Life is a Sacred Text
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Aug 20, 2026 • 10 min read

The Sefirot through the ages

Kabbalah la la (part 2)

Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg
The Sefirot through the ages
Obviously the bagel placement here is not capricious. It's like the kabbalistic tree of life, except with bagels. Bottom: Malchut, immanence, plain bagel. Next up, yesod, foundation, pumpernickel. Then L, hod, splendor, garlic. R, netzach, eternity, onion. Above them, L, gevurah, boundaries, poppyseed, R. hesed, lovingkindness, sesame, between them, tiferet, beauty, egg. Above gevurah, R, binah, understanding, salt. Above hesed, L, hochma, wisdom, everything. Center top, ein sof, infinity: everything with lox, cream cheese, onion and capers. Obviously. Blueberry is the sitra achra don't even try.
Grateful, as always, for you and your support: Thank you. ❤️

Welcome back to part 2 of our Jewish Mystical Mystery Tour!

Here's Part One, if you missed it, or want a refresh:

Jewish Mystical Mystery Tour
Part One: The Weirdest Late Antique Stuff You’ve Never Seen
Life is a Sacred TextRabbi Danya Ruttenberg

So before we go much further we gotta look at the concept of the sefirot– what's often translated as "emanations" – of the divine.

The word is possibly from the Greek for “spheres” and possibly from the Hebrew for sapphire, in reference to Moses’ and the elders’ vision of God in Exodus. (As we saw last week, there's also a wordplay on the word for reading/speaking/counting.)

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We first find them mentioned in Sefer Yetzirah, as mentioned last week. Unlike what we'll see later on, here they're considered truly to be dimensions of the physical universe.

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