Godhead refers to the aspect or substratum of

God In monotheistic thought, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. Swinburne, R.G. "God" in Honderich, Ted. (ed)''The Oxford Companion to Philosophy'', Oxford University Press, 1995. God is typically ...

that lies behind God's actions or properties (i.e., it is the

essence Essence ( la, essentia) is a polysemic term, used in philosophy and theology as a designation for the property or set of properties that make an entity or substance what it fundamentally is, and which it has by necessity, and without which it ...

of God), and its nature has been the subject of long debate in every major

religion Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatural, ...

Terminology

The closest corresponding term in the classical and modern languages of Jewish scholarship is אלוהות (''elohút''), meaning deity (essential nature of a god) or

divinity Divinity or the divine are things that are either related to, devoted to, or proceeding from a deity.divine< ...

Max Kadushin Max Kadushin ( be, Макс Кадушын; December 6, 1895 – July 23, 1980) was a Conservative rabbi best known for his organic philosophy of rabbinics. Biography Born in Minsk, Max Kadushin grew up in Seattle; his father operated a store for ...

notes that "The plural 'Elohim, gods, must not be confused with 'Elohut, Godhead. The latter is used with reference to God".Kadushin, M. ''The rabbinic mind'' (2001) p. 199.

Conceptions

Neoplatonic

The leading Jewish

Neoplatonic Neoplatonism is a strand of Platonic philosophy that emerged in the 3rd century AD against the background of Hellenistic philosophy and religion. The term does not encapsulate a set of ideas as much as a chain of thinkers. But there are some id ...

writer was Solomon ibn Gabirol. In his ''Fons Vitae'', Gabirol's position is that everything that exists may be reduced to three categories: the first substance (God), matter and form (the world), with the will as intermediary. Gabirol derives matter and form from absolute being. In the Godhead he seems to differentiate ''essentia'' (being) from ''proprietas'' (attribute), designating by ''proprietas'' the will, wisdom, creative word ("''voluntas, sapientia, verbum agens''"). He thinks of the Godhead as ''being'' and as ''will'' or ''wisdom'', regarding the will as identical with the divine nature. This position is implicit in the doctrine of Gabirol, who teaches that God's existence is knowable, but not His being or constitution, no attribute being predicable of God save that of existence. Kaufmann holds that Gabirol was an opponent of the doctrine of divine attributes. While there are passages in the ''Fons Vitae'', in the ''Ethics'', and even in the ''Keter Malkut'' (from which Sachs deduces Gabirol's acceptance of the theory of the doctrine of divine attributes) which seem to support this assumption, a minute examination of the questions bearing on this, such as has been made by Kaufmann (in ''Gesch. der Attributenlehre''), proves very clearly that will and wisdom are spoken of not as attributes of the divine, but with reference to an aspect of the divine, the creative aspect; so that the will is not to be looked upon as intermediary between God and substance and form. Matter or substance proceeds from the being of God, and form from God as will, matter corresponding to the first substance and form to the will; but there is no thought in the mind of Gabirol of substance and will as separate entities, or of will as an attribute of substance. Will is neither attribute nor substance, Gabirol being so pure a monotheist that he can not brook the thought of any attribute of God lest it mar the purity of monotheism. In this Gabirol follows strictly in the line of Hebrew tradition.

Rationalistic

In the philosophy of

Maimonides Musa ibn Maimon (1138–1204), commonly known as Maimonides (); la, Moses Maimonides and also referred to by the acronym Rambam ( he, רמב״ם), was a Sephardic Jewish philosopher who became one of the most prolific and influential Tora ...

and other Jewish-rationalistic philosophers, there is little which can be predicated about the God other than his "

existence Existence is the ability of an entity to interact with reality. In philosophy, it refers to the ontological property of being. Etymology The term ''existence'' comes from Old French ''existence'', from Medieval Latin ''existentia/exsistentia' ...

", and even this can only be asserted equivocally.

Kabbalistic

In Jewish mystical thought (

Kabbalah Kabbalah ( he, קַבָּלָה ''Qabbālā'', literally "reception, tradition") is an esoteric method, discipline and school of thought in Jewish mysticism. A traditional Kabbalist is called a Mekubbal ( ''Məqūbbāl'' "receiver"). The defin ...

), the term "Godhead" usually refers to the concept of

Ein Sof Ein Sof, or Eyn Sof (, he, '; meaning "infinite", ), in Kabbalah, is understood as God prior to any self-manifestation in the production of any spiritual realm, probably derived from Solomon ibn Gabirol's ( 1021 – 1070) term, "the Endless ...

(אין סוף), the aspect of God that lies beyond the emanations (

sefirot Sefirot (; he, סְפִירוֹת, translit=Səfīrōt, Tiberian: '), meaning '' emanations'', are the 10 attributes/emanations in Kabbalah, through which Ein Sof ( The Infinite) reveals itself and continuously creates both the physical realm ...

). The "knowability" of the Godhead in Kabbalistic thought is no better than what is conceived by rationalist thinkers. As Jacobs (1973) puts it: "Of God as He is in Himself—Ein Sof—nothing can be said at all, and no thought can reach there." There is a divergence of opinion among the kabbalists concerning the relation of the ''sefirot'' to the En Sof. Azriel (commentary on the '' Sefer Yetzirah'', p. 27b) and, after him,

Menahem Recanati Menahem ben Benjamin Recanati ( he, מנחם בן בנימין ריקנטי; 1223–1290) was an Italian rabbi who was born and died in the city of Recanati, who devoted the chief part of his writings to the Kabbalah. Works In addition to the ...

(''Ṭa'ame ha-Miẓwot,'' passim) considered the ''sefirot'' to be totally different from the Divine Being. The "Ma'areket" group took the sefirot to be identical in their totality with the En Sof, each sefirah representing merely a certain view of the Infinite ("Ma'areket", p. 8b). The Zohar clearly implies that they are the names of the deity, and gives for each of them a corresponding name of God and of the hosts of angels mentioned in the Bible. Luria and Cordovero, without regarding them as instruments, do not identify them with the essence of the deity. They argue that the "Absolute One" is immanent in all the sefirot and reveals himself through them, but does not dwell in them; the sefirot can never include the Infinite. Each sefirah has a well-known name, but the Holy One has no definite name (''Pardes Rimmonim'', pp. 21–23).

References