Abba אבא

Abba (אבא, “Father”) is the configuration of the divine countenance identified with the sefirah Chokhmah (Wisdom). Together with Imma (the supernal Mother, identified with Binah) it forms the upper configuration-pair of the Idra and Lurianic systems. The defining dynamic of the pair is generative: the union (zivvuga) of Abba and Imma produces the mochin (the “brains,” the mature consciousness) that flow into Zeir Anpin, the disclosed lower configuration. Abba is thus the paternal pole of a supernal coupling through which the lower world receives its capacity for differentiated awareness.

The gendered language of Abba and Imma is, in recent scholarship, read as doctrinally load-bearing rather than as ornamental metaphor: the configuration of the Godhead as a generative coupling is part of the teaching, not a dispensable figure for an impersonal process.

Etymology

From the Aramaic and Hebrew abba (father). The intimate register of the word (it is the familiar “father,” not a formal title) is preserved in the configurative use.

Why not bare “Father” or “God the Father”

Hekhal renders “the supernal Father (Abba)” or transliterates “Abba,” and avoids the bare “Father” or “God the Father.” Those forms import the Trinitarian divine person; Abba is a sefirotic configuration (the configured form of Chokhmah), one pole of a supernal pair, not a person of a triune God. The familial diminutive is part of the term and is not flattened into the abstract “paternal principle.”

Primary sources

• Zohar, Idra Rabba (Zohar III, Naso): the configurations and their unions.
• Zohar, Idra Zuta (Zohar III, Ha’azinu): the union of the configurations.

Scholarly literature

• Tishby, The Wisdom of the Zohar.
• Wolfson, Language, Eros, Being: the gendered configurations.
• Mopsik, Sex of the Soul: sexual difference in Kabbalah.
• Matt, The Zohar: Pritzker Edition: the Idra volumes.

Hekhal Editorial. "Abba." Hekhal: An Open Reference for Esoteric Tradition. Last modified May 2, 2026. https://hekhal.org/lexicon/abba.

Hekhal Editorial. 2026. "Abba." Hekhal: An Open Reference for Esoteric Tradition. https://hekhal.org/lexicon/abba.

Hekhal Editorial. "Abba." Hekhal: An Open Reference for Esoteric Tradition, May 2, 2026, hekhal.org/lexicon/abba.

Hekhal Editorial. (2026). Abba. Hekhal: An Open Reference for Esoteric Tradition. https://hekhal.org/lexicon/abba

@misc{hekhal-lexicon-abba-2026,
  author       = {{Hekhal Editorial}},
  title        = {{Abba}},
  year         = {2026},
  publisher    = {{Hekhal: An Open Reference for Esoteric Tradition}},
  url          = {https://hekhal.org/lexicon/abba},
  urldate      = {[date accessed]}
}