{"id":244,"date":"2010-12-20T07:43:13","date_gmt":"2010-12-20T11:43:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ramchal.wordpress.com\/?p=244"},"modified":"2010-12-20T07:43:13","modified_gmt":"2010-12-20T11:43:13","slug":"sephirot-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/2010\/12\/20\/sephirot-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Sephirot (3)"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Sefer<\/em> Yetzirah<\/em> also likens the ten Sephirot<\/em> to ten fingers (1:3), thus alluding to God\u2019s \u201chand\u2019s-on\u201d approach to creation, in keeping with the statement that the \u201cheavens (are) the work of Your fingers\u201d (Psalms 8:4), and to His governance, as when an instance of His intervention is taken to be an act of \u201cthe finger of God\u201d (Exodus 8:19) [1].<\/p>\n

There are a number of explanations offered as to the significance of the term Sephira<\/em> itself. Some say that it refers to their sapphire-like purity, clarity, and luster, as the term is a cognate of Saphir<\/em>, the Hebrew for sapphire [2]; it\u2019s a cognate of Mispar<\/em>, number, in light of the abstract nature of both the Sephirot<\/em> and numbers themselves [3]; it\u2019s related to sippur<\/em>, to declare, as in \u201cthe Heavens declare God\u2019s Glory\u201d (Psalms 19:2) [4]; and more [5].<\/p>\n

______________________________________________________<\/p>\n

Notes:<\/p>\n

[1] \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Also see Sefer<\/em> Bahir<\/em> 138.<\/p>\n

[2]\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Ra\u2019avad\u2019s<\/em> comments to Sefer Yetzirah<\/em> 1:2, Zohar Chadash, Yitro<\/em>, p. 41b.<\/p>\n

[3]\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 (As opposed to the concrete nature of actually counted-out things) see Cordovero\u2019s Pardes Rimmonim<\/em> 1:1 and Gra\u2019s Yahel Ohr <\/em>(6d).<\/p>\n

[4] \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Sefer Bahir<\/em> 125.<\/p>\n

[5] \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 See Cordovero\u2019s Shiur Komah<\/em> 2 for other explanations.<\/p>\n

(c) 2010 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman<\/p>\n

Feel free to contact me at feldman@torah.org<\/a><\/p>\n

———————————————————-<\/p>\n

AT LONG LAST! Rabbi Feldman’s translation of Maimonides’ “Eight Chapters” is available here<\/a> at a discount.<\/p>\n

You can still purchase a copy of Rabbi Feldman’s translation of “The Gates of Repentance” here<\/a> at a discount as well.<\/p>\n

Rabbi Yaakov Feldman has also translated and commented upon “The Path of the Just” and “The Duties of the Heart” (Jason Aronson Publishers).<\/p>\n

Rabbi Feldman also offers two free e-mail classes on www.torah.org entitled “Spiritual Excellence<\/a>\u201d and \u201cRamchal<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Sefer Yetzirah also likens the ten Sephirot to ten fingers (1:3), thus alluding to God\u2019s \u201chand\u2019s-on\u201d approach to creation, in keeping with the statement that the \u201cheavens (are) the work of Your fingers\u201d (Psalms 8:4), and to His governance, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}