| HaYakol HaQodesh Makhoon: The Location of the Kernel |
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SY IV:3
Seven Doubles: Vayt, Djimel, Thalet (and) Khaf, Phay, Raysh, Thav as in the presence of Seven
extremities, six of which -- height, depth, East, West, North and South -- and
the holy sanctuary (which) directs them from the middle (or kernel) and it is the Aleph-Tav
theme of everything. Suares, 1976
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SY IV:3
and the holy palace precisely in the center and it suppports them all.
Kaplan, 1995
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SY IV:3
and it carries them all.
Glotzer, 1992
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| Bahir, section 103 | Sod Ha-Gadol |
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The seventh? But, after all, there are only six? This teaches that here is the Temple of the
[celestial] Sanctuary, and it bears all [the other six], and that is why it is the seventh.
And what is it? The Thought that has neither end nor limit. Similarly this place, too, has
neither end nor limit.
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And the Holy Temple is in the celestial city [the celestial Jerusalem] and the Prince of the
Countenance is the high priest. And whence do we know that there is a Temple there?
As it is said there [in the "Great Mystery"]: The seventh? But there are only six? That
teaches that they see the Holy Temple, and it bears all.
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Scholem, Origins of the Kabbalah, Princeton, 1990, p.115
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| 700 |
6 |
6 |
20 |
40 |
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300 |
4 |
100 |
5 |
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30 |
20 |
10 |
5 |
| 122/772 |
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404 + 5 |
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60 + 5 |
| Makhoon |
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Ha-Qodesh |
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Ha-Yakol |
| Kernel |
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Holy |
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Sanctuary |
| Center |
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Holy |
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Palace |
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The seventh?. The seventh, hidden direction of the Sepher Yetsira, formed by Tav.
But, after all, there are only six? Six outer directions, the Sephirot 5 thought 10.
This teaches that here is the Temple of the [celestial] Sanctuary, and it bears all [the other six], and
that is why it is the seventh. Direction, not Sephirot.
And what is it? Aleph, thought that has neither end nor limit.
Similarly this place, too, has neither end nor limit.
Aleph's mirror, Tav, Sanctuary of Infinite Energy, the seventh
double letter.
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The sentence stating that the celestial sanctuary is in the center of the world and bears all six directions,
which at the same time correspond to the last six defiroth, figures in the fourth chapter of the
Book of Creation; however, that book knows nothing of a relation between the temple and the seventh
sefirah. This correlation would fit a revision of the ten sefiroth of the Yetzirah in the sense of the
doctrine of the Merkabah and the cosmology that corresponds to it. The continuation of the sentence in the
Bahir, on the other hand, introduces a new element of mystic-gnostic speculation. Neither
Yetzirah nor the Raza Rabba knows anything of the "thinking" or the "thought" of God conceived
as an aeon or a sefirah. The Bahir, on the other hand, wavers between two conceptions: the one saw the
makhshabah, just like the speculations of the ancient Gnostics on the ennoia, as the highest of all
the sefiroth or aeons; the other conflated it, as here, with the seventh, which remains rather enigmatic.
In other passages of the Bahir, in sections 48 and 84, it is the Holy Temple of the
Celestial Jerusalem that is conceived as the symbol of the highest sefirah, represented by the
letter 'alef as the beginning of all letters. The logic of the Yetzirah passage, which served
as the point of departure, would suggest, in fact, the seventh place in its system of enumeration; the logic of
the mystical symbolism of the ennoia, which was apparently introduced from another source, points to the
first. One can clearly see that two motifs of different origin are contending with each other here and that the
Book Bahir adopted both traditions.
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Gershom Scholem, Origins of the Kabbalah, Princeton, 1990, p.116
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Are we reading the same book?
SY I: 13 Seven: sealed the East, turned towards his (own) face and sealed it with Hay-Yod-Waw.
IV:3 Seven extremities, six of which -- height, depth, East, West, North and South and the holy
sanctuary (which) directs them from the middle (or kernel)
The logic of the Sepher Yetsira does not suggest the seventh sephira for the location of the Holy Temple.
In fact, it dictates that it not be one of the Sephirot 5 through 10. This is a prime example of the
confusion of the seventh double letter and the seventh sephirot in the minds of both kabbalists and
their esteemed scholars.
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...We must pose the question of the origin of the other designations of the first sefirah ... Mention is made of
the thinking or the thought of God, makhshabah,
as the most hidden sphere, but also as the center of the innermost of the first six logoi.
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A certain transition from the human to the divine mahkshabah can be assumed in a passage concerning prayer,
which says that he who prays -- in this case the prophet Habakkuk in his psalm -- attains a mystical "place" whence
he understands the mahkshabah of God. This mahkshabah is prepresented in three important symbols:
the consonant 'alef, the beginning of all language and expression as well as the "root of the ten commandments"
(which begin with 'alef); the ear of a man, 'ozen, which is an image of the 'alef, by means of
which man perceives the word of God; the temple of the sanctuary. This last symbolism is particularly striking, for
while in most passages where it appears it clearly refers to the highest potency of God, it is desingated in section
103 as the seventh logos, the Holy Temple that bears all others, thos others apparently being the preciding six.
"And what is he [this logos]? The thought, which has no end and no conclusion. However, in section 48 it is said:
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The ear is the image of the 'alef and the 'alef is the beginning of all the letters;
and more than that, the 'alef is the necessary condition for the existence of all the letters, and the
'alef is an image of the brain [the seat of thought]: just as when one pronounces the 'alef one
opens only the mouth [and does not produce any audible sound, which would already be something definite], so
the thought goes without an end and a conclusion.
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Bahir, Section 48, Gershom Scholem, Origins of the Kabbalah, Princeton, 1990, p.128
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The seventh logos of the Bahir corresponds exactly to the ninth sefirah in the later canonical sequence ...
The relation with the celestial temple which represents "Thought" or that which is within "Thought" as expounded
in section 103 in one of three variations on the seventh logos of our table (sections 102-104), is completely
outside this particular series of motifs, as we saw above in our discussion of the first sefirah. Only the notion
of the six dimensions, by means of which the world -- space -- is sealed, is taken over from the Book of Yetzirah ...
In the center of this terrestrial world is the Temple of Jerusalem; in the center of the corresponding world of the
logoi, the celestial temple.
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Gershom Scholem, Origins of the Kabbalah, Princeton, 1990, p.152
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In the Sefer ha-Bahir, and in several early texts of the 13th century, the
Sefirah Yesod was thought of as the seventh, preceding Nezah and Hod,
and only in Gerona was it finally assigned to the ninth place.
The division of the Sefirot was also determined by other criteria. Sometimes they were
divided five and five, i.e. the five upper Sefirot corresponding to the five lower, an
equal balance between the hidden and the revealed being maintained. On the basis of the state in the
Pirkei de-R. Eliezer "with ten sayings was the world created, and they were summarized in three,"
they were also divided in seven and three. In this case there was a differentiation between three hidden
Sefirot and "the seven Sefirot of building," which are also the seven primordial days of
creation. Six of these were also equated with the six sides of space in the Sefer Yezirah.
How these six were complemented by a seventh was never decisively established. Some thought that the
seventh as the sacred palace which stood in the center, as in the Sefer Yezirah. Others
considered it to be represented by Divine Thought, while for others it was a symbolic Sabbath.
The correlation of the "Sefirot of building" with the days of creation became extremely
complex. Many kabbalists, including the author of the bulk of the Zohar, could not agree on the
automatic association of each Sifirah with one particular day, and they regared creation, which from
the mystical viewpoint was the completion of "the building" of emanation, as having been
already completed by the fourth day. They were particularly perplexed by the problem of the Sabbath, which
many interpreted as a symbol of Yesod, since it paralleled the original seventh place of the Sefirah,
while many others saw in it an allusion to the last Sifirah, expecially since the powers came to
an end there.
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Gershom Scholem, Kabbalah, Keter Publishing, Jerusalem, 1974, p.107, 108
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See: Etz Hhaim: Hebrew Formative Letters in the Sephirot
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