The Aroma of Infinity


Ein Sof does not abide being known,
does not produce end or beginning.
Primordial Nothingness brought forth beginning and end.
Who is beginning?
The highest point, beginning of all,
the concealed one abiding in thought.
It also engenders end, the culmination of the word.
But there, no end.
No desires, no lights, no sparks in that Infinity.
All these lights and sparks are dependent on it but cannot comprehend.
The only one who knows, yet without knowing,
is the highest desire, concealed of all concealed,
Nothingness.
And when the highest point and the world that is coming ascend,
they know only the aroma,
as one inhaling an aroma is sweetened.

Zohar 3:26 (thirteenth century) in Daniel Matt's Zohar: The Book of Englightenment. The Classics of Western Spirituality. Mahawah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1983. Annotated, poetic translations of slections from the major work of Kabbalah


ascend