Sefer ha-Bahir 21-22 -- the angels and the tree of All
Sefer ha-Bahir · The Book of Brilliance
ספר הבהיר · כא-כב
canonical late 12th c., Provence (ascribed to the 1st c. tanna) Hebrew Anonymous (attributed to R. Neḥunya ben ha-Kanah) tr. Hekhal Targum Project (machine-assisted, provisional)
From the angels to the tree. The dispute over when the angels were created, and why not on the first day — lest Michael and Gabriel seem to stretch the firmament as co-creators (§ 21, § 22a). Then the great image: God plants “this tree” for the world’s delight, spreads the All (kol) in it, names it “All,” and from it “the souls fly forth in joy” — the cosmic tree of §§ 118-119 and § 95, here bearing the name “All” (§ 22b).
This is a provisional scholarly draft, released openly for correction and not yet reviewed by a credentialed editor. The Hebrew is reproduced verbatim from the Hebrew Wikisource transcription; the standard modern English translation (Kaplan, 1979) is under copyright.
אמר ר’ יוחנן בשני נבראו המלאכים דכתיב (תהלים ק”ד ג) המקרה במים עליותיו וכתיב (שם ד) עושה מלאכיו רוחות משרתיו אש לוהט ואמר ר’ לויטס בן טברוס הכל מודים ומודה ר’ יוחנן דהמים כבר היו, אבל בשני המקרה במים עלי ותיו, ומי השם עבים רכובו, ומי המהלך על כנפי רוח, אבל שלוחים לא נבראו עד יום ה:
Rabbi Yochanan said: on the second day the angels were created, as it is written (Psalm 104:3), ‘who roofs His upper chambers in the waters,’ and it is written (ibid. 4), ‘who makes His angels winds, His ministers a flaming fire.’ And Rabbi Levitas ben Tavrus said: all agree, and Rabbi Yochanan concedes, that the waters already existed; but on the second day, ‘He roofs His upper chambers in the waters, who sets the clouds His chariot, who walks on the wings of the wind’ — yet the messengers were not created until the fifth day.
Provisional draft (pending scholarly review)
ומודים הכל שלא נבראו ביום ראשון שלא יאמרו מיכאל היה מותח בדרומו של רקיע וגבריאל בצפונו והקב”ה סודר באמצעיתו, אלא אני ה’ עושה כל נוטה שמים לבדי רוקע הארץ מאתי (ישעי’ מ”ד כד) מי אתי כתיב אני הוא שנטעתי אילן זה להשתעשע בו כל העולם ורקעתי בו כל וקראתי שמו כל שהכל תלוי בו והכל יוצא ממנו, והכל צריכים לו, ובו צופים ולו מחכין, ומשם פורחים הנשמות בשמחה, לבדי הייתי כשעשיתי אותו, ולא יגדל עליו מלאך לאמר אני קדמתי לך, כי גם בעת שרקעתי ארצי שבה נטעתי ושרשתי אילן זה ושמחתי ביחד ושמחתי בהם, מי אתי שגליתי לו סודי זה:
And all agree that they were not created on the first day, lest one say: Michael was stretching out the south of the firmament and Gabriel the north, while the Holy One arranged the middle. Rather, ‘I am the LORD who makes all, who stretches out the heavens alone, who spreads out the earth — who was with Me (mi iti)?’ (Isaiah 44:24). ‘from Me (me-iti)’ is written, [read] ‘who was with Me (mi iti)’: I am He who planted this tree that all the world might delight in it, and I spread out in it the All (kol), and I called its name ‘All,’ for the All depends on it, and the All comes forth from it, and all things need it, and to it they look, and for it they wait, and from there the souls fly forth in joy. Alone was I when I made it; and let no angel exalt himself over it to say, ‘I preceded you’ — for even at the time when I spread out My earth, in which I planted and rooted this tree, and I rejoiced together, and I rejoiced in them — who was with Me, that I revealed to him this My secret?
Provisional draft (pending scholarly review)
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This edition sets the verbatim Hebrew beside a fresh English rendering and a critical apparatus: a running commentary on the passage, notes on the controlled vocabulary and the rendering chosen for each term, and cross-references to the lexicon and to related sections. It is a provisional scholarly draft, released openly for correction and not yet reviewed by a credentialed editor.
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the angels created on the second day
The dispute over when the angels were made: Rabbi Yochanan sets it on the second day (Psalm 104:3-4, the firmament of the waters and the wind-and-fire ministers), while Rabbi Levitas ben Tavrus qualifies that the waters already existed and that the ‘messengers’ (shluchim, angels as sent ones) were not created until the fifth day (the day of the living creatures). Behind both stands the rabbinic ruling that angels were not created on the first day (Genesis Rabbah 1:3, 3:8), which § 22 then explains.
not on the first day: the anti-dualist point
Why the angels are withheld from day one: lest anyone imagine Michael stretching the southern side of the firmament and Gabriel the northern, with God merely arranging the middle — a polemic against a ‘two powers’ picture of creation. Isaiah 44:24 answers that God stretches the heavens ‘alone (levadi).’ The verse’s ‘me-iti’ (from Me) is re-read as ‘mi iti’ (who was with Me?) — the rhetorical question that frames the tree-secret that follows.
the tree of All (kol) and the flight of the souls
The heart of the passage: God plants ‘this tree’ for the delight of all the world, spreads ‘the All (kol)’ within it, and names it ‘All’ — for all depends on it, all issues from it, all need it, all look to and wait for it, and ‘from there the souls fly forth in joy.’ Sod: this is the tree of the divine powers (the sefirot), whose channeling grade bears the name ‘All (kol)’; in the developed Kabbalah ‘All’ is Yesod, the righteous foundation (the tzaddik who is ‘kol’) through whom the overflow and the souls pass. It is the same cosmic tree drawn in Bahir §§ 118-119 (watered by Ḥokhmah, the souls flying to cleave to it) and set within the boundaries of space in § 95. The souls’ joyful flight presupposes their pre-existence in the tree.
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