the tree and the twelve diagonal boundaries

Remez/sod: the twelve ‘diagonal boundaries’ (gevulei alakhsonin) are the twelve edges of the cube of space — the twelve diagonals that join the six directions — taken directly from Sefer Yetzirah (5:1-2). They ‘widen and extend forever’ as the ‘arms of the world’ (Deuteronomy 33:27, ‘the everlasting arms’), and within them stands the cosmic tree of the divine powers. This ties the tree of Bahir §§118-119 to the spatial cosmogony of the Sefer Yetzirah; see the Hekhal Sefer Yetzirah edition.

the teli, the galgal, and the lev

The three governing principles are the ‘witnesses’ of Sefer Yetzirah 6:1-3: the teli (the celestial axis, the imagined dragon along which the heavens turn), the galgal (the sphere / the wheel of the year), and the lev (the heart, the seat of the soul). Each governs twelve officers, so three times twelve is thirty-six; and because ‘the power of one is in its fellow,’ the same thirty-six are found whether sought in the teli, the galgal, or the lev.

the numerology 36 to 64 to 72 (a crux)

Derash by number, and a genuine difficulty: from the thirty-six officers the passage builds, through the thirty-two (the thirty-two paths of Wisdom of Sefer Yetzirah 1:1), a count that reaches sixty-four (‘thirty-two given to thirty-two, and four remain’) and then, ‘lacking eight,’ the seventy-two — the seventy-two Names of the Holy One (the seventy-two-letter Name, derived from the three seventy-two-letter verses of Exodus 14:19-21), anchored in Ecclesiastes 5:7. The internal steps (‘four remain,’ ‘the seven days lacking one’) do not resolve transparently; the arithmetic is rendered literally and flagged as a crux (see the ambiguity entry), not smoothed.

the yitron and the radiance (Ecclesiastes 5:8)

The ‘profit of the earth’ (yitron, Ecclesiastes 5:8) is read not economically but as a surplus of being: ‘the place from which the earth was hewn,’ the higher source, ‘a surplus over what already was.’ It becomes an actual profit only ‘when the people of the world are worthy to receive from its radiance (ziv)’ — the flow made available to the worthy, the same overflow the tree channels.

Editorial decisions

• the 36->64->72 count. Rendered the numbers literally and flagged the arithmetic as a crux in ambiguities[]; did not force a resolution of the internal steps. (provisional draft, 2026-07-01)

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