Metkala מתקלא

Metkala (מתקלא, “balance,” “scale,” “measure”) is a central term of the Sifra di-Tzeniuta, the most concealed root-text of the Idra literature. The Sifra associates the ordering of the cosmos with the establishment of a balance: before there was a balance (metkala), it says in its compressed idiom, the forces did not “gaze face to face,” and certain primordial kings “died.” The metkala is the equilibrium, the conjoining of opposites (male and female, judgement and mercy) into configurations that can endure.

The kings who died

The “kings who died” allude to the seven kings of Edom “who reigned before any king reigned over the children of Israel” (Genesis 36:31-39), each of whom, the verse notes, reigned and died. Kabbalistic tradition read this as a cipher for primordial worlds or configurations emanated in an unbalanced state, in which judgement was not tempered by mercy, and which therefore could not endure. This motif is the textual seed that Isaac Luria, three centuries later, developed into the doctrine of shevirat ha-kelim (the breaking of the vessels). The Lurianic reading is a development, not the plain sense of the terse Sifra, and is treated as later reception.

Why not “the weight” or “equilibrium” alone

Hekhal renders “the balance” or “the scale,” preserving the weighing image. “The weight” loses the instrument; “the shekel” mistakes a related root for the sense; and “equilibrium,” while accurate to the meaning, is too abstract for the concrete weighing-imagery the body deploys, and is reserved for commentary.

Primary sources

• Zohar, Sifra di-Tzeniuta (Zohar II, Terumah): the balance and the kings who died.
• Zohar, Idra Rabba (Zohar III, Naso).

Scholarly literature

• Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism and Kabbalah.
• Tishby, The Wisdom of the Zohar.
• Fine, Physician of the Soul: the kings of Edom and shevirat ha-kelim.
• Matt, The Zohar: Pritzker Edition.

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

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

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

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

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