Skip to content
Unitive Knowledge Society
Search

Accents are optional; quotes find an exact phrase.
Menu

Concept

Sefirot

In Kabbalah, the ten powers or qualities through which the hidden God is manifest.
Hebrew, Kabbalah
sefirot ספירות

Definition

The sefirot (singular sefirah) are, in Kabbalah, the ten aspects or powers of the divine through which the hidden Ein Sof becomes manifest. The word first appears in the early Sefer Yetzirah, the Book of Formation, for the ten primordial numbers; the Kabbalists of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries made it the name of the structure of the divine life.

The usual names of the sefirot are Keter (crown), Ḥokhmah (wisdom), Binah (understanding), Ḥesed (love), Gevurah (power or judgment), Tiferet (beauty), Netzaḥ (endurance), Hod (splendour), Yesod (foundation) and Malkhut (kingship), which is also the Shekhinah. They are often drawn as a tree, and as the limbs of a human figure; they are male and female, merciful and severe, and the harmony between them is the health of the worlds.

For the Kabbalists, every word of the Torah speaks of the sefirot, and human actions affect them: the commandments unite them, and sin divides them. The relation of the sefirot to God, whether they are God’s essence or God’s instruments, was much debated.

In the traditions

Kabbalah

The ten divine powers, from Keter to Malkhut, through which Ein Sof is manifest and active.

Hasidism

Read inwardly as qualities of the soul as well as of God, to be refined in the service of God.

Neoplatonism

Often compared with the Neoplatonic hierarchy of emanations from the One, though the sefirot are within the divine.

Questions

Authors

Cite this entry
Chicago (bibliography)

“Sefirot.” Concept. The Library, Unitive Knowledge Society. Last modified November 7, 2026. https://www.unitiveknowledge.org/library/concepts/sefirot.

Chicago (note)

“Sefirot,” concept, The Library, Unitive Knowledge Society, last modified November 7, 2026, https://www.unitiveknowledge.org/library/concepts/sefirot.

MLA

“Sefirot.” The Library, Unitive Knowledge Society, 7 Nov. 2026, www.unitiveknowledge.org/library/concepts/sefirot.

BibTeX
@misc{concepts-sefirot,
  title = {{Sefirot}},
  howpublished = {The Library, Unitive Knowledge Society},
  note = {Concept. Last modified November 7, 2026},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://www.unitiveknowledge.org/library/concepts/sefirot}
}

Related concepts

Related

Continue the inquiry