prayer as gazing on the chariot

Habakkuk 3:1, ‘a prayer (tefillah) of Habakkuk,’ is read against the expected ‘praise (tehillah)’: whoever turns from the affairs of the world and gazes upon the work of the chariot (ma’aseh merkavah) — the classical esoteric contemplation of the divine throne (Ezekiel 1) — is counted ‘as though he prayed the whole day.’ And ‘errancies (shigyonot)’ is heard through Proverbs 5:19, ‘in her love you shall be ravished (tishgeh) always’: the ravishment of contemplation. Sod: the chariot-vision is itself the highest prayer, and the mystic is ‘ravished’ in the love of wisdom.

the place of hearing

Habakkuk 3:2, ‘I heard Your report (shim’akha), I feared’: the Bahir asks why fear attaches to ‘Your report’ and reads ‘from Your report (mi-shim’akha)’ as ‘a place where they hear’ — a grade named by hearing. And ‘I heard (shamati),’ not ‘I understood (hevanti),’ marks a reception that precedes full comprehension (Deuteronomy 28:49, ‘a nation whose tongue you do not hear’). Sod: the grade of hearing — understanding received rather than grasped — the receptive upper mother, Binah.

the alef, thought, and the Infinite

The ear (ozen) is the shape of an alef (א); the alef is ‘the head of all the letters,’ grants them their endurance, and is ‘the shape of the brain (mo’ach).’ As pronouncing the alef opens the mouth, so thought (machashavah) opens toward the Infinite, Ein Sof, ‘without end and without limit’; from the alef all the letters go forth (‘and the LORD at their head,’ Micah 2:13). And the Name YHWH is sanctified ‘in the palace of holiness (heikhal ha-kodesh)’ — which is thought itself, the alef. Sod: the alef is the first stirring of emergence, the point of supernal thought (Ḥokhmah, and the reach beyond it toward Keter and Ein Sof); the divine Name is housed in that thought. This is among the Bahir’s foundational statements of machashavah — thought — as the dwelling of the Name and the threshold of the Infinite.

merkavah

Selected sense: chariot

Active senses: chariot, the-divine-throne-vision

Rationale: The ‘ma’aseh merkavah’ (the work of the chariot) of §§ 68-69, rendered ‘the work of the chariot’ — the classical esoteric discipline of the divine throne-vision (Ezekiel 1), gazing upon which is here reckoned the highest prayer.

Lexicon: lexicon/merkavah

ein-sof

Selected sense: the-infinite

Active senses: the-infinite, the-endless

Rationale: § 70’s ‘when you think toward Ein Sof without end and without limit,’ rendered ‘the Infinite (Ein Sof).’ An early occurrence of the term that becomes the standard Kabbalistic name for the boundless Godhead beyond the sefirot; here the horizon toward which thought (the alef) opens.

Lexicon: lexicon/ein-sof

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