Talk:Sephirah (Kabbalah)

Where did you get the pic from? It looks good but some hebrew names are mispelled there. Is that on purpose? This seems to be better http://www.jwmt.org/v1n3/images/treeoflife/treeoflife.jpg --Anton Adelson, Western Australia 18:57, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)

An anon added the following text to the Sephiroth disambig page. It obviously belongs here somewhere (if it isn't some made-up nonsense or from a comic book or something) but I know nothing about this stuff so I can't integrate it into the article. DopefishJustin (&#12539;&#8704;&#12539;) 02:39, Oct 24, 2004 (UTC)
 * Sephiroth, The ~ A superior group of angels divided into groups of Good and Evil. The Holy Sefiroth are comprised of ten primary angels of the Cabala.  Each is a manifestation of God, representing the ten divine characteristics that rule and shape the world.  They are Kether (Crown), Chokmah (Wisdom) Binah (Understanding), Chesed (Mercy), Geburah (Strength), Tiphereth (Beauty), Netzach (Victory), Hod (Splendor), Jesod (Foundation), and Malkuth (Kingdom).  Variations of Sephiroth are Sefirot and Sefiroth.   Archangels of the Holy Sephiroth include Metatron, Raziel, Zadkiel, Kamael, Michael, Haniel, Raphael, and Gabriel.  The Unholy Sephiroth are Chaigidiel, Gamaliel, Gamchicoth, Golab, Harab, Serap, Lilith, Sammael (The Serpent of Eden), Sathariel, Thaumiel, and Togarini.

Comments
Awesome, new picture. (they had a horrible one up before)

The emanation of the tree of life is not directly related as well. That comes from the zohar and should be pointed out at least

The Enumerations is not in every kabbalahistic documents. I do not believe it was mentioned in the bahir or raziel. and I know its not in the yetzirah. I have not yet read the zohar so it could be mentioned there (and probably is, I have seen it in lurianic literature). so... That should be mentioned. Alot of my original complaints where actualy fixed, so awesome. Although it would be nice to see some additions to the "da'ath" thing. The yetzirah clearly says "ten sepiroths, not nine, not eleven". And I have never seen da'ath in the bahir or raziel either. I believe that it was caused by the mistranlation of the "ten sepiroths of nothing" by kircher to be "ten sepiroths and nothing" But I have only read that in passing. Although, I have never seen da'ath mentioned in any pre-kircher documents. Jaynus _Izanagi 23:11, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Inadequate
This article does little more than give a superficial explanation of a symbolic picture. Among classic kabbalistic works, there are many different understandings of the connection between the s'firot, and only two of them are even alluded to in the article (for some others, the image in the article would be inappropriate). I think this article needs one of those "This article needs to be cleaned up" templates. HKT 23:10, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

False Etymology
The Hebrew root SFR is unrelated to the Indo-european root of the Greek word "sphaira", namely *sqer-, whose basic meanings are "to jump" "to be rotunde", "to move in circles". English "cipher", on the other hand is unrelated to "sphaira", being the arabic word "&#347;ifr" (with emphatic |&#347;|, "&#347;ad") meaning "zero". Since I am not proficient in Hebrew as I am in arabic, I can't say if Hebrew "sefirah" and arabic "&#347;ifr" are etymologicaly unrelated (since they appear to be semanticaly related in a certain way), but I have observed that Hebrew "tsade" corresponds to arabic emphatic sibilant "&#347;ad"; thus I would expect "*tsefirah" corresponding to "&#347;ifr" on purely phonological grounds. I would be grateful to any scholar of semitic languages clearing this matter up for me.--194.63.235.165 11:43, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

While the Hebrew word "s'phira" does seem to be unrelated to the Greek "s'phaera" ("s'phira" in Hebrew usually means counting (n.)) one finds instances in Midrashic literature where the word "s'phaera" is used in Aramaic text and is translated as ball. Where the word "s'phaera" is used in Aramaic, it either shares the consonental spelling of "s'phira" (Samekh-Phay-Yud-Reish-Hei), or the end Hei is replaced by an Aleph (Samekh-Phay-Yud-Reish-Aleph). It does not, however, share the same vowels, as a tzeirei would replace a khirik under the Phay consonant (changing "s'phira" to "s'phaera"). It seems that "s'phaera" in Midrashic literature is probably derived from Greek. HKT 15:41, 17 May 2005 (UTC) In Greek philosophy, the galaxy was understood based on a stationary Earth model, i.e. Earth was the reference point. To deal with the complications that arise from such a system, the Greeks operated with the cosmological celestial spheres model. This was the basis for the Greeks' relation to the planets, which they believed represented their gods. In some views of Kabbalah, the Greeks were correct that the system of celestial spheres represents something meaningful, but that the meaningful representation relates to "s'phirot/s'phaerot," not "gods." According to this, one can understand the basis for the Greek etymology in "s'phaera" (which is how the word should be pronounced, according to the meaning that relates it to celestial spheres). However, "s'phira" could be understood to indicate counting, as well. Since the "s'phirot" are progressively diluted emenations of spirituality (or progressively refined, depending on which way you count), the meaning countings can be applied to "s'phirot" (which is how the word should then be pronounced, having nothing to do with Greek). We actually find a correlation between the "s'phirot" and a period of counting 49 days between Passover and Shavuot(a biblical command in Judaism)(49 representing a progressive count of all possible combinations of a mix of two "s'phirot," given a seven "s'phira" system, i.e. Chesed of Chesed, Gevura of Chesed, etc.). HKT 16:22, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

Two Models
I think perhaps this article should go into a bit more detail about the two different models of the Sephirot, The Ari and Toledano models. The Ari is the more commonly refered to model, but the Toledano is actually more pertinent to our times. The Ari has as the first three sephirot: Keter, Chokhma, Binah; The Toledano has: Chokhma, Binah, Da'at.

Cinnarot?
The term "cinnarot" shows up twice in the last section, though there is no wiki link. I am certainly not knowledgable in this area, but I am unfamiliar with the word. A wikipedia search turns up only this page for the term, and the only google results I can get for it appear to be mirrors of this article. Is this a misspelling? If it is an actual bit of terminology it should be explained or wikilinked to an explanatory article. -- Xastic 21:14, 20 September 2005 (UTC)