Sefirot

The term "Kabbalah" is frequently used in a nontechnical sense to designate the entire overarching category of Jewish mysticism and esotericism, stretching from ancient times until the present. In Talmudic usage the term has a nonmystical referent, signifying Hebrew biblical works that are outside the Five Books of Moses, while in post-Talmudic literature it can refer to oral traditions of great antiquity. It is only in the early thirteenth century, in the circle of Isaac the Blind of Provence, that the term takes on its current meaning, denoting mystical and esoteric literature and practices, using the theosophic structure of sefirot to describe Divinity. According to this definition, earlier mystical texts and traditions may be sources for Kabbalah, but do not yet represent "Kabbalah," properly speaking; moreover, this is the definition that was used by its earliest practitioners. This entry will explore the ways in which Kabbalah (particularly its earliest forms which established basic approaches and structures) responded to the philosophical questions of its day, specifically, its epistemology, nature of God, evil, the role of law, mystical experience, and language.

The Ma’arekhet ha-Elohut (The Divine Order) was written anonymously at the beginning of the fourteenth century and exercised a lasting influence on the development of Kabbalah in the late medieval and early modern periods. Conceptually, the work presents a summa of the major ideas and theories of Catalonian Kabbalah originating from the school of Nahmanides, R. Solomon ibn Adret, and his students. 
My presentation will focus on Gate 9, called Sha’ar ha-Harissa (Gate of Destruction), where the author polemicises against the dangers of incorrect beliefs concerning the sefirot and the relationship between the divine and lower worlds. By exposing a number of innovative exegeses that the Ma’arekhet offers on Biblical characters and narratives, I will argue that the author wished to highlight the deep religious and ontological consequences of flawed intellectual speculations and conclusions. At a time when competing theories of the sefirot circulated in various parts of the Iberian Peninsula and beyond, the Ma’arekhet presented an unequivocal rejection of theories that suggested any separation of the last sefirah Malkuth – gendered feminine and associated with the Shekhinah or Divine presence – from the rest of the sefirot in the divine structure. As a staunch warning against religious heresy, the insertion of Sha’ar ha-Harissa into a largely theosophical kabbalistic treatise gains particular religious urgency when considered against the background of Catholic Spain and the ubiquitous worship of the Virgin Mary.

Yahveh manifest as the Equation Aleph-Tav is the key to the gates within the Most High Levels of the Shammayim. Each of the 21 letters remain inpotentia until one enters the 'real spiritual time' of their domain, only then can your own conscious reflection on these invisible realities of energy and motion. The three sets of seven energies are as a series of higher spiritual realities that require not only personal experience and skill, but an advanced understanding to cross over from one plane to another. It is a matter of migration and gradual elevation the permits entrance into the Promised Land that is already inside of us. These seven phenomenon also surround the Throne as a rainbow of Aether, fire, waters, air, atoms, particles, waves and frequencies that are the cosmological manifestation of the Universal archetype attributes of Elohim at work. Right before our very eyes we can see very little except the Sun and Moon and a few of the stars, with the advanced technology of modern telescopes that can demonstrate those things the naked eye cannot see with equipment that only this generation is prepared to furnish. As science and technology thrive so does our ability to discern invisible phenomena of Yahveh, which in turn increases the level of our spiritual identity. On the other hand, while anyone of us can engage our mortal intelligence to absorb all this amazing data quickly, the inner process of intelligence continue to transform gradually without our conscious awareness, it will only prolong our experiences of good and evil. We must communicate and learn how to read the Name of the Heavens and learn to measure their effects and actions on our inner awareness, for only then can we begin to realize there are unique layers that each one of us has to pull back, before any ability 'to do' is possible. Observation of our own inner thoughts and emotions is the only way to survive and cross the threshold of the tehom or deep, and if you are not really called to this level of spiritual identity intelligence, then crossing over the abyss is not really in your best interest to pursue at this time. The contraction of one's own self-perception involves observing and ruling over one's own Ego, and the shadow it can cast upon the moon of others. The moon is gravitationally united to the Earth, and the Earth is gravitationally united to the Sun, just as we are united to the Son and the Son is united to the Father. As if the Aleph Tav equation itself states the living energy of aleph is contained in the Tav or womb, for even our spiritual consciousness is not ours, as long as elements and atoms rule over the particles of light. When particles are observed they react, just as when we feel the ray of the Sun our entire body is energized and reacts to the observation of the Light. Each person inside is like a point that must open and expand, this is why the divine attributes remain latent, or not consciously present to us, at first. We must share in a mutual relationship with Spirit; this happens as we put on the divine attributes of Elohim consciously, for one then simultaneously becomes aware, of how he or she is Yahveh. This self-awareness and identification of Spirit occurs ontologically and spiritually, and can also be demonstrated through simple rules of Hebrew grammar. For instance-in the third person form, of the ineffable Name Ayah Asher Ayah, itself a transitive verb phrase, the term Yahveh as the object of a sentence, becomes a three dimensional object, for it signifies a personal pronoun form of either he or she, this is how a unique grammatical association explains the inner relationship that results in the Name Yahveh. So, this means when a person consciously realizes the meaning and purpose of this Name, he or she becomes Yahshua-Yahveh's Salvation and ours. The premises below show us how to look at this logically, for example, assume that "a" = Father, "b" = Son and "c" = Spirit we see that everything that exists between the Father and the Son, also exists between the Father and the Spirit. So, then it follows that if "a" = Ayah Asher Ayah, "b" = Ayah and "c" = Yahveh, again we can logically conclude that this transitive relationship predicts that there are three measurements per attribute, indicating the exchange or energy and substance in varying degrees of intensity and fluctuation. This is the logical explanation of how the Spirit who is Yahveh actually lives and exists in a human person, not as three separate entities, but as one unified field of energy in various quantum states of self-realization. The more spiritual reflection upon the omniscience (all knowing) and omnipotence (all powers) of Yahveh in Elohim, the more we are made in the Image of the reflections, we see in our interior mind's eyes, that transform into the inner Cherubim covered with eyes searching throughout the Heavens and Halls of our inner spiritual Universe. Only after we are able to receive the rays of the 1 st Light that emanates from Elohim before the placing of the Sun on the fourth day, can we ever realize that pure science, isolates us from a real connection to our true state of being, simply because it is blindly endowed with Omni-authority without boundaries or limits, and has become counter-productive to our continued existence.

O perspectivă științifică asupra Arborelui Sefirotic reprezintă o încercare de a găsi punctele de convergență între viziunea științifică și cea mistică-esoterică (în general cunocută din tradiția kabbalistă) asupra diagramei de tip arbore care acoperă și exprimă în mod abstract-simbolic toate aspectele esențiale ale Realității. Totodată, cartea propune un dialog integrator, în care structura binară a mentalului uman reflectă asupra întregului Cunoașterii printr-o abordare reconciliatoare a celor două paradigme de gândire antagonice, religia și știința.

Renata TATOMIR este profesor universitar și cercetător, doctor în istorie, specializată în egiptologie. Are o formație multidisciplinară, iar preocupările sale academice vizează interese și abordări inter-, pluri- și transdisciplinare, de la istoria antică a Orientului, la arheologie și istoria religiilor, și de la fizică la esoterism.

The intent of this article is to understand and explain what is going on in  figure 6 in Kaplan's book Sefer Yetzirah, which should be considered the GRA's Tree of 1884. I wish to explain each line and every intersection and determine what they are. I only care to explain what is actual in that figure, I do not care if that seems to violate some traditional view of what the Sefirot aka Tree, is supposed to be like according to the traditional commentary on the Sefer Yetzirah or Kabbalah in general. As I worked out what is in this figure, I can only conclude that what currently is known as ‘Tradition’ is based on information that does not take into account this figure. My second intent of this paper is to dispell an idea common on the internet that Kaplan’s ‘Natural Array’ is somehow a representation of the GRA's Tree. Though the Natural Array bears a resemblance to the GRA’s tree in figure 6 it diverges from it. [This is a revised version of this paper.]

The resurgence of interest in Kabbalistic diagrams (Segol, Busi, Chajes) raises the question of how diagrams function in religious symbolism. This question can be approached via methods used in the graphical modeling of data. Specifically, graph theory lets one define a repertoire of candidate structures that can be applied not only to quantitative data, but also to symbols consisting of qualitative components. A graph is a set of nodes and links between nodes. What nodes and links are is unspecified in this definition. The Kabbalistic Ilan is – partially – a graph. The Sefirot are its nodes; the paths connecting the Sefirot are its links. The idea of a graph is actually not adequate to the Ilan, because in a graph nodes can be anywhere in space, while in the Ilan arrangement in space is significant and not arbitrary. However, graph theory can be supplemented with spatial considerations. What (an augmented) graph theory offers that is of special interest is a way to conceptualize th...