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SEFER YETZIRAH: FROM PHILOSOPHY TO MYSTICISM

A look at the beginning of Sefer Yetzirah from a

philosopher’s point of view.

INTRODUCTION

Sefer Yetzirah, a title usually translated as “The Book

of Creation,” is a short, mysterious work offering a
theory of the technologies God used to give form to
the world during creation. Sefer Yetzirah functions as
one of the foundational texts of the Jewish mystical
tradition. Because the last paragraph of the work
claims that God revealed the information contained
therein to Abraham, traditionalists believe that Sefer
Yetzirah was written by the Biblical patriarch himself.
However, scholars of intellectual and linguistic histo-
ry believe the book was written between the first and
third centuries C.E. by a scholar literate in Greek, He-
brew, and Arabic thought. This difference of opinion
concerning the origin of the book is only a taste of
its mystery. Over the last thousand years, scholars
and contemplatives have offered a wide variety of
interpretations of the book’s theories, always direct-
ed in their interpretations by their intellectual tools
and their spiritual aims.

I will introduce some of the concepts offered in Sefer

Yetzirah using an interpretation based on my own
intellectual tools and aims: some acquaintance with
Greek philosophy and a desire to understand the
work on its own terms. Therefore my attention fo-
cuses on its more philosophical concepts: elements,
form, time-space, and mathematical structure. Histo-
rian of Jewish mysticism Joseph Dan, who firmly
maintains that Sefer Yetzirah is intended to be a ra-
tional philosophical work rather than a mystical
gateway to God, would stand behind my approach.
Dan also recognizes that the earliest commentators
on Sefer Yetzirah, writing during the Middle Ages,
shared my philosophical bent. Later commentators
on the Sefer shifted focus to the book’s more mysti-
cal concepts: the attributes of God and the creative
power of the Hebrew alphabet.

Dan notes the dramatic shift in interpretation, but

does not trace its evolution through a progression of
commentaries. In order to get more insight into the
interpretive shift, I examine two of the medieval
commentaries on Sefer Yetzirah cited by Dan. Saadia
Gaon (882-942) gives the book a thoroughly philo-
sophical analysis, noting parallels between Greek
thought and Hebrew thought. Judah Halevi (1080-
1142) recognizes the philosophical intent of Sefer
Yetzirah’s author, but begins to give the book a mys-
tical interpretation in order to demonstrate the supe-
riority of Hebrew spirituality over Greek philosophy.
After presenting my own introduction to Sefer Yetzi-
rah, I will present selected observations from the
commentaries of Saadia and Judah Halevi, noting
how a change in attitude towards Greek philosophy
resulted in a change of interpretation of Sefer Yetzi-
rah.

A CONTEMPORARY PHILOSOPHICAL
SUMMARY

The author of Sefer Yetzirah aims to create an ele-

gant theory of the origin of the universe that inte-
grates the fundamental principles of both Greek and
Hebrew thought on the topic. The Book of Genesis
in the Hebrew Bible portrays God as creating the
world through speech. The text states, “God said,
‘there will be light’ and there was light.” (Gen 1: 3).
Hellenistic philosophy describes the world as a com-
posite substance made from the elements of earth,
air, fire, and water – or some subset thereof. The au-
thor of Sefer Yetzirah therefore theorizes that God
formed both the elements and the world’s composite
substances through speech.

According to the Greek philosopher Aristotle, a com-

plete account of the way any object comes into being
requires information about four causes:

the object’s material cause, or the matter of which it

is made;

its formal cause, or the shape the object is formed in;

its final cause, or the purpose for which it is to be

used;

and its efficient cause, or the force that initiated the

creative process.

Sefer Yetzirah is silent about the final cause, or the

purpose, of creation. However, it carefully accounts
for the other three causes. The book clearly ac-
knowledges God as the efficient cause of the uni-
verse, opening with the statement that God “en-
graved with thirty-two paths of wisdom…and created
His world.” The book acknowledges God as the ma-
terial cause of the universe, identifying the most
primitive substance as the “spirit of the living God.”
But Sefer Yetzirah is primarily occupied with expli-
cating God’s role as the formal cause of the uni-
verse. The elements, and later the composite sub-
stances, came into being as spirit passed through
chambers of various shapes. The title of the book,
correctly translated, reflects this theme. Although
the phrase Sefer Yetzirah is usually translated as the
book of “creation,” the sense of the Hebrew word yet-
zirah is closer to the English word “formation.” It
connotes the giving of form to pre-existing matter,
rather than creating new matter out of nothing.

The forming of spirit into matter is described using

the analogy of forming breath into language. Hu-
mans bring sounds into being by passing breath
through chambers of various shapes. Sounds be-
come the fundamental building blocks of language.
Similarly, God brought the elements into being by
forming spirit into the elemental sounds of reality.
The basic elements to be accounted for are three of
those listed in Greek philosophy: air, water, and fire.
The elemental sounds linked with the elements are
represented by three letters of the Hebrew alphabet:
aleph, mem and shin. Aleph is an aspirant, the pure
movement of air through an open throat and mouth.
With the letter aleph, therefore, God has formed the
element of air. The Hebrew word for water is mayim,
spelled with two mems and a vowel between them.
With the letter mem, God formed the element of wa-
ter. The Hebrew word for fire is aysh, spelled with
the letters aleph-shin. The speaking of the letter
shin, then, gave rise to fire, the third basic element.
The author of Sefer Yetzirah offers us no further sug-
gestions for imagining the divine analogue of human
speech, no concrete images of spirit, chambers, or
letters on the cosmic level. The knowledge that He-
brew is God’s language should be enough to assure
us that the mere forming of elemental Hebrew let-
ters would result in the existence of the elements
themselves.

Composite entities are created as the elements are

then passed through chambers of various shapes,
represented by the remaining letters of the Hebrew
alphabet. Some of these letters are “single” letters,
letters that have only one possible pronunciation.
Other letters are “double” letters, letters that have
two possible pronunciations, depending upon how
tightly closed the shaped human mouth is as air
passes through. As elements pass through the
chambers of the “double” letters, they become ob-
jects and forces that have dual aspects, such as right
and left eye, or wisdom and folly.

The speaking of the single and double letters ac-

counts for the creation of three levels of reality. The
first level of reality is human existence itself, includ-
ing the human body and its moral psychology. The
second level establishes human existence in space,
including the compass points by which we orient our
physical and spiritual activities. The third level es-
tablishes human existence in time, including the ce-
lestial bodies and the mathematical representations
we make of their movements. Implicit in Sefer Yetzi-
rah’s choice of these three specific realities is the
recognition that human existence requires their inte-
gration. From a philosophical perspective, one could
say the book offers a metaphysics of human exis-
tence.

The author of Sefer Yetzirah also recognizes explicit-

ly that each level can be analyzed separately. The
analysis reveals that all three levels share a common
linguistic and (in a move reminiscent of Pythagorean
mysticism) a common mathematical structure. Each
level includes one item – such as a bodily organ, a
compass direction, a planet — formed by the speak-
ing of each single letter and each double letter. Se-
fer Yetzirah hints obliquely at some connection be-
tween items on different levels that are formed with
the same letter. Mathematically, the three levels
share a common formula, a common process of for-
mation. Each level includes twelve phenomena,
which are formed from seven more basic phenome-
na, which are formed from the three elements, which
are formed from one spirit.

The meaning of this mathematical differentiation of

spirit is one of the themes that both Saadia and Ju-
dah Halevi take up. For Saadia, the differentiation
implicit in God’s nature brings Greek philosophy and
Hebrew theology closer together. For Judah Halevi,
the divine unity despite all differentiation showcases
the gulf between Greek philosophy and Hebrew the-
ology. Both commentators also take up the process
of formation through language. Saadia sees in it yet
another opportunity to link Greek and Hebrew
thought, while Judah Halevi sees another opportuni-
ty to distinguish them.

PROMOTING UNITY OF HEBREW

AND GREEK THOUGHT: SAADIA
GAON (882-942)

Saadia begins his commentary on Sefer Yetzirah by

praising philosophy as a mode of inquiry sanctioned
by God. He then presents summaries of the various
cosmologies – theories of creation – found in Greek
thought from Thales (640 B.C.E.) to Aristotle (384-
322 B.C.E). After rejecting them all, he presents his
interpreted version of the theory offered in Sefer Yet-
zirah. Doing philosophy, it would seem, is defined by
Saadia as placing oneself within the tradition of
Greek thought. In this definition of philosophy, Saa-
dia is consistent with most intellectuals of his time
and place.

Saadia notes that Sefer Yetzirah itself begins with a

list of ten names of the God who gave form to the
universe. Why, he asks, are there exactly ten names?
Saadia’s answer links philosophy with scripture. God
gives structure to the universe. Human intellect is
part of the universe, as well as a way of apprehend-
ing the universe. So God also gives structure to our
thought. This structure is enumerated in a list of ten
logical categories offered by the philosophical tradi-
tion: substance, quantity, quality, relation, space, time,
possession, position, action, and passivity. Each cate-
gory corresponds to one of the names of God enu-
merated in SeferYetzirah. Each name of God ex-
presses a different aspect of God’s sovereignty.
Therefore, each of the ten categories is a direct re-
flection of one of the realms over which God is sov-
ereign. This sovereignty is further expressed in the
Ten Commandments given to Israel on Mt. Sinai.
Each commandment prescribes the appropriate
moral conduct with respect to a particular category:
how to set boundaries around time, for example, or
possessions.

Thus Sefer Yetzirah, properly interpreted, proclaims

God’s sovereignty over all things physical, intellectu-
al, and moral. For Saadia, a proper interpretation of
the text makes use of both philosophical and scrip-
tural tools. Philosophy and scripture used in tandem
make a far more effective tool than either one alone,
for the two mutually direct each other on the path to
truth. Saadia’s use of an odd scriptural verse to clari-
fy a point in Sefer Yetzirah’s cosmology offers an ex-
cellent example of this mutual direction. The Torah
says that when the Israelites stood at Mt. Sinai, “the
whole nation saw the voices.” Normally we hear
voices; so what does the Torah mean by saying the
people saw the voices? Echoing rabbinic midrash,
Saadia notes that Mt. Sinai was covered with clouds
of smoke from the fiery storm at its peak. As God
spoke, the spirit of God blew through the clouds,
shaping the smoke into the form of the words of the
Ten Commandments.

Sefer Yetzirah’s abstract description of spirit passing

through chambers offers support for this interpreta-
tion, because Sefer Yetzirah reminds us that sounds
have form just as physical objects do. The interpret-
ed scriptural verse also adds to the interpretation of
Sefer Yetzirah. The Sefer’s abstract description of
formation is now tied to a specific image. Saadia ac-
knowledges that this visible wind is not the pure
form of God’s spirit, implying that we must be cau-
tious about taking the image too literally. However,
the image helps Saadia clarify the philosophical po-
sition taken by the author of Sefer Yetzirah. The Se-
fer does not argue that numbers and letters actually
existed as tools on hand before God began creative
activity. Rather, they are formed through God’s activi-
ty and, in turn, they lend their form to the creation of
other entities.

While Saadia himself does not pull the pieces to-

gether this way, I could say even more strongly what
his exposition implies. Philosophy and Torah, using a
similar method of numerical analysis, point to the
exact same truth about the deep structure of the uni-
verse. For by Saadia’s own account, the moral behav-
iors prescribed by the Ten Commandments make tan-
gible the more ethereal structures of the universe:
philosophy’s categories of thought and Sefer
Yetzirah’s list of the names of God. As I shall show
below, however, Juda Halevi recognizes no such
meeting between the mind of philosophy and the
spirit of Judaism. In fact, he uses Sefer Yetzirah to
show that Hebrew spirituality offers a far better path
to grasping the divine nature of the universe than
Greek philosophy ever could.

DISTANCING HEBREW THOUGHT

FROM GREEK: JUDAH HALEVI (1080-
1142)

Judah Halevi begins his discussion of Sefer Yetzirah

by describing it as “a relic” of the natural science that
once existed among the Jews. The Sefer, he notes,
discusses biology, astronomy, and physical chemistry
as it describes the mechanics of creation. It even
makes a contribution to the ongoing philosophical
attempt to connect God with the created world. But,
for Judah Halevi, this virtuouso display of learning is
completely beside the main point of Sefer Yetzirah.

The point of Sefer Yetzirah is to show that God is

one. God’s world is differentiated into multiple enti-
ties and multiple levels. For example, we can inter-
act with concrete things around us in ways that fol-
low the laws of physics. We can speak of our interac-
tions using language that implicitly recognizes those
laws. And we can formulate abstract mathematical
equations that express them. In daily life, these
three activities seem quite distant from one another,
as the children who play with toys cannot speak the
language of theoretical physicists. But, Judah Halevi
reminds us, all three levels are aspects of a single
reality. They are a unity in God. Even science and
philosophy, the most intellectually rarefied of human
activities, can perceive God only facet by facet. A
spiritual imagination or, in other words, faith is nec-
essary to perceive the truth of God’s unity. The au-
thor of Sefer Yetzirah can only hint at this truth by
offering various examples of forms, designs, and or-
ders that point to God’s Oneness.

Too much emphasis on philosophy, argues Judah

Halevi, blocks this truth. Philosophers in the Greek
tradition believe that they can train the intellect to
apprehend subtler and subtler objects, higher and
higher levels of truth. The most highly developed
intellect will achieve contemplation of God, the
supreme object. But Judah Halevi protests against
God being viewed as an object among objects. God
is not an object but is, as Sefer Yetzirah asserts, a
unity that pre-exists all differentiation of created ob-
jects. This insight into God’s mystery is the gateway
to revelation that the patriarch Abraham, identified
by Judah Halevi as the author of Sefer Yetzirah,
passed through.

Language, too, according to Judah Halevi, can serve

as a barrier to grasping the mystery of God’s unity.
Through language, we experience a gulf between our
intellects and our concrete interactions. Despite all
our careful crafting of expressions, we may or may
not succeed in expressing the essence of our interac-
tions. In God, however, there is no such rupture be-
tween speech and essence. In Sefer Yetzirah, God’s
speaking of the name of the elements is the act of
their creation. The world is, in a sense, God’s script.
God’s will, its expression through God’s word, and its
concrete actualization in the world are all one. Phi-
losophy emphasizes dexterity with human language
as a tool for developing the intellect. But Hebrew
spirituality, it seems, emphasizes listening to God’s
language for the message of unity.

Judah Halevi’s mastery of the actual specifics of

Greek philosophy seems rather confused. In an at-
tempt to present a specific argument representative
of Greek cosmology, he welds together a premise
from Parmenides, an image from Plato, and a concept
from Aristotle. The result is an argument that none
of these philosophers would recognize as consistent.
Not surprisingly, Judah Halevi rejects this argument
as illogical. In spite of his misrepresentation of the
specifics, however, his criticism of the philosophical
approach in general stands.

CONCLUSION: FROM PHILOSOPHY

TO MYSTICISM

Judah Halevi’s commentary on Sefer Yetzirah recog-

nizes the book’s philosophical aspects but shifts the
reader’s focus away from them. In his commentary, I
can see the seeds of later trends in Jewish mystical
literature whose authors claim their foundation as
Sefer Yetzirah. Here I will note only two major
works.

Sefer Ha-Bahir (1176) presents a philosophy of lan-

guage that goes way beyond Sefer Yetzirah’s theory
that the form of sound provides the form for the cre-
ated universe. The authors of the Bahir share with
Judah Halevi the notion that God’s language express-
es the essence of every created object or force. Thus,
the authors of the Bahir implicitly ask, what mes-
sages for the wise has God hidden in Hebrew, the
language of divine creation? In answer to their own
question, the Bahir gives a detailed analysis of the
physiological, cosmological and spiritual meanings
of the letters of the Hebrew alphabet.

The Zohar (c. 1240-1305) accepts Sefer Yetzirah’s

theory of the universe emanating from the divine
spirit. Sefer Yetzirah calls the most primordial ema-
nations sefirot, a word reminiscent of the mathemat-
ically perfect but mysterious Pythagorean spheres.
In Sefer Yetzirah, the sefirot seem to be the basic el-
ements of the universe and the directions of space in
which the elements could be formed into matter.
The authors of the Zohar, however, seem to share
with Judah Halevi the notion that scientific cosmolo-
gy is not the proper occupation for Jewish seekers.
They give the sefirot a moral interpretation instead
of a scientific one, theorizing that at the time of cre-
ation God emanated ten moral and spiritual quali-
ties. According to the Zohar, the person who under-
stands the moral and spiritual structure of the uni-
verse is the one who understands its mysteries.

Jewish scholars who are not steeped in the modern

methods of textual criticism that integrate philology,
history, and archeology practice an odd but tradition-
al Jewish hermeneutic. I call this hermeneutic “read-
ing backwards.” Roughly the rule stipulates that any-
thing a reputable commentator offers as an interpre-
tation of an earlier text is actually in that text. The
interpretation is viewed not only as consistent with
the intent of the earlier author, but as a revelation of
that intent. Given this method of “reading back-
wards,” it should not be surprising that students of
Jewish mysticism find in Sefer Yetzirah the proclama-
tions of unity identified by Judah Halevi; the mystical
meanings of Hebrew letters expounded in the Bahir;
and the moral structure of the divine spirit, as pre-
sented in the Zohar. My own, more conservative
scholarly reading would lead me to follow the thread
of Saadia’s commentary, because I believe Saadia cor-
rectly perceives the integration of Jewish scripture
and Greek philosophy that lies at the heart of Sefer
Yetzirah. As I noted in the introduction, however,
each reader brings her or his own intellectual tools
to Sefer Yetzirah and it is entirely possible that I am
guilty of Judah Halevi’s charge: blinded by philoso-
phy.

AFTERWORD: SOME PERSONAL

MYSTICAL INTERPRETATIONS

My mind speaks to me in many voices. This essay is

written in my most conservative scholarly voice, a
voice that makes a sharp distinction between philos-
ophy and mysticism. For this voice, philosophy is the
search for rationally defensible theories about the
unseen; mysticism is the search for a direct engage-
ment with the divine, confirmed not by rationality
but by intensity of sensory or emotional experience.

One other voice, perhaps my favorite philosophical

voice, tried hard to assert itself as I studied Sefer Yet-
zirah. This is the voice in which I teach and publish,
the voice that relentlessly chases abstract theories
back down to earth. When this voice speaks within
me, that is, when I think in this voice, I try to find
concrete experiences that fulfill abstract concepts.
What sort of experience could have led the philoso-
pher to spin her or his abstract theory, I ask. I recog-
nize that the question is not always entirely appro-
priate, because philosophers often write in direct re-
sponse to the abstract writings of others. None-
theless, it is a question I always raise, even if I don’t
always follow its thread. During my initial reading of
Sefer Yetzirah, I tried hard not to follow this thread,
in an attempt to read the Sefer in its own voice be-
fore translating it into mine.

My preferred philosophical voice does not accept the

same sharp distinction between philosophy and mys-
ticism. This voice, in fact, sees the two meeting in
the attempt to fulfill metaphysical ideas in experi-
ence. Sefer Yetzirah is an exciting book because it
invites this attempt. It is one of those barely accessi-
ble philosophical works that presents a reader with
just enough comprehensible fragments to engage
him or her. The reader’s mind and spirit soar with an
intuition of greatness, the belief that here is an idea
that could unlock a whole new way of thinking – if
the reader could only unlock the text! So the reader
searches for connections – Biblical verses, mytholog-
ical stories, cosmological theories, mystical experi-
ences, whatever works. The more sweeping the im-
plications of the connection, the better, for they help
to explain that giddy soaring feeling the work brings.

Many years ago, when I was a college student, my

practice was to give each of these two philosophical
voices a separate time in which to study and speak.
After dinner, and until midnight my more conserva-
tive voice had its turn. I sat in the university library,
hunching over texts, reading and rereading sen-
tences, copying them verbatim, struggling to break
through a barrier until I could think in the voice of a
text’s author. But at midnight, the library closed, and
I walked home to my apartment. There life was just
beginning for the night, as my fellow students and I
talked and played; danced, sang, and laughed. We
considered our friends, our teachers, our studies.
And in that relaxed atmosphere, the information I
had absorbed earlier that night would begin to find
expression in different ways. A theory of perception
would give us a silly way of looking at a friend’s wall;
a metaphysical theory would help a roommate inter-
pret a dream; a quarrel between neighbors would
seem to undermine a political theory. Although I am
now many years older, with more responsibilities
than simply interpreting my studies, I still try to give
both kinds of hermeneutics equal time. And so in
reading Sefer Yetzirah, I found myself moving back
and forth between these two ways of working with
philosophical ideas.

Late one night, very late, at an hour when any sane

person who had to wake children before dawn would
be resting, my husband and I sat on the floor by an
open window trying to make sense of Sefer Yetzirah.
Outside the window, human sounds had quieted to a
minimum, and the sounds of night animals swelled.
Cicadas hummed and hushed, hummed and hushed.
Crickets chirped frantically. An owl or two hooted in
search of company; some unidentified night birds
sang back. With most of nearby humanity asleep, it
was as if the barriers to really hearing the world had
been lifted. Finally, it seemed, we were hearing the
rest of creation speak in its own voice. We imitated
the sounds. It wasn’t hard; they were familiar. Clicks
and shushes, hums and chirps, shrieks and whistles.
Animal sounds, night sounds, were composed of the
same building blocks as our language. If God creat-
ed the world using sound, then these elemental
sounds, these units of language, belong equally to all
creation. For thousands of years, philosophers have
taught that language distinguishes humans from ani-
mals, that language is a mark of our intellect, a spe-
cial gift given by God to our species alone. But, it
seemed to me that night, Sefer Yetzirah shows that
line of reasoning to be false. Every creature is made
from, every creature shares the same elemental lan-
guage. This language is the voice of God.

(Sefer Yetzirah, of course, says nothing whatsoever

about the creation of animals. But my mystical mo-
ment and my philosophical insight flow from my
study of it nonetheless.)

So taken was I with the image of God breathing the

world into existence through speech, that I made
other connections with the idea as well. As I read
the Sefer’s opening chapters, I was reminded of a
myth I encountered in my training as a Hatha Yoga
teacher. This is a story about Brahman, the god
whose spirit is the very stuff of the universe. Every
35,000 years, Brahman breathes out, and a universe
comes into being. The universe contains matter in
various shapes – animals, plants, planets, solar sys-
tems. At the end of 35,000 years, Brahman breathes
in – and nothing is left but darkness. After a 35,000-
year pause, Brahman breathes out again, generating
a world of forms unutterably different from the pre-
vious one, filled with elements in combinations that
we, with our present experience, could not even be-
gin to imagine.

In yoga, the fundamental spiritual practice is the

practice of breathing. Because thought and emo-
tions run parallel with the breath, structured breath-
ing exercises teach practitioners first to observe, and
later to control, their thoughts, feelings, and bodies.
According to Sefer Yetzirah, certain sounds, or in oth-
er words, certain forms of breath create the connec-
tions between the human body, the human psyche,
and the time and the space in which they unfold.
Perhaps Sefer Yetzirah can be used as the foundation
for creating a set of structured breathing exercises,
that give practitioners the opportunity to observe,
and later to control, these connections. Abraham Ab-
ulafia (1240-1292) did in fact take off from Sefer Yet-
zirah in this direction.

Perhaps my next step in tracing the trajectory of Se-

fer Yetzirah’s interpretations is the study of his com-
mentary, even though I know it will require many
long sessions of trying to understand it on its own
terms.

REFERENCES

Aristotle, “Physics, Book II,” in Classics of Western

Philosophy, ed. Steven M. Cahn. Indianapolis: Hack-
ett, 1977, 113-129.

Bokser, Ben Zion. The Jewish Mystical Tradition.

Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, 1993.

Dan, Joseph. The Ancient Jewish Mysticism. Tel Aviv:

MOD Books, 1993.

Dan, Joseph. “Three Phases of the History of the Se-

fer Yetzira.” FJB 21 (1994): 7-29.

Guthrie, W.K.C. The Greek Philosophers from Thales

to Aristotle. New York: Harpercollins, 1986.

Halevi, Judah. The Kuzari: An Argument for the Faith

of Israel. Introduction by H. Slonimsky. New York:
Shocken, 1964.

Margolis, Max, ed. The Holy Scriptures According to

the Masoretic Text. Philadelphia; Jewish Publication
Society, 1955

Kaplan, Aryeh. Sefer Yetzirah, The Book of Creation,

In Theory and Practice. Revised edition. York Beach,
Maine: Samuel Weiser, 1997.

Kaplan, Aryeh, trans. and commentary. The Bahir.

York Beach, Maine: Samuel Weiser, 1979.

Malter, Henry. Saadia Gaon, His Life and Works. Phil-

adelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1942.

Reeves, John C., trans. Sefer Yetzirah. unpublished

manuscript.

Saadia ben Joseph (al-Fayyumi), Commentaire sur le

Sefer Yesira ou Livre de la Creation par Le Gaon
Saadya de Fayyoum, trans. and ed. M. Lambert..
Paris: Emile Bouillon, 1891. Translated in English
from the French and Hebrew by Scott Thompson and
Dominique Marson, San Francisco, 1985. Excerpts
posted at Walter Benjamin Research Institute web-
site, http://www.wbenjamin.org/saadia.html#com-
mentary.

Scholem, Gershom, ed. Zohar: The Book of Splendor.

New York: Schocken Books, 1949.

— Laura Duhan Kaplan, 2000. Image: kser.org

9 COMMENTS

SABDAMU MARANATHA

N o v 24 , 20 1 5

cuplikan; In the beginning is wuji, or Tao –

an undifferentiated Unity, beyond vibration.
From this emerges taiji – vibration/qi in its
complementary aspects of Yin and Yang. It is
the “dance” – i.e. the continual transforma-
tions — of Yin & Yang that fuels the flow of
qi. This stage represents the emergence of
duality/polarity out of the Unity of Tao.
https://sophiastreet.com/theology/sefer-yet-
zirah/
R e pl y

SABDAMU MARANATHA

N o v 24 , 20 1 5

My preferred philosophical voice does not

accept the same sharp distinction between
philosophy and mysticism. This voice, in fact,
sees the two meeting in the attempt to fulfill
metaphysical ideas in experience (through
neidan gong/microcosmic meditation).

For this voice, philosophy is the search for

rationally defensible theories about the un-
seen (Kabbalah); mysticism is the search for
a direct engagement with the divine, con-
firmed not by rationality but by intensity of
sensory or emotional experience (Neidan/Tao
macro-microcosmic meditation/Golden
Elixir).

Each level includes twelve phenomena,

which are formed from seven more basic
phenomena(twelve meridian channels and
seven emotions in Tradional Chinese Medi-
cine theory), which are formed from the
three elements (breath/air, fire, water and
earth/couldron/body in neidan gong / micro-
cosmic meditation), which are formed from
one spirit (Kabbalah).

i read your article then i relate to all my

search and i find it, thank you.
R e pl y

SABDAMU MARANATHA

N o v 24 , 20 1 5

i am a christian, then i also fully understand

being transcendence (being unity/one in Cre-
ation) in Word and being Immanence (Holy
Ghost) in me.
R e pl y

REBLAURA

N o v 25, 20 1 5

Thank you for sharing these reflections, and

the vocabulary of another spiritual tradition!
As my thought has evolved, I have come to
agree with you about not distinguishing
sharply between philosophy and mysticism.
Both can turn you in similar directions.
R e pl y

JANE NELSON

J u l 29 , 201 8

In the end, the Sefir is a work of physics and

not mystical at all. I believe it was written by
Abraham, and handed down by oral Midrash,
quite exactly… the number 10 being essen-
tial in forming the Tree of Life using the 10
positions exactly as instructed by the Sefir’s
riddle-like language. The tree, built as in-
structed: “Ten, not 11, not more nor less…see
the wisdom of this,” creates a pattern to be
duplicated. Following the instructions pro-
duces an armature that corresponds with the
E8 lattice upon which, using the Coxeter Su-
persymmetry, every atomic particle down to
the exact number can be accounted for by a
point on the Tree of Life—precisely as identi-
fied by modern physics.

And there is much more.

The idea of mysticism is the result of igno-

rance and bias in my opinion, about the ex-
tremely real nature of what the earth experi-
ence is really all about. We are intelligences
of organized light for whom organic bodies
have been created—humans in co-authorship
with the Creator. Literally these “houses” for
the light intelligences (mentioned as the
purpose of the Alef Biet), have been created
as a gift so that we may become empowered
as the Creator is.

In a quantified process too arcane to deliver

here, light captured in the lattice is con-
formed eventually into geometries, pre-mat-
ter light forms, molecular in organization,
coded by DNA projection/superposition with
the lattice, clustered and released using the
quasicrystal “cut and project” format into the
ferroelectric amniotic sac where charge pre-
cipitates the organized light into crystalline
organic matter which will be grown within
the womb. The crystalline organism can then
be powered resonantly by the light “engines”
of the intelligences projected to the finished
organisms for physical birth. Our human
form is updated on the lattice, the organic
component providing an entangled entity
being prepared for endless existence when
the organic model wears out, and the light
resonantly seeks its’ companion. We have
been, through the earth experience, vested
with motility and creative capabilities, apart,
yet one with the Creator.

Much of this is explained in the Sefir, and

none but Abraham could have recounted it. It
is a remarkably simple, vastly misunderstood,
yet deeply profound treatise on both “Forma-
tion” and “Creation”, which requires the join-
ing of “Heaven and Earth.”
R e pl y

LAURA DUHAN-KAPLAN

J u l 29 , 201 8

Thank you, Jane. I wrote this 18 years ago,

and have learned so much since then. Your
point that what some call “supernatural” or
“mystical”is really “natural” is a great one —
one of the things I have learned. I look for-
ward to learning more about the ideas and
sources you cited.
R e pl y

JANE NELSON

J u l 29 , 201 8

In response to your position: “The author of

Sefer Yetzirah offers us no further sug-
gestions for imagining the divine analogue
of human speech, no concrete images of spir-
it, chambers, or letters on the cosmic level.”

The grammar of the Aleph Biet corresponds

to the codons, the instructions for forming
the sounds addresses the resonances pro-
ducing waveforms or frequencies, from
which proteins producing living matter can
be created. It mentions that only one individ-
ual can do this—the Mesiach Yeshua. This is
because he has the authority to utter the
sounds. The Sefir makes it clear that only this
individual “One and one only” can create ut-
tering the sounds.

The same format for creating matter was

practiced in Egypt but known as Thoth’s Al-
phabet.

Plato learned the geometry of creation

taught to the Egyptian Priests by Abram Ni-
ib-ri of Ur Kasdim—specifically that matter
was made of light, recorded by Abram in The
Book of Creation.

Known later as the Hebrew prophet Abra-

ham, he had studied the pre-flood math,
geometry, and cosmometry preserved by
Shem, Noah’s son, whom he lived with in
Chaldea according to the book of Jasher.
Around 2000 B.C. he took Phi, the organiza-
tion of matter via the Word (resonance), the
operation of the Cosmos, and the teachings
he said he received directly as revelation and
instruction from the One Creator to Pharoah.
Such things were unknown to the Egyptians
before Abraham, according to the historian
Josephus.

Two prominent Greek intellects, Pythagoras

and Plato studied in Egypt, bringing the con-
cepts back to Greece. Pythagoras formed his
famous school in Croton Italy and taught
many of the concepts he learned in Egypt
such as the Decad (creation from “10”), reso-
nance, and much more. Plato came closest to
understanding that geometry was the foun-
dation of matter—specifically geometry made
as a “spiritual” form made manifest in the
flesh…but his final theory was incorrect—
though very close.

All of the teachings are indigenous to the

Sefir Yetzirah, none were known in Egypt un-
til Abraham’s visit.

Therefore, the Sefir Yetzirah must hail from

Abraham.
R e pl y

GEOFF MELNICK

Se p 0 3 , 20 21

I see the Sefer Yetzira is something of a de-

bate with the Pythogorians. The Pythagori-
ans saw the world as consisting of numbers,
and Sefer Yetzira partly agrees with that but
says there is something missing neverthe-
less. Yetzira relates that the Sefirot, that I
interpret as numbers, create the elements,
ruach, ruach meruach, mayim and eish. But
then the world is merely empty elements,
this is not enough. There is more to the
world, namely the letters – of language. Only
with the letters is it possible for the universe
to contain complexity, and for the human
mind to function.
Yetzira tells us that the numbers extend to
infinity, and it also asks what is before the
number one? God is the Infinite and the
Nothingness at the same time, and the
Pythagorians did not appreciate this. In other
words, the Pythagorians had their universe of
numbers, which is accepted, but it could nei-
ther create complexity and nor could it ac-
count for God.

It is clear that the Sefirot of Yetzira were lat-

er reinterpreted, apparently by the Bahir, to
be far from what Sefer Yetzira intended. And
neither of them have any relation to the
gnostic pleroma, contrary to Gershon Sc-
holem. Yetzira, if correctly interpreted as de-
bating with the Pythogorians, indeed does
intend the formation of the concrete uni-
verse. The Zohar, later on however, is talking
of the process of the formation of the human
mind, and probably takes his cue from the
Bahir. Which of the two the Bahir intended,
or whether the Bahir distinguished between
the two at all, is a question I am still looking
into.
R e pl y

LAURA DUHAN-KAPLAN

Se p 0 4, 20 21

Thank you, Geoff, for this Pythagorean per-

spective! I love the idea of both numbers
and letters (or, if you want to be broader
phonemes) being basic structures of the
universe. They certainly both seem funda-
mental to the way humans represent our
experience here. Your comment offers yet
another way of thinking of Sefer Yetzira as
primarily philosophical. Perhaps there so
many influences on the work that focusing
on any one of them shows another dimen-
sion of it.
R e pl y

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