Sefer Yetzirah
Anonymous; translated by W. Wynn Westcott, 1893
The Book of Formation: the earliest surviving work of Jewish esoteric cosmology, describing creation through the ten sefirot and the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet.
- Composed
- Between the 2nd and 6th century CE
- Original language
- Hebrew
- In the SOL library
- 23 searchable passages
- Rights
- Public domain
What this text is
Sefer Yetzirah, the Book of Formation, is the oldest surviving text of Jewish esoteric cosmology, short enough to read in an evening and dense enough to have generated commentaries for over a thousand years. It describes the universe as formed through thirty-two paths: the ten sefirot, primal numbers or emanations, and the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet, which the text treats as the actual structural elements of reality.
Its date is genuinely uncertain: scholarly estimates range from the second to the sixth century CE, with traditions attributing its core to the patriarch Abraham. Every later school of Kabbalah, from the medieval commentators to the Zohar and beyond, builds on its vocabulary.
Why researchers read it
Sefer Yetzirah makes a precise structural claim: that creation proceeds through number and letter, through countable, combinable elements. SOL’s investigations into Kabbalistic cosmology and its points of contact with modern physics start here, because this is the tradition’s foundational document, not a later popularization.
The Three Mothers in the world are Aleph, Mem and Shin : the heavens'^''' were produced'^'^ from Fire ; the earth from the Water ; and the Air from the Spirit is as a reconciler between the Fire and the Water. 4. The Three Mothers Aleph, Mem and Shin, Fire, Water and Air are shown in che Year ; from the fire was made heat, from the waters was made cold, and from the air was produced the temperate state, again a media cor between them. The Three Mothers, Aleph, Mem and Shin, Fire, Water and Air are found in Man: from the fire was formed the head; from the water the belly ; and from the air was formed the chest, again placed as a mediator between the others. 5. These Three Mothers did He produce and design, and combined them ; and He sealed them as the three mothers in the Universe, in the Year and in Man — both male and female.
Sefer Yetzirah, Anonymous; translated by W. Wynn Westcott, 1893 · Public domain
Research that draws on this text
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