Sefer ha-Bahir 51-53 -- the divided waters, silver and gold
Sefer ha-Bahir · The Book of Brilliance
ספר הבהיר · נא-נג
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 draft; pending scholarly review)
The great right/left of the divine. The waters of creation divided, and Torah learned through them by acts of loving-kindness (§ 51); Haggai’s “silver and gold” read as a king’s two treasuries — the silver on the right, gentle and cleaving to the poor, and the gold on the left that shatters the enemy: Ḥesed and Gevurah, mercy and judgment (§ 52); and the letters of “gold” (zahav) unfolded into the male, the soul with its five names, and their foundation (§ 53).
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.
שאלו תלמידיו את ר’ ברכיה נרצה דברינו לפניך, לא נתן להם רשות, פעם אחת נתן להם רשות, והיא דעביד לבודקן אי אינון השתא כוונו נפשייהו, יום אחד בדק אותם אמר להם השמיעוני חכמתכם, פתחו ואמרו בראשית אחד ורוח מלפני יעטוף ונשמות אני עשיתי (ישעי’ נ”ז טז) פלג אלהים מלא מים (תהלים ס”ה י) מאי פלג, כך למדתנו ראינו שנטל מימי בראשית וחלקן ונתן חצים ברקיע וחצים בים אוקינוס הה”ד פלג אלהים מלא מים ועל ידם אדם לומד תורה דאמר ר’ חמא בזכות גמילות חסדים אדם לומד תורה כדכתיב (ישעי’ נ”ה א) הוי כי צמא לכו למים ואשר אין לו כסף לכו שברו ואכלו, לכו אליו ויגמול לכם חסד ושברו ואכלו:
The students asked Rabbi Berakhiah: we wish [to lay] our words before you. He did not give them permission. Once he gave them permission — and that was in order to test them, whether they had now directed their souls [rightly]. One day he tested them; he said to them: let me hear your wisdom. They opened and said: ‘In the beginning (Bereshit)’ [is] one; ‘and a spirit from before Me enwraps, and the souls I have made’ (Isaiah 57:16); ‘the stream of God is full of water’ (Psalm 65:10). What is ‘stream (peleg)’? Thus you taught us: we have seen that He took the waters of creation and divided them, and set half in the firmament and half in the ocean sea. This is what is written, ‘the stream of God is full of water.’ And through them a person learns Torah; for Rabbi Chama said: by the merit of acts of loving-kindness (gemilut chasadim) a person learns Torah, as it is written (Isaiah 55:1), ‘ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters, and he who has no money, come, buy and eat’ — come to Him, and He will do you kindness, and buy and eat.
Provisional draft (pending scholarly review)
ד”א ואשר אין לו כסף לכו אליו כי יש אצלו כסף דכתיב (חגי ב’ ח) לי הכסף ולי הזהב, מאי לי הכסף ולי הזהב, משל למה”ד למלך שיש לו שני אוצרות אחד של כסף ואחד של זהב, שם של כסף בימינו ושל זהב בשמאלו, אמר זה יהיה מזומן וקל להוציאו, ועושה דבריו בנחת והוא יהיה דבוק עם העניים ומנהיגם בנחת הה”ד (שמות ט”ו ו) ימינך ה’ נאדרי בכח, ואם שמח בחלקו טוב, ואם לאו ימינך ה’ תרעץ אויב, מאי ימינך ה’ תרעץ אויב, א”ל זה הזהב דכתיב לי הכסף ולי הזהב:
Another interpretation: ‘and he who has no money (kesef), come to Him,’ for there is money with Him, as it is written (Haggai 2:8), ‘mine is the silver and mine is the gold.’ What is ‘mine is the silver and mine is the gold’? A parable — to what is it comparable? To a king who has two treasuries, one of silver and one of gold; he set the silver on his right and the gold on his left. He said: this [silver] shall be ready and easy to bring forth, and it does its work gently, and it shall cleave to the poor and lead them gently. This is what is written (Exodus 15:6), ‘your right hand, O LORD, is glorious in power.’ And if [a man] rejoices in his portion, [it is] good; and if not, ‘your right hand, O LORD, shatters the enemy.’ What is ‘your right hand, O LORD, shatters the enemy’? He said to him: this is the gold, as it is written, ‘mine is the silver and mine is the gold.‘
Provisional draft (pending scholarly review)
ולמה נקרא שמו זהב, שבו כלולות שלש מדות, זכר, והוא זי”ן, הנשמה, והיא הה”א, וחמשה שמות לנשמה רוח חיה יחידה נפש נשמה, מאי עבידתיה בה”א. והוא כסא לזיי”ן דכתיב (קהלת ה’ ז) כי גבוה מעל גבוה שומר, ובי”ת היא קיומם כדאמר בראשית ברא:
And why is its name called ‘gold (zahav)’? Because in it are included three attributes: the male, which is the zayin (ז); the soul, which is the heh (ה) — and there are five names for the soul: ruach, chayah, yechidah, nefesh, neshamah; what is its function with the heh? It is a throne for the zayin, as it is written (Ecclesiastes 5:7), ‘for one higher than the high watches’; and the bet (ב) is their sustaining, as it is said, ‘In the beginning [He] created (Bereshit bara).’
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.
Controlled terms noted in this passage: chesed (rendered as loving-kindness). For each, the apparatus carries the sense set and the reason for the rendering chosen.
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the divided waters; Torah through loving-kindness
Rabbi Berakhiah tests whether his students have ‘directed their souls’ before letting them expound. Their teaching: the waters of creation are divided, half in the firmament and half in the ocean sea (Psalm 65:10’s ‘peleg,’ the stream or channel of God); and Torah is learned ‘through them’ — through the waters — because, as Rabbi Chama held, acts of loving-kindness (gemilut chasadim) open the way to Torah (Isaiah 55:1, ‘come to the waters’). Sod: the waters are the flow (shefa), and Chesed, loving-kindness, is the gate through which the flow — and Torah — reaches a person.
silver and gold: Chesed and Gevurah, right and left
Haggai 2:8 (‘mine is the silver and mine is the gold’) is read as a king’s two treasuries. The silver on the right — ‘ready and easy to bring forth,’ gentle, cleaving to the poor and leading them (‘your right hand, O LORD, is glorious in power,’ Exodus 15:6a) — is Chesed, loving-kindness. The gold on the left — ‘your right hand shatters the enemy’ (15:6b) — is Gevurah, severe judgment. Sod: the two arms of the divine, the right/left polarity the Bahir has already figured as Michael and Gabriel (§§ 11-12) and the open north (§§ 34-35): the mercy that gives and the might that restrains and shatters.
the letters of ‘gold’ and the five names of the soul
The name zahav (זהב, ‘gold’) is unfolded into its three letters as three ‘attributes’: zayin (ז), the male; heh (ה), the soul; and bet (ב), their foundation (‘Bereshit bara’). The heh, the soul, is ‘a throne for the zayin’ — the male grade rests upon it. Attached to the soul are its five names — nefesh, ruach, neshamah, chayah, yechidah — the fivefold soul of the later Kabbalah, ascending from the lowest (nefesh) to the highest (yechidah). Sod: gold (Gevurah) is read here as the meeting of the male grade and the soul upon the foundation, the letters themselves carrying the union.
chesed
Selected sense: loving-kindness
Active senses: loving-kindness, the-sefirah-chesed
Rationale: Chesed appears in § 51’s ‘gemilut chasadim’ (acts of loving-kindness), rendered plainly ‘loving-kindness.’ The pardes frame also hears the sefirah Chesed as the right-hand grade whose flow (the divided waters) is the gate to Torah, and § 52’s silver-on-the-right treasury is Chesed itself; kept to the apparatus.
Lexicon: lexicon/chesed
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