Observations placeholder

Sefer ha-bahir – Para 14 and 85

And all admit that they were not created until the second day, lest anyone might say: Michael spread out [the universe] in the south of the vault, Gabriel in-the north, and the Holy One, blessed be He, measured in the middle; rather [as it is written in Isa. 44 : 24]: 'I am the Lord that maketh all things; that stretcheth forth the heavens alone; that spreadeth abroad the Earth by myself -who would be with me'

Fragment 14 It is I who have planted this 'tree,' that all the world may delight in it, and with it I have spanned the All and called it 'All'; for on it depends the All, and from it emanates the All, all things need it, and look upon it, and yearn for it, and from it all souls go forth. I was alone when I made it, and no angel can raise himself over it and say: I was there before thee; for when I spanned my earth, when I planted and rooted this tree and caused them to take delight in each other and [myself] delighted in them-who could have been with me to whom I might have confided this secret?...............

Fragment 85  And what is [this] 'tree,' of which you have spoken? He said to him:

All powers of God are [disposed] in layers and they are like a tree: just as the tree produces its fruit through water, so God through Water increases the powers of the 'tree.' And what is God's Water? It is hokhmah [wisdom], and that [i.e., the fruit of the tree] is the soul of the righteous men who fly from the 'source' to the 'great channel,' and it rises up and clings to the tree. And by virtue of what does it flower?

By virtue of Israel: when they [the children of Israel] are good and righteous, the Shekhinah dwells among them, and by their works they dwell in the bosom of God, and He lets them be fruitful and multiply