Introduction to Attempt #4: The Sefirot

In our last post, we concluded that we cannot utilize astrology as a means within Judaism to convey the relationship between God and man. Thus, it cannot be used as a basis for constructing a Jewish Narnia. Nonetheless, our latest attempts have been along the right track. What we need is an alternate construct, one that is authentically and a priori Jewish, that categorizes the different modes in which God interacts with man. A series amplifying those categories could then serve as a blueprint for a Jewish Narnia. 

There are two such constructs that come to mind. The first is the names of God. While modern academic scholars pointed to the names of God as proof to multiple authorships and manuscripts in the Torah, our Sages and great commentators properly realized that the names of God reflected different modes of God’s interaction with man. In fact, God Himself says this to Moses when informing him of the future Redemption from Egypt. Thus, the different books could manifest the themes of Judgement, Mercy, Omniscience, Almighty, and so forth. 

The Kabbalists, however, have already given us a similarly comprehensive categorization, and one which I think fits better with our goals: the Sefirot. The Sefirot have been defined and redefined numerous times over the centuries, and are taken to reflect God’s Will, His character traits, the forces He used in creation of the world, and the portals of the human soul which themselves mirror Godliness. 

Specifically, one could imagine seven books each of which reflect the seven “lower” Sefirot: Kindness, Strength, Beauty, Eternity, Splendor, Foundation, and Kingship. Each of these Sefirot has attached to them great Jewish personalities, biblical verses, one of the plagues that afflicted Egypt, part of the Creation story, a color and more. The richness of the kabbalistic and chassidic literature guarantee a myriad of themes that could be used to build the stories. 

Perhaps most importantly, while a Jewish construct, the Sefirot are universal. All of humanity can resonate with the themes manifested by the Sefirot. Hence, an author could write an unmistakably Judaic series that could attract universal acclaim while teaching the foundations of how a Jew should relate to God.