sephirah

sephirah

English

Alternative forms

• sefirah
• sephira

Etymology

From Hebrew סְפִירָה‎ (s'firá, “sephirah”, literally “counting, enumeration”), plural סְפִירוֹת‎ (s'firót).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈsɛfɪɹɑː/

Noun

sephirah (plural sephiroth or sephirot)

1. (Kabbalah) Each of the ten attributes that God created, through which he can project himself to the universe and man.
   • 2007, Karen Armstrong, The Bible: The Biography, Atlantic 2008, p. 249:

     The kabbalists also called the first sefirah, the dark flame that started the revelatory/creative process, "Nothing", because it did not correspond to any reality that we could conceive.

   • 2006, Thomas Pynchon, Against the Day, Vintage 2007, p. 256:

     Other nights, depending on how swanky the function and fashionable the gown, there might also be observed, tattooed in exquisite symmetry below Madame Eskimoff's bared nape, the Kabbalist Tree of Life, with the names of the Sephiroth spelled out in Hebrew, which had brought her more than enough of that uniquely snot-nosed British anti-Semitism