Sephirot - Ten Sephirot

Ten Sephirot

The "Sefirot" (סְפִירוֹת), singular "Sefirah" (סְפִירָה), literally means "counting"/"enumeration", but early Kabbalists presented a number of other etymological possibilities from the same Hebrew root including: sefer (text), sippur (recounting a story), sappir (sapphire, brilliance, luminary), separ (boundary), and safra (scribe). The term sefirah thus has complex connotations within Kabbalah.

The Sephirot are considered revelations of the Creator's Will ("ratzon"), and they should not be understood as ten different "gods" but as ten different ways the one God reveals his Will through the Emanations. While in Cordoveran Kabbalah, Keter (The Divine Will) is listed as the first Sephirah, it is an intermediary above consciousness between God and the other, conscious Sephirot. The Sephirot are emanated from the Divine Will, because Kabbalah sees different levels within Keter, reflecting God's inner Will and outer Will. The innermost, hidden levels of Keter, also in some contexts called "The head/beginning that is not known", are united above the Sephirot with the Ein Sof (Divine essence). It is not God who changes but the ability to perceive God that changes. This difference between the "Ma'Ohr" ("Luminary"-Divine essence) and the "Ohr" ("Light") He emanates is stressed in Kabbalah, so as to avoid heretical notions of any plurality in the Godhead. In its early 12th-century dissemination, Kabbalah received criticism from some Rabbis, who adhered to "Hakirah" (medieval Jewish philosophy), for its alleged introduction of multiplicity into Jewish monotheism. The multiplicity of revealed emanations only applies from the perspective of the Creation, and not from the perspective of the infinite Divine essence.