6 - One Means None (or Ten)

Summary

Medieval Jewish negative theology and its obscure notions of divine attributes spurred a reaction among some Jews who wanted a more manifest sense of knowledge of God. This reaction was one of the factors that led to the emergence of the medieval Jewish mysticism known as the Kabbalah. The Kabbalists accepted the philosophers’ negative theology, but they wanted to know what they were negating. They accomplished this unaccomplishable paradox through the ten Sefirot. The Sefirot are a type of divine creative energy that facilitates God’s interactions with the world; they are the channels through which the divine transcendence achieves a progressively manifest immanence. Although God in essence in unknowable, the Sefirot are a knowable reflection of divinity. For these Kabbalists, “God is one” meant that God as God truly is one. Yet God from the human perspective is not one but ten.