Forms of the Plane · 3D
Circles and the Line
Luria’s igulim and yosher
In Isaac Luria’s teaching the ten sefirot first appear as ten concentric spheres in the round void left by the Infinite’s withdrawal, nested like the skins of an onion. Then a single line descends from the top of the outermost sphere, and along it the sefirot stand again as an upright figure in three lines: right, left and middle.
- Spheres
- 10
- Lines
- 3
- Outermost
- Keter
Turn it in your hands, strike it to hear the chord of its edges, slice it with a plane.
Facts
- The circles (igulim) and the upright line (yosher) are the same ten sefirot in two aspects: nature, and the image of a person.
- Keter is the outermost sphere, nearest the Infinite, and Malkhut the innermost. Our world is the point at the centre.
- The line is the Kav, the ray of light the Infinite sends back into the void.
- Chaim Vital records that earlier Kabbalists disputed between a ladder, three lines and nested spheres; Luria joined the last two.
History and meaning
Vital’s Etz Chaim opens with this picture. Diagrams of the sefirot as concentric spheres, like the celestial spheres of the astronomers, survive from a manuscript of 1286.
