Kabbalah Group in SF, Week of May 11, 1995

Reproduction from Z. ben-Shimon ha-Levi's The Way of the Kabbalah.

This was our first week as a Kabbalistic group, following several weeks in which we had talked about various topics regarding alchemy. We had decided to spend a lot more time on Kabbalah once we learned about alchemical Fire, Water, Air and Earth.

This first week, we studied the Mother letters and their Alchemical attributions of Fire, Water, Air, Earth. We first concentrated on Fire.

The letter yud represent alchemical fire. We spent some time drawing it, with the appropriate turn or kick.

We then studied how the Mother letter shin can be thought as made up of three yud's, or as a boat with a guide in it. This makes clear its Alchemical attribute of Fire.

The Mother letter which represents alchemical Earth is mem , which we also drew for a while.

We also studied the Arabic forms for yeh, sin and mem, in beginning, middle and end.

It is useful to study the Arabic letters since some roots of Kabbalistic words have lost their meaning in time, and this might be retrieved from the similar Arabic word.

We ended by studying the third and last Mother letter, aleph and the related Arabic aleph. This represents Alchemical Air.

We finished by talking a bit about how the Mother letters give birth to the other letters. Thus, shin rotates and gives rise to he. Mem looses its twiddle on the left side, which is really a yud. Finally, aleph morphs into a vav. Hence we get the Holy Name, Yud, He, Vav, He. We talked a bit about the alchemical aspect of the Name and its alchemically feminine /masculine balance, with Fire and Air being assigned masculine attributes, Water and Earth feminine.


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Reproduction from Z. ben-Shimon ha-Levi's The Way of the Kabbalah.

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