A kabbalistically-suffused, hyper-anthropomorphic myth about creation by a master of Yiddish modernism, Der Nister’s Primordium ( Der Kadmen , 1910) takes the reader deep into the mind of God preceding creation, and narrates his precarious and tortured quest for self-consciousness and expression. Tracing the Primordium’s maturation across cosmic eons in the face of his own doubts and fear, and in the face of cosmic silence and nothingness, Der Nister’s Der Kadmen is a meditation on the dialectics of being and nothingness, and one of the boldest experiments in writing Jewish myth in modernity. Critically annotated, adorned and unveiled by ten paintings, this bilingual edition will delight scholars of Kabbalah and Yiddish alike. Translated, Introduced and Annotated by Nathan Wolski; Artwork and design by Tunni Kraus; Preface by Aubrey L. Glazer