"Sefer Yesirah" and Its Contexts. Tzahi Weiss
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appeals to me, I did not find much support for it in the manuscripts of Sefer Yeṣirah. In my opinion, the textual history of Sefer Yeṣirah should be divided into two stages: in the first stage, before the tenth century, there are indeed differences between the recensions of Sefer Yeṣirah. During that period, the book was edited and reedited by various redactors, and a few glosses were inserted. That was the reason for the discomfiture of its early commentators with regard to its correct version. Therefore, in analyzing the history of Sefer Yeṣirah before the tenth century, I used a similar method to the one that Abrams suggested.44 Nevertheless, in the second stage, after the tenth century, the three recensions of Sefer Yeṣirah remained the main ones, and it would be rare to find new glosses within Sefer Yeṣirah. Therefore, the assumption that the book continues to change during the High Middle Ages has no textual support. From a careful reading of tens of manuscripts of Sefer Yeṣirah, I have not found evidence of conspicuous interventions of late medieval commentators in the versions of Sefer Yeṣirah but rather, the contrary. New versions that combine the short and the long recensions of Sefer Yeṣirah constitute the main modification that can be encountered.
The differences between the versions of Sefer Yeṣirah, hence, occurred before the book was interpreted by its early commentators, and it seems that these commentaries framed its versions. Moreover, even if one scrutinizes the three main recensions of Sefer Yeṣirah, the differences between them are less crucial than might be assumed. At first glance, they are mainly differences in length and manner of editing that did not influence the structure of the book and its basic arguments. Ithamar Gruenwald, who published the first critical edition of Sefer Yeṣirah, has articulated it: “The three recensions differ from one another mainly in the length of the text and in inner organization of the material. The differences of reading between the three recensions are not as many as is generally assumed.”45
There are, as Gruenwald states, great differences between the image of Sefer Yeṣirah in scholarship and the reality of this book according to its manuscripts. We would not be wrong in saying that the textual problem of the version(s) is less complicated than assumed and that those problems were sometimes over-theorized in scholarship. From all the recensions of Sefer Yeṣirah known to me, the basic issues of the book remain stable: in all the recensions, twenty-two letters are divided into the same three groups: immot, “doubles,” and “simples.” Each of these groups contains the same letters without variations, and the discussions about the letters use identical terminology and symbolism. Similarly, in all the recensions, the first paragraphs of Sefer Yeṣirah deal with the ten sefirot, and only minor differences can be found between the recensions. For example, the differences between the long and the short recensions are related to the length of the discussion but are not reflected nor do they have any influence on the meaning or the symbolism of each letter. In the same vein, the great differences between Saadya’s recension and other recensions of Sefer Yeṣirah are related to the way in which the text is edited, but there are merely a few differences in terms of content and terminology.
A different methodology to analyze the textual labyrinth of Sefer Yeṣirah has been suggested by Gruenwald and Ronit Meroz. Forty years ago, Gruenwald suggested that there are thematic and terminological reasons for making a distinction between Sefer Yeṣirah’s first chapter and subsequent chapters of the book and that it seems that the first chapter reflects a different treatise, which was integrated into Sefer Yeṣirah.46 Such an approach can help explain, for example, the opening paragraph of the book by determining the odd number: thirty-two, as an editorial addition. This number thirty-two is not discussed throughout Sefer Yeṣirah; it was added by an editor of the book who combined together the main chapters of the book discussing the twenty-two alphabetical letters, with the new chapter about the ten sefirot. In an alternative suggestion put forth a few years ago, Meroz argues that Sefer Yeṣirah comprised three distinct compositions that are described in the opening paragraph as: a book, a book, and a book (ספר, ספר, וספר).47 If Gruenwald’s or Meroz’s hypothesis is correct, we must suppose, as Meroz noted,48 that the three main recensions of Sefer Yeṣirah all evolved from one branch—after the book was redacted, and that the sections of Sefer Yeṣirah known to us had already been edited at that juncture.49 It would be a mistake to assume that the early forms of Sefer Yeṣirah are merely a result of a redaction of various preexisting compositions. It would be more suitable to perceive it as a combination between original and eclectic materials. In comparison with other late antiquity and medieval compositions, such as the Hekhalot literature, Sefer haBahir, and the Zoharic literature, Sefer Yeṣirah, despite all the differences between its recensions, seems to have a coherent structure with unique and distinct terminology. Of course, Sefer Yeṣirah is a layered text, and preceding the tenth century, its readers edited it, reedited it, and added material. Nevertheless, we have to listen to the manuscripts themselves and observe the great similarities between the three recensions. We should conclude that there was an early composition from which the three main recensions of Sefer Yeṣirah developed, a composition that Peter Hayman tried to reconstruct as “the earliest recoverable text of Sefer Yeṣirah.”50
My main goal in this study is not to publish a new edition of the “early” Sefer Yeṣirah, so I will not discuss every word in the book with the purpose of determining whether it is part of that early version. My purpose is to date and locate the early version of Sefer Yeṣirah; in order to do so, I will determine the terminus a quo and the terminus ad quem of central themes and basic issues that relate to the core of Sefer Yeṣirah and that can be found in all its recensions.
Chapter 1
Discussions About Alphabetical Letters in Non-Jewish Sources of Late Antiquity
Sefer Yeṣirah’s assertions about the role of the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet were not conceived in a vacuum. Some scholars have argued that the engagement with letters in Sefer Yeṣirah and in other Jewish sources is a unique phenomenon referring solely to intra-Jewish issues, such as the myth of the creation of the world by speech, the holiness ascribed to the Hebrew language, the holiness of the name of God, or the holiness of the Bible, including the letters it is composed of.1 However, as early as the beginning of the twentieth century, Franz Dornseiff and other scholars in his wake have, as the result of detailed investigations, found evidence that discussion of alphabetical letters is not only to be found in rabbinic and other Jewish sources but can also be encountered in Greek, Gnostic, Neoplatonic, Neo-Pythagorean, Christian, and Samaritan texts.2 Examining late antique engagement with alphabetical letters from a wider perspective reveals that Jewish texts were neither more developed nor earlier than non-Jewish sources and that it would be untenable to single out a Judaic origin for this phenomenon. It would be more plausible to assume that Jewish discussions about alphabetical letters were adaptations of earlier non-Jewish ones. Any attempt to contextualize Sefer Yeṣirah must therefore not only take into account a wide range of possible sources but also recognize, penetrate, and understand the widespread preoccupation with letters, in order to trace the different channels of its development.
One must consider the disparate attitudes adopted toward letter discussions in late antiquity in order to decipher the genealogy of these discussions. In some contexts in late antiquity, discussions of letters were considered negatively; in other contexts, they were adopted without criticism. For example, some early church fathers and a few Neoplatonic thinkers rejected letter discussions, claiming that they were Gnostic, nonrational, and inappropriate; in the same period, they were considered legitimate in rabbinic sources. Although this can explain why letter discussions are more prevalent in Jewish sources than in Christian or Neoplatonic ones, it does not in any way indicate that the origins of this phenomenon are Jewish.
Even without deciding whether the main sources for the narrative of the creation of the world from letters in Sefer Yeṣirah derive from Jewish or non-Jewish traditions, I call attention