will to create emerged from ein sof, and as it began to take on the form of a definite idea it became the sefirot, and only in the last stage does a concrete world emerge from the sefirot. To say that elokim created the world is a little like saying that the table began with an idea for a table. But, the idea itself (here called elokim) was not first. It emerged from the more mysterious, impossible to define ein sof. Simple, right?! 

So, why is God also called ‘ayin/nothing’. Think of the word nothing as composed of two words: no thing. The ‘thinginess’ of this world is what is defined. Every creature has a form that make us like all other creatures who go by our name. Humans have eyes, ears, and DNA that define how we look act and feel.  

Yet, think of someone we love. Try to define them. You can’t. We can say all kinds of things about their physical composition and their psychological profile. But, we will missing what we most love about them---the quality that makes them absolutely unique. Mystics called this quality the no-thing.  We humans are 99% thinginess and a tiny, but important fraction of no-thingness. In most ways, we are like everyone else. But, not completely.

But imagine something/someone who was all no-thing—completely unique. Imagine what the indefinable essence that we love about someone precisely because it is so unusual. Now multiply that by a zillion. That’s God. Ultimate lovability. Unlike us, nothing about God is like anyone else. God has the quality we most admire in each other in spades. That’s why God is called Ayin, No-thing.