See Planetary Formatives in the Cube
and Hebrew Letter / Planetary Attributions in the Sepher Yetsira
for formative letter and planetary linkages.
There are many schemes and rationalizations for distributing Hebrew letters around the Tree of Life,
either to the Sephirot themselves and/or more commonly to the connections between the Sephirot.
The Sepher Yetsira uses three structures: the numbers of the Sephirot One through Ten (the primary formatives
Aleph through Yod), the inner structure of the first four Sephirot (the Mothers), and
formative letters of the seven planets and twelve zodiacal signs. Six double letters are assigned
to the Sephirot Five through Ten, the outer extremities, in alphabetical order and paired with
planets in classical geocentric sequence. The last double letter, Tav, paired with the Moon,
is the "hidden extremity" and the "kernel"
and its Sephirotic location is undisclosed. All we are told is that it is not one of the Sephirot five through ten.
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| Bahir, section 103 |
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The seventh? But, after all, there are only six? This teaches that here is the Temple of the
[celestial] Sanctuary, and it bears all [the other six], and that is why it is the seventh.
And what is it? The Thought that has neither end nor limit. Similarly this place, too, has
neither end nor limit.
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Gershom Scholem, Origins of the Kabbalah, Princeton, 1990, p.115
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The seventh?. The seventh, hidden direction of the Sepher Yetsira, formed by Tav.
But, after all, there are only six? Six outer directions, the Sephirot 5 thought 10.
This teaches that here is the Temple of the [celestial] Sanctuary, and it bears
all [the other six], and that is why it is the seventh. Direction, not Sephirot.
And what is it? Aleph, thought that has neither end nor limit.
Similarly this place, too, has neither end nor limit.
Aleph's mirror, Tav, Sanctuary of Infinite Energy, the seventh double letter.
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... We must pose the question of the orgin of the other designations of the first sefirah, as we find them
(in a singuarly modified form) in the table in section 103 as well as in several other passages in sections
48, 53, 59, 60, 94 and 134. Mention is made there of the thinking of the thought of God, mahshabah,
as the most hidden sphere, but also as the center of the innermost of the first six logoi.
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Scholem, Origins of the Kabbalah, Princeton, 1990, p.126
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