We call Him by names like YHWH and Adonai, and our sages, may their memory be a blessing, refer to Him as HaKadosh Baruch Hu, "The Holy One, Blessed be He." But what does it all mean?

Well, the core idea is that He is the primary cause. He is the Necessary Existence. This idea, though, isn't without its nuances and, let's just say, some passionate discussion over the centuries.

You see, some texts, like the Sefer HaBrit ("Book of the Covenant"), use the name Yosher Levav – "Uprightness of Heart." And the Arizal, the great Kabbalist, following hints found within the mystical Zohar, spoke of God in terms of Ze'eir Anpin, a "small countenance," a specific configuration within the divine realm. These are attempts to describe the indescribable, to bring the infinite into the realm of human understanding.

But the dominant tradition, firmly rooted in the Torah, emphasizes that "From everlasting to everlasting, You are God" (Psalm 90:2). God is the primary cause of everything, above and below. He is the one we worship. Maimonides (the Rambam), in his commentary on the Mishnah, and luminaries like Rabbi Saadia Gaon and Rabbi Yehuda Halevi, all echo this sentiment. "I am the Lord," He declares, "and there is no other God besides Me" (Isaiah 45:5). King David asks, "For who is God besides the Lord? And who is a rock except our God?" (Psalm 18:32).

He, may He be blessed, is the cause, the initial act for everything other than Himself, as our revered teacher explains in Chapter 16 of the Guide for the Perplexed. There is no cause before Him. The author of Chovot HaLevavot ("Duties of the Heart"), a true Chassid – a pious one – emphasizes in the Gate of Unity that God always exists as the beginning. There is no beginning before Him. He is the First without a first.

Think about that for a moment. The First without a first.

He formed and created everything from nothing, not through something, not upon something. As it says, "I am the Lord, who does all these things, who stretches out the heavens alone, who spreads out the earth by Myself" (Isaiah 44:24). Job poetically describes how "He stretches out the north over empty space, He hangs the earth on nothingness" (Job 26:7).

He is the primordial first, without a beginning to His beginning. And there's no end to His primacy. "I am the first and I am the last, and besides Me, there is no God" (Isaiah 44:6).

Even the Men of the Great Assembly, who standardized our liturgy, declared, "You are true, You are the first, and You are the last..."

So, where does this leave us? It leaves us grappling with the unfathomable. It invites us to contemplate a source that transcends our understanding, a power that precedes all things. It’s a reminder that the quest to understand God is a lifelong journey, a path paved with questions, wonder, and the unwavering belief in a force greater than ourselves. What does it mean to you that God is described as the first and the last? How does this concept shape your understanding of existence?