numerology and classification in sefer yezirah and in the chinese tradition

7/29/2019 Numerology and Classification in Sefer Yezirah and in The Chinese Tradition

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Numerology and Classification in Sefer Yezirah and in

the Chinese Tradition.

E.A.Tortchinov

It is well known that different kinds of classifications and numerology (assymbolical and non-mathematical operations with numbers and geometrical

structures) play extremely important role in various systems of the Jewish mysticaltradition (i.e. Kabbalah). This aspect of the Kabbalistic mysticism was a subject of a

number of scholarly researches (first of all I mean Gershom Scholems works)1),but the researches in the field of typology of the Kabbalistic numerology and

classifications are extremely rare. Nevertheless there is one great cultural tradition inthe world, which pays great attention to numerology, attention, which may be

compared only with the Kabbalistic one. I mean the Chinese tradition, partiallybased on the"Canon of Changes" (Yi jing)and partially on various cosmological

and cosmogonical concepts of different origin. So, it is quite natural and desirable totry to compare these two (Jewish and Chinese) numerological traditions in their

structural as well as ideological aspects.

It is clear, that a number of special researches is necessary to solve such afundamental problem and it can not be solved in this brief communication. So, here I

prefer to chose the only task: to compare some essentials of the Chinesecosmological classifications with the material of such important for the Kabbalistic

tradition text as Sefer YezirahThe Book of Creation.

Strictly speaking, Sefer Yezirah is not a Kabbalistic text, though it exerted anenormous influence on the formatting and development of theKabbalahin 12-13

centuries CE But the text itself was written much earlier (the religious traditionregards Abraham himself to be the author of it, but academic point of view dates it

as appearing between 2 and 6 centuries; probably, as Gershom Scholem points, in 3century)2). The book is written in Hebrew with some elements of Aramaic. The

name of Patriarch Abraham, associated, as has been pointed above, with theauthorship of this text is a testimony of its great importance for the esoteric tradition

of Judaism.

The author of "The Book of Creation" suggested principally new cosmogonical

pattern, the main role in which play "32 mysterious ways of wisdom", i.e. 22 lettersof the Hebrew alphabet (which are the carriers of the creative information) and 10

sefiroth.

The last term has become one of the key terms of the Kabbalah where it means thesystem of theophanies of the divine attributes of the transcendent apophatic

AbsoluteEin-Sof(the Unlimited) which constitute the pleroma, the completion ofthe divine life. But in Sefer Yezirah this term has, probably, the meaning "number"

or "cipher". Nevertheless these sefiroth are very mysterious: the author of the textdescribing them uses the image of the hayoth ("animals") from the prophet Yehezqel
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Changes" (Yi jing), playing the role of the fundamental text of the Chinese cultureand not occasionally because of this called by Russian Sinologist Dr. A.Kobzev

"The Chinese Bible"3).

As Dr. A.Kobzev has established in his works, the basic numerologically

meaningful numbers in China were 2 (the symbol of the negative in cosmological,but not in ethical, sense energy of yin) and 3 (the symbol of the positive energy ofyang)4). The rest symbolic numbers were the results of different combinations of

these two principal numbers. The main of these secondary numbers was 5, markedthe universal system of classificatory rows known as five elements (wu xing).

These elements were connected with each other not substantially, but in functionalway, being the first or the principal unit of their classificatory rows.

Let us look at the part of the classificatory row of the element "metal" (jin), taken by

me as example:

Metal

west

autumn

justice

white

Venus (planet)

lungs.

Here we have a row, which is marked by its first\main member, which establishes

correspondence between the element, world direction, season, ethical quality,colour, planet, principal organ of the body (the row may be continued). One of the

aspects of this classification is the establishing of the correspondences betweenhomomorphic micro- and macrocosm.

Let us now analyze the following passages from Sefer Yezirah:

1. "He gave the kingdom to the letterfe and crowned it and tied it with Venus in theworld, with the fifth day (Thursday) in a year and with the right nostril in a person(nefesh)" (1Y, 9).

2. "He gave the kingdom to the letterteth and crowned it and tied it with theconstellation of Leo in the world, with the month of Av in a year and with theright kidney in a person" (Y, 2).

Here we also (like in the Chinese cosmological row) can see the row marked by its

first\main member (letter); this row establishes correspondences between letter,planet\ Zodiacal constellation, day of the week or month of a year and organ of the

body. It can be seen that the letters of Sefer Yezirah (as well as sefiroth) have thesame function as the elements of the Chinese classificatory cosmological rows, i.e.

they are codes of the rows as their first or main members. It can be noted as well,that the rows of Sefer Yezirah establish correlation between the elements of micro-

and macrocosm (as their Chinese counterparts also do).

It must be said, that in Sefer Yezirah 22 letters have been divided into lessergroupes; it gave the opportunity to establish two different classificatory sets of rows:consisting of seven members (days of the week and planetshere we have 7 planets

and not 5 as in the Chinese texts) and consisting of twelve members (months of a
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year, Zodiacal constellations). The Chinese counterparts of these two sets are (informal aspect) calendar rows of ten celestial branches and twelve earthly roots.

It is rather important, that Chinese cyclical signs of these two rows especially akin(in structural and functional sense) to the sefiroth of no-thing of "The Book of

Creation".

Thus, we can speak the complete similarity of the Chinese and the Kabbalistic rowsof classifications. It must be only added that because of the pictographic, symbolic

and non-phonetic nature of the Chinese writing characters, Chinese basicclassificators by their essence have more similarity not with the letters of the

Hebrew text, but with the sefiroth as they are treated in Sefer Yezirah (i.e. someprimordial divine numbers).

Nevertheless it is also crucial to understand one principal difference in the

worldview of the Chinese texts and Sefer Yezirah : the difference between Judaistictheism and Chinese immanent naturalism.

Sefer Yezirah constantly underlines the idea of God-Creator as a source and agent ofall universal processes, but the Chinese thinkers without exception understand the

cosmogonic process as natural and immanent. It is quite clear because of the fact,that China did not know the Biblical monotheism.

But just this difference produces the question of the great culterological importance:

how such divergent worldviews as Chinese naturalist and Judeo-Biblicaltranscendent-monotheistic could create such surprisingly identical way of thinking,

represented by the classificatory rows and numerological symbolism of these twotraditions? May we conclude that the unity of human mind and thinking appears not

only in logical and discursive intellectual activities but in the numerologicaloperations as well? These questions, of course, demand further deep and detailed

studies.

And for conclusion I should like to cite one passage from the works of M. Buber. Hewrites in his "Conversations about Jewery":

The obtaining of the wholeness of the soul is the most ancient inner state of the Jew, that inner

state, which in all its force of Asiatic genius has appeared in the personal life of the great Jews, inwhom the profound spirit of Judaism was living. The Great Asia predominated in them over theWest, this Asia of unlimitness and of holy completeness, Asia of Lao-tzu and Buddha, which is

the same Asia as Asia of Moses and Isaiah, of John, Jesus and Paul 5).

N O T E S

(click on hyperlink of number to return to place in essay)

1)E. g. see: Scholem, Gershom.Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism. New York:

Schocken, 1941; Idem. On the Kabbalah and Its Symbolism. New York: Schocken,1969.
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2)Idem. "Jezirabuch". In:Encyclopedia Judaica. Vol. 9 (1932). S. 104 -111. Idem."Kabbalah". In:Encyclopedia Judaica (1971-1972). P. 507; Idem. "The Idea of the

Golem". In: On the Kabbalah and Its Symbolism. New York: Schoken, 1969. p. 166.

3) (Kobzev A.I. Chinese book of the books)

(In: StchutskyYu.K. Chinese Classical Book of Changes), 2nd edition. Moscow: Nauka, 1993. p.

8.4)A.I.Kobzevs researches into the Chinese numerology have been summarized in

his book:

(The Teaching about Symbols and Numbers in the Chinese Classical Philosophy).

Moscow: NaukaVostochnaya Literatura, 1994.

5) (Buber M. Conversations about Jewery).

In:

(Buber M. Selected Writings). Jerusalem:

(Library-Aliyah), 1979. P. 48-49.
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numerology and classification in sefer yezirah and in the chinese tradition

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