Engraved, Hewed, Sealed: Sefirot and Divine Writing in the Sefer Yetzirah

Giulio Busi At its appearance in the Sefer Yetzirah, the word sefirah is enveloped in mystery. The beginning of the book where the idea of sefirot is introduced still represents today one of the most difficult passages in all of Hebrew literature. Even though, from the second chapter on, the discussion of the 22 letters can be generally followed and analyzed, the real cultural meaning of the sefirotic dynamic has so far resisted scholarly inquiry. Notwithstanding a large amount of new research on the Sefer Yetzirah, the most influential discussion about the etymology and the setting of the sefirot is probably still the one offered by Scholem at the beginning of his Origins of the Kabbalah. Scholem is, as usual, very clear in his presentation. According to him, the ten primordial numbers [Urzahlen, in the original German text] are called sefirot a Hebrew noun, newly formed here, that bears no relation to the Greek word sphaira, but is derived from a Hebrew verb meaning to count.1 It is worth mentioning here that Scholems statement, according to which the word sefirah is an innovation by the author of the Sefer Yetzirah, reflects his extremely early dating of the book.2 In fact, in the Origins of the Kabbalah, Scholem attributed the book to the 2nd3rd century. He revised this idea in his article in the Encyclopaedia Judaica, where he writes that it was composed between the 3rd and 6th century.3 Without entering here into the
1 G. Scholem, Origins of the Kabbalah, ed. Z. Werblowski, trans. A. Arkush, Philadelphia-Princeton 1987, p. 26 (cf. Ursprung und Anfange der Kabbala, Berlin 1963, p. 22). In fact, in defining the relationship between sefirah and mispar, Scholem echoes a similar statement by Leo Baeck, who wrote in 1938: hier [im Sefer Yetzirah] an Stelle des ublichen Mispar Zahl dieser besondere Terminus Sefirah gebildet worden ist (L. Baeck, Ssefer [sic] Jezira, in Aus drei Jahrtausenden, Tubingen 1958 (first ed.: 1938), pp. 256271: 257). G. Scholem, s.v. Yezirah, Sefer, in Encyclopaedia Judaica, vol. 16, Jerusalem 1972,
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discussion about the chronology of the work, I will just note that, even if we would like to accept the earliest date proposed by Scholem, his statement is questionable, because the word sefirah is used already in the tractate Zavim of the Mishnah4 and cannot therefore be considered an innovation of the Sefer Yetzirah. Scholem continues, stating that the new word sefirah, instead of the normal Hebrew term for number, mispar, shows that the author does not mean ordinary numbers but the metaphysical principles of the universe or stages in the creation of the world.5 In fact, affirming the equivalence between sefirot and archetypal numbers, Scholem summarizes a tradition which started with Saadyah Gaon,6 at the beginning of the 10th century. In his commentary on the Sefer Yetzirah, Saadyah explains that the sefirot must be seen as the ten unapproachable numbers machzura ],7 which represent the basis of reality. This was the first [adad step of a philosophical, or quasi-philosophical evaluation of the sefirot as numbers, echoed, among others, in the Qayrawan commentary to the Sefer Yetzirah attributed to Dunash ibn Tamim,8 in Shelomoh ibn Gabirols Fons Vitae,9 in Yehudah ha-Lewis Kuzari10 and in the comcols. 782788. mZavim I.2: li-sefirat zovo. Scholem, Origins, p. 27. al-Qirqisan, who was probably writing a few years before Saadyah, Also Yaqub in the longer version of his Tafsr Be-reshit, hints at the numeric symbolism of Sefer Yetzirah: See B. Chiesa, Filologia storica della Bibbia ebraica, vol. 1, Brescia 2000, pp. 212219. 7 Commentaire sur le Sefer Yesirah ou Livre de la Creation par le Gaon Saadya de Fayyoum, pub. and trans. M. Lambert, Paris 1891, pp. 13 and 23 (Arabic text) and pp. 29 and 44 (Fr. trans.). On the meaning of machzura, which could also be rendered as having a limit or defined (Lambert translates dix nombres fermes), see Sh. Pines, Points of Similarity between the Exposition of the Doctrine of the Sefirot in the Sefer Yetzira and a Text of the Pseudo-Clementine Homilies. The Implications of this Resemblance, in Proceedings of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities 7/3 (1989), pp. 63142: 81. 8 Cf. G. Vajda, Le commentaire kairouanais sur le Livre de la Creation , Revue des etudes juives 107 (19461947), pp. 99156: 115, 126. 9 Avencebrolis (Ibn Gebirol) Fons vitae ex arabico in latinum translatus ab Iohanne Hispano et Dominico Gundissalino, ed. C. Baeumker, Munster 18921895, p. 63: dictum est quod compositio mundi non evenit nisi ex lineamento numeri et litterarum in aere. 10 Kitab al-Radd wa-l-Dall f l-Dn al-Dhall, ed. D.H. Baneth, Jerusalem 1977, p. 175 (IV.25); Book of Kuzari by Judah Hallevi, trans. from Arabic by H. Hirschfeld, New York 1946, p. 203: The mystery of the number is in the number ten, as is without anything else; ten and not nine, expressed in the passage: Ten Sephiroth

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mentary by Yehudah ben Barzilay.11 Whereas, from the Middle Ages on, the kabbalists usually saw the levels of the divine emanation in the sefirot of the Sefer Yetzirah, during the 19th century modern scholars, starting at least with Heinrich Graetz12 and Adolf Jellinek,13 went back to Saadyah Gaon, viewing the beginning of the Sefer Yetzirah as a numerological speculation with a clear neo-Pythagorean flavor. To give only a few examples, the interpretation of the sefirot as numbers was adopted by Lazarus Goldschmidt,14 Philipp Bloch,15 Leo Baeck,16 Philip Merlan,17 Ithamar Gruenwald18 and Shlomo Pines.19 In the following pages, I will try to explore a new hypothesis on the term sefirah and to discuss it also in the context of the fragmentary evi-

ten and not eleven. 11 Yehedah ben Barzilay, Perush Sefer Yetzirah, ed. S.J. Halberstam and D. Kaufmann, Berlin 1885, p. 144 (cf. Pines, Points of Similarity, p. 92). 12 H. Graetz, Gnosticismus und Judenthum, Krotoschin 1846, pp. 102132. 13 A. Jellinek, Beitrage zur Geschichte der Kabbala, Erstes Heft, Leipzig 1852, p. 15: Der Ausdruck Eser Sefirot blimah kann ursprunglich nichts anders bedeuten als abstracte, ungenannte Zahlen. 14 L. Goldschmidt, Das Buch der Schopfung, Frankfurt a.M. 1894, p. 80 note 7, writes that the sefirot are die abstrakten Zahlen, die ein Nichts und zugleich ein Etwas sind. 15 Ph. Bloch, Die judische Mystik und Kabbala, in Die judische Litteratur seit Abschluss des Kanons, eds. J. Winter and A. Wunsche, 3 vols, Trier 18941896: vol. 3, p. 245. 16 Baeck, Ssefer [sic] Jezira. Baeck identifies the sefirot with the uberwesentlichen Zahlen of Proclus. 17 Ph. Merlan, Zur Zahlenlehre im Platonismus und im Sefer Yezira, in Journal of the History of Philosophy 3 (1965), pp. 167181. 18 I. Gruenwald, Some Critical Notes on the First Part of the Sefer Yezira, in Revue des etudes juives 132 (1973), pp. 475512: 484: it appears that sefirot is only a different form of sefurot, those counted. A few sentences later, however, Gruenwald adds: Unfortunately, what SY has to say about the sefirot as numbers is so vague and undefinable, and even self-contradictory, that it would be quite daring to identify it with anything known to us from the teachings of this or that school. 19 Pines, who revised Scholems theory on the origin of Sefer Yetzirah and pointed out quite a few similarities between the book and the Pseudo-Clementine Homilies, writes that the term sefirot appears to be derived from the verb safor, to count. As we noted above both Saadias commentary and the Qayrawan commentary regard the sefirot as numbers (Points of Similarity, p. 85). According to Pines, the sefirot resemble very much the six Extensions (ektaseis) mentioned in the Pseudo-Clementine Homilies. In fact, a first comparison between the Sefer Yetzirah and the Pseudo-Clementine (including the notion of ektaseis) was made already by Graetz, Gnosticismus.

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dence of Judeo-Hellenistic literature. I am aware that this is only a first attempt in a new direction. The correspondence between sefirot and numbers is based on the assumption that the word, in the Sefer Yetzirah, means counting, as often in rabbinic literature, too. However, my main point is that a second meaning of sefirah exists and is clearly documented by Late Antiquity texts. It is precisely on the basis of this forgotten semantic value of sefirah, that the whole first chapter of the Sefer Yetzirah can be reinterpreted and I hope put in a clearer historical context. It seems to have escaped scholarly attention that sefirah is used in talmudic literature also to mean recording, writing. For instance, in bGittin 21b, the Rabbis discuss the requirement of a Get and specify which kinds of written documents are valid. Here they use the locution li-sefirat devarim to refer to the writing down of the circumstances, that is to say: they use sefirah to connote the general idea of writing as opposed to any specific method of keeping records. My assumption is that sefirah is used in the Sefer Yetzirah precisely in the meaning of act of writing and, therefore, has no primary connection with number.20 I will try to clarify this idea in a threefold analysis. First of all, through an inquiry into the actual wording of the Sefer Yetzirah, to prove that the sefirot as writings fit the linguistic evidence of the book better than as numbers. In the second stage, I will look for parallels to a divine writing in Hebrew literature and, thirdly, I will extend the research to include Jewish literature in Greek. With reference to the linguistic content of the book, the hypothesis that the sefirot correspond to a sequence of divine acts of writing seems to be confirmed, first of all, by the use of the verbs chaqaq and chatzav, to engrave and to hew. If we put the expression act of writing in the place of the word sefirah , many sentences can be easily under20 R. Yose the Galilean says [a Get is] not [to be written] on anything living or on foodstuff. What is the reason of R. Yose the Galilean? As it has been taught: [From the word] sefer I understand [that the husband must give the wife] a book. How do I know that any thing will serve the purpose? Because it says, and he writes her, that is to say, any form of written document If so, why does it specify book? To show that, just as a book is not animate and does not eat, so the document used for the Get must be inanimate and not a thing which eats. What do the Rabbis [who allow this, say to this]? [They can reply:] If the text had written be-sefer [in a book], your deduction would be correct, but as it writes sefer, it refers only to the writing down of the circumstances [li-sefirat devarim] (I quote from the Soncino translation, with minor changes). Compare bSukkah 24b.

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stood. We read, for instance, that through the second act of writing (sefirah), He engraved and hewed the four directions of heaven;21 through the third act of writing, He engraved and hewed Tohu and Bohu, mud and clay;22 through the fourth, He engraved and hewed the throne of glory, the Ofannim, the Serafim, the Chayyot ha-qodesh and the Angels of Service.23 From the fifth sefirah on, instead of chaqaq and chatzav, the author of the Sefer Yetzirah uses the verb chatam, to seal. So we read that, through the fifth, He seals the above,24 through the sixth He seals the below,25 and so on. Here, too, the understanding of sefirah as an act of writing clarifies the sense of the sentences. The meaning is, that through these last six acts of writing (sefirot), God labels the directions of space. At this point, it is worth remarking that, starting from the idea of sefirah as number, Scholem finds it difficult to explain the meaning of chaqaq and chatzav. On this subject, he writes that the precise terminological meaning that the author gave to the verbs haqaq and hasab, which belong to the vocabulary of architecture, can be interpreted in different ways.26 It looks clear that the impossibility of somehow linking the act of engraving with the abstract idea of number induced Scholem to question the meaning of the Hebrew verbs, which, however, is quite evident, as we have seen already. To continue with the semantic analysis, it must be pointed out that none of the processes connected with the sefirot is qualified by numerological statements. No link is established between the various divine engravings and hewings and the intrinsic quality of a number. For instance, the four directions of the sky, produced through the second sefirah are not qualified by the properties of number two; nor are Tohu and Bohu, the mud and clay originated through the third sefirah, related to any symbolical value of number three, and so on. Of course, the sefirot-writings of the Sefer Yetzirah can be numbered, since they

21 SY, par. 12. The text of the Sefer Yetzirah [abbreviated SY] is quoted according to the long recension, ed. I. Gruenwald, A Preliminary Critical Edition of the Sefer Yezirah, in Israel Oriental Studies 1 (1971), pp. 132177. For the English translation I often made use of idem, Some Critical Notes. 22 SY, par. 13. 23 SY, par. 14. 24 SY, par. 15. 25 Ibid. 26 Scholem, Origins, p. 27.

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are stated to be ten as the fingers,27 ten and not nine, ten and not eleven28 and it is said that their measuring unit is ten with no end.29 To the author it seems important to repeat the symbolical value of their being ten, but it seems also evident that they can be counted just like any other objects30 whether symbolical ones or not without being numbers themselves.31 If the arguments so far discussed are sound, the expression eser sefirot belimah which recurs so frequently in the first chapter of the Sefer Yetzirah and has aroused so many speculations can be translated ten acts of writings without anything, that is to say, ten immaterial writings. Such immaterial acts of writings seem to allude to a first stage of the creation, during which the Divine Scribe engraved and hewed the invisible reality, by a pure abstract process. According to the author, after this first sequence of ten fundamental but immaterial writings, a more concrete divine scripture through letters developed and gave rise to the different levels of the material world. One question must now be raised, that is, how such a conception of the divine writing as a creative act could be placed in the context of the Jewish culture of Late Antiquity. In other words: is there actually further textual evidence that confirms the internal linguistic arguments deduced from the book itself? The most obvious example of divine writing is, of course, the text inscribed on the two tablets of the Law, which, according to Exodus, was written by God himself. Twice the Hebrew Bible repeats the direct connection between the tablets and God, specifying that they were written with the finger of God and were the work of God and the writing was the writing of God, engraved upon the tablets (Exod. 31:18, 32:16). In fact, a certain similarity between the writing on the biblical tablets and the sefirot of the Sefer Yetzirah can be detected. First of all, both are engravings, even if expressed by different words, charut in Exodus, and
27 SY, par. 3. 28 SY, par. 4. 29 Ibid. Gruenwald, Some Critical Notes, p. 488, renders: their measuring unit is ten ad infinitum. 30 In one instance, the author of the Sefer Yetzirah even hints at the wordplay between sefirah and sofer: and before One what can you count [mah attah sofer]? (SY, par. 6). 31 While accepting their derivation from li-spor, to count, also Y. Liebes, Torat ha-yetzirah shel Sefer Yetzirah, Jerusalem Tel Aviv 2000, p. 1314 points out that the sefirot are devoid of any clear numeric connotation.

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chaqaq and chatzav in the Sefer Yetzirah. As has already been pointed out, in the aggadic literature, too, both roots, chaqaq and chatzav, are used in connection with the tablets. In particular, in Mechilta de-Rabbi Yishmael we read: They [i.e., the Jews] were seeing a word of fire coming out of the mouth of the Gevurah and being hewed on the tables, as it is said: The voice of the Lord hews flames of fire (Ps. 29:7).32 On the other hand, the tablets contain ten commandments which, according to some Jewish traditions, were divided into two groups of five.33 In a similar way, the ten sefirot in the book are five against five.34 It stands to reason that the pattern of the tablets could have played a role in shaping the idea of the sefirot in the Sefer Yetzirah, both in their number and in their engraved nature. However, even if the Aggadah attests a broad speculation on the mysterious shape and material of the stone tablets,35 no evidence remains as far as I know of any cosmogonic value of their writing as a creative process.36 In order to find a theory of the creation being an act of divine engraving and writing, we must extend our research to the field of JudeoHellenistic literature. In fact, it is in the work of Philo of Alexandria that engraving attains the importance of a fundamental cosmogonic act. According to Philo, the creation of the world took place in two stages. As
32 Mechilta de-Rabbi Yishmael, eds. H.S. Horovitz, I. Rabin, p. 235 (already pointed out by Gruenwald, Some Critical Notes, pp. 501502); cf. also Sifre on Deuteronomy, ed. A.A. Finkelstein, p. 399; Yalqut Shimoni, Eqev 854. 33 See the Hebrew sources quoted by L. Ginsberg, The Legends of the Jews, vol. 6, Philadelphia 1968, p. 49. Cf. also Philo, Dec. 50: We find that He divided the ten into two sets of five [eis duo pentadas] which he engraved [enecharaxe] on two tables, and the first five obtained the first place, while the other was awarded the second (Philos texts except for De opificio mundi are quoted, with minor alterations, from the translation by G.H. Whitaker, F.H. Colson and R. Marcus in the Loeb Classical Library, 12 vols., London and Cambridge, Mass. 19261962). 34 SY, par. 3. 35 A selection of sources in Ginsberg, loc. cit. 36 However, the symbolic link between the first tablets and creation is attested by a Christian author, who lived between the 2nd and the 3rd centuries and is known for his wide use of Philos works. In his Stromata, Clemens Alexandrinus writes: There is no need to say here that the number ten is holy. If the written tablets are the work of God, it is clear that they show conformity with the physical creation. By the finger of God it is meant the power of God, through which the creation [ktisis] of heaven and earth has been performed. The tablets can be considered symbols of these two [elements]. The writing of God and the forms [eidopoiia] stored up in the tablets signify the creation of the world (Stromata VI. 16, 133. 13).

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a first step, God created the ideal intelligible cosmos (kosmos noetos) and then, on the basis of this abstract sketch, the corporeal world perceptible to the senses (kosmos aisthetos). In many passages, the ideal structure of reality is defined by Philo through the image of a carving which outlines a first purely intellectual level of being. The second stage is often expressed through the act of labelling. Even if Philos imagery is not always consistent, we may assume that he envisaged the process of the two stages of creation as God acting through an invisible seal. As the supreme chiseller, He engraved the Logos as a seal, and then used it to label the unformed matter.37 Philo does not express this idea in a systematic way. Rather, according to his method, he develops it much more as an exegetic tool, stressing different points as required by the biblical passages. For instance, commenting on the Greek text of Genesis 2:4 (This book is that of the origin of heaven and earth, when it came into being), he writes: Book is Moses name for the Logos of God in which the formation of all else has been inscribed and engraved [biblion de eireke ton tou theou logon, oi sumbebeken engrafesthai kai encharattesthai tas ton allon sustaseis].38 In his tractate On the Creation of the Cosmos, he explains the same passage, saying that: This is the book of the Genesis does it not clearly present here the incorporeal and intelligible ideas, which are in fact the seals of the completed product perceived by the senses?.39 Other passages elucidate how, thanks to the engravings impressed by the ideal seals, the material world receives its order and harmony. So we read, for instance, in the tractate On Dreams, that the good offspring is engraved with inscriptions, and stamped with seals differing one from another, but all of them genuine, the blending and combination of their proper marks producing a harmony like that of music.40 A very clear statement about the role of the primordial sketch in the economy of the creation is to be found in a text relating to the first day of Genesis. Here, Philo uses the word paradigm instead of seal, but both the verb and the context suggest that the preparation of a model resulted from a kind of immaterial carving. In fact, Philo describes God
37 On the seal imagery in Philo, see D.T. Runia, Philo of Alexandria and the Timaeus of Plato, Amsterdam 1986, pp. 163164; Philo of Alexandria, On the Creation of the Cosmos according to Moses, Introduction, translation and notes by D.T. Runia, Leiden 2001, pp. 139 and 141. 38 Leg. I,19. 39 Opif. 129 (On the Creation of the Cosmos, transl. by Runia, p. 80). 40 Somn. 202.

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as stamping in advance the intelligible cosmos and using it to produce actual creation: For God understood in advance that a beautiful copy would not come into existence apart from a beautiful model Therefore, when he had decided to construct this visible cosmos, he stamped in advance [proexetupou] the intelligible cosmos [kosmos noetos], so that he could use it as an incorporeal and most god-like paradigm and so produce the corporeal cosmos.41 This set of images has a clear platonic flavor, but is reshaped by Philo in a quite original way. In fact, a very important source of the seal imagery can be traced in Platos Theaetetos, where memory is described as a kind of wax on which the happenings are impressed like traces of seals. In Platos Timaeus, on the other hand, matter is conceived as a receptacle, suited to receive the ideal patterns. Plato uses the image of matter as a natural moulding-stuff.42 After Plato, the seal imagery developed in two main directions. On the one hand, Stoic philosophy expanded the psychological dimension of the symbol, saying that representations are imprints left by objects on the soul.43 On the other hand, the definition of ideas as invisible seals became a recurrent feature in Middle Platonism and is attested among others by Plutarch and Apuleius.44 Philo, while being well aware of Platonic and Stoic theories45 expressed a new synthesis, in accord with
41 Opif. 16 (On the Creation of Cosmos, transl. by Runia, p. 50). 42 According to Plato, matter, is laid down by nature as a moulding-stuff [ekmageion] for everything, being moved and marked by the entering figures, and because of them it appears different at different times. And the figures that enter and depart are copies of those that are always existent, being stamped [typothenta] from them in a fashion marvellous and hard to describe (Tim. 50c). 43 Cf. esp. Sextus Empiricus Adv. Math. VII 227228 (cf. Stoicorum veterum fragmenta, ed. H.F.A. von Arnim, 4 vols., Leipzig 19031924: vol. 1, p. 108 no. 484; vol. 2, pp. 22 no. 56). The theory of the seal-like impressions was advocated by Cleanthes and opposed by Chrysippus. 44 Plut. Mor. 373AB, 1024C; Apul. De Plat. 193: cf. W. Theiler, Philo von Alexandria und der Beginn des kaiserzeitlichen Platonismus, in Parusia. Studien zur Philosophie Platons und zur Problemgeschichte des Platonismus. Festgabe fur J. Hirschberger, ed. K. Flasch, Frankfurt a.M. 1965, pp. 199218: 204; H. Dorrie, Von Platon zum Platonismus. Ein Bruch in der Uberlieferung und seine Uberwindung . Opladen 1976, p. 30; J. Dillon, The Middle Platonists. A Study of Platonists 80 B.C. to A.D. 220, rev. ed., London 1996 (1st ed. 1977), p. 200; Runia, Philo and the Timaeus, p. 163. 45 Philo refers to Platos Theaetetos at Her. 181: For the soul is a block of wax, as one of the ancients said, and if it is hard and resistant it rejects and shakes off the attempted impressions and inevitably remains an unformed mass, whereas if it

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Jewish theology, and therefore linked the engraving with the creative act of God. Because of the lack of evidence about Judeo-Hellenistic theology, it is impossible to ascertain whether this theory is a personal one of Philos or whether it belongs to a wider Alexandrine milieu. In any case, it seems evident to me that the anonymous author of the Sefer Yetzirah offered speculations about the immaterial engraving of God which are quite close to Philos theories. My hypothesis is that the interpretation of the sefirot as an act of writing brings to light a hitherto unsuspected parallel between the Sefer Yetzirah and Philo. With this parallel, I do not want to suggest any direct chronological link between Philo and the Sefer Yetzirah. I would just like to point out that the idea of a divine cosmogonic writing does find an echo in Philos Greek work. Since the obscurity which surrounds the Sefer Yetzirah is caused mainly by the isolation of its ideas from the mainstream of rabbinic culture,46 the possibility of a Jewish parallel, albeit expressed in Greek, enhances our chances of understanding it. If we now look at the actual Sefer Yetzirah text, we will see that the Philonic seal theory sheds new light on many aspects of it. First of all, the way in which the verbs chaqaq, chatzav and chatam, are used in the Sefer Yetzirah seems to reflect a carefully structured Logos dynamic. No verb at all is used to refer to the first act of writing (sefirah), the Spirit of the living God (ruach Elohim chayyim), which thus seems to be viewed as the immaterial tool of the divine chiselling. The pair, chaqaq and chatzav, are employed to qualify the second, third and fourth act of writing, i.e., the carving out of the three species of Logos: spirit (or pneuma; ruach in Hebrew), water (mayim) and fire (esh). It stands to reason that this phase broadly corresponds to the preparation of the Logos-seal, or paradigm, in Philo. Then, with the seal that He has formed, the divine Demiurge labels the six spatial directions. That is why the verb chatam is used for the last six sefirot. In other words, the sequence chaqaq, chatzav, chatam implies the realization of a divine seal and then its use for stamping space. Obviously, the highly poetical style of the Sefer Yetzirah leaves ample room for fluctuating images, which can be only partially structured according to a logical sequence. Nevertheless, some of the poetic qualifiis docile and reasonably submissive it allows the imprints to sink deep into it, and thus reproducing the shape of the seal preserves the forms stamped upon it, beyond any possibility of effacement. 46 See the masterly analysis by J. Dan, The Religious Meaning of Sefer Yezirah [Heb.], in Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Thought 11 (1993), pp. 735.

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cations of the sefirot are consistent with the description of the Logos that we know from Philo. When the author of the book seems to hint at the sefirot with the biblical quotation And the living creatures were running to and fro (Ezek. 1:14),47 he probably gives a Hebrew flavor to a well-known property of the Logos: the pneuma. As Philo reminds us, the pneuma was conceived by the Stoics also as an invisible link with the world, for it kept pervading reality continuously. Cohesion, writes Philo, is pneuma ever returning to itself. It begins to extend itself from the centre of the body in question to its extremes, and when it has reached the outermost surface it reverses its course till it arrives at the places from which it first set out.48 Philo continues to stress the importance of this double course of cohesion and quotes, as an example, runners who reach a goal and then come back. The sefirot in the Sefer Yetzirah can be therefore understood as the acts of writing the Logos, which is primarily conceived as Spirit-pneuma, then transformed into water and fire and finally expanded in space. It is noteworthy that the Sefer Yetzirah attests the alternate symbolism of book and seal, which we already encountered in Philo. As in the Alexandrine philosophers work, the engraved Logos is both a sfragis (seal) and a biblos (book); also the author of the Sefer Yetzirah affirms that God created his world in three books.49 Even if the reason for the number three is not easy to explain,50 the basic link between the carving of the Logos and its being written down in the divine book is evident. To sum up, the inner linguistic analysis of the Sefer Yetzirah and the comparison with the work of Philo lead us to interpret the sefirot as an act of writing, and their dynamic as a Logos theory in Hebrew garb.

47 SY, par. 5. 48 Deus 35 (cf. Stoicorum veterum fragmenta, vol. 2, p. 149 no. 458). 49 SY, par. 1. According to Gruenwald, Some Critical Notes, p. 480, this paragraph was added by a later editor. I believe that any attempt to trace back the redactional structure of the Sefer Yetzirah, in the present state of philological research on the book, is quite inconclusive. 50 A highly tentative hypothesis could be that the three books are: i) the immaterial engraving of the sefirot, ii) the cosmic writings through the letters and iii) the actual Torah.

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