Sefer ha-Bahir 91-93 -- the crown-stone, the tekhelet, and the paths
Sefer ha-Bahir · The Book of Brilliance
ספר הבהיר · צא-צג
canonical late 12th c., Provence (ascribed to the 1st c. tanna) Hebrew Anonymous (attributed to Rabbi Nehunya ben ha-Kanah) tr. Hekhal Targum Project (machine-assisted draft; pending scholarly review)
The crown, and the blue thread of the fringe. The crown as the precious stone — the rejected stone become the cornerstone — rising to the place it was hewn from (§ 91); the tekhelet and the thirty-two paths of the king’s garden, tended by the guarding powers (§ 92); and the tekhelet as the doubled sign, the seal of both the King and his daughter, that guards the servant on the way (§ 93).
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.
ומאי טעמא היא בסוף התיבה ואינה בראשה, ללמדך שאותה תגא עולה עד למעלה למעלה, ומאי משמע דהאי תגא אבן יקרה היא מכוללת ומעוטרת דכתיב (תהלים קי”ח כב) אבן מאסו הבונים היתה לראש פנה, ועולה עד המקום אשר נחצבה ממנו דכתיב (בראשית מ”ט כד) משם רועה אבן ישראל. מא:
And what is the reason that it is at the end of the word and not at its beginning? To teach you that this crown (taga) rises up to the highest heights. And what implies that this crown is a precious stone (even yekara), whole and crowned? As it is written (Psalm 118:22), ‘the stone the builders rejected became the head of the corner’; and it rises up to the place from which it was hewn, as it is written (Genesis 49:24), ‘from there, the Shepherd, the Stone of Israel.‘
Provisional draft (pending scholarly review)
ועוד אמר מאי טעמא אנו מטילין תכלת בציצית, ומאי טעמא שלשים ושתים, משל למה ה”ד למלך שהיה לו גן נאה ולו ל”ב נתיבות ושם שומר עליהם והודיע לו לבדו אותן הנתיבות, א”ל שומרם ולך בהם בכל יום ובכל זמן שתדרכם שלום לך, ומה עשה אותו השומר, שם שומרים עליהם, אמר אם אני אהיה לבדי באלה הנתיבות אי אפשר לשומר אחד לקיים כל אלה הנתיבות, ועוד כי יאמרו העולם כילי הוא מלך זה לכך שם שומר זה שומרים אחרים לכל הנתיבות, אלה הם ל”ב נתיבות:
And further he said: what is the reason that we place tekhelet (blue) in the fringe (tzitzit)? And what is the reason [that it is] thirty-two? A parable: to what is it comparable? To a king who had a fair garden, and it had thirty-two paths (netivot); and he set a guard over them, and made known to him alone those paths. He said to him: guard them, and walk in them every day; and whenever you tread them, peace be to you. And what did that guard do? He set [other] guards over them. He said: if I am alone in these paths, it is not possible for one guard to maintain all these paths; and moreover, the world will say this king is stingy — therefore this guard set other guards over all the paths. These are the thirty-two paths.
Provisional draft (pending scholarly review)
ומ”ט דתכלת, אמר השומר שמא יאמרו השומרים האלה הגן שלנו הוא, נתן להם סימן, ואמר להם ראו זה סימן של מלך שהוא שלו הגן הזה ואלה הנתיבות הוא תקנם ואינם שלי, והנה חותמו, משל למה”ד למלך ובתו שהיו להם עבדים ובקשו לילך למרחוק פחדו מאימת המלך נתן להם המלך סימנו, פחדו מן הבת, נתנה להם סימן, אמרו מעתה בשני סמנים אלה (תהלים קכא ז) ה’ ישמרך מכל רע ישמור את נפשך. מב:
And what is the reason for the tekhelet? The guard said: lest these guards say ‘the garden is ours,’ he gave them a sign, and said to them: see, this is the sign of the king, that this garden is his, and these paths — he ordered them, and they are not mine; and behold, his seal. A parable: to what is it comparable? To a king and his daughter, who had servants, and they wished to go far off. They feared the dread of the king; the king gave them his sign. They feared the daughter; she gave them a sign. They said: from now on, with these two signs (Psalm 121:7), ‘the LORD will guard you from all evil, He will guard your soul.’
Provisional draft (pending scholarly review)
❦
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.
⁂
the crown as the precious stone
Continuing § 90: the crown (taga) stands at a word’s end, not its start, because it ‘rises up to the highest heights.’ This crown is ‘a precious stone (even yekara), whole and crowned’ — ‘the stone the builders rejected [that] became the head of the corner’ (Psalm 118:22) — and it rises to ‘the place from which it was hewn,’ ‘the Shepherd, the Stone of Israel’ (Genesis 49:24). Sod: the crown is Keter, the supernal stone, rejected below and exalted above, returning to its unknowable source (the reach toward Ein Sof).
the tekhelet and the thirty-two paths
Why the blue (tekhelet) of the fringe (tzitzit), and why thirty-two? A king with a fair garden of thirty-two paths sets a guard, who appoints further guards — one cannot keep all the paths, and the king must not seem stingy — ‘these are the thirty-two paths.’ Sod: the thirty-two paths of wisdom (Sefer Yetzirah 1:1; cf. §§ 63, 98) tended by guarding powers; the tekhelet, the blue thread, is the sign of that whole order.
the tekhelet as the two signs
The guard gives the lesser guards a ‘sign’ — the king’s seal — lest they claim the garden as their own. A parable: a king and his daughter whose servants, going far off, feared the king (so he gave his sign) and feared the daughter (so she gave hers); ‘with these two signs’ — ‘the LORD will guard you from all evil, He will guard your soul’ (Psalm 121:7). Sod: the tekhelet bears the seal of both the King (the transcendent) and the Daughter (the Shekhinah); the doubled sign that guards the servant on the way.
Editorial decisions
- trailing numerals. § 91 ends with ‘מא’ and § 93 with ‘מב’ in the source — stray numerals (likely an alternate siman-numbering or folio marker in the transcription, not text). Preserved in the verbatim Hebrew and not rendered into English. (claude-opus-4-8[session-pipe], 2026-07-03)
No range cards emitted for this chunk.
No public-domain translations indexed for this chunk.