Sefer Yetzirah, the Cube of Space, and the Emergence of ... - Maqom

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“He selected three letters from the plain ones, in mysterious counsel with thethree mothers aleph-mem-shin, and He placed them in His Great Name, andsealed/completed with them six extremes. Five: He sealed/completed height andturned His attention to ascent and sealed/completed it with yud-hey-vav. Six: Hesealed/completed below and turned His attention to beneath andsealed/completed it with yud-vav-hey. Seven: He sealed/completed east andturned His attention to front and sealed/completed it with hey-yud-vav. Eight:He sealed/completed west and turned His attention to behind andsealed/completed it with hey-vav-yud. Nine: He sealed/completed south andturned His attention to the right side and sealed/completed it with vav-yud-hey.Ten: He sealed/completed north and turned His attention to the left side andsealed/completed it with vav-hey-yud.” (Sefer Yetzirah 1:13)The ordering of the letters above for the seals in the six directions is taken, in thisinstance not from the GRA version of the Sefer Yetzirah, but from the short version andthe Saadia version. The lesson I want to derive can be done using the GRA version, butin many respects I find it easier to do with the version of the text I’ve presented above.The main thing to realize in this passage is that as we move from our first direction to ourfinal one, we are moving from what I like to call maximum revealed holiness to maximumconcealed holiness. The directions and their corresponding letter combinations aresummarized in the table that follows.16
DIRECTIONUp YHVLETTERSyud-hey-vavDown YVH yud-vav-heyEast HYV hey-yud-vavWest HVY hey-vav-yudSouth VYH vav-yud-heyNorth VHY vav-hey-yudThe direction of up is associated with maximum revealed holiness in that the unboundedinfinity of space awakens a sense of the infinite within us. Next, we have down, the earth,and its beauty is also holy though more confined by boundaries. Continuing, we mightsay that holiness is more revealed in the east than in the west because the rising sunrepresents clarity and illumination. And finally, holiness is more revealed in the souththan in the north because the warmth of the tropics represents mercy while the cold northis a symbol of severity and constant struggle. Hence, as we move through the directionsin this order, we are also moving along a continuum from God revealed to God concealed.Now let’s interpret the story told by the six permutations of the letters yud, hey, and vav.First, note that the letter yud is the first letter of the most sacred Hebrew name for God(yud-hey-vav-hey), and it symbolizes God as King. Second, the letter hey traditionallyrepresents the presence of God that is known as the Shechinah and that is sometimesmetaphorically referred to as the Daughter. Additionally, there is the tradition that whenthe people sin, they go into exile and separation from God, but at the same time theShechinah goes with them. And finally, the letter vav grammatically stands for the wordand, and as such it represents connection and union. Consequently, if we adhere to thefollowing rules for interpretation, then we’ll see that the permutations of the letters telltheir own story of the journey from revealed holiness to the concealment of holiness.17
Page 3: “With thirty-two wondrous paths o
Page 10 and 11: destruction of the original state o
Page 12 and 13: exaggeration to say that letters cr
Page 14 and 15: successful leader, then we will gen
Page 19 and 20: In our next verse from the Sefer Ye
Page 21 and 22: to begin to dissolve. And in so doi
Page 23 and 24: “These are the ten sefirot of res
Page 25 and 26: Hebrew Letter Glyph Assignment in S
Page 27 and 28: Sefer Yetzirah, attached to cube in
Page 29 and 30: was the Ark of the Covenant that co
Page 31 and 32: The passage from the Bahir that wil
Page 33 and 34: The Zohar, The Book of Splendor (Ra
Page 35 and 36: We will now examine one more concep
Page 37 and 38: Because the Hebrew word for sapphir
Page 39 and 40: “It is written: And the intellige
Page 41 and 42: If we want to convert a three-dimen
Page 43 and 44: Again, we don’t know precisely ho
Page 45 and 46: hexagon, 6 for the Star of David, a
Page 47 and 48: diagram is to think of all the ways
Page 49 and 50: Recall also how in the Sefer Yetzir
Page 51 and 52: other words, learn to discipline yo
Page 53 and 54: To move up the central column of th
Page 55 and 56: It is now time to examine the twelv
Page 57: Letters Glyph GRA Short Version Lon

Sefer Yetzirah, the Cube of Space, and the Emergence of ... - Maqom

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