Both...
WolfSinger said:
...looking at the attributions to the letters, we find the planets a bit scrambled from the expected order:
Beth ~ Mercury
Gimel ~ Moon
Daleth ~ Venus
Kaph ~ Jupiter
Peh ~ Mars
Resh ~ Sun
Tav ~ Saturn
...and...
Zeroa said:
maybe there is some clues in the pairs of opposites assigned to the double letters and the meanings of the planets.
Beth-life and death
Gimel-peace and war
Daleth-wisdom and folly
Kaph-wealth and poverty
Peh-grace and hideousness
Resh-fruitfulness and desolation
Tav-dominion and slavery
...are merely
versions of these correlations. Indeed this is a puzzle that requires thought and research, for the different versions of the
Sefer Yetzirah do not even agree amongst themselves.
A while back on this forum I achieved a tentative solution to the problem of the planets but have not yet satisfactorily solved the question of the pairs of opposites. Depending on memory alone, I believe it went something like this:
Beyt, B, is birch, hence birth (
beginning,
berashit), our B being the pregnant profile of the mother while Hebrew's is a house, as in 'house of' (offspring of). Yet its number in bardic tradition (which bases its numeration on symbolic import, not mere letter-order) is 5, placing it (I surmise) at
Mars: this is because the ultimate symbol of the unyielding warrior is
a mother defending her young at any cost.
Gimel, G, is ivy, the wandering serpent of desire (where desire takes us), but the serpent is chthonic (earthy), just as Geb the Egyptian earth god begins with a G: I tend to think it fits
Saturn (exalted in libra or straight down, as we would expect of a plumb made of its metal, lead), which its Hebrew number would tend to confirm.
Dalet, D, is oak, the tree that most attracts lightning (Zeus's thunderbolt) and is sacred to
Jupiter, as its Hebrew number confirms.
Kaf, K, is hazel, wisdom 'in a nutshell': bardic 9, it is probably therefore
Luna yet has definite Mercurial overtones.
Peh, P, is the water elder, an obscure tree, but other considerations show it to stand for the poetic or prophetic mysteries, and indeed its Hebrew form is a mouth speaking (mouth with tongue therein): I therefore tentatively assimilate it to
Mercury, the spirit
of said mysteries.
Reysh, R, is the elder, a death tree (also medicinal), but reysh is through other considerations shown to stand for the gonads (organ of heredity, of what
outlives us), and indeed its bardic number, 15, is the atomic number of phosphorus, which is the key ingredient in chromosomes: tentatively, therefore, it would appear to signify
Venus.
Tav, T, is the holly, whose lesson is that of the phalanx (many small pricks becoming one big one), for it represents honor or discipline (fulfilling one's duty)--in most alphabets, it is one's X or mark (signifying one's honor), and the second T in
south Semitic shows two small circles linked by a vertical line, that is, two individuals chained or linked by obligation. Where one might think its phalanx-aspect would make it Mars, what tav really refers to is
conscience, which resides in the heart, and the heart is
Sol (the sun being the center of things).
Ultimately, though, the planets
reside in the pips of Coins or Money, the physical or material world (meaning the cycles that govern it): 2 is Sol, the
great year (cycle of precession of equinoxes, the whirling of the stellar heavens
forward about the zodiac itself); 3 Saturn; 4 Jupiter; 5 Mars; [6 the solar year]; 7 Venus; 8 Mercury; 9 Luna; [and 10, the diurnal cycle of earth or equator]--these are in descending order of duration, since they lead from 1, the eternal (the stellar generator or total energy of the cosmos, which is conserved), to 10, 'today' (diurnal cycle), the fleeting present instant. These attributions are fixed (meaning they can be seen from several viewpoints), and confirmation is in the exaltation of planets in astrology when correlated with male-female pairs in the Tree of Sefirot as usually pictured: 2 and 3, sun and Saturn, are exalted in aries (up) and libra (down), respectively; 4 and 5, Jupiter and Mars, are exalted in cancer and capricorn, respectively; and 8 and 9, Mercury and Venus, are exalted in virgo and pisces, respectively. (Each pair occupies opposite signs). By the way, attributing the sun to 6 is not incorrect, just incomplete: Sol is 2, 6, and 10 (carbon, 6, and the two inert gases enclosing its period in the periodic table), for 2 (the great year)
is the relation between 6 (ecliptic) and 10 (equator).
Probably 'too much information', but there you have it.