The Sephirot: Ten Emanations of the Divine
The ten sephirot are the principal symbols of Kabbalah, and they form the structure of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life. The word sephirah means “number” or “emanation”, and the ten sephirot are the ten divine potencies through which the boundless light of the Ein Sof becomes manifest as the world. Each sephirah has a divine name, a meaning, an archetype, and a contemplative quality, and the sephirot together are the principal objects of Kabbalistic meditation. This article takes each of the ten in turn, in descending order from Keter to Malkuth, and gives the divine name, the meaning, the archetype, and a one-line contemplation.
The standard scholarly treatments are the relevant sections of Gershom Scholem’s On the Kabbalah and Its Symbolism (1965), Moshe Idel’s Kabbalah: New Perspectives (1988), and Daniel Matt’s The Essential Kabbalah (1995) and The Zohar: Pritzker Edition (2004–2017). The standard Hermetic reference is Israel Regardie’s The Golden Dawn (6th ed. 2001). For a fuller treatment of the structure of the tree, see the mystical Tree of Life. For a beginner’s introduction, see what is the Kabbalistic Tree of Life. For the wider doctrinal context, see Kabbalah and the mystical Tree of Life.
A note on the archetypes given below: the sephirotic tradition has its own archetypal vocabulary, drawn from the Bahir, the Zohar, the Lurianic corpus, and the Hasidic homilies. The “archetype” lines are taken from the classical Kabbalistic literature where they exist, and from the modern Hermetic and Jungian literature where the classical sources are silent. The reader should hold the two vocabularies lightly, as parallel rather than identical. The “Contemplation” lines are original to this article; the classical Kabbalistic practices are devekut (cleaving) and hitbonenut (contemplative gazing), and the standard practical manual is Aryeh Kaplan’s Meditation and Kabbalah (1982).
Keter — the Crown
Divine name: Eheieh (I Am), from the name revealed to Moses at the burning bush (Exodus 3:14).
Meaning: the Crown, the first emanation, the pure will of the divine. Keter is the first stirring of the Ein Sof, beyond all attributes. In the Lurianic system, Keter is the first of the Partzufim, the Lurianic “faces” of the divine.
Archetype: the Ancient of Days, the first of the divine, the hidden unity — a Danielic image (Daniel 7:9) that the Kabbalistic tradition uses for Keter.
Contemplation: rest in the stillness before thought.
Chokhmah — Wisdom
Divine name: Yah (YH), the short form of the Tetragrammaton.
Meaning: Wisdom, the flash of insight, the first stirring of differentiation. In the Lurianic Partzufim, Chokhmah is associated with Abba, the “Father” face of the divine.
Archetype: in the classical sources, the “image of God” and the “first sage”; in the modern Hermetic and Jungian literature, the “wise old man” (senex). The two vocabularies are parallel rather than identical.
Contemplation: receive the flash before it becomes an idea.
Binah — Understanding
Divine name: YHVH Elohim (the Lord, the Gods).
Meaning: Understanding, the womb that receives and gives form to wisdom. Binah is the receptive and shaping power, the great mother of the divine. In the Lurianic system, Binah is Imma, the “Mother” face.
Archetype: in the Bahir and the Zohar, the “mother of all living” and the “upper mother” (Ima Ila’a); in the modern Hermetic and Jungian literature, the “Great Mother” of Erich Neumann’s The Great Mother (1955).
Contemplation: hold what has been given until it takes shape.
Chesed — Mercy
Divine name: El (God), the generic Semitic divine name.
Meaning: Mercy, the expansive force of divine love. Chesed is the first of the moral sephirot, and the first of the sephirot of the divine heart. It is the giving, the expansion, the grace that pours out.
Archetype: the merciful king, the loving father, the gracious.
Contemplation: open the hand without counting the cost.
Geburah — Severity
Divine name: Elohim Gibor (the Gods of Might).
Meaning: Severity, the restraining force of divine judgment. Geburah is the counter-pole to Chesed, the force of discrimination and judgment. In the Hasidic tradition, Geburah is the “left hand” of God, the necessary restriction that gives form to the expansion of Chesed.
Archetype: the warrior, the judge, the stern ruler.
Contemplation: cut away what is not, and keep what is.
Tiferet — Beauty
Divine name: YHVH Eloah ve-Da’at (the Lord, the God of Knowledge).
Meaning: Beauty, the harmony that unites mercy and severity. Tiferet is the central sephirah of the moral triad, the heart of the divine, the “higher self” of the Western esoteric tradition. In the Lurianic system, Tiferet is Zeir Anpin, the “Short Face” or “Impulse” — the central configuration of the divine persona.
Archetype: the divine child, the slain god, the lover.
Contemplation: rest in the harmony that holds the opposites.
Netzach — Victory
Divine name: YHVH Tzabaoth (the Lord of Hosts).
Meaning: Victory, the enduring force of nature, of emotion, of the long patience. Netzach is the first of the lower triad, and it stands for the natural, instinctive, emotional life.
Archetype: in the classical sources, the persistent and the enduring; in modern Hermetic usage, the lover, the artist, the persistent one.
Contemplation: hold to the long path, and the end will come.
Hod — Splendor
Divine name: Elohim Tzabaoth (the Gods of Hosts).
Meaning: Splendor, the rational and articulate force, the form-giving intellect. Hod is the counter-pole to Netzach, the force of clear thought, of language, of communication. It is the magician’s sephirah, the sephirah of the Word.
Archetype: in the classical sources, the eloquent and the articulate; in the modern Hermetic tradition, the scholar, the magus, the eloquent one.
Contemplation: name what is, and let the form appear.
Yesod — Foundation
Divine name: Shaddai El Chai (the Almighty, the Living God).
Meaning: Foundation, the place of formation, the place of dreams and images. Yesod is the sephirah of the lunar, of the subtle body, of the image-world. It is the place in which the higher sephirot are gathered before they descend into Malkuth.
Archetype: in the classical sources, the tzaddik, the righteous one, the foundation; in the modern Hermetic and psychological literature, the “trickster” (Paul Radin, 1956) and the “dreamer” — both are 20th-century formulations.
Contemplation: see the image, and know that it is an image.
Malkuth — Kingdom
Divine name: Adonai ha-Aretz (the Lord of the Earth).
Meaning: Kingdom, the manifest world, the place in which the sephirotic light becomes matter. Malkuth is the lowest of the sephirot, the only one that is in direct contact with the manifest world. The classical tradition teaches that even the highest sephirah is present in Malkuth in its own way. In the Lurianic system, Malkuth is Nukva, the “Female” or “Bride” of the Zeir Anpin face.
Archetype: the sovereign, the manifest world, the kingdom.
Contemplation: attend to what is, for it is the body of the divine.
The sephirot in practice
The classical practice is to begin at Malkuth, the manifest world, and to ascend, sephirah by sephirah, until the practitioner rests, however briefly, in the Ein Sof. The classical “Lightning Flash” order of the sephirotic descent (Keter → Chokhmah → Binah → Tiferet → Chesed → Geburah → Netzach → Hod → Yesod → Malkuth) is the standard meditative sequence, and the reverse motion, the “path of return” (Malkuth → Yesod → Hod → Netzach → Tiferet → Geburah → Chesed → Binah → Chokhmah → Keter), is the path of the meditative ascent.
The contemplation of the sephirot is also the foundation of the Hermetic Qabalah, in which the sephirot are used as the structural diagram of Western ritual magic. For more on the Hermetic Qabalah, see Hermetic Qabalah and Western esotericism.