I posted this in general questions because I suppose there is a simple answer which I am missing, not being a Rabbinic scholar.
My question regards the Sefirot, supposedly the order of emanation is:
1)Spirit of the living God (Elohim)
2)Spiritual air (on which are hewn the letters)
3)Spiritual water
4)Spiritual fire
5) - 10) Up, down, East, West, North, South
Now as I understand the human mind - distinctions and hence separate concepts are only possible through language.
If man is truly created in God’s image I take the existence of all forms to require his word.
Now my difficulty is I cannot understand how Elohim and spiritual air can exist prior to space (Sefirot 5 -10). I am assuming that both are knowable in some sense to man. Surely there needs to be a void or space in which He emanated.
I make the assumption that space is formless from our point of view.
I’ll be the first to state that you’re getting into kabbalah here. I have never studied kabbalah. I have enough in “basic Judaism” with the Torah, Talmud and later Rabbinic writings) to deal with that will keep my decades quite full without getting involved in the overly “mystical.”
So, in short, I don’t know. I’m not even sure I fully understand your question.
I echo Zev. This is not “Judaism”, but kabalah, the main form of Jewish mysticism. And you’re not supposed to understand it. It’s like Zen, you’re supposed to sit back and contemplate the noise that a rock makes when it grows. The sefirot are not “logical” or “scientific”, they are emotional, mystical, incomprehensible and inscutable.
The sefirot or emanations are not distinct from God, so do not require God’s word to come into being – God did not create Himself, in any sense that our minds can grasp. And even in kabalah, one is not permitted to inquire into “how did God come into existence?”
Plus, my limited exposure to (and recollection of) kabalah would say that the order of emanation is NOT the same as the order of creation. So, I’m not sure exactly what you’re asking.
Your question, perfectly reasonable, is unlikely to find any definitive answer.
I’ll only contribute this:
“…I cannot understand how Elohim and spiritual air can exist prior to space (Sefirot 5 -10). …Surely there needs to be a void or space in which He emanated…I make the assumption that space is formless from our point of view.”
It is not a strictly logical necessity that an entity have (what we think of as) “space” in which to exist. “Eleven” is a kind of entity: it requires no such space. (And how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?) An absolutely transcendent being, absolutely superior to all else, requires nothing–“space” is something he has made that is “less than” him. So too spiritual air, water, and fire, which sound to me like metaphorical ways of speaking about modes of pure action, not kinds of things-in-space.
Also: I would argue that there is a concept of “spatiality” that is prior to the concepts of specific direction. (To advance another speculation…maybe “spiritual air/water/fire” are meant to signify, respectively, the three dimensions of spatiality–which are then elaborated as the opposed directions of items 5-10.)
lol, maybe you should understand that you’re dealing with religion and a set of myths. Trying to nitpick at its inconsistencies is like trying to nitpick at the inconsistencies in Start Trek. Sure, it is obvious to any fool that the startdate is clearly not the date itself but a hashed version of such a date (and also affected by spacetime warpings), neatly explaining why it does not seem to correspond to the intervals of time between episode #321 and #322 (i.e. http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_367.html), but is it really necessary to go to such length to explain something when it was simply made up off the top of some guy’s head anyway?
I don’t intend on discussing this at length in this forum, but I will say that what you have listed are not the 10 Sefirot. Don’t know where you got them from.
Heh, one amusing thing he relates is in a section entitled “The dangers of mystical reflection”. It tells the story of someone of insufficient fortitude who engaged in Kabbalistic reflection; a fire appeared and consumed him instantly. I suppose insanity is considered de rigeur…
In small aspects, but nothing resembling anything you’ve put forth. Try this for the general gist of things. [sub]This is not to endorse everything said in that article,which I’ve only skimmed briefly. I cite it here because they get the sefirot right)[/sub]
Of course, as with anything in kabbala, all terms and images used are only metaphors. Anyone who has not spent years studying talmudic and kabbalistic topics has no hope of understanding any of it, because they will not have the proper mindset to interpret the metaphor. Even then, you would really need a teacher who has an oral tradition, as opposed to merely studying texts. (Further, one of the fundamental principles of kabbala has always been that someone who is not extremely religious and pious has no hope of understanding the subject.)
