“The Book of Creation,” one of the fundamental texts of Cabbalah. The Sepher Yetizrah was not written down until several centuries after the birth of Christ-before that time, it was transmitted orally. It is thus very difficult to date the Sepher Yetzirah, although Jewish scholars maintain it was created by none other than the patriarch Abraham after his departure from Babylon.
The Sepher Yetzirah is extremely short: its longest version contains 2,500 words, its shortest just 1,300. Some traditions maintain the original text contained no more than 240 words.
The book is divided into six chapters: the first is an explanation of the sephira; the second is a discussion of the letters of the Hebrew alphabet and their use in a meditative context. The third, fourth and fifth chapters expand on the discussion of Hebrew alphabet, dividing the letters into “mothers,” “doubles” and “elementals,” related to the mystical properties of space, spirit and time. The sixth chapter is the most difficult to apprehend, dealing with the complex and esoteric concepts of “axis,” “cycle” and “heart.” As to whether or not the final chapter of the Sepher Yetzirah is a discourse on magic or theory is a secret known only to the most powerful sorcerers.