isthmus nekoi said:
Perhaps those properties were meant to be directly related to a sephira. . . .
The ‘five opposite five’ (5 successive pairs) of
SY quite clearly means
odd versus
even—which means macrocosm versus microcosm (since
even implies reflection) . . .
. . . e.g. beginning-end -> kether-malkuth
This facile re-ordering of Sefirot the rabbis indulge in is utter blasphemy to this old Qabbalist: malkut can’t be 2nd and 10th both and still be one Sefirah. In Atzilut, described by the
Bahir (‘Illumination’), there
are two Netzachs, 9th and 10th—9 and 10 form the fundamental polarity in man (-1 valence versus numerological +1), 9 a taking-in from without through feeling, 10 a giving-off from within through desire—and this gives rise, then, to the second form of the Tree, the one we have here (five successive polarities). But to the best of my knowledge, there is only one Malkut: it is what 10th is called in Yetzirah, the third or triadic Tree. Nowhere in
SY itself does it call the depth-of-the-last Malkut, to
my knowledge anyway.
As for the covenant in the center, perhaps that has something to do w/1:4's "make a thing stand on its essence, and make the Creator sit on his base."
I would say definitely; absolutely. I base this on the seven doubles being the seven manifested signs or stations of the Throne world (‘Throne’ being the equivalent of ‘base’), whose wheel is centered atop
seated Adam’s head—prototype of the surroundings in the mind of the meditator, its bottom or manifested half the ground. The doubles pair evenly, originally with voiced towards inner horizon (back) and unvoiced towards outer (ahead), with reysh left over,
at the bottom (libra the loins, one’s base). This is the 7th station of the round, midpoint of the lower seven Sefirot (4-10) and the point common to all wheels, being where all four rest.