Sephirot (Kabbalah)

Sephirot, Sephiroth, or Sefiroth (סְפִירוֹת), singular: Sephirah, also Sefirah (סְפִירָה "enumeration" in Hebrew).

Sephiroth (or "enumerations"), in the Kabbalah of Judaism, are the ten attributes that God (who is referred to as אור אין סוף Aur Ain Soph, "limitless light") created through which he can project himself to the universe and man. These emanations manifest not only in the physical part of the universe, but also in the metaphysical one. Kabbalah distinguishes between four different "worlds" or "planes":

Atziluth (אֲצִילוּת), or "World of Emanations", on this level the light of the Ain Sof radiates and is still united with its source.
Beri'ah (בְּרִיאָה) or "World of Creation", on this level the first concept of creation ex nihilo however without any shape or form. This is also where the Highest Ranking Angels are to be found.
Yetzirah (יְצִירָה) or "World of Formation" on this level the created being assumes shape and form.
Asiyah' (עֲשִׂיָּה) or "World of Actions", on this level the creation is complete, however it is still in a spiritual level. At a later stage there is the 'physical Asiyah' comprising our physical world with all its creatures.

Each of these worlds are progressively grosser and further removed from any revealed Godliness, however the ten Sephiroth manifest in all of them.

Paths and Sephiroth

The Sephirot are also represented by a "tree" that is described as having ten Sephirot and 22 "paths", which co-relate with the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Each one of these sephirot and paths is given special attributes which reflect its particular quality. Commonly a constellation, planet, name of God and/or an element; although other attributes such as psychological states, various verbs, and even foods are also attributed (especially among more modern kabbalists).

Names

The names of the Sephirot are:

Kether Elyon (Kabbalah) (Crown; כתר)
Chokhmah (Wisdom; חכמה)
Binah (Kabbalah) (Intelligence; בינה)
Chesed or Gedulah (Love or Mercy); חסד)
Din or Gevurah (Power or Judgement); גבורה)
Tifereth or Rakhamim (Compassion); תפארת)
Netzach (Lasting Endurance); נצח)
Hod (Majesty); הוד)
Yesod (Basis or Foundation); יסוד)
Malkuth or Shekinah (Kingdom); מלכות)

Occasionally another is enumerated:

Daath ("Knowledge," "Order," or "Law"; דעת)

Traditionally, Daath (Da'at) is not a Sephira itself. It is the absence of a sephira. It is alternately called “the Abyss”, and is metaphorically interpreted as the dead child of Chochmah and Binah in the system explained by mediaeval kabbalist (mekubal in Hebrew) Issac Luria, also known as the Ari.

Due to different romanizations and the lack of literature describing all the names of each Sephira, there are a variety of different spellings for each Sephira. For example Chochmah as Hokhmah or a completely different name such as Tiphereth as Rahamim.

Beyond Kether there is the Horizon of Eternity and through this veil mortal minds are ill-equipped to pierce. Due to the complex and nearly incomprehensible nature of the universe after this point, very little can be understood. What can be divined, however, is the existence of a sort of Qabbalistic Trinity, a triune of "negative existence" that ethereally manifests itself as the Ain (the vacuum of pure spirit), the Ain Soph (The Limitless and Boundless) and the Aur Ain Soph (the Limitless Light). The Ain Soph is the result of the Qabbalists search for the Supreme Deity, a being of such incomprehensibility that the only way to identify the barriers of its existence is to systematically remove all its cognizable attributes. When everything that is knowable about God has been removed, the Ain Soph remains.

The Pillars

The Sephiroth are organised into 3 different columns or gimel kavim ("three lines" in Hebrew):

Central column:

Kether heads the central column of the tree, which is known metaphorically speaking as the "Pillar of Mildness" and is associated with Hebrew letter Aleph, "the breath", and the air element. It is a neutral one, a balance between the two opposing forces of male and female tendencies. Some teachings describe the sephirot on the centre pillar as gender-neutral, while others say that the sephirot vary in their sexual attributions.

Right column, in Hebrew kav yamin:

Chokhmah heads the right column of the tree, metaphorically speaking the "Pillar of Mercy", associated with the Hebrew letter Shin, the fire element, and the male aspect;

Left column, in Hebrew kav smol:

The left column is headed by Binah and is called the "Pillar of Severity." It is associated with Hebrew letter Mem, (literally meaning "water"), the water element and the female aspect.

While the pillars are each given a sexual attribution, this does not mean that every sephirah on a given pillar has the same sexual atribution as the pillar on which they sit. In Jewish Kabbalah, of all the sephirot only Binah and Malkuth are considered female, while all the other sephirot are male. Additionally (and this applies to both Jewish and Hermetic Kabbalah), each sephirah is seen as male in relation to the following sephirah in succession on the tree, and female in relation to the foregoing sephirah.

Non-traditional interpretations

The tree as detailed by Athanasius Kircher (sometimes referred to as the "Kircher Tree") is by far the most well-known one today. Others arrange the Sephiroth in different ways, such as in the form of concentric circles.

Scholars differ on the presence of other elements in the cosmology. The position of the letters of the Hebrew alphabet is relatively disputed as well, as is the presence of three "pillars" or "columns" of Sephiroth described as connected to each other, and the three "Veils of negative existence", and the Abyss that separates the three supernal Sephiroth from the others, the "false" eleventh Sephira Daath, the Veil of Paroketh and the demonic counterpart of the tree of life: the Tree of death composed of the Qliphoth, husks, instead of the Sephiroth.

The Tree of Life of the Kabbalah has been theorized to have possibly been derived from Assyrian theology and mysticism. Dr. Simo Parpola, a researcher at the University of Helsinki, has made some suggestive findings on the matter, particularly concerning an analysis of the Sepiroth. Noting the general similarity between the Sepiroth of the Kabbalah and the Tree of Life of Assyria, he reconstructed what an Assyrian antecedent to the Sepiroth would look like.Parpola S. 1993. The Assyrian Tree of Life: Tracing the Origins of Jewish Monotheism and Greek Philosophy. Journal of Near Eastern Studies. 52(3) pp161-208 He matched the characteristics of the Sepiroth to the gods of Assyria, and was able to demonstrate textual parallels between these Assyrian gods and the characteristics of the Hebrew god. The Assyrians assigned specific numbers to their gods, similar to how the Sepiroth are assigned numbers. However, the Assyrians use a sexagesimal number system, whereas the Sepiroth is decimal. With the Assyrian numbers, additional layers of meaning and mystical relevance appear in the Sepiroth. Normally, floating above the Assyrian Tree of Life was the god Assur, this corresponds to En Sof, which is also, via a series of transformations, derived from the Assyrian word Assur. Furthermore, Dr. Parpola was able to re-interpret various Assyrian tablets in the terms of this primitive Sepiroth, such as the Epic Of Gilgamesh, and in doing so was able to reveal that the scribes themselves had been writing philosophical-mystical tracts, rather than mere adventure stories. Traces of this Assyrian mode of thought and philosophy eventually makes reappearances in Greek Philosophy and the Kabbalah.

In the occult

The French hermetic occultist author Eliphas Levi wrote extensively and popularized the relationship between the Tarot and the Tree of Life. According to Levi, the tarot cards originated from Gypsies who brought the tree of life out of Egypt in the form of tarot cards. This was also agreed with by the French occultist Papus, which prompted the authoring of the book "Tarot of the Bohemians". This theory lacks credibility now since it is known that gypsies actually came from India, not Egypt. The earliest known appearances of tarot cards came from the Dukes of Milan, not gypsies, namely under the rule of Filippo Maria Visconti and Francesco I Sforza. According to Levi and others, the 22 paths of the tree of life are directly related to the 22 trump cards of the tarot deck. The Four Suits are related to the four elements. The Ten numbers are related to the 10 sephiroths. It should also be noted that the earliest tarot decks never had any dogma towards how many cards or how many suits it had, making this theory less credible.

The Sephirothic Tree is sometimes depicted as being a human body and, as such, is thought to symbolize the first "Heavenly" Man: Adam Kadmon who is identified by Manly Hall as the Idea of the Universe. Each of the Sephirah, as seen within the formation of the Sephiroth, correspond with a body part or organ of this prototypical man.

Numerology

In a numerological sense, the Tree of Sephiroth also has significance. Between the 10 Sephiroth run 22 channels or paths which connect them, a number which can be associated with the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet. In addition to each of this channels being assigned a letter of this alphabet, each path is also identified with one of the major trumps of the Tarot deck of symbolic cards. When combined with the 10 Sephiroth, these 22 paths make the number 32 which makes reference to the 32 Qabbalistic Paths of Wisdom and also the 32 degrees of Freemasonry.

To envision the tree, consider each of these ten spheres as being concentric circles with Malkuth being the innermost and all others encompassed by the latter. None of these are separate from the other, and all simply help to form a more complete view of the perfected whole. To speak simply, Malcuth is the Kingdom which is the physical world upon which we live and exist, while Kether, also call Kaether and Kaether Elyson is the Crown of this universe, representing the highest attainable understanding of God that men can understand.

Hypothetically there also exists an Eleventh Sephirah called Daath. According to Karen Chapdelaine, its meaning is the Abyss and its universal element is Neptune which makes it an important element of the Tree of Sephiroth. It should be noted, however, that the first Qabbalists did not include any such sphere, making Daath a contested point of philosophical discussion. The Jewish Kabbalists that do accept this entity state that it is not a Sephirah, but rather that absence of one. In the Jewish tradition, the idea of an eleventh Sephirah is tantamount to blasphemy, as stated in the Sefer Yetzirah: "Ten Sephirot of Nothingness, ten and not nine, ten and not eleven.”

Rabbinic significance

As to the actual significance of the numbers 10 and 22 in context of Judaism goes into Kabbalistic interpretation of Genesis. God is said to have created the world through Ten Utterances, marked by the number of times Genesis states, “And God said.” Upon scrutiny, there are only nine, but the Kabbalists count the first verse: “In the Beginning, God created the Heavens and the Earth.” (Genesis 1:1) This is because something was created, which parallels what happens every time “And God said” is stated. As for the 22 letter-paths, there must first be an explanation of the three different types of letters in Hebrew. See “Bahir Tree” of “Kircher Tree” image for reference.

There are three “Mothers” (Aleph, Mem, and Shin) that represent the horizontal lines.
- Their difference from the other letters is a matter for another article.
There are seven “Doubles” (Bet, Gimel, Dalet, Kaf, Peh, Resh, and Tav), which have two pronunciations and represent the vertical lines.
- Gimel, Dalet, Resh, and Tav’s second pronunciations are lost or disputed, with different dialects using different sounds.
The twelve “Elementals” (Heh, Vav, Zayin, Chet, Tet, Yud, Lamed, Nun, Samech, Ayin, Tzaddi, and Qof) have one pronunciation, and represent the diagonal lines.

Each letter grouping has significance in Genesis 1:

The Mothers represent the three times Genesis states “God made."
The Doubles represent the seven times Genesis states “God saw."
The elementals represent the rest of the times “God” (Elohim in every instance of Genesis Chapter 1) is mentioned.

Notes

References

The Sefer Yetzirah the book of creation: In theory and practice, translated and explained by Aryeh Kaplan (1997). Samuel Weiser, inc. (ISBN 0-87728-855-0)
The Bahir, translated by Aryeh Kaplan (1995). Aronson. (ISBN 1-56821-383-2)
Qabalistic Concepts: Living the Tree, William G Gray (1997). Samuel Weister inc.. (ISBN 1-57863-000-2)
The Mystical Qabalah, Dion Fortune (Originally published: London, Williams & Norgate 1935; Revised edition published in 2000 by Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC) (ISBN 1-57863-150-5)
On The Kabbalah and its Symbolism, Gershom Scholem (1996). Schocken. (ISBN 0-8052-1051-2)
The Secret Teaching of All Ages by Manly P. Hall (October 27, 2003). Tarcher. ISBN 1585422509
Lessons in Tanya
Sephiroth are mentioned also a great deal in Foucault's Pendulum, a book by Umberto Eco