Letter Sequencing

(My Original Blog Post: http://ping.fm/kbztU)
I've been pondering this question for quite some time, so I want to emphasize here that I'm very excited to have come up with an answer, despite the dry nature of the medium at hand. Indeed, I'm struggling not to trip over my words even now, although I doubt this will seem in any way exciting to you, my readers.

One of the questions that Sefer Yetsirah raised for me was the question of how to read a word. Now, to clarify, I mean that in SY, each letter becomes a dense unit of information. This information is processed by us as gnosis. There are two states that usually are common when processing gnosis, the realization and the recollection. When realizing a unit of gnosis, an epiphany, there is an initial rush, a sense of muted, but potent euphoria that occurs - Ezekiel's gleam of amber (there is a four stage process that occurs en route to that state but that's another story). Later recollections are typically not as strong, but are capable of expanding the conceptual container more easily. When contemplating the letters individually in this way, I use books like this one to create an array of meaning in my mind, thereby opening up the unit of gnosis as a container, from which I can draw information or store it. But a word? That's not so easy.

However, SY presents us with a dilemma, as the letter arrays seem to be two characters, and we've only dealt with one: "Weigh them and transpose them, Aleph with each one, and each one with Aleph; Bet with each one, and each one with Bet. They repeat in a cycle." So how do we discover the relationship between the two letters in sequence? We can hold both gnosis concepts in our minds, but how they should interact isn't specified.

Or is it?

Kaplan talks about the concept of 'thesis-antithesis-synthesis' which can be derived from the 'pan of merit, pan of liability and the tongue that decides' phrase at the beginning of chapter two. This is how one is to derive meaning from two letters - first see the concept of letter 1 as the thesis, look at how letter 2 opposes it, then how they can be resolved. Then reverse the order and repeat the process. So if we are talking about the two letter sequence Alef-Beit, then we have a 4 step process.

1. Consider Alef as a concept.


2. Consider Beit as it is different from Alef.


3. Consider how those differences could be resolved.


4. Switch Alef and Beit, then begin again.

A word then, simply requires you to resolve each letter pair in sequence, like this: Alef-Beit, Beit-Gimel, etc... So that's how you do a word. However, the conjoining of all of these states into one fulfills the last half of chapter two: "Therefore, everything formed and everything spoken emanates in one name." The one name is the information container (kli) derived from the assimilation of all combined letter states, like a sword that has been strengthened by alloying. This is the Golem of legend. It is a lower resolution imago of the One Name (Baruch Hashem!). I believe that once the Golem has been created, it is possible to create effects simply by pronouncing a single word - because when all words spring forth from the supernal Torah, the law becomes a staff in the hand of the prophet.