The Kabbalah: The Sefer Yetzirah Or The Book Of Creation

Justin Henry
11/23/14
Jewish Mysticism The kabbalah is a school of thought and branch of Judaism that seeks to truly know God Himself. The word kabbalah actually comes from the Hebrew word for "to receive". It was a collection of extended literature that analyzed Biblical texts and sought to establish direct contact with God. The Kabbalah itself is filled with many conepts and esoteric ideas, that although they have been passed down through the generations, they can often appear seperated and even conflicting. The Sefer Yetzirah, or the Book of Creation, contains the most basic mystical concepts and was the most important text of early Kabbalah. Dating to around 200 CE, post-talmudic, it states in its last chapter that an angel visits Abraham
Commonly arranged into a "Tree of Life" or Etz Chayim, the sefirot emanate with Keter (Crown) on top followed by both (Wisdom) and Binah (Understanding) like a canopy. These are the intellectual sefirot and are closer to Ein Sof (Infinity). Than there is Chessed (Kindness) and Gevurah (Power) which are closer to God's physical emanation and are followed by Tifferet (Beauty). Than Netzach (Endurance) and Hod (Splendour) followed by Yesod (Foundation) and finally ending with Schechina (Presence) which could be seen as the roots of the tree. All of the sefirot however are divided equally between masculine and feminine aspects. Each aspect is a different facet for humanity to expereince one God and follow a spiritual journey within ourselves. Divine Names of the God were something that became extremely important for the mystic for in the Bible, Moses asks God for His name and God replies with, "I am that I am". Due to the different combination of letters in Hebrew it led to the four-letter name, YHVH, or the Tetragrammaton. The pronounciation of this is commonly and even favored by Hebrew scholars to be "Yahweh". Jehovah is still used in some translations. "YHVH was pronounced only oncea year by the High Priest in the Temple, and it was pronounced Adonai. In normal religious context, YHVH is referred to with the term Hashem (The Name)." (Rosen
To him evil could be categorized by evil on a worldly scale and evil that were specific to mankind. Whenever God, the Ein Sof reduced himself he placed three perfect vessels, (the three upper sefirot), into a vacuum but the other lower seven sefirot could not survive the initial act. Luria's theory was called shevirat keilim or "smashing the vessels". This released both all the good in the world and klippot, which as described before was responsible for all of the evil due to imperfection. God meant for our souls to try to repair the damage left, so humanity isn't necessarily intrinsically evil but imperfect beings. To rectify the damage however, we must give ourselves to God and truly know him utilizing the sefirot. Adam Kadmon was a term used by early Kabbalists to describe the first human made by God, but Luria expanded the idea to include that a sort of refined matter came about during the process of tzimtzum and this matter was the material used for the rest of creation. From this idea of Adam Kadmon came the concept of the Golem. Some Kabbalists "thought that placing the correct name of God in an effigy might bring it to life." (Rosen