Sepher Yezirah: A Book on Creation — trans. Isidor Kalisch (1877)

‏וְקָרָא עָלָיו בְּטֶרֶם אֶצָרְךָ בַבֶּטֶן יְדַעְתִּךָ׃‪*‫‎

‏*) נ״א וְקָשַר עֶשְׂרִים וּשְׁתַּיִם אוֹתִיוֹׁתּ בִּלְשׁוֹנוֹ וְנִלָּה לוֹ אֶת יְסוֹוָץ‎

‏מָשְׁכָן בַּמַּיְם דָלְקָן כָּאֵשׁ רָעֲשָׁן בְּרוּתַ בָּעֲרָן בְּשִׁבְעָה נֶהֱנָן בִּשְׁתֵּים עֶשְׂרֵת‎

‏מַוָלוֹת׃‎

‏סליק פרקא. וסליק ספר יצירה׃‎

NOTES.

1) Our author maintains that there is a first intelligent, self-existing, almighty, eternal ruling cause of all things, and that an everlasting entity produced nonentities by a progression of effects. The divine knowledge, he adds, differs from the human knowledge in such a degree, that it gives existence to all that is. ‏חקק יח ח״ צבאות‎ is a talmudical expression. (See Treatise Bava Bathra p. 93.) It seems to me, that the author not only wanted to contradict Plato's assertion that the Supreme Being had need of a plan, like the human architect, to conduct the great design, when he made the fabric of the Universe, but also the common belief that God reasons and acts by ideas like a human being. As the prophet Isaiah exclaimed: "Behold! God has no ideas like you, and his ways of acting are not like yours." (Isaiah 55, 8-9.)

2) The number thirty-two is not only the fifth power of two, and the sum of ten units and twenty-two letters, but is also the sum of the first and last letter of the Hebrew Pentateuch, namely: ‏בּ‎ 2 and 30, equal thirty-two. (See Kusari p. 343, translated into German by Dr. David Cassel.)

3) Paths denote powers, effects, kinds, forms, degrees or stages.

4) These Sepharim or three words of similar expression signify: first, number, calculation or idea; second, the word; third, the writing of the *word. The idea, word and writing (of the word), are signs to man for a thing, and is not the thing itself, to the Creator, however, idea, word and writing (of the word) are the thing itself, or as some ancient Rabbis remarked: ",‏מחשבח דביר ימעשה הכל הרא דבו אחד בהק״ב״ה״‎ Idea, word and work are one and the same to God." There is an ideal world in the divine intellect, according to which this sensible world was made. The difference between the human and divine manner of thinking admits no comparison.

5) This means to say, that there has not been any matter or hyle existing from all eternity, containing different kinds of primitive atoms or molecules etc., as the Greek philosopher, Anaxagoras, taught, but that all things are the gradual emanations of one everlasting being. This idea is then symbolically explained in the next paragraph.

6) The design of the author is evidently to deduce the proof of the decade from the phenomena in the nature of man, who is generally considered the crown or the final cause of the terrestrial creation, and upon whom God vouchsafed two most precious gifts, namely: the articulated word, and the religious element (spiritual purity). This passage is explained by Isaac Satanow in his Hebrew Dictionary entitled Sephath Emeth, p. 44, b:

‏דחנח הלשין הוא עט סופר לתולדות חשכלים ואבר המוליד‎

‏לתולדות החמריים ובל אחד הוּא ברית עולם לקיים את האדם‎

‏לפליטה נצחרת על שתי צלעותיו חמרו וצורתו האי כדאיתיח‎

‏והאי כדאיתיה זה בחמרו וזה בצורתו‪.‫‎

The tongue is, as it were, the descriptive pen of all the spiritual issues, and the genital parts are the originators of the corporeal substances. Every one of them is an eternal covenant in order to preserve the human race for ever, according to its two-fold being: body and spirit. Each working after its own way, physically and spiritually.

7) Like Pythagoras, who taught that the digits inclusive number ten which are typified in Tetraktys, (Τετρακτὺς) namely: 1 plus 2 plus 3 plus 4 equal 10, and which comprise the whole arithmetical system of nature, etc. Our author endeavors to show the gradual emanation of all things from God, which were completely finished in ten spheres.

8) My Hebrew reading is: ‏והושב יוצר על‎ There are various readings; therefore Postellus rendered it: "restitue figmentum in locum suum;" Rittangel, "restitue formatorem in throno suo;" Pistorius, "fac sedere creatorem in throno suo." The author seems to ridicule here the Gnosticians who maintained that Demiurg was the creator of man and the sensual world.

9) In God is the beginning and he is the boundary of the Universe. Compare also the Talmud treatise Chagigah p. 12.

10) Here is contradicted the system of ditheism, consisting of an eternal God, the Author of all good and of "Hyle" or "Satan," the co-eternal and co-equal principle of evil, maintaining that an all-perfect God alone is the author of all good and evil, and has in his infinite wisdom so wonderfully contrived the nature of things, that physical and moral evil may produce good, and hence contribute to carry out the great design of the Supreme Being. Compare also Chap. 6 §5.

11) As the infinite series of numbers starts from one unit, so was the whole Universe formed a unity, that centres in the Godhead.