B”H
Names of הספירות in the Dead
Sea Scrolls
There
are two fragments of Dead Sea Scrolls entitled SONGS OF THE SAGE. The first,
4Q510, is a document intended “to frighten and to terrify” Evil Spirits. This
is the way the fragment was understood by Y.M. Ta-Shma, and this is the way it
was represented in an article written on the fragment that appeared in Tarbiz
55 (1985-86) 19-46 [Hebrew]. Unfortunately the author of that article did not
read past the surface text into the substrate, into the structuring of every
sentence and assumed that the author of the fragment believed in the objective
existence of evil spirits. We will, בע"ה, demonstrate that the
document was written by someone in God-consciousness in order to return those
who were deluded and thought that evil spirits can exist independently to
God-consciousness.
Upon
close examination, we see the names of a number of the “ספירות” that are known to us today in the following order and forms (the repetition of the names of the ספירות below follows the repetition of the names of the ספירות as they appear in the fragments):
הודות, הוד, דעות, גבורות, גבורתו, הוד, תפארתו
If
one reads the scroll deeply it will become apparent that the following terms
are praises of HaShem and the reminding of the absolute strength of HaShem to
those whose thinking is mistaken and think that there are “demons”.
The
second fragment entitled Songs of the Sage (4Q511) is concerned with all types
of evil spirits that people perceive in the world, human as well as
supernatural. The fragment
discussed above is evidently an excerpt from this longer fragment.
In
this fragment the names of what we know as ספירות appear in the
following order and forms:
תפארת, דעות, נצח, בדעת, ועדת (חילוף של ודעת), גבורות,
הגבורות, ותעודות (כולל המילה דעת), חסד, מוסדי (כוללת את המילה יסוד), במוסדי,
גבורתו, בינתי, עבודת (כוללת את המילה דעת), דעת, בינה, דעת, תעודתי, חוכמת, בינתו,
הודות, יסוד, גבר (השורש של גבורה), ידע (השורש של דעת), החסד, יסוד, מלך (השורש
של מלכות), בסודי (כולל חילוף של יסוד), תעודתי, הודות, דעת, עבודת, עבודת
The
words מחשבתכה, מחשבת and אספרהappear in this fragment. The presence of the words מחשבתכה and מחשבת prove that the author of this fragment was fully cognizant of
the fact that:
ספירה = 355 = מחשבה = המשבח
and
was using the names of the sphirot in order to return the thinking of someone
deluded to awareness of the fact that it is HaShem who rules everything.
The
presence of the word אספרה shows that the author of the fragment understood ספירות in the sense of telling and declaring of HaShem’s greatness
(thus the word אספרה, the
root of which ס-פ-ר is that
of the word ספירות), not in
terms of “emanations” as they are thought of by medieval mystics. In so doing, one dispels illusions of
all types of evil and rids oneself, and others, of the delusional fears of
“evil spirits” because it becomes clear that there is nothing but HaShem
guiding all worlds.
It
is highly recommend to read the texts of the above two fragments to see how the
names of הספירות are woven into the text, how the author uses these words to
declare HaShem’s glory and absolute power, and to restore the thinking of those
deluded to the reality of God-consciousness.
Doreen
Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel 5764