Sefer Yetzirah

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Sefer Yetzirah (Book of Creation) is a book on Jewish mysticism.

Early commentaries treated it as a treatise on mathematical and linguistic theory as opposed to Kabbalah. The book is traditionally ascribed to the patriarch Abraham, although others attribute its writing to Rabbi Akiva. Modern scholars have not reached consensus on the question of its origins.

According to Rabbi Saadia Gaon, the objective of the book's author was to convey in writing how the things of our universe came into existence. Conversely, Judah Halevi asserts that the main objective of the book, with its various examples, is to give to man the means by which he is able to understand the unity and omnipotence of God, which appear multiform on one side and, yet, are uniform.

Origin

The origin of the text is unknown, although some scholars believe it might have an early medieval origin, while others emphasize earlier traditions appearing in the book. Most contemporary scholars date the text's authorship to the Talmudic period (70 – 640 CE).

A cryptic story in the Babylonian Talmud states: "On the eve of every Shabbat, Rav Hanina and Rav Hoshaiah would sit and engage in study of Sefer Yetzirah, and create a delicious calf and eat it."

Mystics assert that the biblical patriarch Abraham used the same method to create the calf prepared for the three angels who foretold Sarah's pregnancy in the biblical account at Genesis 18:7. All the miraculous creations attributed to other rabbis of the Talmudic era are ascribed by rabbinic commentators to the use of the same book. Jewish Lore attributes the book to Adam, and that "[f]rom Adam it passed over to Noah, and then to Abraham, the friend of God."

Manuscripts

The Sefer Yetzirah exists in many manuscripts, generally falling in categories known as:

  • The Short Version - 1,300 words annotated by Dunash ibn Tamim
  • The Long Version - 2,500 words with commentary by Shabbethai Donnolo
  • The Gra Version
  • The Saadia Version

Short version

The Mantua 1562 edition was printed with the short version surrounded by commentaries attributed to Abraham ben David (outside of the page), Nachmanides (bottom of the page) and Moses Botarel (inside of the page; the printer notes that Botarel followed the first two rabbis and also collected all other commentaries that preceded him). An appendix following this contains a pair of commentaries printed side by side, one attributed to Eleazar of Worms) on the outside of the pages and the other to Saadia Gaon on the inside of the pages. At the end of the volume is found the long version.

Long version

The long version contains entire paragraphs which are not found in the short version, while the divergent arrangement of the material often modifies the meaning essentially.

Gra version

In the middle of the 16th century, the leader of the school of Safed kabbalists, Moses Cordovero, established a working text based on ten separate manuscripts. His student and successor Isaac Luria further redacted this to harmonize it with the Zohar, and then in the 18th century, the Vilna Gaon, known as "the Gra," further redacted it. This text is called the Gra or ARI-Gra version.

Saadia version

In the 10th century, Saadia Gaon wrote his commentary based on a manuscript which was a reorganized copy of the Longer Version, now called the "Saadia Version." This was translated into French by Lambert and thence into English by Scott Thompson. This version and commentary was more philosophical in nature rather than mystical and had virtually no impact on subsequent kabbalists.

Analysis of the alphabet

The Sefer Yetzirah describes how the universe was created by the "God of Israel" (a list of all of God's Hebrew names appears in the first sentence of the book) through "32 wondrous ways of wisdom":

  • Ten Numbers (sefirot, the origin for the sefirot of later Kabbalah)
  • The Twenty-Two Letters of the Hebrew alphabet—
    • Three mother letters (Aleph, Mem, Shin)
    • Seven doubles (Bet, Gimel, Dalet, Kaph, Pe, Resh, Taw)
    • Twelve simples or elementals (He, Waw, Zayin, Heth, Teth, Yodh, Lamedh, Nun, Samekh, Ayin, Tsade, Qoph)

The book describes the method for using the ten sefirot and the 22 Hebrew letters to gain Divine Insight/Secret using Abraham's tongue. God's covenant with Abraham is described as being twofold.

The twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet are classified both with reference to the position of the vocal organs in producing the sounds, and with regard to sonant intensity. In contrast to the Jewish grammarians, who assumed a special mode of articulation for each of the five groups of sounds, the Sefer Yetzirah says that no sound can be produced without the tongue, to which the other organs of speech merely lend assistance. The letters are distinguished, moreover, by the intensity of the sound necessary to produce them

Cosmology

Both the macrocosm (the universe) and the microcosm (human) are viewed in this system as products of the combination and permutation of these mystic characters, and such a use of the letters by the Jews for the formation of the Holy Name for thaumaturgical purposes is attested by magic papyri that quote an "Angelic Book of Moses," which was full of allusions to biblical names.

According to the Sefer Yetzirah, the first emanation from the spirit of God was the ruach (רוּחַ‎ rúaħ "spirit", "air") that produced water, which, in its turn, formed the genesis of fire. In the beginning, however, these three substances had only a potential existence, and came into actual being only by means of the three letters Aleph, Mem, Shin; and as these are the principal parts of speech, so those three substances are the elements from which the cosmos has been formed.

The cosmos consists of three parts, the world, the year (or time), and man, which are combined in such a way that the three primordial elements are contained in each of the three categories. The water formed the earth; heaven was produced from the fire; and the ruach produced the air between heaven and earth. The three seasons of the year--winter, summer, and the rainy season--correspond to water, fire, and ruach in the same way as man consists of a head (corresponding to fire), torso (represented by ruach), and the other parts of the body (equivalent to water).

Creation of the universe

To harmonize the Genesis creation narrative, which is a creatio ex nihilo, with the doctrine of the primordial elements, the Sefer Yetzirah assumes a double creation, one ideal and the other real.

Their name is possibly derived from the fact that as numbers express only the relations of two objects to each other, so the ten sefirot are only abstractions and not realities. Again, as the numbers from two to ten are derived from the number one, so the ten Sefirot are derived from one "their end is fixed in their beginning, as the flame is bound to the coal" (i. 7). Hence the Sefirot must not be conceived as emanations in the ordinary sense of the word, but rather as modifications of the will of God, which first changes to air, then becomes water, and finally fire, the last being no further removed from God than the first. The Sefer Yetzirah shows how the sephirot are a creation of God and the will of God in its varied manifestations.

Besides these abstract ten sefirot, which are conceived only ideally, the twenty-two letters of the alphabet produced the material world, for they are real, and are the formative powers of all existence and development. By means of these elements the actual creation of the world took place, and the ten sefirot, which before this had only an ideal existence, became realities. This is, then, a modified form of the Talmudic doctrine that God created heaven and earth by means of letters (Berakhot 58a). The explanation on this point is obscure since the relation of the twenty-two letters to the ten sefirot is not clearly defined.

The first sentence of the book reads: "Thirty-two paths, marvels of wisdom, hath God engraved...," these paths being then explained as the ten sefirot and the twenty-two letters.

The letters are neither independent substances nor yet as mere forms. They seem to be the connecting-link between essence and form. They are designated as the instruments by which the real world, which consists of essence and form, was produced from the sefirot, which are merely formless essences.

Contrast in nature

In addition to the doctrine of the Sefirot and the letters, the theory of contrasts in nature, or of the syzygies ("pairs"), as they are called by the Gnostics, occupies a prominent place in the Sefer Yetzirah. This doctrine is based on the assumption that the physical as well as the spiritual world consist of pairs mutually at war, but equalized by the unity, God. Thus in the three prototypes of creation the contrasting elements fire and water are equalized by air; corresponding to this are the three "Rulers" among the letters, the mute Mem contrasting with the hushing Shin, and both being equalized by Aleph.

Seven pairs of contrasts are enumerated in the life of mortals:

  • Life and death
  • Peace and war
  • Wisdom and folly
  • Wealth and poverty
  • Beauty and ugliness
  • Fertility and sterility
  • Lordship and servitude

From these premises the Sefer Yetzirah draws the important conclusion that subjective "good and evil" have no real existence, for since everything in nature can exist only by means of its contrast, a thing may be called good or evil according to its influence over man by the natural course of the contrast.

The book teaches that man is a free moral agent, and therefore a person is rewarded or punished for his or her actions. While the ideas of heaven and hell are left unmentioned in the book, it teaches that the virtuous man is rewarded by a favorable attitude of nature, while the wicked man finds it hostile to him.

Gnostic elements

Sefer Yetzirah is similar to various Gnostic systems. Both systems attach great importance to the power of the combinations and permutations of the letters in explaining the genesis and development of diversity from unity.

The "theli" (תלי teli, perhaps meaning "curled one" as a coiled serpent) which plays such a vital part in the astrology of the book, is probably an ancient Semitic figure; at all events its name is an Akkadian loan-word. The "dragon" is often understood as the starry constellation Draco and by extension it represents the cosmic axis (equivalent to the north/south pole) because this constellation coils around Polaris and thus around the celestial axis, as it intersects the northernmost part of the celestial sphere.

Translations

Latin

  • Postell, Guillaume (1552). Abraham Patriarchœ Liber Iezirah. Paris: Guillaume Postell.
  • Pistor, Johann Ludwig (1587). "Liber de Creatione". Ars Cabalistica. Basel: Conrad Waldkirch.
  • Rittangel, Johann Stephan (1642). Sefer Yetzirah. Amsterdam: Menasseh ben Israel.

German

  • von Meyer, Johann Friedrich (1830). Das Buch Yezira. Leipzig: F. A. Brockhaus.

English

  • Kalisch, Isidor (1877). Sepher Yezirah: A Book on Creation; or the Jewish Metaphysics of Remote Antiquity. New York: L. H. Frank & Co.
  • Westcott, William Wynn (1887). Sepher Yezirah. London: Theosophical Publishing Society.
  • Kaplan, Aryeh (1991). The Sefer Yetzirah: Short Version.

French

  • Karppe, S. (1901). Etude sur les Origines et la Nature du Zohar. Paris: Emile Bouillon.

External links