The Sefirot: A Hasidic Perspective on the Spiritual Journey by Yaacov David Shulman (c) 2004Yaacov David Shulman 6022 Highgate Drive Baltimore, MD 21215 (410) 358-8771
[email protected] 3 The Sefirot INTRODUCTION Elijah began to expound: “Master of the world, You are one, and beyond all accounting. “You are higher than the highest, more hidden than the most hidden. “No thought can grasp You at all” (Patach Eliyahu). Beyond all universes, beyond all thought, beyond all conception, is the one primal Being Whom we call God. “The true nature of this Being,” teaches Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto, “cannot be understood by anyone besides Him. All that is known about Him is that He is totally perfect” (Derech Hashem 1:2). The Jewish mystical tradition teaches that in order to create the many planes of being that culminated in our world, God brought into being ten sefirot, or vessels. These sefirot consecutively filtered God’s spiritual light so that universes separate from Him could emerge. In this way, God could bestow love on others. He could be 4 The Sefirot revealed to others as a giving king (cf. Likutei Halachot, Yoreh Deah, Tolaim 4:5). These ten sefirot are still active, for God continues to recreate all of creation at every moment. The pattern of the ten sefirot exists on many levels. Every object and every process in the world is a working through of the energies of the sefirot. Every Jewish practice and holiday presents a theater for the energies of the sefirot to flow. In addition, like an infinite hologram, each sefirah contains within it all the other sefirot (LH, Hoshen Mishpat, Geneivah 4:6).