The Ancient of Days
and
Keter, The White Head



 

Kabbalah speaks of Head, Faces, Navel, bowels and the like.  These are all Parts of The Grand Man - Adam Kadmon, The First, The Tree...The Manifestation of Ain Sof (Einsof, God).
 

The Tree's many Parts are identified as Attributes - Sefirot - or Emanations of God.  These Parts are Divine in origin and there is no part  even now in all of creation that is not Divine in origin.  He comes to reclaim His Own...to reconcile the World unto The Father.

FRL
"The sefirot are the divine original. As
Primordial Adam, they are the mythical
paragon of the human being, the Archetypes
of our nature.  The Human race has lost this
nature, but if one were to purify himself, he
would reconnect with the sefirot and become
a vessel for them.  This is what the Patriarchs
attained and, to a greater degree, Moses."
--Arthur Green





"When the Desire arose in the Will of The White Head to manifest Its Glory,
It arrayed, prepared, and generated from the Blinding Flash
One Spark, radiating in 370 directions.
The Spark stood still.
A pure Aura emerged whirling and breathed upon the Spark.
The Spark congealed and one Hard Skull emerged, emanating to four sides.
Surrounded by this pure Aura, The Spark was contained and absorbed.
Completely absorbed, you think?
No, secreted within.
That is how this Skull emanated to Its sides.
This Aura is the secret of secrets of the Ancient of Days.
Through the Breath hidden in this Skull, Fire emanated on one side, and Air on the other, with the pure Aura standing over this side and pure Fire over the other.
What is a Fire doing here?
It is not Fire, but The Spark surrounded by the pure Aura illuminates 270 worlds,
and from Its side, Judgment comes into being.
That is why this Skull is called The Hard Skull."

--"Zohar"






"The sefirot (Emanation of God) below Keter (The Top Skull), from Chokhmah to Yesod, are referred to as the Impatient One (Ze'eir Appin - literally, 'Short-Face' but meaning 'Short-tempered, Impatient').  Keter, The White Head, the highest sefirah, is pure compassion and is therefore described as Arikh Anpin, 'Long-faced, Long-suffering, Slow to anger'.  The lower sefirot are characterized by a tension between
different Aspects of the Divine:  right and left, love and rigor.  Relative to Keter, they are impatient.
"Looking back to His Source, the Impatient One is soothed and manifests the compassion overflowing from Keter."

---Notes on the "Zohar"
 
 
 

The Blinding Flash



"Aramaic, bozina de-quardinuta.  This is the Zohar's name for the First Impulse of Emanation proceeding from Ein Sof, The Infinite, through Keter.  The Flash directs the entire process of Emanation, providing Its rhythm and measure.  The goal of meditation is to attain this Flash and participate in the flow of 'Being'."
 


One Spark

"Aramaic, bad nizoza. This is the first point:  Chokhmah, Wisdom."
 


One Hard Skull

"Binah ["Understanding"], Who proceeds from the Spark of CHokhmah.
 


Four Sides

"The Four Sides (North, South, East and West) symbolize four sefirot that emanate from Binah: Din [Power], Hesed [Love], Tif'eret [Beauty] and Shekhinah [Presence].
 


Surrounded by Pure Aura

"CHokhmah is absorbed by Its Source. It does not dissolve there but rather remains hidden and transmits the Power of further Emanation to Binah."
 


The Breath

"Breathed by the Aura through The Spark of Chokhmah into the Skull of Binah."
 


Fire

"Din [Gevurah], the sefirah of Judgment."
 
 

270 Worlds of Judgment

"Binah, the product of The Spark of Chokhmah, is the Compassionate Divine Mother.  However, She includes within Herself the roots of Judgment and gives birth to Din, the sefirah of Judgment.  270 may be an allusion to ra, 'evil', which has the numerical equivalent of 270."

---"Zohar"






"The ten spheres are:  "the Spirit, Air, Water, Fire, the four cardinal points of the compass, height and depth.  These ten are all emanations from God:  the Crown, the Wisdom, the Intelligence, the Love, the Power, the Compassion, the Steadfastness, the Majesty, the Foundation and the Kingdom.  They are linked together as a vital organism, like a tree whose root is the Infinite, with the Kingdom as the Trunk, the Foundation as the point from which all the branches begin to spread, the Compassion (or Beauty) at the center and the Crown at the top.  They are the Names which God gave to Himself and which make up the one great Name.

--John Ferguson "An Illustrated Encyclopedia of Mysticism and the Mystery Religions"
    "Each of the sefirot represented a different Force or Aspect of God, such as Love, Power, or Understanding.  These Acts were said to have emanated, or unfolded from God, and as the sefirot embodied all aspects of creation, generation, and decay, they represented the universe itself unfolding."
--Ancient Wisdom and Secret Sects





"The ten circles are known as sephiroth, the plural of sephira, meaning a number.  They are interconnected in various ways...It is believed that the sephiroth exercise a mystical influence on one another via these connections."

--George Sassoon and Rodney Dale, The Manna Machine






"The ten sephirot were arranged in a rigid hierarchy, and each lower sephirah grew out of the One immediately above; that is, the second rank sephirah grew out of the First, the Third out of the Second, etc.  Thus, the first sephirah had all the powers of the sephirot under him; the Second had Its own Power plus all the Powers of the succeeding Eight, and so on.  They were:
 

1.  Kether ("Crown"), also called the Simple Point, because this initial and paramount sephirah was unknown and all-embracing.  Kether was know familiarly as the Old One, the Ancient of Days (from Daniel 7:9), the White Head, or the Long Face.
 

2.  Hochmah, Chokhmah ("Wisdom") was also known as Abba ("Father") and was the masculine outgrowth of the Ancient One.
 

3.  Binah ("Understanding or Intelligence"), the highest feminine Emanation in the order of the sephirot, also known as Ima ("Mother").
 

4.  Hesed ("Kindness") is also called Gedullah ("Greatness") and is masculine.
 

5.  Geburah ("Power") is also called Din (Justice) and is feminine.
 

6.  Tipheret ("Glory" or "Beauty") is both masculine and feminine because it is a combination of Hesed and Geburah.
 

7.  Netzah ("Firmness", "Might", "Victory") is masculine.
 

8.  Hod ("Splendor") is feminine.
 

9.  Yesod ("Foundation")  combines Netzah and Hod.  It is therefore masculine and feminine.
 

10.  Malkut ("Kingdom") has no special attributes but is a kind of funnel through which the qualities of the Upper nine sephirot are transmitted to the physical world.  It is therefore called Shekinah, the Spirit of God.
 

"The first nine sephirot were grouped in threes, each triad including a masculine element, a feminine element and a combining element.  The first three sephirot represented the World of Thought; the second, the World of Emotions and morals; the third, the World of Nature. The tenth sephirot, Malkut, existed alone as the harmony of all the other nine.
 

"This triune was paralleled by the Kabbalists' version of the three-part soul, an idea expressed earlier by Plato, Aristotle, the Bible, and the Talmud. The soul called Neshamah represented the Intellect and corresponded to the first three sephirot.  The soul called Ruach represented the emotion and corresponded to the Hesed-Geburah-
Tipheret triad.  The soul called Nephesh represented man's animal nature and corresponded to the lowest triad of sephirot.

--Harry Gersh, The Sacred Books of the Jews






"Spiritual and psychological wholeness is achieved by meditating on the qualities of each sefirah, by imitating and integrating the attributes of God.  The path is not easy.  Divine Will can be harsh:  Abraham was commanded to sacrifice Isaac in order to balance love with rigor.  From the Other Side, demonic forces threaten and seduce.
The ecstasy of sefirotic contemplation, however, seems reserved mostly for souls who have departed this world or for the High Priest on the Day of Atonement.  Souls of the living who succeed in prayer delight in palaces below Shekhinah [the opening to the Divine].  If especially devout, they may be raised to the level of Yesod or attain a sefirotic vision, but the highest sefirot are considered unapproach- able [indeed, one must be BROUGHT - apprehended - higher.  No one is worthy to attain.  He...is...HOLY].  In fact, the "Zohar" forbids contemplation of Binah and what lies beyond Her."