Sefirot: meaning, tenfold patterns and textual context
In Kabbalistic writing, sefirot are divine emanations or attributes understood through their relationships. The singular is sefirah. A definition needs its text and interpretive setting: the term in Sefer Yetzirah should not automatically be read as a complete later Tree of Life diagram.
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Term and spelling
ספירות · Sefirot; singular: sefirah. Sephirot is another English spelling.
Begin with the text using the word
Sefer Yetzirah 1:2 places ten sefirot belimah alongside twenty-two foundation letters. Chapter 1 develops its own descriptions, and 1:4 insists on a count of ten. Start with that passage rather than inserting the familiar names of a later scheme into words the passage does not contain.
Names describe relationships within a scheme
A common named sequence is Keter, Chochmah, Binah, Chesed, Gevurah, Tiferet, Netzach, Hod, Yesod and Malkhut. J. Immanuel Schochet also explains counts that include Daat in place of Keter. The count belongs to an identified scheme; a label found on another diagram is not automatically an additional eleventh sefirah.
Read a word such as Chesed with its neighbors and explanation. A short English gloss helps recognition, but does not exhaust a religious concept. The Ilanot Project studies how historical trees arrange these relationships together with texts. A decorative circle labeled “kindness” supplies much less information than a source explaining its relation to another attribute.
Sources: J. Immanuel Schochet · Two Systems of Ten Sefirot · University of Haifa · Ilanot Project, Maps of God
Turn a definition into a source note
For a useful lookup record, write the exact term, work, passage and version. Then copy one relationship you can support from that passage. If a diagram accompanies it, identify what the lines and labels actually say before inferring a system from their position.
Our Learn sefirot guide develops the names and a first reading exercise. This glossary entry provides orientation when you meet the word elsewhere. It does not classify someone’s personality by a sefirah, or turn one author’s arrangement into the single diagram of all Kabbalah.
Related terms and learning
Sources and editorial approach
Prepared by Mazalogy with AI assistance and the named sources. Definitions summarize a source in its context; reading exercises are contemporary editorial work. Source attribution does not imply that its author or institution reviewed or endorsed this page.