kabbalah Gershom scholem

HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT 23
THE SEFER YEZIRAH
Speculation on the ma'aseh bereshit was given a unique form in a book, small
in size but enormous in influence, the Sefer Ye?irah ("Book of Creation"), the
earliest extant Hebrew text of systematic, speculative thought. Its brevity - less
than 2,000 words altogether even in its longer version - allied to its obscure and
at the same time laconic and enigmatic style, as well as its terminology, have no
parallel in other works on related subjects. The result of all these factors was
that for over I ,000 years the book was expounded in a great many different
ways, and not even the scientific investigations conducted during the 19th and
20th centuries succeeded in arriving at unambiguous and final results.
Sefer Ye?irah is extant in two versions: a shorter one which appears in most
editions as the book itself, and a longer version which is sometimes printed as an
appendix. 10 Both versions were already in existence in the tenth century and
left their imprint on the different types of the numerous manuscripts, the
earliest of which (from the II th century?) was found in the Cairo Genizah and
published by A. M. Habermann ( 1947). In both versions the book is divided into
six chapters of mishnayot or ha/akhot, composed of brief statements which
present the author's argument dogmatically, without any explanation or substantiation.
The first chapter in particular employs a sonorous, solemn vocabulary,
close to that of the Merkabah literature. Few biblical verses are quoted.
Even when their wording is identical, the different arrangement of the mishnayot
in the two versions and their resultant altered relationship one with the
other color the theoretical appreciation of the ideas.
The central subject of Sefer Ye?iralz is a compact discourse on cosmology and
cosmogony (a kind of ma'aseh bereshit, "act of creation," in a speculative form),
outstanding for its clearly mystical character. There is no foundation for the
attempts by a number of scholars to present it as a kind of primer for schoolchildren,
11 or as the first Hebrew composition on Hebrew grammar and orthography
(according to P. Mordell). The book's strong link with Jewish speculations
concerning divine wisdom (10khmah) is evident from the beginning, with
the declaration that God created the world by means of "32 secret paths of
wisdom." These 32 paths, defined as "ten Sefirot beli mah" and the "22 elemental
letters" of the Hebrew alphabet, are represented as the foundations of all
creation. Chapter I deals with the Sefirot and the other five chapters with the
function of the letters. Apparently the term Sefirot is used simply to mean
"numbers," though in employing a new term (sefirot instead of misparim), the
author seems to be alluding to metaphysical principles or to stages in the creation
of the world.
The use of the term Sefirot in Sefer Ye?irah was later explained - particu-