> > 1. We are now ready to trace the pattern of the *sefirot* and the essential symbols associated with them. The description in the following paragraphs does not summarize any particular passage in a single kabbalistic text, but attempts to offer a summary understanding of the *sefirot* as they were portrayed in the emerging Castilian Kabbalah of the late thirteenth century. (See the Diagram of the Ten *Sefirot*). > > 2. The highest *sefirah* represents the first stirrings of intent within *Ein Sof*, the arousal of desire to come forth into the varied life of being. There is no specific “content” to this *sefirah*; it is a desire or intentionality, an inner movement of the spirit, that potentially bears all content, but actually none. It is therefore often designated by the kabbalists as “Nothing.” This is a stage of reality that lies between being wholly within the One and the first glimmer of separate existence. Most of the terms used to describe this rather vague realm are apophatic in nature, describing it negatively. “The air \[or: ether\] that cannot be grasped” is one favorite; “the hidden light” is another. The prime pictorial image assigned to it is that of the crown: *Keter*, the starting point of the cosmic process. Sometimes this rung of being is referred to as *Keter Elyon*, the Supreme Crown of God. This image is derived partly from a depiction of the ten *sefirot* in anthropic form, that is to say, in the image of a human being. Since this personification is of a royal personage, the highest manifestation of that emerging spiritual “body” will be the crown. But we should also recall that the more primary meaning of the word *keter* is “circle”; it is from this that the notion of the crown is derived. In *Sefer Yetsirah* we are told that the *sefirot* are a great circle, “their end embedded in their beginning, and their beginning in their end.” The circularity of the *sefirot* will be important to us further along in our description. > > 3. Out of *Keter* emerges *Ḥokhmah*, the first and finest point of “real” existence. All things, souls, and moments of time that are ever to be, exist within a primal point, at once infinitesimally small and great beyond measure. (Like mystics everywhere, kabbalists love the language of paradox, a way of showing how inadequate words really are to describe this reality.) The move from *Keter* to *Ḥokhmah*, the first step in the primal process, is a transition from nothingness to being, from pure potential to the first point of real existence. The kabbalists are fond of describing it by their own reading of a verse from Job’s Hymn to Wisdom: “Wisdom comes from Nothingness” (Job 28:12). All the variety of existence is contained within *Ḥokhmah*, ready to begin the journey forward. > > 4. But *Ḥokhmah*, meaning “wisdom,” is also the primordial *teaching*, the inner mind of God, the Torah that exists prior to the birth of words and letters. As being exists here in this ultimately concentrated form, so too does truth or wisdom. The kabbalists are building on the ancient midrashic identification of Torah with primordial wisdom and the midrashic reading of “In the beginning” as “through Wisdom” God created the world. Here we begin to see their insistence that Creation and Revelation are twin processes, existence and language, the real and the nominal, emerging together from the hidden mind of God. As the primal point of existence, *Ḥokhmah* is symbolized by the letter *yod*, smallest of the letters, the first point from which all the other letters will be written. Here all of Torah, the text and the commentary added to it in every generation—indeed all of human wisdom—is contained within a single *yod*. This *yod* is the first letter of the name of God. The upper tip of the *yod* points toward *Keter*, itself designated by the *alef* or the divine name *Ehyeh*. > > 5. This journey from inner divine Nothingness toward the beginning of existence is one that inevitably arouses duality, even within the inner realms. As *Ḥokhmah* emerges, it brings forth its own mate, called *Binah*, “understanding” or “contemplation.” *Ḥokhmah* is described as a point of light that seeks out a grand mirrored palace of reflection. The light seen back and forth in those countless mirrored surfaces is all one light, but infinitely transformed and magnified in the reflective process. *Ḥokhmah* and *Binah* are two that are inseparably linked to one another; either is inconceivable to us without the other. *Ḥokhmah* is too fine and subtle to be detected without its reflections or reverberations in *Binah*. The mirrored halls of *Binah* would be dark and unknowable without the light of *Ḥokhmah*. For this reason they are often treated by kabbalists as the primal pair, ancestral *Abba* and *Imma*, Father and Mother, deepest polarities of male and female within the divine (and human) Self. The point and the palace are also primal Male and Female, each transformed and fulfilled in their union with one another. The energy that radiates from the point of *Ḥokhmah* is described chiefly in metaphors of flowing light and water, verbal pictures used by the mystics to speak of these most abstract levels of the inner Mind. But images of sexual union are never far behind these; the flow of light is also the flow of seed that fills the womb of *Binah* and gives birth to all the further rungs within the ten-in-one divine structure, the seven “lower” *sefirot*. > > 6. This first triad of *sefirot* together constitutes the most primal and recondite level of the inner divine world. It is a reality that the kabbalist regularly claims is quite obscure and beyond human ken, although the many references to *kavvanah* reaching *Keter* and to the union of all the *sefirot* with their source undercut such assertions. But for most passages in the *Zohar, Binah* stands as the womb of existence, the jubilee in which all returns to its source, the object of *teshuvah* (turning, returning)—in short, the highest object of the religious quest to return to the source. Out of the womb of *Binah* flow the seven “lower” *sefirot*, constituting seven aspects of the divine persona. Together these comprise the God who is the subject of worship and the One whose image is reflected in each human soul. The divine Self, as conceived by Kabbalah, is an interplay of these seven forces or inner directions. So too is each human personality, God’s image in the world. This “holy structure” of the inner life of God is called the “Mystery of Faith” by the *Zohar* and is refined in countless images by kabbalists through the ages. “God,” in other words, is the first Being to emerge out of the divine womb, the primal “entity” to take shape as the endless energies of *Ein Sof* begin to coalesce. > > 7. These seven *sefirot*, taken collectively, are represented in the spatial domain by the six directions around a center (in the tradition of *Sefer Yetsirah*) and in the realm of time by the seven days of the week, culminating in the Sabbath. Under the influence of Neoplatonism, the kabbalists came to describe the *sefirot* as emerging in sequence. This sequence does not necessarily have to be one of time, as the *sefirot* comprise the inner life of *YHVH*, where time does not mean what it does to us. The sequence is rather one of an intrinsic logic, each stage a response to that which comes “before” it. The structure consists of two dialectical triads (sets of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis) and a final vehicle of reception that also energizes the entire system from “below,” corresponding to *Keter* at the “upper” end. > > 8. First to manifest is *Ḥesed*, the grace or love of God. The emergence of God from hiding is an act filled with love, a promise of the endless showering of blessing and life on all beings, each of whose birth in a sense will continue this process of emerging from the One. This gift of love is beyond measure and without limit, the boundless compassion of *Keter* now transposed into a love for each specific form and creature that is ever to emerge. This channel of grace is the original divine *shefa*, the bounteous and unlimited love of God. But the divine wisdom also understands that love alone is not the way to bring forth “other” beings and to allow them their place. Judaism has always known God to embody judgment as well as love. The proper balance between these two, ever the struggle of the rabbis themselves (loving the people as well as the law), is a struggle that Jewish sources have long seen as existing in God as well. *Ḥesed* therefore emerges linked to its own opposite, described both as *Din*, the judgment of God, and *Gevurah*, the bastion of divine power. This is a force that measures and limits love, that controls the flow of *Ḥesed* in response to the needs, abilities, and deserts of those who are to receive it. > > 9. *Ḥesed* represents the God of love, calling forth the response of love in the human soul as well. *Gevurah* represents the God we humans fear, the One before whose power we stand in trembling. The kabbalists saw *Ḥesed* as the faith of Abraham, described by the prophet as “Abraham My lover” (Isaiah 41:8). Abraham, the first of God’s true earthly followers, stands parallel to *Ḥesed*, the first quality to emerge within God. He is the man of love, the one who will leave all behind and follow God across the deserts, willing to offer everything, even to place his beloved son upon the altar, for love of God. *Gevurah*, on the other hand, is the God called “Fear of Isaac” (Genesis 31:42). This is the divine face Isaac sees when bound to that altar, confronting the God he believes is about to demand his life. Isaac’s piety is of a different quality than his father’s. Trembling obedience, rather than love, marks his path through life. In the *Zohar*, the “Fear of Isaac” is sometimes depicted as a God of terror. > > 10. The linking together of *Ḥesed* and *Gevurah* is an infinitely delicate balance. Too much love and there is no judgment, none of the moral demand that is so essential to the fabric of Judaism. But too much power or judgment is even worse. The kabbalists see this aspect of the divine and human self as fraught with danger, the very birthplace of evil. *Gevurah* represents the “left” side of the divine as the *sefirot* emerge in humanlike form. The *Zohar* speaks of a discontent that arises on this “left” side of God. *Gevurah* becomes impatient with *Ḥesed*, unwilling to see judgment set aside in the name of love. Rather than permitting love to flow in measured ways, *Gevurah* seeks for some cosmic moment to rule alone, to hold back the flow of love. In this “moment,” divine power turns to rage or fury; out of it all the forces of evil are born, darkness emerging from the light of God, a shadow of the divine universe that continues to exist throughout history, sustained by the evil wrought by humans below. Here we have one of the most important moral lessons of Kabbalah. Judgment not tempered by love brings about evil; power obsessed with itself turns demonic. The force of evil is often referred to by the *Zohar* as *sitra aḥra*, the “other side,” indicating that it represents a parallel emanation to that of the *sefirot*. But the origin of that demonic reality that both parallels and mocks the divine is not in some “other” distant force. The demonic is born of an imbalance within the divine, flowing ultimately from the same source as all else, the single source of being. > > 11. The proper balance of *Ḥesed* and *Gevurah* results in the sixth *sefirah*, the center of the sefirotic universe. This configuration represents the personal God of biblical and rabbinic tradition. This is God seated on the throne, the one to whom prayer is most centrally addressed. Poised between the “right” and “left” forces within divinity, the “blessed Holy One” is the key figure in a central column of *sefirot*, positioned directly below *Keter*, the divine that precedes all duality. The sixth *sefirah* is represented by the third patriarch, Jacob, also called Israel—the perfect integration of the forces of Abraham and Isaac, the God who unites and balances love and fear. > > 12. Nonpersonal designations for this sixth *sefirah* include *Tif’eret* (Beauty, Splendor), *Raḥamim* (Compassion), *mishpat* (balanced judgment), and *emet* (truth). The three consonants of *emet* represent the first, middle, and last letters of the alphabet. Truth is stretched forth across the whole of Being, joining the extremes of right and left, *Ḥesed* and *Gevurah*, into a single integrated personality. Thus is the sixth *sefirah* also described as the central “beam” in God’s construction of the universe. Adopting a line from Moses’ Tabernacle (Exodus 26:28), depicted by the rabbis as reflecting the cosmic structure, Jacob or the sixth *sefirah* is called “the central beam, reaching from one end unto the other.” > > 13. In Jacob or *Tif’eret* we reach the synthesis that resolves the original tension between *Ḥesed* and *Gevurah*, the inner “right” and “left,” love and judgment. The “blessed Holy One” as a personal God is also the uppermost manifestation called “Israel,” thus serving as a model of idealized human personality. Each member of the house of Israel partakes of this Godhead, who may also be understood as a totemic representation of His people below. “Jacob” is in this sense the perfect human—a new Adam, according to the sages—the radiant-faced elder extending blessing through the world. This is also the God of *imitatio dei*. In balancing their own lives, the people of Israel imitate the God who stands at the center between right and left, balancing all the cosmic forces. That God knows them and sees Himself in them, meaning that the struggle to integrate love and judgment is not only the great human task, but also a reflection of the cosmic struggle. The inner structure of psychic life *is* the hidden structure of the universe; it is because of this that we can come to know God by the path of inward contemplation and true self-knowledge. > > 14. The key dialectical triad of *Ḥesed-Gevurah-Tif’eret* is followed on the kabbalistic chart by a second triad, that of the *sefirot Netsaḥ, Hod,* and *Yesod,* arranged in the same manner as those above them. Little that is new takes place on this level of divinity. These *sefirot* are essentially channels through which the higher energies pass on their way into the tenth *sefirah*, *Malkhut* or *Shekhinah*, the source of all life for the lower worlds. The only major function assigned to *Netsaḥ* and *Hod* in the kabbalistic sources is their serving as the sources of prophecy. Moses is the single human to rise to the level of *Tif’eret*, to become “bridegroom of the *Shekhinah*.” Other mortals can experience the sefirotic universe only as reflected in the *Shekhinah*, the single portal though which they can enter. (This is the “formal” view of the kabbalists, though it is a position exceeded by a great many passages in the *Zohar* and elsewhere.) The prophets other than Moses occupy an intermediate position, receiving their visions and messages from the seventh and eighth *sefirot*, making prophecy a matter of participation in the inner sefirotic life of God. > > 15. The ninth *sefirah* represents the joining together of all the cosmic forces, the flow of all the energies above now united again in a single place. In this sense the ninth *sefirah* is parallel to the second: *Ḥokhmah* began the flow of these forces from a single point; now *Yesod* (Foundation), as the ninth is called, reassembles them and prepares to direct their flow once again. When gathered in *Yesod*, it becomes clear that the life animating the *sefirot*, often described in metaphors of either light or water, is chiefly to be seen as male sexual energy, specifically as semen. Following the Greek physician Galen, medieval medicine saw semen as originating in the brain (*Ḥokhmah*), flowing down through the spinal column (the central column, *Tif’eret*), into the testicles (*Netsaḥ* and *Hod*), and thence into the phallus (*Yesod*). The sefirotic process thus leads to the great union of the nine *sefirot* above, through *Yesod*, with the female *Shekhinah*. She becomes filled and impregnated with the fullness of divine energy and She in turn gives birth to the lower worlds, including both angelic beings and human souls. > > 16. The biblical personality associated with the ninth *sefirah* is Joseph, the only figure regularly described in rabbinic literature as *tsaddiq* or “righteous.” He is given this epithet because he rejected the wiles of Potiphar’s wife, making him a symbol of male chastity or sexual purity. The *sefirah* itself is thus often called *tsaddiq*, the place where God is represented as the embodiment of moral righteousness. So too is *Yesod* designated as *berit* or “covenant,” again referring to sexual purity through the covenant of circumcision. > > 17. But there is more than one way to read these symbols. The ninth *sefirah* stands for male potency as well as sexual purity. The kabbalists resolutely insist that these are ideally identical and are not to be separated from one another. Of course sexual transgression and temptation were well known to them; the circle of the *Zohar* was quite extreme in its views on sexual sin—and on the great damage it could cause both to soul and cosmos. But the inner world of the *sefirot* was completely holy, a place where no sin abided. Here the flow of male energy represented only fruitfulness and blessing. The fulfillment of the entire sefirotic system, especially as seen in Castile, lay in the union of these two final *sefirot. Yesod* is, to be sure, the agent or lower manifestation of *Tif’eret*, the true bridegroom of the Song of Songs or the King who weds the *matronita—Shekhinah*—as the grand lady of the cosmos. But the fascination with the sexual aspect of this union is very strong, especially in the *Zohar*, and that leads to endless symbolic presentations of the union of *Yesod* and *Malkhut*, the feminine tenth *sefirah*. > > 18. By far the richest network of symbolic associations is that connected with the tenth and final *sefirah*. As *Malkhut* (Kingdom), it represents the realm over which the King (*Tif’eret*) has dominion, sustaining and protecting her as the true king takes responsibility for his kingdom. At the same time, it is this *sefirah* that is charged with the rule of the lower world; the blessed Holy One’s *Malkhut* is the lower world’s ruler. The biblical personage associated with *Malkhut* is David (somewhat surprisingly, given its usual femininity), the symbol of kingship. David is also the psalmist, ever crying out in longing for the blessings of God to flow from above. While *Malkhut* receives the flow of all the upper *sefirot* from *Yesod*, She has some special affinity for the left side. For this reason She is sometimes called “the gentle aspect of judgment,” a mitigated version of *Gevurah*. Several *Zohar* passages, however, paint Her in portraits of seemingly ruthless vengeance in punishing the wicked. A most complicated picture of femininity appears in the *Zohar*, ranging from the most highly romanticized to the most frightening and bizarre. > > 19. The last *sefirah* is also called *Shekhinah*, an ancient rabbinic term for the indwelling divine presence. In the medieval Jewish imagination, this appellation for God had been transformed into a winged divine being, hovering over the community of Israel and protecting them from harm. The *Shekhinah* was also said to dwell in Israel’s midst, to follow them into exile, and to participate in their suffering. In the latest phases of midrashic literature, there begins to appear a distinction between God and His *Shekhinah*, partly a reflection of medieval philosophical attempts to assign the biblical anthropomorphisms to a being less than the Creator. The kabbalists identify this *Shekhinah* as the spouse or divine consort of the blessed Holy One. She is the tenth *sefirah*, therefore a part of God included within the divine ten-in-one unity. But She is tragically exiled, distanced from Her divine Spouse. Sometimes She is seen to be either seduced or taken captive by the evil hosts of *sitra aḥra*; then God and the righteous below must join forces in order to liberate Her. The great drama of religious life, according to the kabbalists, is that of protecting *Shekhinah* from the forces of evil and joining Her to the holy Bridegroom who ever awaits Her. Here one can see how medieval Jews adapted the values of chivalry—the rescue of the maiden from the clutches of evil—to fit their own spiritual context. > > 20. As the female partner within the divine world, the tenth *sefirah* comes to be described by a host of symbols, derived both from the natural world and from the legacy of Judaism, that are classically associated with femininity. She is the moon, dark on her own but receiving and giving off the light of the sun. She is the sea, into whom all waters flow; the earth, longing to be fructified by the rain that falls from heaven. She is the heavenly Jerusalem, into whom the King will enter; She is the throne upon which He is seated, the Temple or Tabernacle, dwelling place of His glory. She is also *Keneset Yisra’el*, the embodied “Community \[or: Assembly\] of Israel” itself, identified with the Jewish people. The tenth *sefirah* is a passive/receptive female with regard to the *sefirot* above Her, receiving their energies and being fulfilled by their presence within Her. But She is ruler, source of life, and font of all blessing for the worlds below, including the human soul. The kabbalist sees himself as a devotee of the *Shekhinah*. She may never be worshiped separately from the divine unity. Indeed, this separation of *Shekhinah* from the forces above was the terrible sin of Adam that brought about exile from Eden. Yet it is only through Her that humans have access to the mysteries beyond. All prayer is channelled through Her, seeking to energize Her and raise Her up in order to effect the sefirotic unity. The primary function of the religious life, with all its duties and obligations, is to rouse the *Shekhinah* into a state of love. > > 21. All realms outside the divine proceed from *Shekhinah*. She is surrounded most immediately by a richly pictorialized host. Sometimes these surrounding beings are seen as angels; at others, they are the maidens who attend the Bride at Her marriage canopy. They inhabit and rule over variously described realms or “palaces” of light and joy. The *Zohar* devotes much attention to describing seven such palaces with names that include “Palace of Love,” “Palace of the Sapphire Pavement” (alluding to the vision of God in Exodus 24:10), “Palace of Desire,” and so forth. The “palaces” (*heikhalot*) of the Zoharic world are historically derived from the remains of the ancient Merkavah or Heikhalot mysticism, a tradition that was only dimly remembered by the *Zohar*’s day. In placing the *heikhalot* beneath the *Shekhinah*, the kabbalists mean to say that the visionary ascent of the Merkavah mystic was a somewhat lesser sort of religious experience than their own symbolic/contemplative ascent to the heights of the sefirotic universe, one that ascended with the *Shekhinah* as She reached into the highest realms. While the inner logic of the kabbalists’ emanational thinking would seem to indicate that *all* beings, including the physical universe, flow forth from *Shekhinah*, the medieval abhorrence of associating God with corporeality complicates the picture, leaving Kabbalah with a complex and somewhat divided attitude toward the material world. The world in which we live, especially for the *Zohar*, is a thorough mingling of divine and demonic elements. Both the holy imprint of the ten *sefirot* and the frightening structure of multilayered *qelippot*, or demonic “shells,” are to be found within it. (*From Aruthur Green's Introduction to the Pritzker Zohar*)