Sefer Yetziyrah - a translation
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Can someone help to explain this part from chapter two for me?
"4. Twenty-two Foundation Letters: He placed them in a circle like a wall with 231 gates. The circle rotates forward and back. A sign for this thing: There is nothing good higher than Delight (ONG), and nothing evil lower than Plague (NGO).
- How? He refined, weighed, and transformed them each: Alef with all, and all with Alef; Beyth with all, and all with Beyth. They repeat cyclically and exist in 231 gates. Thus, all that is formed and all that is spoken emanates from the One Name. "
There's hardly anything of these parts that I understand. I don't get the 231 gates, nor the circle (or its rotating), nor Delight (ONG), or Plague (NGO) or how that leads to the conclusion that all emanates from the One Name. I hope someone can help!
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@Orione said
"Can someone help to explain this part from chapter two for me?
"4. Twenty-two Foundation Letters: He placed them in a circle like a wall with 231 gates. The circle rotates forward and back. A sign for this thing: There is nothing good higher than Delight (ONG), and nothing evil lower than Plague (NGO).
- How? He refined, weighed, and transformed them each: Alef with all, and all with Alef; Beyth with all, and all with Beyth. They repeat cyclically and exist in 231 gates. Thus, all that is formed and all that is spoken emanates from the One Name. "
There's hardly anything of these parts that I understand. I don't get the 231 gates, nor the circle (or its rotating), nor Delight (ONG), or Plague (NGO) or how that leads to the conclusion that all emanates from the One Name. I hope someone can help!"
It's a tough subject. The published work (available from College of Thelema) has extensive notes in the back nearly as lengthy as the translation itself. The intention here was only to give the translation.
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Ah, OK! I thought we could also discuss the meaning of the translation here, but I see now you meant for us to discuss the translation itself. As I have only read two other versions and have no knowledge of Hebrew, I'll step out of this discussion
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@Orione said
"Ah, OK! I thought we could also discuss the meaning of the translation here, but I see now you meant for us to discuss the translation itself. As I have only read two other versions and have no knowledge of Hebrew, I'll step out of this discussion
"Oh, we can take it several ways. I just didn't have time getting out the door this morning to open another document and compose a lengthy response, when the notes alone take multiple pages. The S.Y. is a very extensive study.
If you can focus your questions more specifically, possibly we could tackle them one at a time? Broad global questions like "WTF does all this mean?" tend not to get answers so much as laser-sharp specific questions
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Noted
I'm most intrigued by the 231 gates and why they are in a circular wall. Can you tell me a little bit more about that? -
@Orione said
"Noted
I'm most intrigued by the 231 gates and why they are in a circular wall. Can you tell me a little bit more about that?"The 231 Gates, as you may know, are all combinations of the 22 Hebrew letters taken two at a time.
Think of the comparison, first of all, to Tarot - a word that is an anagram of rota, "wheel." Tarot is a wheel.
In S.Y. the word I translated "circle" is GLGL, galgal, most simply meaning, “turning.” Functionally, this word may be translated as “circle,” “sphere,” “wheel,” or “cycle,” all of which have meaning in the present context. However, the phrase that follows, referring to a “wall,” determines the interpretation selected: the 22 letters are written in a circle.
One view is that a further meaning is that the recitation of these letter pairs is to be done in a "round."
You also asked previously about ONG and NGO. The text says, "There is nothing good higher than Delight (ONG), and nothing evil lower than Plague (NGO)" These two statements are called "a sign for this thing," i.e., for the discussion of the 231 gates. Oneg is used in Isaiah 58:14 to refer to an intimate relationship with God. Nega’a derived from oneg by the rotation of its letters: such a “plague” symbolizes alienation from the direct intimate relationship with God indicated by ONG, much in the way that the word “disaster” – literally dis-aster – means that one is “out of synch” with the stars.
The hint here given is more sophisticated than first appears. ONG and NGO both enumerate to 123, which is precisely the same sort of temurah of 231 as ONG is of NGO! The hint is more visible in Arabic numerals than Hebrew, but is sufficiently visible even in the latter.
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@Jim Eshelman said
"The published work (available from College of Thelema) ..."
Is there a link on the COT site to purchase this? I looked but couldn't find it anywhere. Thank you in advance.
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@skytoucher said
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@Jim Eshelman said
"The published work (available from College of Thelema) ..."Is there a link on the COT site to purchase this? I looked but couldn't find it anywhere. Thank you in advance."
At present, that one (a skinny little paper thing) is generally only circulated by local T.'.O.'.T.'. bodies when people show up in person to public events. (Always good to have some things out and available.)
But you can write to <!-- e --><a href="mailto:orders@thelema.org">orders@thelema.org</a><!-- e --> and ask if you can buy one. Someone will get back to you pretty quickly.
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Thank you for answering Jim. That is very interesting! I have been learning a lot from all kinds of information related to what you answered.
What interests me is that the Sepher Yetziyrah seems to imply that language was the creation of the divine through which everything else was created, but it seems that numbers (and certain mathematical laws) are integral to the divine. (I don't know how to express this very well, I hope you understand what I am saying.)
Yet at the same time, the language that has been created is very mathematical in nature and seems more of an entropic falling apart/detailing and restructuring of the numbers (to give them even more potential for expression and multiple layers etc.) than a completely new creation.And also, looking at it from the other side, it almost seems as if the decimal numeral system was already engrained in the Hebrew language.
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@Orione said
"And also, looking at it from the other side, it almost seems as if the decimal numeral system was already engrained in the Hebrew language."
Yes, as far as I can tell it was. A number like 93 would have been written TzG (Tzaddi Gimel), so the structure was decimal. There was also the form of Temurah called the Qabalah of the Nine Chambers (AIQ BKR).
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"The 231 Gates, as you may know, are all combinations of the 22 Hebrew letters taken two at a time."
Maybe I don't know that...
I thought it was the sum of all the major arcana. 1+2+3......= 231.
Or is that actually the same thing?
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Same thing
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I feel like smacking my forehead and exclaiming
" I could have had a V8"Or well, maybe to the seventh power....
Or fifth..I did catch the wheel, sphere rota explanation here as well.
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Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
Great Work!
When I got to Chapter 4, I knew I'd come to the right place.
I will have to compare this to Kaplan's translation soon, simply for curiosity's sake. I often compare many translations of a given work to see how wide the variance can be and which resonates the deepest in me.
Love is the law, love under will.