mikeh wrote:
Huck wrote,
I don't understand. Why are the six directions there twice?
There are planets in the Sephiroth group involved, and there are planets involved in the letter group (at least in the common interpretation). As I see from the Wescott translation (my Kaplan book is on the run, I don't find it), that the SY of Wescott relates twice to directions, once in context of the Sepher Yetzirah group (I, 11+12), once in the letter group and there for the doubles (IV, 2).
11. He selected three letters from the simple ones, and sealed them as forming his great Name, I H V and he sealed the universe in six directions.
Five.- He looked above, and sealed the height, with I H V.
Six.- He looked below, and sealed the deep, with I V H.
Seven.- He looked forward, and sealed the East, with H I V.
Eight.-He looked backward, and sealed the West, with V H I.
Nine.- He looked to the right, and sealed the South, with V I H.
Ten.-He looked to the left(, and sealed the North, with H V 1.
(IV, 2): These seven double letters point out the dimensions, East, West, height, depth, North, South[these are six directions), with the holy temple in the middle[that's thev 7th], sustaining all things.
It uses in "I, 11" some letter trick with the holy name (IHV), possibly cause he (God in the assumption of the author) wished to refer to some numbers (10, 6, 5). Likely the author assumed, that God created a protected world. For the essential mathematical idea that seems not of importance. Possibly there was the idea of 7 cubes, from which one was the center, and the 6 others were attached to the 6 sides of the center cube, so that each of the six cubes had 5 outsides (5 senses ?) and one side leading back to the center cube. Who knows? At least they reached, that 10+6+5= 21 and that's nearly 22.
Where does the SY mention a "center"?
The "holy temple in the middle", quoted above. But "six directions" automatical imply a center.
Why are there 6 numbers for 3 elements?
You need 3 dimensions for "six directions" and three dimensions create space. Well, one could call these dimensions "elements". Mostly fire is the (first) positive, water the (second) negative, and air the (3rd) balancing element between the both others. The Chinese give 1 to the Water, Fire gets a 2 and Wood=Air gets the 3 and further you've metal (4) and earth (5).
SY takes Holy Spirit as the first, air as the second, water the next and fire as the last.
These are differences in deeper philosophy. For some time the Chinese imagined a tortoise, which carried the world. Other views made a polytheism and some a monotheism, and others thought of 3 basic components like father, son and holy spirit. Things are complicated in these different world views. We have a Hubble telescope, a big bang, and atoms and quarks and Antimaterie and Relativitätstheorie and that's also not easy. Galaxies and black holes, and billions of them. Whow .... :-) ... and we've Uranus, Neptun und Pluto and Rosetta and Curiosity, not to forget. And internet to talk about all this.
And aren't the elements part of the first 32?
... :-) ... somehow yes. Somehow not. But we get here complications ... :-)
With the system of SY and also with the I-Ching we're in the world of the ideal systems, which were serving mankind to answer three questions:
1. How did it happen, that it came to this world?
2. How is this world now?
3. How will this world end?
.... so the natural triad requesting past, present and future
.
If you have an idealistic system like "32 ways of system" or "64 hexagrams", you can build ideas, how this system developed (1.), and one will need "elements" or "ideas of elements" to explain this process.
Once this is described and cleared, the system exists as an sort of institution ("2."), for "32 ways of wisdom" or "64 hexagrams". Then the system still contains positions, which refer to the elements, but they are not really "elements", as they were understood in the situation of "1."
For instance the trigram Kan (in 1., looks 010) is understood as a specific form of "water", and the hexagram 29 (as part of "2."), also called "Kan" (looks 010010, so the trigram Kan is doubled), is also related to water, but it is as a hexagram considered as something different.
Kan (hexagram) is considered in SY a part of the mother-letter (lets assume Aleph), which corresponds to air (not water). Why to air and not to water? Cause the opposite of Kan is Li (101) and Li (as hexagram 101101) means fire. In the "32 ways of wisdom"-concept opposites are united (so Kan with Li) and the result is "Air" in the world of ideas of the SY. The Chinese also knew about the complementary hexagrams (naturally) and they had a name for this (pang-tung according Helmut Wilhelm, in contrast to other methods of pair-building called tsien-gua and giau-gua), but they didn't spend so much attention to it (as far I know ... but there are thousands of not translated manuscripts about I-Ching in their libraries, and what's all inside likely nobody knows about).
The Chinese hadn't the idea with the "32 ways of wisdom", although they knew the 32 complementary hexagrams, possibly cause they hadn't an excessive monotheism and hadn't an alphabet with 22 letters, but many thousands other signs to write with.
The problem with the future ("3.") became then a speciality for Cordovero and Isaac Luria, answered by the Adam Cadmon theories. As the Jews had suffered in 1492 and ideas appeared, that the world would be finished soon, the Kabbala seached for answers. China, the center of the world as the Chinese saw it, hadn't the problem of the Jews.
What do the simples correspond to except zodiac signs (since you want them twice)?
SY has (Wescott) ...
CHAPTER V
1. The simple letters are twelve, namely: He, Vau, Zain, Heth, Teth, Yod, Lamed, Nun, Samech, Oin, Tzaddi, and Quoph; they represent the fundamental properties, eight, hearing, smell, speech, desire for food, the sexual appetite, movement, anger, mirth, thought, sleep, and work. These symbolize also twelve directions in space: northeast, southeast, the east above, the east below, the northwest, southwest, the west above, the west below, the upper south, the lower south, the upper north, the lower north. These diverge to all eternity, and an as the arms of the universe.
2. These twelve letters, he designed, formed, combined, weighed, and changed, and created with them the twelve divisions of the heavens (namely, the zodiacal constellations), the twelve months of the year, and the twelve important organs of the frame of man, namely the right and left hands, the right and left feet, two kidneys, the liver, the gall, the spleen, the intestines, the gullet, and the stomach.
3. Three mothers, seven double and twelve simple, these are the twenty-two letters with which I H V H Tetragrammaton, that is our Lord of Hosts, exalted, and existed in the ages, whose name is Holy, created three fathers, fire and spirit and water, progressing beyond them, seven heavens with their armies of angels; and twelve limits of the universe.
And what about the body parts? Where do they come in?
In Chapter V/2 above. I agree, that the SY made not much words about it.
It seems like all you are doing is repeating the first 32, with nothing new except the 6 directions, arbitrarily, since there aren't 6 simples, doubles, or mothers?
Likely you're inspired about the second 32, which watch about the other 32 in the quote of the Bahir. But the Bahir is no the SY. The SY knew, how one could reduce the 64 to 32 (which is obvious by the structure of letters and Sephiroth), but it talks only about the 32 pairs, not about the 64. The Bahir in its quote gives an indication, that there was something with a 64 in context to the 32 ways of wisdom ... that's all. Other texts with some direction to Kabbala forget about a "64" as far I know.
Generally the first kabbalists had problems with orthodox Jews. 1170 in Provence, that was a hot bed of religious opinions with Cathars. Cathars stood (possibly) for some Dualism, and Dualism was attacked, not only by Christians, but also by orthodox Jews, perhaps cause it pointed too much to a Good and Bad side of the world ad the fight of the both sides in Zoroasrism and Gnosis. The math of the binary tree looks very much like "dualism". Perhaps they had fears about it. And it disappeared, and the impression became popular, that the 32 ways of wisdom had come from nothing. Perhaps it had some relevance in "secret teachings", but possibly it simply became "unknown", more or less.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narbonne
In the 11th and 12th centuries, Narbonne was home to an important Jewish exegetical school, which played a pivotal role in the growth and development of the Zarphatic (Judæo-French) and Shuadit (Judæo-Provençal) languages. Jews had settled in Narbonne from about the 5th century, with a community that had risen to approximately 2000 in the 12th century. At this time, Narbonne was frequently mentioned in Talmudic works in connection with its scholars. One source, Abraham ibn Daud of Toledo, gives them an importance similar to the exilarchs of Babylon.[4] In the 12th and 13th centuries, the community went through a series of ups and downs before settling into extended decline.
Narbonne was not a major city o the Cathars, but it belonged to them.