David Cowles
Oct 15, 2024
“Kabbalah kept the pre-Socratic tradition alive until it could be born anew in the Age of Aquarius.”
According to the ancient Jewish mystical tradition of Kabbalah, the Universe is ‘built’ on scaffolding that consists of 10 nodes (‘vertices’) connected by 22 paths (‘edges’). Identifying these nodes using our modern languages is a challenge and not every commentator agrees on how best to translate each term. Here’s one approach:
While the terminology can vary slightly between traditions the order of these nodes is invariable…and significant. The first three are predominantly conceptual and sit like a cornice (crown) atop the other, more physical, seven (body).
These 10 nodes (called Sefirot) are interconnected by a network of 22 pathways: 3 horizontal, 7 vertical and 12 diagonal – 3, 7, 12, three numbers with outsized importance in Judeo-Christian culture, theology, and spirituality.
Kabbalah maps virtually every aspect of lived experience onto these 10 Sefirot and their 22 connecting pathways (e.g. there are 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet). Parts of the body, hours of the day, days of the week, months of the year, angels, patriarchs, etc. all map onto Kabbalah’s universal logos.
For example, in terms of the human body, Keter is the head (cerebellum), Tiferet the heart, Yesod the procreative organs, and Malkhut the progeny, i.e. our ‘footprints in the sand’.
Fully explicating this system is literally the work of a lifetime. In this article, we will focus on the 7 verticals, the so-called Seven Pillars of Wisdom (T. E. Lawrence). These 7 are grouped into 3 ‘columns’ corresponding, roughly, to the feminine (3), the masculine (3), and the divine (4) aspects of reality.
The central column links God and the World: Godhead (Keter) through Beauty (Tiferet) and Foundation (Yesod) to Kingdom (Malkhut)…and back again. Keter represents the purely conceptual aspect of Universe, Malkhut the purely physical. Tiferet (Beauty) and Yesod (Sexuality) refer to the procreative process that unites the two.
Unlike Manhattan, Kabbalah has no one-way streets. Influences trickle down from Godhead, through Beauty and Foundation, into the World just as they bubble up from the World to Godhead. Remember the days when coffee ‘percolated’? Water at the base of the pot turned to steam at the top which trickled down through the grounds and left a delicious liquid residue on the bottom. The Tree of Life is modeled on a similar concept of process.
On the right side are the ‘masculine’ Sefirot: Wisdom (Chokmah), Love (Chesed), and Victory (Netzach); on the left side, the ‘feminine’: Understanding (Binah), Strength (Gevurah), and Splendor (Hod).
Such gender based characterizations may offend our contemporary sensibilities, but it is important to understand this terminology in the context of the ancient and medieval sociologies from which it rose.
It is also essential to understand that Kabbalah means neither of these gender designations literally. Gender is just one of the parameters it uses in building its map. We wouldn’t call French a sexist language just because it has gender specific articles (e.g. le and la), would we?
Kabbalah’s apparent hierarchical structure is also misleading. Panta Ra (Heraclitus): “Everything flows” …both ways. What trickles down bubbles up and vice versa.
Likewise, the apparent crystallization of process into self-contained Sefirot belies the more complex structure of Kabbalah. Pan in Panti (Anaxagoras): Everything in everything. Each Sefirah ‘contains’ or ‘reflects’ (think Leibniz’ Monads) the other 9, but each Sefirah predominately showcases one particular aspect of the life process.
So, Victory is in Understanding, Strength is a component of Love, etc. And of course, Keter (Godhead) and Malkut (World) are in all as all are in them. Understanding how each Sefirah contains the other Serifot is an important part of mystical practice.
A 20th century philosopher, Alfred North Whitehead, developed a cosmology consistent with Kabbalah. His ‘center column’ linked the Primordial (conceptual) Nature of God (Keter) and the Consequent (physical) Nature (Malkhut) through a series of ‘actual entities’ (events) that exhibit both the conceptual (Beauty) and the physical (Foundation) aspects of the divine nature (Keter).
Once again, with Whitehead as with Kabbalah, it is essential to note that influences flow both ways, down from Keter to Malkhut, up from Malkhut to Keter. Actual entities, the stuff of the Universe, originate in the contrast (the gap, Ginnungagap in Norse Mythology) between conceptual values and physical realities.
Actual entities inject divine values (e.g. beauty) into material reality and release physical reality into the mind of God. Whitehead’s analogous term for Yesod is ‘Superject’ and for Malkhut, ‘Objective Immortality’ (our ‘footprints in the sand’).
The procreative function (understood broadly) is jointly motivated by the conceptual appreciation of beauty and the physical recognition of need (desire). So our three central column ‘pillars of wisdom’ connect conceptual values (Keter) with appreciation (Beauty), appreciation with procreation (Foundation), and procreation with immortality (Malkhut).
Our remaining four ‘pillars’ connect the 3 masculine Sefirot and the 3 feminine Serot. These connections are somewhat less intuitive. For example, Wisdom (Chokmah) links with Love (Chesed) which links with Victory (Netzach), while Understanding (Binah) links with Strength (Gevurah) which links with Splendor (Hod).
These are what Whitehead would call ‘subjective forms’, i.e. ways in which the core process (above) might be experienced in different contexts.
To understand this, we need to dig deep into the ancient/medieval mindset. The feminine side is the more easily understood. Binah is the womb; it is in Binah (Understanding) that Wisdom gains application to the World. Strength and Splendor are two traits readily associated with the so-called ‘feminine ideal’; all together these Sefirot work to support the central procreative process.
The rationale for the masculine side of things is more obscure (surprise, surprise). Today at least, nobody would reasonably claim that masculinity enjoys a special connection to Wisdom or Love or Victory (Achievement)…no one who hoped to live beyond sunset that is.
I think it is more helpful to understand the gender terms as placeholders for the active and passive aspects of events. Strictly speaking, there are no active/passive relationships in Kabbalah. Everything takes place in the Middle Voice. As we say above, all process is reciprocal. However, the right and left ‘wings’ could be understood as the ‘active’ and ‘passive’ aspects of events that occur in the central column (between Godhead and the World).
The medieval system of Kabbalah bridges the gap between 5th century BCE pre-Socratic philosophy (Heraclitus, Anaxagoras, et al.) and 20th century CE Process Philosophy (Whitehead). While the West was mesmerized by Plato, Aristotle, Descartes and Kant, Kabbalah kept the pre-Socratic tradition alive until it could be born anew in the Age of Aquarius as Relativity, Holography, Quantum Mechanics, and Entanglement.
David Cowles is the founder and editor-in-chief of Aletheia Today Magazine. He lives with his family in Massachusetts where he studies and writes about philosophy, science, theology, and scripture. He can be reached at dtc@gc3incorporated.com
ress, Literary Journal Spring 2023.
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