the hidden or infinite God, according to the Zohar
Fishburn and Hughes: "Hebrew for 'endless': a Cabbalistic term designating the impersonal and ineffable nature of God before his manifestation in the creation of the world. The negative emphasis of the term (en, 'nothing'; sof, 'end') seeks to convey the idea that God, as he existed before Creation, was unknowable to man, who was unable to express his existence. Any actual name would imply a limitation on the concept of God and therefore be an impossibility; the negative signifies a refusal to impose any boundaries upon the designation of God. This concept of a hidden God, 'that which is not conceivable by thinking', was a factor leading to the heretical belief in a duality between the impersonal and unfathomable God and the personal Demiurge of Creation which lay at the root of Gnosticism." (66)