Ayin and Yesh
'without end'), which is understood as the Deity prior to His self-manifestation in the creation of the spiritual and physical realms, single Infinite unity beyond any description or limitation.
The symbolism associated with the word Ayin was greatly emphasized by Moses de León (c. 1250 – 1305), a Spanish rabbi and kabbalist, through the Zohar, the foundational work of Kabbalah.
[2] In Hasidism Ayin relates to the internal psychological experience of Deveikut ("cleaving" to God amidst physicality), and the contemplative perception of paradoxical Yesh-Ayin Divine Panentheism, "There is no place empty of Him".
[2] Both Maimonides and the centuries earlier author of the kabbalistic related work Sefer Yetzirah "accepted the formulation of Creation, 'yesh me-Ayin.
"[1][7]This reflects the orientation of Hasidism to internalise Kabbalistic descriptions to their psychological correspondence in man, making Deveikut (cleaving to God) central to Judaism.
Dov Ber, uncompromising esoteric mystic and organiser of the movement's future leaders, developed the elite aspect of Hasidic meditation reflected in Bittul (annihilation of ego) in the Divine Ayin Nothingness.
In the second section of his magnum opus Tanya, Schneur Zalman explains the Monistic illusionary Ayin nullification of Created Existence from the Divine perspective of "Upper Unity".
The human perspective in contemplation sees Creation as real Yesh existence, though completely nullified to its continuous vitalising Divine lifeforce, the perception of "Lower Unity".
In another text of Schneur Zalman: He is one in the heaven and on earth... because all the upper worlds occupy no space to be Yesh and something separate in itself, and everything before Him is as Ayin, verily as null and void, and there is nothing beside Him.
In Schneur Zalman's explanation, Hasidism interprets the Lurianic doctrine of Tzimtzum (apparent "Withdrawal" of God to allow Creation to take place) as only an illusionary concealment of the Ohr Ein Sof.
God's essence can be equally manifest in finitude as in infinitude, as found in the Talmudic statement that the Ark of the Covenant in the First Temple took up no space.
Atzmus represents the core Divine essence itself, as it relates to the ultimate purpose of Creation in Hasidic thought that "God desired a dwelling place in the lower Realms",[9] which will be fulfilled in this physical, finite, lowest world, through performance of the Jewish observances.
In Kabbalah, the superiority of this world is to enable the revelation of the complete Divine emanations, for the benefit of Creation, as God Himself lacks no perfection.
[10] This is explained in Hasidic thought to describe Atzmus, the Divine essence (Anochi-"I"), uniting the separate Kabbalistic manifestation realms of spirituality (Hashem-The Tetragrammaton name of Infinite transcendent emanation) and physicality (Elokecha-The name of God relating to finite immanent lifeforce of Creation).
Similarly, the essential Hasidic purpose-Will of Creation, a "dwelling place for God's Atzmus-essence in the lowest world", becomes actualised through the process of elevating the sparks of holiness embedded in material objects, through using them for Jewish observances, the Lurianic scheme in Kabbalah-Wisdom.
In Hasidic explanation, through completing this esoteric Kabbalah-Wisdom process, thereby the more sublime ultimate Divine purpose-Will is achieved, revealing this World to be the Atzmus "dwelling place" of God.
According to Hasidic thought, "the Torah derives from Chochmah-Wisdom, but its source and root surpasses exceedingly the level of Chochmah, and is called the Supreme Will".
Presently, the supernal Heavenly realms perceive the immanent Divine creative Light of Mimalei Kol Olamim ("Filling all Worlds"), according to their innumerably varied descending levels.
In his autobiographical trilogy Love and Exile, Isaac Bashevis Singer, an American-Jewish writer and a Nobel Prize laureate, remembers how he studied Kabbalah and tried to comprehend how could have it been that he, Rothschild, the mouse in its hole, the bedbug on the wall, and the corpse in the grave were identical in every sense, as were dream and reality...[14]Scientific theories of the Big Bang and ideas about the Universe being created out of nothingness resemble those expressed in Kabbalah.
"[15] Kenneth Hanson sees similarity in the Kabbalistic idea that Hebrew letters were the material of which the Universe was built and Stephen Hawking's explanation for why Albert Einstein's theory of relativity will break down at some point that he called the "singularity".
Hanson also argues that the singularity of black holes could be compared to Kabbalistic "spheres of nothing", as it was written in the Sefer Yetzirah: "For that which is light is not-darkness, and that which is darkness is not-light.
