100.03 Kabbalistic Parallel (pps.67-69)

A neo-kabbalistic variation of “infinite holy potential” would posit that the En Sof-the infinite, the root of the Ten Sefirot, “the Root of all Roots”²²⁷— demanded greater expression. Within the obscurity of mystical doctrine, one factor is clear: the En Sof– the PrimaVInfinite Divine-had “neither qualities nor attributes.”²²⁸

Our neo-kabbalistic development would posit that the kabbalist’s Ten Sefirot, the next level of Divine emanation, demanded more tangible expression.²²⁹ The Ten Sefirot are variously described as the Ten Spheres, Regions, Faces, Manifestations, Crowns, Stages, Garments, Modes, Branches, Powers, Emanations-of God? The Ten Sefirot are “the ten spheres of Divine manifestation in which God emerges from His hidden abode.”²³¹ They are most commonly enumerated as follows:

One interpretation, which converges with our study, is that they are “the ten stages of the inner world, through which God descends from the inmost recesses down to His revelation in the Shekinah.²³³ We would recast the Sefirot as primal quests for potentiality which enable Infinite Holy Potential to “traverse the bridge” from “emptiness” to “Somethingness” and mandating Creation. They are the “transition from En Sof to creation.”²³⁴ There is, indeed, a significant current in kabbalistic doctrine which links the Sefirot with the concept of potentiality.²³⁵

Every Sefirah is transformed from a general attribute of God into what the Kabbalists call a Partsuf, a “countenance” of God, which

²²⁷ See Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, pp. 207, 208, 214.

²²⁸ See ibid., p. 207. Cf. Maimonides, Guide 3:20. Cf. Matt’s “introductidon” to Moses de Leon, in Zohar, p. 33.

²²⁹ See Hirsch, Chapters of the Fathers on Avot 5:1. “By ten utterances was the world created …”

²³⁰ Note Agus, The Evolution of Jewish Thought, p. 287.

²³¹ See Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, pp. 213-214.

²³² See ibid., pp. 213-214.

²³³ Ibid., p. 214.

²³⁴ Matt, Zohar, p. 34.

²³⁵ See Scholem, Origins of the Kabbalah, pp. 8 1-84, 437.
Cf. ibid., p. 450. “In their conception of the emanation, the kabbalists of Gerona unite the two motifs of the emergence from potentiality to actuality on the one hand, and of the maturation of the organic process, on the other.”
CF. Azriel of Gerona, Commentary on Talmudic Aggddoth, p. 110 (lines 13-14 in particular), and idem, Perush Eser Sefirot, p. 4 (sec. gimel).
On a very closely related track, the Book of Bahir deals with the aeons, or powers, of God. Scholem notes: “Each middah [aeon] is a particular spiritual potency.” Ibid., p. 82.

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