The Poetry of Kabbalah by Peter Cole

Author:Peter Cole
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Yale University Press

Creatures Four-Square About the Throne

Text: Goldschmidt, Mahzor for the Days of Awe [Heb], vol. 1, pp. 216–17. See also Bar Ilan, Sitrei Tefilah veHeikhalot, p. 45.

An alphabetical acrostic in which the final stanza contains the letters of the poet’s first name, this is an ofan (the second section of a yotzer), which takes as its subject the angels. Its content, notes Moshe Idel, is closely related to Ezekiel’s vision (Ascensions on High in Jewish Mysticism, p. 63; on the circumstances of the composition of the poem and their resonance for later Kabbalists see p. 36). For more on the ofan as a genre, see Shelomoh Ibn Gabirol, “Angels Amassing,” below, and the commentary to that poem.

Line 1: Cf. Ezekiel 1 and the image of “the four living creatures.” The Throne is God’s throne of glory. The poet immediately creates the sensation of mounting movement and tremendous excitement, even frenzy, much like the agitation of the creatures and the wheels of Ezekiel 1, which informs the poem throughout.

2: The figure of 256 wings is derived from Ezekiel 1:6ff. and its Targum: there were four creatures, with four faces or aspects each, and four wings to each aspect, and these faces or aspects and wings were repeated on the four sides of each creature. The math yields 256.

11: Ezekiel 1:7: “And their feet were straight feet.”

22: The line alludes to Genesis 25:27 and the image of Jacob—“an upright (or pure) man”—cut into the throne.

23: The angels both bear and are borne by the Throne. The same image appears at the end of Yehudah HaLevi’s “Where Will I Find You,” below.

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