the year. . . the twelve months, viz.: Nisan, Ijar, Sivan, Tamus, Ab, Elul, Tishri, Cheshvan or Marcheshvan, Kislev, Tebet, Shebat, Adar.
In man . . . the organs of sight, hearing, smelling, talking, taste, copulating, dealing, walking, thinking,
They are so organized by God as to form at once a province, and yet be ready for battle, i. e., they are as well fitted for harmonious as for dissentious action. "God has placed in all things one to oppose the other; good to oppose evil, good to proceed from good, and evil from evil; good to purify evil, and evil to purify good; the good is in store for the good, and the evil is reserved for the evil" (VI, 2). "The twelve are arranged against each other in battle array; three serve love, three hatred; three engender life, and three death. The three loving ones are the heart, the ears and the mouth; the three hating ones: the liver, the gall, and the tongue; but God the faithful King, rules over all three systems. One (i. e., God) is over the three; the three are over the seven; the seven are over the twelve, and all are joined together, the one with the other" (VI, 3).'
We also learn that the twenty-two letters, though a small number, by their power of "combination" and "transposition," yield an endless number of words and figures, and thus become the types of all the varied phenomena in the creation. "Just as the twenty-two letters yield two hundred and thirty-one types by combining Aleph (i. e., the first letter) with all the letters, and all the letters with Beth (i e., the second letter), so all the formations and all that is spoken proceed from one name" (ch. II, 4). To illustrate how these different types are obtained we will state that by counting the first letter with the second, the first letter with the third and so on with all the rest of the alphabet, we obtain 21 types; by combining the second letter with the third, fourth, etc., we get 20 types; the third letter combined with the fourth, etc., yields 19 types; finally the twenty-first combined with the last letter yields 1 type. In this way we get as the Hebrew table shows:
21+20+19+18+17 + 16 + 15 + 14 + 13+ 12 + 11 + 10+9+8+7 + 6 + 5 + 4 + 3 + 2 + 1=231; or
ab ag ad ah av az ach at ai ak al am an as etc. bg bd bh bv bz bch bt bi bk bl bm bn bs etc. gd gh gv gz gch gt gi gk gl gm gn gs etc. dh dv dz dch dt di dk dl dm dn ds etc. hv hz hch ht hi hk hi hm hn hs etc.
The infinite variety in creation is still more strikingly exhibited by permutations, of which the Hebrew alphabet is capable, and through which an infinite variety of types is obtained. Hence the remark: ''Two letters form two houses, three letters build six houses, four build twenty-four, five build a hundred and twenty houses, six build seven hundred and twenty houses;14 and from thenceforward go out and think what the mouth cannot utter and the ear cannot hear" (IV, 4). A few examples may serve as illustration.
Two letters form two houses, by using the first two letters of the Hebrew alphabet, a b, in the following manner:
1 = ab
2 = ba
Three letters, a, b, g, build six houses, namely:
1 = abg; 2 = agb; 3 = bag; 4 = bga;
5 —gab; 6 = gba.
Four letters, a, b, g, d," build twenty-four houses, viz.:
1 = abgd 13 = gabd
2 = abdg 14 = gadb
3 = agbd 15 = gbad
4 = agdb 16 = gbda
5 = adbg 17 = gdab
6 = adgb 18 = gdba
7 = bagd 19 = dabg
8 = badg 20 = dagb
9 = bgad 21 = dbag
10 = bgda 22 = dbga
11 = bdag 23 = dgab
12 = bdga 24 = dgba
The Book of Creation closes with the statement : "And when Abraham our father had beheld, and considered, and seen, and drawn, and hewn, and obtained it, then the Lord of all revealed Himself to him, and called him His friend, and made a covenant with him and with his seed; and he believed in Jehovah, and it was computed to him for righteousness. He made with him a covenant between the ten toes, and that is circumcision; between the ten fingers of his hand, and that is the tongue; and He bound two-and-twenty letters on his tongue, and showed him their foundation. He drew them with water, He kindled them with fire, He breathed them with wind (air) ; He burnt them in seven; He poured them forth in the twelve constellations'' (ch. VI, 4).
Romantic Cosmology.—The examination of the contents of the Book of Jezirah proves that it has as yet nothing in common with the cardinal doctrines of the Cabala, as exhibited in later works, especially in the Zohar, where speculations about the being and nature of the Deity, the En Soph15 and the Sephiroth, which are the essence of the Cabala, are given.
To the period of the Book of Jezirah belongs the remarkable work which in the Amsterdam edition of 1601 is entitled: "This is the book of the first man, which was given to him by the angel Raziel." In this work the angel Raziel appears as the bearer and mediator of astrological and astronomical secrets, and shows the influence of the planets upon the sublunary world. To the same period belongs the Midrash Konen, a kind of romantic cosmology (newly translated into German by Wunsche in Israels Lehrhallen, III, Leipsic, 1909, pp. 170-201).
With the thirteenth century begins the crystallization of the Cabala, and Isaac the Blind (flourished 1190-1210) may be regarded as the originator of this lore. The doctrines of the Sephiroth16 taught in the Book Jezirah are further developed by his pupils, especially by Rabbi Azariel (died 1238), in his "Commentary on the Ten Sephiroth, by Way of Questions and Answers," an analysis of which is given in Jellinek's Beitragc cur Gcschichte dcr Kabbalah, Leipsic, 1852, Part II, p. 32 f.
In this commentary Azariel lays down the following propositions :
1. The primary cause and governor of the world is the En Soph (i. e., a being infinite, boundless), who is both immanent and transcendent.
2. From the En Soph emanated the Sephiroth which are the medium between the absolute En Soph and the real world.
3. There are ten intermediate Sephiroth.
4. They are emanations and not creations.
5. They are both active and passive.
6. The first Sephirah is called "Inscrutable Height" (rum maalah) : the second, "Wisdom" (chokma) ; the third, "Intelligence" (binah) ; the fourth, "Love" (chesed) ; the fifth, "Justice" (pa-chad) ; the sixth, "Beauty" (tipheret) ; the seventh, "Firmness" (nezach) ; the eighth, "Splendor" (hod) ; the ninth, "the Righteous in the Foundation of the World" (zadik ye sod olam) ; and the tenth, "Righteousness" (zedaka).
The first three Sephiroth form the world of thought; the second three the world of the soul ; and the four last the world of body—thus corresponding to the intellectual, moral and natural worlds.
That Isaac the Blind must be regarded as "the Father of the Cabala," is acknowledged by some of the earliest and most intelligent Cabalists themselves. And the author of the cabalistic work entitled Maarechcth haelohuth, said to be a certain Perez of the second part of the thirteenth century, frankly declares that "the doctrine of the En Soph and the Ten Sephiroth is neither
