Editing Kabbalah (section)

=== Descending spiritual worlds ===
{{Main|Four Worlds|Seder hishtalshelus}}
Medieval Kabbalists believed that all things are linked to God through these [[Emanationism|emanations]], making all levels in creation part of one great, gradually descending [[chain of being]]. Through this any lower creation reflects its particular roots in supernal divinity. Kabbalists agreed with the [[divine transcendence]] described by [[Jewish philosophy]], but as only referring to the ''[[Ein Sof]]'' unknowable Godhead. They reinterpreted the [[Theism|theistic]] philosophical concept of creation from nothing, replacing God's creative act with [[Panentheism|panentheistic]] continual self-emanation by the mystical [[Ayin and Yesh|Ayin]] Nothingness/No-thing sustaining all spiritual and physical realms as successively more corporeal garments, veils and condensations of [[divine immanence]]. The innumerable levels of descent divide into [[Four Worlds|Four comprehensive spiritual worlds]], ''[[Atziluth]]'' ("Closeness" – Divine Wisdom), ''[[Beri'ah|Beriah]]'' ("Creation" – Divine Understanding), ''[[Yetzirah]]'' ("Formation" – Divine Emotions), ''[[Assiah]]'' ("Action" – Divine Activity), with a preceding Fifth World ''[[Adam Kadmon]]'' ("Primordial Man" – Divine Will) sometimes excluded due to its sublimity. Together the whole spiritual heavens form the Divine Persona/[[Adam Kadmon#Gnosticism|Anthropos]].{{citation needed|date=February 2025}}

Hasidic thought extends the divine immanence of Kabbalah by holding that God is all that really exists, all else being completely undifferentiated from God's perspective. This view can be defined as [[Acosmism|acosmic]] [[Monism|monistic]] panentheism. According to this philosophy, God's existence is higher than anything that this world can express, yet he includes all things of this world within his divine reality in perfect unity, so that the creation effected no change in him at all. This paradox as seen from dual human and divine perspectives is dealt with at length in [[Chabad philosophy|Chabad texts]].{{sfnp|Wineberg|1998|loc=chs. 20–21}}