Sefer Yetzirah (The Book of Formation) · 1 of 7 · tr. Wynn Westcott
Section 1a
Wescott, tr.
(1887) CHAPTER 1 1.
In two and thirty most occult and wonderful paths of wisdom did JAH the Lord of Hosts engrave his name: God of the armies of Israel, ever-living God, merciful and gracious, sublime, dwelling on high, who inhabiteth eternity.
He created this universe by the three Sepharim, Number, Writing, and Speech.
2.
Ten are the numbers, as are the Sephiroth, and twenty-two the letters, these are the Foundation of all things.
Of these letters, three are mothers, seven are double, and twelve are simple.
3.
The ten numbers formed from nothing are the Decad: these are seen in the fingers of the hands, five on one, five on the other, and over them is the Covenant by voice spiritual, and the rite of Circumcision, corporeal (as of Abraham).
4.
Ten are the numbers of the ineffable Sephiroth, ten and not nine, ten and not eleven.
Learn this wisdom, and be wise in the understanding of it, investigate these numbers, and draw knowledge from them, fix the design in its purity, and pass from it to its Creator seated on his throne.
5.
These Ten Numbers, beyond the Infinite one, have the boundless realms, boundless origin and end, an abyss of good and one of evil, boundless height and depth, East and West, North and South, and the one only God and king, faithful forever seated on his throne, shall rule over all, forever and ever.
6.
These ten Sephiroth which are ineffable, whose appearance is like scintillating flames, have no end but are infinite.
The word of God is in them as they burst forth, and as they return; they obey the divine command, rushing along as a whirlwind, returning to prostrate themselves at his throne.
7.
These ten Sephiroth which are, moreover, ineffable, have their end even as their beginning, conjoined, even as is a flame to a burning coal: for our God is superlative in his unity, and does not permit any second one.
And who canst thou place before the only one?
8.
And as to this Decad of the Sephiroth, restrain thy lips from comment, and thy mind from thought of them, and if thy heart fail thee return to thy place; therefore is it written, "The living creatures ran and returned," and on this wise was the covenant made with us.
9.
These are the ten emanations of number.
One is the Spirit of the Living God, blessed and more than blessed be the name of the Living God of Ages.
The Holy Spirit is his Voice, his Spirit, and his Word.
10.
Second, from the Spirit he made Air and formed for speech twenty-two letters, three of which are mothers, A, M, SH, seven are double, B, G, D, K, P, R, T, and twelve are single, E, V, Z, CH, H, I, L, N, S, O, Tz, Q, but the spirit is first among these.
Third, Primitive Water.
He also formed and designed from his Spirit, and from the void and formless made earth, even as a rampart, or standing wall, and varied its surface even as the crossing of beams.
Fourth, from the Water, He designed Fire, and from it formed for himself a throne of honor, with Auphanim, Seraphim, Holy Animals, and ministering Angels, and with these he formed his dwelling, as is written in the text "Who maketh his angels spirits and his ministers a flaming fire." (Psalm civ.
The Hermetic axiom that the structure of the cosmos is reflected at every scale — 'as above, so below; as within, so without' — making each level a legible map of the others.
The link between the ten numbers and the fingers of the hands suggests a correspondence between micro and macro.
A chain of divine beings or principles flowing downward from a single transcendent source (the One or the Father), each level less perfect than the one above.
The text describes a flow from the Spirit through Air, Water, Fire, and Earth, forming a chain of creation.
The doctrine of the universe as boundless and without center or circumference, populated by innumerable worlds — Bruno's rejection of the closed Aristotelian sphere; the divine and the cosmos as ontologically infinite.
The Sephiroth are described as having 'boundless realms, boundless origin and end' and being 'infinite'.
Disciplined inward attention — sitting, focused, or open-awareness practice — as a stand-alone term that umbrellas active_contemplation, inner_silence, and dhyana-style sitting.
The instruction to 'investigate' and 'draw knowledge' implies a contemplative practice.
The human being as a small-scale image of the entire cosmos; the body, soul, and intellect mirroring the structure of the heavens and the divine — distinct from correspondence in that it makes the human the privileged mirror.
The ten numbers are 'seen in the fingers of the hands', linking human anatomy to divine structure.
Iamblichean ritual practice that engages the gods directly through consecrated material symbols and actions, on the premise that divine power descends into properly prepared matter — distinct from philosophical contemplation alone.
Creation through letters and numbers implies a theurgical mechanism for sustaining existence.