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THE GREAT NAME OF GOD
Leo Schaya Leo Schaya was born and raised within the Jewish tradition. He was particularly known or his writings on Jewish esoterism, with his book Te Universal Meaning o the Kabbalah being one o the best known and ofen-quoted works in that eld; however, he was also at home in the area o Su metaphysical interpretation. He lived most o his adult lie in Nancy, France, France, where he shared his hi s time between the elaboration o his metaphysical output and his interactions with spiritual seekers rom various religious horizons. Te ollowing chapter concludes his aorementioned masterpiece on the Kabbalah.
Te Judaic conession o divine unity, the scriptural ormula o which—the Shema—combines Shema— combines several names o God, represents or the Jew one o the most important “means o union”; another central or direct means o attainingg union with God lies in the invoca attainin invocation tion o a single one o his names. Te tetragrammaton YHVH—the “lost word”—was above all others the “saving” name in the tradition o Israel; it is known as shem hameorash, hameorash, the “explicit name,” the one, that is, o which every consonant reveals and symbolizes one o the our aspects or undamental degrees o divine allreality. It is also called the “complete name” and the “synthesis o syntheses,” because it includes all the other divine names, each o which, by itsel, expresses only one or another particular aspect o the universal principle; it is also called the “unique name” because it is or the “unique people,” and more especially because o its incomparable spiritual efcacy, in that it gives the possibility o direct actualization o the divine presence ( shekhinah shekhinah). ). It was exactly on account o the direct outpouring o divine grace brought about by the invoca invocation tion o the name YHVH that the traditional authority in Israel ound it necessary, even beore the destruction o the second emple, to orbid the spiritually allen people to invoke, or even merely to pronounce the tetragrammaton. In his “Guide o the Perplexed,” Maimonides says on this subject: “A priestly blessing has been prescribed or us, in which the name o the Eternal (YHVH) is pronounced as it is written (and not in the orm o a substituted name) and that name is the ‘explicit name.’ It was not generally known how the name had to be pronounced, nor how it was proper to vocalize the separat s eparatee letters, nor whether any o the letters which could be be doubled should in act be doubled. Men who had received special instruction 87
Te Great Name o God transmitted this one to another (that is, the manner o pronouncing this name) and taught it to none but their chosen disciples, once a week. . . . Tere was also a name composed o twelve letters, which was holy to a lesser degree than the name o our letters; in my opinion it is most probable that this was not a single name but one composed o two or three names which, joined together, had twelve letters (representing their synthesis).1 Tis was the name which was substituted or the name o our letters wherever the latter occurred in the reading (o the orah), just as today we use the name beginning with the consonants Ale , Daleth ( ADoNaY , ‘My Lord’). Doubtless this twelveletter name had originally a more special meaning than that conveyed by the name Adonai; it was not at all orbidden to teach it and no mystery was made o it in the case o any well-instructed person; on the contrary, it was taught to anyone who wished to learn it. Tis was not so in respect to the tetragrammaton; or those who knew it taught it only to their sons and disciples, once a week. However, as soon as undisciplined men, having learnt the twelve-letter name, began thereaer to proess erroneous belies— as always happens when an imperect man is conronted by a thing which diers rom his preconceived notion o it—they began to hide this name also and no longer taught it except to the most devout men o the priestly caste, or use when blessing the people in the sanctuary; it was indeed on account o the corruption o men that the pronunciation o the shem hameorash had already been abandoned, even in the sanctuary: ‘Aer the death o Simeon the Just,’ so say the Doctors, ‘his brother priests ceased to bless by the name (YHVH) but blessed by the name o twelve letters.’ Tey also say: ‘At rst it was transmitted to every man (in Israel), but aer heedless men increased in number, it was no longer transmitted save to men o the priestly caste and the latter allowed (the sound) o it to be absorbed (during the priestly blessing) by the (liturgical) melodies intoned by their ellow-priests.’” Even aer the destruction o the second emple, however, invocation o the “explicit name” appears to have continued as the sacred prerogative o a ew initiates who were unknown to the outside world and who served as the spiritual poles o the esoteric “chain o tradition” (shalsheleth hakabbalah). Te unction o this chain is the initiatic transmission—uninterrupted through the ages—o the “mysteries o the orah,” which include, among others, the mystery o the invocation o the holy names; except or the extremely restricted “elect” who retain the high unction o guarding and secretly invoking the 1
Like the eight-letter name: YAHDVNHY, which is the synthesis o the two names YHVH and ADoNaY (My Lord).
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Leo Schaya “complete name,”2 no one may know its exact pronunciation. Although today Hebrew scholars render the name YHVH by “Jehovah” on the strength o the Masoretic vocalization given in the Bibles and prayerbooks, or by “Yahveh,” in an attempt to imagine some way to pronounce it, these introductions o vowels into the tetragrammaton certainly do not correspond to the authentic pronunciation, and that is why it is written here only in the orm o the our consonants which are its known basis. Te prevailing ignorance as regards the pronunciation o the “explicit name” is certainly not the result o mere “orgetulness” nor o a purely human decision arrived more than two thousand years ago. Te suppression o the teaching and pronunciation o this name—by decree o the traditional authority—is so categorical and so radical in its consequences that it can be afrmed that God himsel has withdrawn this name rom the mass o the people o Israel. However, such intervention “rom above” expresses not only the rigor, but also the mercy o God, who oresaw that the human recipients o “the last days,” no longer possessing the requisite theomorphism, would be shattered by the weight o his lightning descent. Te “complete name,” thereore, cannot be the medium or deiying invocation in our age, which in the prophecies is called the “end o time”; this being so, we must consider its ragmentary substitutes without particular reerence to the “twelve-letter name,” the ritual use o which lasted only a short time. As we have seen, it had to be replaced by the name Adonai, which has been pronounced, ever since the destruction o the emple, every time the tetragrammaton occurs in the reading o the orah and the daily prayers. It should be noted that the substitution o the name Adonai was decreed only in respect to the exoteric ritual, whether perormed in the synagogue or in private, the aim o which is the salvation o the soul in a restricted sense, that is, within the connes o the ego; it does not have in view the invocation which is intended to raise man’s being to the highest “place” (hamakom) which embraces all that is. Te restriction does not apply to the “two-letter name,” YH ( )יהwhich is pronounced Yah and is nothing other than the rst hal o the “name o our letters,” YHVH ( ;)יהוהrom the very act that it is directly substituted or the shem hameorash, this name must have the same esoteric potentialities as the latter, without, however, involving the danger o
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According to the word o God addressed to Moses: “Tou shalt say unto the children o Israel: ‘YHVH, the God o your athers, the God o Abraham, the God o Isaac, and the God o Jacob hath sent me to you. Tis is my name or ever, and this is my memorial ( zikhri, the invocation o God) unto all generations’” (Exodus 3:15).
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Te Great Name o God a too sudden actualization o the divine.3 Tis even appears obvious, rstly because the “name o two letters” has the same transcendent signicance as the tetragrammaton, which includes it and urther, in a more general way, because every divine name not reerring to a particular quality to the exclusion o other qualities, reers to the being or essence o God. *
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Since the “complete name” was withdrawn rom the Jewish people, they have used above all the ollowing three names, which together replace the unity o the “our letters”; rstly the name YaH which integrates the two rst letters— the “transcendental hal ”—o YHVH; secondly the name Elohenu, “Our God,” which includes the six active causes o cosmic construction and represents divine immanence as rst revealed in the subtle, celestial, and psychic world, symbolized by the vav; thirdly the name Adonai—an exoteric replacement or the name YHVH—designates malkhuth, the nal he, representing divine immanence as maniested particularly in the corporeal world. But the name which concerns us here is Yah, the transcendental nature o which leads, in principle, to the state o Yobel (Jubilee), nal “deliverance” (in the same sense as the Hindus understand the word moksha). Tis name seems to represent not only the “means o grace” par excellence o the nal cycle o Jewish history, but also that o its beginning. In act, it can be deduced rom Scripture that Yah was the divine name used particularly by Jacob and his people, whereas YHVH was the “name o Israel” so long as Israel represented the “portion o YHVH.” In the Psalms (135:3-4) it is said: “Praise Yah, or he is good! YHVH, sing praises to his name, or it is pleasant! For Yah has chosen Jacob unto himsel, and Israel or his costly possession,” the possession, that is, o YHVH, according to Deuteronomy (32:9): “For the portion o YHVH is his people.” And Isaiah (44:5) explicitly distinguishes between the “name o Jacob” and the “name o Israel”: “One shall call himsel by the name o Jacob (Yah) and another shall subscribe with his hand, unto YHVH and surname himsel by the name o Israel.” Tis distinction can be explained in 3 In his commentary on the
Seer Yetsirah written in 931, Gaon Saadya de Fayyum says: “When it is said: ‘YaH has two letters, YHVH has our letters,’ what is meant is that YaH is one hal o the name YHVH. Now, the hal was said everywhere and at all times, but the whole was only said in the Sanctuary in a particular period and at the moment o the blessing o Israel.” And the almud (Erubin 18b) states: “Since the destruction o the Sanctuary, the world need only use two letters (as a means o invocation, that is, the two rst letters o YHVH, orming the name YaH).”
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Leo Schaya relation to the history o Israel, all the phases o which are contained in three undamental cycles: the rst, or “patriarchal” cycle, rom Shem to Jacob’s victorious struggle at Peniel with the divine maniestation; the second, or “Israelite,” cycle, rom Peniel, where Jacob and his people received the name o Israel, to the destruction o the second emple; and the third, or “nal,” cycle, rom the collapse o the priestly service and theocracy to the advent o the Messiah. Now Shem was the “seed” o the Jewish race; Abraham was the “ather o many peoples” and Isaac the “sacrice o onesel to God,” while Jacob gave birth to the twelve tribes and the “mystical body” o Israel; so the latter is considered above all others as the patriarch o Israel and the people o God are called “Jacob” until the struggle at Peniel. “Jacob was chosen to belong to Yah,” that is, to be raised up in spirit to divine transcendence. But at Peniel there was a undamental change in the mystical destiny o Jacob and his people, or it was said to him (Genesis 32:28): “Ty name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel (he who struggles with God), or thou hast striven with God and with men and hast prevailed.” In the language o the Kabbalah this means that aer having “wrestled with God until victory”—absorption in the transcendence o Yah—Jacob prevailed also at Peniel over the divine maniestation called “man,” that is, over the “descent” o God into humanity. Tis revelatory and redemptive “descent” is symbolized, in sacred ideography, by the vav ()ו. According to the Zohar (erumah 127a): “When the vav emerges mysteriously sel-contained rom the yod-he (YaH ), then Israel attains to his costly possession,” its corpus mysticum, which is identical with the Serah malkhuth, represented by the last he o the tetragrammaton. Tus, thanks to the sacred struggle o its patriarch, the people entered into possession o the reality hidden in the last two letters o the shem hameorash—the spiritual (V) and substantial (H) ullness o the divine immanence—and itsel became, in its mystical body, the “nal He,” the “portion o YHVH.” It appears, thereore, that during the “Jacobite” phase the people were not yet the “possession o YHVH,” just as YHVH—the “complete name” or actualized unity o divine transcendence (YH) and divine immanence (VH)—was not yet the “possession o Israel.” Te people o “Jacob” was centered on the transcendent aspect o God: Yah. In that cyclical moment and in that environment, spiritual realization must not necessarily have required initiation into the sacred sciences (symbolized by the vav), any more than it needed the priestly service in the sanctuary (represented by the last he o the tetragrammaton). It was only when YHVH established the roots 91
Te Great Name o God o the earthly center o his presence in the midst o Jacob’s amily—which thereby became “Israel,” or the Chosen People—that the vav or “mysteries o the aith” had to be communicated to it through the intermediary o its patriarch. Tese mysteries, transmitted rom generation to generation to the “children o Israel,” were lost at the time o their servitude in Egypt, but were reborn and permanently crystallized in the revelation on Sinai; and the “nal he” o YHVH, the pure and imperceptible substance o the shekhinah, called the “Community o Israel,” entered into the Holy Land and took up its abode in the emple o Jerusalem, where the High Priest blessed all the people by the shem hameorash. By the grace o the “complete name,” the Chosen People long ago actualized the “kingdom o God” in the Holy Land, but on account o their sins the rst emple was destroyed and Israel had to suer exile in Babylon: “. . . during the whole seventy years o exile,” says the Zohar (Shemoth 9b), “Israel had no divine light to guide her and, truly, that was the essence o the exile. When, however, Babylon’s power was taken away rom her and Israel returned to the Holy Land, a light did shine or her, but it was not as bright as beore (when Israel received the emanation o the ‘complete name,’ which was broken up by the sins which also caused the destruction o the rst emple), being only the emanation o the ‘lower he’ (the shekhinah, or ‘mystical body’ o Israel, identical with that o the second emple), since the whole o Israel did not return to purity to be a ‘peculiar people’ as beore. Tereore, the emanation o the supernal yod did not descend to illumine in the same measure as beore, but only a little. Hence Israel was involved in many wars until ‘the darkness covered the earth’ and the ‘lower he’ was darkened and ell to the ground (so that Israel was orbidden to invoke the ‘complete name’) and the upper source was removed as beore (as at the time o the destruction o the rst emple), and the second emple was destroyed and all its twelve tribes went into exile in the kingdom o Edom. 4 Te he also went into exile 4
Te name o the biblical kingdom o Edom (situated between the Dead Sea and the Gul o Elath) is here used as a symbolic term o the whole Roman Empire. According to the Kabbalah, Edom symbolizes sometimes the imperect or unbalanced state o creation preceding its present state—the latter being an ordered maniestation o the Fiat Lux—and sometimes the idolatrous world o antiquity and, by extension, every materialistic, proane, or atheistic civilization, such as our own. Te Bible (Genesis 36) identies Edom with Esau, who sold his birthright—implying the right o the rst-born, the major patriarchal blessing—or “a mess o pottage.” Tereore, in the Jewish tradition, Esau or Edom is opposed to Jacob or Israel, as the animal and materialistic tendency o man is opposed to his spiritual and theomorphic tendency.
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Leo Schaya there. . . .” the shekhinah was “decentralized,” dispersed with Israel all over the world. It continued to radiate only through weak “reections” wherever there was a community o orthodox Jews; nevertheless, its sacred “embers” have continued to are up with an increased light and, sporadically, its true “grandeur” has been recaptured amidst the elect; these are the Mekubbalim, or initiated Kabbalists, who—with certain exceptions, such as the “alse Messiahs”—ormed the “pillars” o the exiled people; but they appear to have become a negligible minority in the era o the triumph o “Edomite” civilization, this modern world o ours which has even been transplanted to the Holy Land itsel. According to the Zohar , David, through the holy spirit, oresaw the end o the last exile o Israel—identiying it with the very “end o days” in accordance with the prophecies—and revealed it in Psalm 102:19: 5 “Tis shall be written or the uture (or the last) generation and a people which shall be created (in the time o the ‘end’) shall praise Yah!” Te same prophecy is hidden in the verse rom Malachi (3:23): “Behold, I will send you Elijah (my God is Yah) the prophet (whose very name reveals which divine name was to be invoked during his pre-Messianic ministry and who represents, not only the type o the eternal master o masters, but also the type o all prophetic activity preceding and directly preparing the universal redemptive act o God’s anointed), beore the coming o the great and terrible day o YHVH.” Finally, the Zohar shows the exact reason why the name Yah—as in the time o Jacob—represents the means above all others o salvation in the period rom the destruction o the emple to the advent o the Messiah; and this reason becomes ully apparent in our day, when even the believing Jews can no longer live in reedom rom the materialistic and proane organization o the modern world and so are unable any longer perectly to carry out the Mosaic law, which presupposes as its “sphere o activity” either a theocracy or a closed traditional world. 6 Now, the Zohar (erumah 165b) says, reerring to 5
Tis Psalm is called the “prayer o the unhappy man” whose “days vanish into smoke” and “are like a shadow at its decline.” Tese phrases reer to the end o time. 6
Tat the “name o two letters” applies to the present time is made clear not only in the saying rom the almud (Erubin 18b) which we have quoted, but also in the ollowing ormulation, amongst others, which was used in the school ounded by the great master Isaac Luria (1534 72) and which shows that a spiritual method was based upon it as modern times approached: “For the sake o union o the Holy One, be he blessed, with his shekhinah, in ear and in love, that the name YaH , be blessed, may be unied in complete unication.” It should be remembered that the phrase “to uniy the name” has the meaning, rom the point o view o method: to invoke the divine name.
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Te Great Name o God the name Yah: “All is included in this name: those that are above (epitomized in the yod , the ideogram o pure transcendence, kether-hokhmah) and those that are below (hidden, in its principal and undierentiated state, in the ‘upper he,’ binah, the archetype o immanence). In it the six hundred and thirteen commandments o the orah, which are the essence o the supernal and terrestrial mysteries, are included.” When this name is invoked sincerely, then it is as though one were carrying out all the commandments o the Jewish religion. Tis name compassionately orgives and compensates or the inadequacy o man in relation to the divine will; that is why the psalmist and “prophet o Yah” cried out: “In my anguish I called upon Yah; Yah heard my prayer and set me in a large place” (Psalm 118:5). “I shall not die, I shall live and declare the works o Yah. Yah has chastened me sorely, but he has not given me over to death. Open the gates o righteousness beore me; I will enter into them, praising Yah!” (Psalms 118:17-19). God can and will save Zion, not by his rigor, but by his compassion, when “time shall have come to its end”: “Tou wilt arise and have compassion upon Zion; or it is time to be gracious unto her, or the appointed time is come!” (Psalms 102:13).7 Te name Yah does not have the “descending” ef cacy o the shem hameorash; it lacks the direct inux o the vav or “living God,” the spiritual brilliance o which cannot be borne without the presence o the “nal he,” represented at the same time by the emple and its priestly service, the transmission and practice o the sacred sciences, the unctioning o theocratic institutions, and the conormity o an entire people to the divine will. Yet the reasons or the substitution o the name Yah or that o YHVH are not only restrictive, or, since they are connected, rom the cyclical point o view, with the “end o time,” this end ceases also to be o a purely negative character; on the contrary, according to the prophets, it precedes a positive renewal, namely, the creation o “a new Heaven and a new earth”—more perect than
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“For He hath looked down rom the height o his sanctuary; rom heaven did YHVH behold the earth to hear the groaning o the prisoner (o the civilization o ‘Edom’) and to loose those that are appointed to death (represented by the anti-spiritual lie o the modem world)” (Psalms 102:19-20). “YHVH is ull o compassion and gracious, slow to anger and plenteous in mercy. He will not always contend, neither will he keep his anger orever. He hath not dealt with us aer our sins, nor requited us according to our iniquities, or as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his goodness towards them that hear him. As ar as the east is rom the west, so ar hath he removed us rom our transgressions. Like a ather hath compassion upon his children (and Yah is precisely the name o the divine ‘ather,’ hokhmah) so hath YHVH compassion upon them that ear him. For he knoweth our rame; He remembereth that we are dust (and can in no way change the cyclical conditions in which we are born and have to live)” (Psalms 103:8-14).
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Leo Schaya those now existing—as well as the creation o a new Jerusalem, whose “places shall be sacred to YHVH and will never be laid waste nor destroyed.” By the very act that it is the name to be invoked by the “last generation,” Yah is also the name or the return to the “beginning,” to the perect original o all things. It is dierent rom the tetragrammaton, the efcacity o which is above all “descending,” revelatory, and existential, or the name Yah is in act the name o “ascent” and o redemption; it is exactly the name o the “beginning” and o the “end” o every ontological emanation and cosmic maniestation o God, while the name YHVH is the whole emanation, and the whole maniestation. Te “upper (or transcendent) YHVH” maniests through the “lower (or immanent)8 YHVH”; in the same way, the “upper (or ontological) Yah” maniests through the “lower Yah” or cosmic principle, which retains its transcendent nature everywhere, even “below.” Tereore, i the “lower YHVH” represents divine immanence, the “lower Yah” then represents “transcendent immanence.” Te yod which, in its pure transcendence “on high” is the unity o kether and hokhmah, signies “below,” in the metacosmic center o the cosmos, the unity o the shekhinah and its active aspect, metatron, the cosmic intellect, the inner regulator o creation, while the ollowing he represents its passive aspect avir , “ether,” the quintessence—the he having in act the numerical value o ve—o the our subtle and the our coarse elements; it is, as we have already seen, the undierentiated principle o all subtle, celestial, or psychic substance and o all coarse or corporeal matter. I the shekhinah, in so ar as it dwells in the prototypical and spiritual world (olam haberiyah), is the “transcendent immanence” o kether , then metatron is that o hokhmah, and avir that o binah; now just as the three highest Seroth cannot be separated one rom another, since they represent the one innite and indivisible principle, Yah, so also metatron and avir must not be separated rom the shekhinah, o which they are respectively the active or regulating aspect and the receptive or generative aspect. Tese three immanent principles, undierentiated, compose the “lower Yah,” also called the “heaven o heavens,” the inseparable unity o the tenth, ninth, and eighth heaven being “the one who rides in Araboth,9 (the seventh heaven): 8 Tese two aspects o YHVH are revealed to Moses in the
Scriptures (Exodus 34:6) when God shows him His attributes ( Middoth) beginning with the twice repeated: “YHVH, YHVH El rahum wehanun. . . .” (YHYH, YHVH, God merciul and compassionate. . . .) 9 It should be remembered that the
word Araboth or the seventh heaven, translated sometimes as “clouds,” sometimes by “plains,” “desert,” or “heaven,” is derived rom the root ARB, which means something mixed. In act, avir , the undierentiated ether, that “pure and imperceptible
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Te Great Name o God Yah is his name” (Psalms 68:5). Te “heaven o heavens,” identical with the prototypical “world o creation” (olam haberiyah) is the intermediary plane between the Serothic “meta-cosmos” and the created cosmos which begins in the seventh heaven, Araboth, the “surace o the lower waters.” Te “lower Yah” is thereore “transcendent immanence,” the mediator between pure transcendence and immanence in that it penetrates that which is created and is called by the last two letters o the “lower YHVH.”10 When YHVH comes down rom the highest “place” to the center o this world, he brings the secrets o all the divine and cosmic degrees, the “mysteries o the orah” with their various graces; thus his “our letters” orm what is preeminently the revealing name, while Yah is enthroned on the “surace o the waters,” where the “heavens and the earth” begin and end, that is to say the whole o the world “created in one single instant”; there it is that all creatures emerge rom God and return to him, in a single “cry o joy” which is nothing other than the “primordial sound.” Te name Yah is the revealed utterance o this inarticulate and universal “cry” or “sound” which maniests and reabsorbs the entire cosmos; it is the name o creative and redemptive joy. Tus the Psalmist cries out: “Make way or him who rides in Araboth: Yah is his name. Rejoice beore him!” “What the verse tells us,” comments the Zohar (erumah 165b), “is that the ancient o ancients (the supreme principle) rideth in the Araboth (that he is really present) in the sphere o Yah, which is the primordial mystery emanating rom him, namely the ineable name Yah, which is not identical with him (the absolute), but is a kind o veil emanating rom him. Tis veil is his name, it is his chariot, and even that is not maniested (in the cosmos, but is enthroned on the ‘surace o the waters’). It is his ‘great name.’ . . . For when all is well with this name, then harmony is complete, and all worlds rejoice in unison.” Yah, in its immanent aspect, is the immediate cause o the cosmos, the air” o the eighth heaven, is maniested in Araboth in its rst dierentiation, subtle substance or “water” which reects the uncreated light, or spiritual “re” descending rom the shekhinah or rom its universal irradiation, metatron. Now the “surace o the waters” shines so brightly in the light o the divine “re” that it seems to be utterly used or “mixed” in it. Tis “mixture” or more precisely this “immanence” o the spirit in the subtle substance, which endures as long as the cosmos subsists, produces the whole o the seven “heavens,” shamaim, this word being composed o esh, spiritual “re” and o maim, substantial “waters.” 10 Te vav o the “lower YHVH—having the
numerical value o six—symbolizes the shekhinah which penetrates the rst six o the seven heavens constituting the subtle “world o ormation” (olam hayetsirah). Te “nal he o the lower YHVH”—having the numerical value o ve— represents avir , the quintessence, in that it has descended into the lowest heaven, there to dwell as the ether or undierentiated principle o the our elements constituting olam haasiyah, the sensory or corporeal “world o act”; thus the “nal he,” dwelling in the lowest heaven, is the immediate and omnipresent center o our world.
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Leo Schaya cause that transcends all its eects: it remains hidden in the prototypical world, as uncreated and innite light. But its irradiation transpierces its envelope, the ether, with a “sound” which is that o the revelatory, creative, and redemptive “word”; this is the “voice” o the Creator, the “primordial sound” which produces the two lower worlds, the world o subtle “ormation” and the sensory world o “act.” It is the “inner voice” which sounds in the innermost depths o all things, so that it is said that “the heavens declare the glory o God, and the rmament showeth his handiwork. Day unto day uttereth speech and night unto night revealeth knowledge. Tere is no speech, no language where the sound is not heard: their voice resounds through all the earth and their words go out to the end o the world. . .” (Psalms 19:2-5). Te “inner” (divine) voice is in truth the very light o God, an innite light which, by reraction in the ether, has been transormed into revelatory, creative, and redemptive “sound.” Tat is the universal “name” o God, inwardly his light, outwardly his voice, emitted spontaneously and in innumerable modes—articulate or inarticulate—by “everything that has a soul.” Tis is why the psalmist calls, not only to men, but to everything he sees as animated by the universal name, to invoke that name or the glory o the “named” and the salvation o the world; he even goes so ar as to exhort the “heaven o heavens” to join in the invocation, because it is rom there, rom Yah itsel, that the voice in eect descends and resounds on the “surace o the waters”—where the created heavens begin—and is thence transmitted throughout the whole o existence, even to the earthly “abysses.” “Praise Yah! Praise YHVH rom the height o the heavens! Praise him in the heights! Praise ye him, all his angels! All his hosts, praise ye him! Praise ye him, sun and moon! Praise him, all ye stars o light! Praise him, ye heavens o heavens and the waters that are above the heavens! . . . Praise YHVH rom below on the earth, ye sea-monsters and all ye deeps; re and hail, snow and vapors, stormy wind ullling his word, mountains and all hills; ruitul trees and all cedars; beasts and all cattle; creeping things and winged owl! Kings o the earth and all peoples, princes and all judges o the earth; both young men and maidens, old men and children; let them praise the name o YHVH! For his name alone is exalted; his glory is above the earth and heaven. . .” (Psalms 148). For the prophet-king, the synonym o this universal praise is either the call to the “great name,” Yah, or the call to the “complete name,” YHVH; 11 this 11 Te
name Yah is the direct and synthetic articulation o the “primordial sound,” whereas the name YHVH is the indirect and “explicit” articulation o .the same; every holy name moreover represents a more or less explicit utterance o the divine voice, but to a lesser degree than the name YHVH.
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Te Great Name o God is why his exhortation begins with the words: “Praise Yah! Praise YHVH! . . .” Tis universal invocation is made up o the indenite multitude o modes in which the divine voice chooses to speak through his “organs” which are his creatures; however, where all worlds, all beings, all things emerge directly rom their rst and divine unity, that is, rom Yah “who rides on Araboth,” there is only one mode o invocation, a single sound, a single cry, which expresses the joy o myriads o creatures in union with the One, the Unique. For where all beings issue rom God is the place where all return to him without delay; here, on the “surace o the waters,” in the seventh heaven, Araboth, all that becomes separated rom the Lord is separated only in order to be reunited with him. In eect, his creative act and his redemptive act are experienced there as one and the same thing: thanks to separation rom him, union with him takes place. Beings emerge like so many “sparks” rom the irradiation o the shekhinah, that is to say o metatron, the divine “sun” which contains them all in so ar as they are immanent and unseparated archetypes. On leaving this luminous world, where all is one with God, the sparks become enveloped in the dierentiated maniestation o avir , that is, in the subtle “waters” o the seventh heaven, over the surace o which the “wind o Elohim” breathes and produces innumerable “waves.” Tis wind is the cosmic spirit, metatron, which sets avir , the universal substance, in motion in order or it to produce subtle “waves,” that is, souls each one o which is animated, illuminated, and inhabited by a spiritual “spark,” a “living being.” Each “wave” appearing on the “surace o the waters,” whether issuing rom God or returning rom the depths o the cosmic “ocean,” bursts into a single cry o joy and expands over the whole extent o the existential sea, the whole o Araboth. Over this hovers the eighth heaven, avir , the undierentiated and translucid ether, which is wholly penetrated by the spiritual sun, metatron, so that the whole rmament itsel appears like a sun, illuminating the “surace o the waters” rom one end to the other. As we have said, each “wave” produced on this surace instantly expands in the supreme invocation and becomes the whole o the indenite expanse, the immense “mirror,” which is so lled with divine light that it mingles—in essential “usion” and not in qualitative “conusion”—with the “radiant ace” o Yah inclined towards it. Tus each being is simultaneously united with the whole o existence and with the innite source o existence. But i it is said that this integral union takes place at the very instant when the created being issues rom uncreated being, one may wonder how the being then descends to the lower heavens and down to this earth in the orm o a separate individual or separate “world.” Tis descent takes place 98
Leo Schaya as ollows: Te “ne upper point” o the created being, which is its spiritual or divine “spark,” remains in the seventh heaven in constant usion with the innite light o God, whilst its extension downwards—inwardly a spiritual vibration, outwardly a subtle “wave”—begins to expand on the “surace o the waters” and descend into the midst o the cosmic “ocean,” there to ollow its predestined path. Te created being is similar in this way to a letter o the Hebrew alphabet, which, starting rom its upper point, opens out rst in the orm o a horizontal stroke and is prolonged in one ashion or another in the direction o its lower limit. Just as letters, when pronounced, return to their origin—the silent world o the uncreated and creative Word—so do animate beings or subtle “waves,” having issued with the “primordial sound” rom the divine silence and having vibrated through the heavens as ar as here below, then return rom their terrestrial end-point towards their celestial point o departure, rom which they have never been separated and which is itsel in permanent union with God. We have seen that all created beings without exception issue through the same invocation—the “primordial sound”—rom their divine origin and return to it through this same “cry or joy.” Tis simultaneously creative and redemptive sound is heard when the vibration o the divine light alls on the rst subtle and cosmic expanse o the ether, on the “surace o the waters.” Each o the waves ormed therein truly “bursts” with joy and is nothing but an exclamation o gladness which expands over the whole o Araboth; each being there is just a “voice” vibrating with bliss, joined with all the other “cries” in the one “voice o YHVH” which “resounds over the waters” (Psalms 29:3). Tis “voice,” this rst and universal sound, expressed simultaneously by the Creator and by all his creatures, is symbolized in sacred ideophony by the vowel a; this issues rom the y ( yod )—rom the unity o shekhinah metatron—and spreads out indenitely to the connes o the existential “ocean,” through the h (he) or avir , that “very pure and imperceptible air” coming rom the mouth o God. Such is the genesis o the divine great name, Yah, o which it is said (Psalms 150:6): “Let everything that hath breath praise Yah! Halaluyah! (praised be Yah).”12 12 In the Apocalypse (19:6-7) there is also an allusion to the
invocation o Yah by the “waters” o the cosmic ocean; St. John speaks o their “voice” which says Hallelujah! and o the redemptive joy which goes with the invocation: “And I heard as it were the voice o a great multitude and as the voice o many waters, and as the voice o mighty thunderings, saying: Hallelujah: or the Lord God omnipotent reigneth!” Let us remember that “Hallelujah” represents not only a orm o invocation o Yah in Judaism, but also became, by way o the Psalms, a praise o God in the Christian tradition.
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Te Great Name o God God, by invoking his creative and redemptive name, causes everything that exists to issue rom him and to return into him; by invoking his name with him, every being is born rom him, lives by him, and is united with him
Te Great Name o God by Leo Schaya Features in Pray Without Ceasing: Te Way o the Invocation in World Religion © 2006 World Wisdom, Inc. Edited by Patrick Laude All Rights Reserved. For Personal Usage Only www.worldwisdom.com.
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