the ear, the eye, and thought

Ecclesiastes 1:8 — ‘the ear is not filled from hearing’ and ‘the eye is not satisfied with seeing’ — teaches that both organs ‘draw from thought (machashavah).’ Thought is ‘a king whom all that was created needs, in the upper and the lower [worlds].’ Sod: machashavah, the supernal grade and the reach toward the Infinite (§ 70, § 79), is the inexhaustible source from which hearing and seeing draw, and on which all creation, above and below, depends.

why ‘it arose in thought,’ never ‘descended’

The classical phrase ‘it arose in [God’s] thought (alah ba-machashavah)’ always says ‘arose,’ never ‘descended.’ The Bahir’s reason: one who ‘gazes at the vision of the chariot (tzefiyat ha-merkavah)’ is said to ‘descend’ — because ‘gazing (tzefiyah)’ is a look from a height (rendered in Aramaic ‘sekhuta,’ of a piece with the ‘watchtower,’ mitzpeh, of Isaiah 21:8). But thought has ‘no gazing at all, and no limit at all,’ and what is limitless has no ‘descent.’ Hence the idiom: one may ‘descend to the depth of another’s mind (da’at)’ — da’at can be plumbed — but never ‘to the depth of his thought (machashavah).’ Sod: machashavah is the boundless supernal grade, above even the chariot-vision and beyond da’at, the lower knowing; it is reached only by ascent, never mapped or fathomed. One of the Bahir’s decisive statements on the limitlessness of the highest grade.

merkavah

Selected sense: the-divine-throne-vision

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

Rationale: § 88’s ‘the vision of the chariot (tzefiyat ha-merkavah),’ rendered ‘the vision of the chariot’ — the classical esoteric contemplation of the divine throne (Ezekiel 1). It is set below thought: the chariot-vision is ‘gazed at’ and involves descent, whereas thought (machashavah) has no gazing and no limit.

Lexicon: lexicon/merkavah

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