I wanted to share this great little ancient book of Jewish Mystical Wisdom that I've reading and pondering over for a few years now. The term Bahir ( בהיר ) in Hebrew means Brightness or Illumination; so the Sefer HaBahir (or Sefer Bahir) literally translates to Book of Brightness or Book of Illumination. Sefer means Book ( ספר ) and anytime their is a Hei ( ה ) in front of a word in Hebrew, it means "The".
Believed to date back to the 1st century, the earliest publication of the Sefer Bahir was published in 1174 and most attribute it to be the work of Isaac the Blind. The Sefer Bahir is essentially short commentaries explaining the mystical significance of Biblical verses, mystical significance of the shapes of the Hebrew letters and the significance of the vowel points (Nikkudim) on the letters themselves. Filled with short adages of wisdom, the structure of this book is unusual as well, as there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to the order of composition of the passages contained in this little book. There is a joke that whoever wrote it took all of the pages and threw them up in the air, scrambling up the order of the passages, and then published it just as the pages fell; and given the structure (or lack there of) this seems fitting.
It's a very interesting read and since it is written the way that it is, it's an easy text to pick up and read a few passages and then put it back down for another time; you can't get lost as far as the flow of the story.
Sefer Bahir (Sefer HaBahir)
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חסד ושלום עליכם והרבה אהבה וברכות
May Grace and Peace be Upon You and Much Love and Blessings!
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