The Kabbalah: its doctrines, development, and literature

THE KABBALAH
Its Doctrines, Development, and Literature
By CHRISTIAN D. GINSBURG Ll.D.
Second Impression London GEORGE ROUTLEDGE & SONS LIMITED Broadway House: 68–74 Carter Lane E.C. 1920
Reprinted verbatim from the first edition which contained (pp. 1–82) entitled “The Essenes.”
PERCY M. DOVE, ESQ., F.I.A., F.S.S., &c.,
I AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBE THIS ESSAY,
AS AN EXPRESSION OF MY HIGH REGARD FOR HIM, BOTH AS A FRIEND AND A CHRISTIAN GENTLEMAN.
In our analysis of the Kabbalistic doctrines on these grand problems, we shall follow the order in which they have been enumerated, and accordingly begin with the lucubrations on the Supreme Being and the Emanations.
I. The Supreme Being and the doctrine and classification of the Emanations, or Sephiroth.
From the junction of the foregoing opposites emanated again the masculine or active potency, denominated Mercy or Love , (‏חסד‎), also called Greatness (‏גדולה‎), the fourth Sephira , which among the divine names is represented by El (‏אל‎), and among the angelic hosts by Chashmalim (‏חשמלים‎, Comp. Ezek. i, 4 ). From this again emanated the feminine or passive potency, Justice (‏דין‎), also called Judicial Power (‏גבורה‎), the fifth Sephira , which is represented by the divine name Eloha (‏אלה‎), and among the angels by Seraphim (‏שרפים‎, Isa. vi, 6 ); and from this again the uniting potency, Beauty or Mildness (‏תפארת‎), the sixth Sephira , represented by the divine name Elohim (‏אלהים‎), and among the angels by Shinanim (‏שנאנים‎, Ps. lxviii, 18 ). Since without this union the existence of things would not be possible, inasmuch as mercy not tempered with justice, and justice not tempered with mercy would be unendurable: and thus the second trinity of the Sephiroth is obtained.
From this representation of each triad, as consisting of a threefold principle, viz., the two opposites, masculine and feminine, and the uniting principle, the development of the Sephiroth , and of life generally, is symbolically called the Balance (‏מתקלא‎), because the two opposite sexes, are compared with the two opposite scales, and the uniting Sephira is compared with the beam which joins the scales, and indicates its equipoise.