Elijah began and said: "Master of the World, You are one but not in number;[1] You are the highest of the high, the secret of all secrets; You are altogether beyond the reach of thought. You are Het hat produced ten tikkunim, which we call ten sefirot, so that through them You might guide the secret worlds that are not revealed, and the worlds that are revealed. And through them are concealed[2] from mankind, and You bind them and unite them. Since You are within, whoever separates one of the ten from its fellow is thought of as making a separation in You.[3]
These ten sefirot follow the order in which they are one long, one short, and one intermediate.[4] You are the one who guides them, and there is no one to guide You, neither above nor below, nor on any side. You have prepeared garments from them,[5] from which the souls fly to the children of men.[6] Several bodies have You preparted from them, which are called "body" in resepect of the garments that cover them. And they are named, in this arrangement,[7] as follows: Ḥesed—right arm; Gevurah—left arm; Tiferet—torso; Netẓacḥ and Hod—two legs; Yesod—the completion of the body, the sign of the holy covenant;[8] Malkhut—mouth,[9] which we call oral Torah. The brain is Ḥokhmah, the inner thought; Binah is the heart, of which it is said "the heart understands."[10] Of these two it is written, "The hidden things belong to the Lord, our God" (Deuteronomy 29:28). The supernal Keter is the crown of royalty (malkhut)[11] of which it is said, "It declares the end from the beginning" (Isaiah 46:10), and it is the headpeace of the tefillin[12] Inwardly it is Yod, He, Vav, He, which is the way of emanation.[13] It is the watering-place of the tree, with its arms and boughs, like water that waters the tree, and it grows because of the watering.[14]
Master of thw worlds, You are the Cause of causes, the First Cause, who water the tree with a spring, and this spring is like the soul to the body, for it is like the life of the body. In You there is no image, and no likeness of what is within, or of what is without.[15] You created heaven and earth, and you have produced from them sun and moon and stars and planets, and, in the earth, trees and grasses and the Garden of Eden with wild beasts and birds and fishes and men, so that through the upper realms might be known, and how the upper and lower realms are governed, and how the upper and lower realms might be distinguished.[16]
There is none that knows anything of You, and besides You there is no singleness and no unity in the upper or the lower worlds, and You are acknowledged as Lord over all. As for all the sefirot, each one has a known name, and the angels are designated by them,[17] but You have no known name, for you fill all names, and You are the perfect completion of them all. And when You remove Yourself from them, all the names are left like a body without a soul.
You are wise but not with a known wisdom; You understand but not with a know understanding.[18] You have no know place, except that which tells the children of Your strength and power, and shows them how the world is conducted with Justice and Mercy,[19] which are righteousness and law, in accordance with the deeds of the children of men. Justice is Gevurah; law—the central pillar;[20] righteousness—holy Malkhut; scales of righteousness—the two pedestals of truth;[21] a righteous measure[22]—the sign of the covenant.[23]. It is all to show how the world is conducted; not that You have known righteousness which is Justice, nor a known law which is Mercy, nor any of these attributes at all.
Footnotes
The unity of En-Sof is not a numerical unity; it cannot be followed by a second. In this respect En-Sof is differentiated from the sefirot, each of which is one in a series of ten. ↩︎
The sefirot are stages in the development of En-Sof, which clothes itself in them. But they also serve as a covering that conceals its essence, since were it not for this covering the lower regions would not have the power to apprehend it at all. ↩︎
The light of En-Sof in the sefirot maintains their unity. Consequently, whoever assigns it to any one of the sefirot maintains their unity. Consequently, whoever assigns to any one of the sefirot an existence that is separate from, and independent of, the whole unified system denies, as it were, the unity of En-Sof itself. ↩︎
The sefirot are arranged according to a system in which there are two extreme points, Ḥesed and Din, and an intermediate point Raḥamin, where the two extremes meet. The part of this harmonious triad are regarded as "long", "short", and "intermediate". ↩︎
The sefirot of thw worlds beriyah, yeẓirah and asiyah [see above p.250] are the garments of the divine sefirot of the world of emanation. The sefirot of each of these above are looked upon as the body of those below them, and the garment of the those above them. ↩︎
The soul descends in a chain through the worlds of beriyah, yeẓirah and asiyah and according to the author of Tikkunei ha-Zohar, thet lower parts of the soul actually originate in these worlds. [See below pp. 713-714.] ↩︎
According to the structure of the human body. ↩︎
[I.e. the covenant of circumcision.] ↩︎
The mystery of speech, and there called the oral Torah, in contrast to Tiferet, which is the written Torah. It is possible that the reference here is to the mouth of the covenant, through which the divine influence descends. ↩︎
B.T. Berakhot 61a. [Ha-lev mevin. Both mevin and binah come from the same verbal root.] ↩︎
By this designation the last sefirah is connected to the first, through the mystical idea of "their end is fastened to their beginning". Hence the application to it of the scriptural phrase "it declares the end from the beginning". ↩︎
The strap that surrounds the brain, which is Ḥokhmah. ↩︎
The innermost part of Keter is the tetragrammatron, fully spelled out—Yod, He, Vav, He—i.e. ten letters in all, signifying the ten sefirot, which receive influence from the light of En-Sof, which illuminates the inner core of Keter. ↩︎
The inner light of Keter waters Tiferet, which is the emanation, and the lower sefirot, which are the arms and boughs of the tree. ↩︎
En-Sof lacks all likeness, not only of the nondivine substances (what is without) but also of the spiritual image of the sefirot (what is within). ↩︎
Contemplation of the creation in the lower world leads to a knowledge of how God governs the upper and lower realms, and to a recognition of their respective natures. ↩︎
At times the angles are designated by names reserved normally for the sefirot, which act through their power and mediation. ↩︎
The wisdom and understanding of En-Sof are essential to its nature, and not separate powers. The sefirot Ḥokhmah (Wisdom) and Binah (Understanding) are so called because the essentail wisdom and understanding of En-Sof works through them. ↩︎
The sefirot, which have a precise and defined nature, and which seem to delimit space, are no more a revelation to mankind of the forces that control the world. But one must not assign various separate attributes to En-Sof itself. ↩︎
Tiferet. ↩︎
Netẓacḥ and Hod ↩︎
[Lit. "a righteous hin—a measure of wheat. See Leviticus 19:36]. ↩︎
Yesod. ↩︎