6 myths
Myths, legends, and mystical writings about Ein Sof from across Jewish tradition.
6 myths on JewishMythology.com retell how Jewish tradition imagines ein sof, drawn from the Hebrew Bible, Midrash, Talmud, Kabbalah, and later Jewish literature. Each story below synthesizes primary sources into a single narrative; follow any myth to read it, and from there into the source passages behind it.
Before anything existed, only the Endless hid all within itself, until one seed of light burst free and grew into the tree from which every soul flies.
No axe touched God. A change in the vessel of receiving turned All into part, and a soul found itself separate enough to love, fear, and choose.
The Other Side is no rival to God but God's own overflow, husks that harden around every falling spark to hoard the light they never made.
She rested inside the Endless with no name and no edge, until one wanting opened in her like an axe and split her all the way down into flesh.
Before it was born the soul already owned a perfect body of giving, yet it had to wear a garment of hungry dust to make that body its own.
The Infinite filled all reality until no world could exist, so it contracted inward and tore a round hollow of empty space for creation.
