The Ten Commandments and the Sefirot
Gal Einai | February 14, 2025
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The Ten Commandments and the Sefirot

Gal Einai | June 27, 2025

The most explicit instance of a model with ten elements in the Torah is the Ten Commandments. Though the English term “commandments” is not precise, the Torah explicitly mentions that “he [Moses] was there with God for forty days and forty nights... and he wrote down on the tablets the words of the covenant, the ten words.”

The phrase “the ten words” (עֲשֶׂרֶת הַדְּבָרִים) has been translated by many as “the Ten commandments.”

Clearly, it would make sense to correspond the Ten Commandments in our parashah, Yitro, with the ten sefirot. Before we begin discussing how to do this, let us look at a beautiful mathematical allusion to the propriety of this correspondence. The “filling” of “the ten words” (עֲשֶׂרֶת הַדְּבָרִים) is עין שין ריש תו הא ד לת בית ריש יוד מם whose value is 2868. Incredibly, this is the same as the sum of the names of all ten sefirot: “crown, wisdom, understanding, loving-kindness, might, beauty, victory, acknowledgment, foundation, kingdom” (כתר חכמה בינה חסד גבורה תפארת נצח הוד יסוד מלכות).

Building the Structure

To properly correspond the Ten Commandments with the sefirot, we must begin by understanding their structure in the Torah. As it turns out, structure-wise this is one of the most complex passages in the Torah and even identifying ten distinct elements is not so simple.

Ten Paragraphs (Parshiyot)

Let us start by looking at the way in which the “ten words” referred to by the Torah itself appear in a Torah scroll. The Torah’s text is divided both into verses and into paragraphs—parashot, both of which were given to Moses. In a Torah scroll, the end of a paragraph is marked by whitespace; outside the Torah scroll, the convention is to mark the end of paragraph with a letter פ or ס. The “ten words” referred to are thus:

  • (2) I am Havayah your God who has brought you out of the Land of Egypt, from a house of bondage. You shall have no other gods besides Me. (3) You shall not make for yourself a sculptured image or any likeness of what is in the heavens above or on the earth below or in the waters under the earth. (4) You shall not bow down to them or serve them. For I am Havayah your God, I am an impassioned God, visiting the guilt of the parents upon the children, upon the third and upon the fourth generations of those who reject Me. (5) But I show kindness to the thousandth generation of those who love Me and keep My commandments.
  • (6) You shall not swear falsely by the Name of your God, Havayah, for Havayah will not clear one who swears falsely by His Name.
  • (7) Remember the Sabbath day and sanctify it. (8) Six days you shall labor and do all your work, (9) but the seventh day is a Sabbath to Havayah your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or daughter, your male or female servant, or your cattle, or the stranger who is within your settlements. (10) For in six days Havayah made heaven and earth and sea and all that is in them and then rested on the seventh day; therefore, Havayah blessed the Sabbath day and sanctified it.
  • (11) Honor your father and your mother so that you may long endure on the land that your God, Havayah, is giving you.
  • (12) Do not murder.
  • Do not commit adultery.
  • Do not steal.
  • Do not bear false witness against your neighbor.
  • (13) Do not covet your neighbor’s house.
  • Do not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male servant or female servant, his ox, his donkey, or any of his possessions.

Note that according to this authoritative division in the Torah scroll itself what are usually identified as the first and second commandments (“I am Havayah your God,” and “You shall have no other gods”) appear in the same “word”—meaning, in the same paragraph (parshiyah)—reflecting the sages’ statement that these two commandments were heard directly from God. Moreover, only in these first two commandments does God appear as a first-person object, meaning that He is speaking about Himself. Everything else is written with a second-person object, “you.” Also, the phrase, “I am Havayah your God” (כִי אָנִי הוי' אֱלֹהֶיךָ) appears twice in this paragraph, once in the first “commandment,” and once in the second.

Two Tablets

The way the “ten words” or elements are colloquially identified can be seen in any representation of the two Tablets of the Covenant on which they were written found in every synagogue. The colloquial division presents 5 commandments on one tablet and 5 on the other and looks like this:

Left TabletRight Tablet Do not murderI am Do not commit adulteryYou shall have no Do not stealYou shall not swear Do not bearRemember Do not covetHonor

Lower Cantillation

A third way to divide the text into 10 follows the lead of the cantillation marks. Here we encounter a unique phenomenon that has no parallel: there are actually two different sets of cantillation marks for the text of the Ten Commandments. One is called the “lower” (טעם תחתון), the other is known as the “upper” (טעם עליון). In principle, when one reads the text in private, one would use the lower cantillation marks. When reading the text in public, the upper set of marks is used.

For a full explanation of the rationale behind these two sets of cantillation marks, let us quote from Shulchan Aruch HaRav (Orach Chaim 494:10-11):
The reason for the two melodies is that the first [the higher set of cantillation marks] is structured according to the manner [in which the commandments] are written [in the Torah]. For each commandment is a separate section.... The second melody [the lower set of cantillation marks] is structured according to the way [the Torah] is [generally] read... It is [always] forbidden to fully interrupt one’s reading in the middle of this verse, even if one is reading [it] only as an individual. [The rationale is that] the division [of the] entire [Torah] into separate verses is a halachah transmitted to Moshe at [Mount] Sinai. It is forbidden to interrupt in a place where Moshe did not make an interruption at Sinai. Since it is forbidden to fully interrupt the reading between these four short sections [“ Do not murder. Do not commit adultery...”], therefore even when they are read together, they should be read in a melody that joins them, making them a single verse. For in truth, they are a single verse, since there is no verse in the Torah that is shorter than three words....
When [reading] communally as well, it is only forbidden to stop [in middle of those passages] because of people who enter or leave [in the middle of the reading], as stated in sec. 138. [otherwise, one may stop in the middle of a section.] Therefore, [these passages] are read in a melody that breaks [them] into several verses, for in fact, they are several verses when counting the [total] number of verses [in the Torah].
On Shavu’ot, however, it is customary to read [the Ten Commandments] communally using the first melody, [i.e.,] to read each commandment as a single verse, [even when the commandment contains several verses or only part of a verse. The rationale is that since] the Ten Commandments were given on that day, we read them in the same manner they were given, each commandment constituting a distinct verse.
There are some who follow the custom of always using the first melody when reading [the Ten Commandments] communally, even on Shabbat Parashat Yitro and Shabbat Parashat Va’etchanan. [According to this custom,] the second melody is only used when a person reads [the commandments] in private.
See also in length Y. Weinfeld’s Ta’amei HaMikra, pp. 70-100.

According to most of the commentaries on the Masoretic text, the upper set of marks divides the Ten Commandments into 9 verses. But the lower set of cantillation marks divides the text into 13 verses:

  • (2) I am Havayah your God who has brought you out of the Land of Egypt, from a house of bondage.
  • You shall have no other gods besides Me.
  • (3) You shall not make for yourself a sculptured image or any likeness of what is in the heavens above or on the earth below or in the waters under the earth.
  • (4) You shall not bow down to them or serve them. For I am Havayah your God, I am an impassioned God, visiting the guilt of the parents upon the children, upon the third and upon the fourth generations of those who reject Me.
  • (5) But I show kindness to the thousandth generation of those who love Me and keep My commandments.
  • (6) You shall not swear falsely by the Name of your God, Havayah, for Havayah will not clear one who swears falsely by His Name.
  • (7) Remember the Sabbath day and sanctify it.
  • (8) Six days you shall labor and do all your work
  • (9) but the seventh day is a Sabbath to Havayah your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or daughter, your male or female servant, or your cattle, or the stranger who is within your settlements.
  • (10) For in six days Havayah made heaven and earth and sea and all that is in them and then rested on the seventh day; therefore, Havayah blessed the Sabbath day and sanctified it.
  • (11) Honor your father and your mother so that you may long endure on the land that your God, Havayah, is giving you.
  • (12) Do not murder. Do not commit adultery. Do not steal. Do not bear false witness against your neighbor.
  • (13) Do not covet your neighbor’s house. Do not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male servant or female servant, his ox, his donkey, or any of his possessions.

Higher Cantillation

As noted, the higher set of cantillation marks divides the text into 9 parts:

  • (2) I am Havayah your God who has brought you out of the Land of Egypt, from a house of bondage. You shall have no other gods besides Me. (3) You shall not make for yourself a sculptured image or any likeness of what is in the heavens above or on the earth below or in the waters under the earth. (4) You shall not bow down to them or serve them. For I am Havayah your God, I am an impassioned God, visiting the guilt of the parents upon the children, upon the third and upon the fourth generations of those who reject Me. (5) But I show kindness to the thousandth generation of those who love Me and keep My commandments.
  • (6) You shall not swear falsely by the Name of your God, Havayah, for Havayah will not clear one who swears falsely by His Name.
  • (7) Remember the Sabbath day and sanctify it. (8) Six days you shall labor and do all your work (9) but the seventh day is a Sabbath to Havayah your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or daughter, your male or female servant, or your cattle, or the stranger who is within your settlements. (10) For in six days Havayah made heaven and earth and sea and all that is in them and then rested on the seventh day; therefore, Havayah blessed the Sabbath day and sanctified it.
  • (11) Honor your father and your mother so that you may long endure on the land that your God, Havayah, is giving you.
  • (12) Do not murder.
  • Do not commit adultery.
  • Do not steal.
  • Do not bear false witness against your neighbor.
  • (13) Do not covet your neighbor’s house. Do not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male servant or female servant, his ox, his donkey, or any of his possessions.

The Ten Words and the Ten Sefirot

Now that we have seen the possible divisions of the text of the Ten Commandments, we can turn to corresponding its 10 elements to the sefirot. First, we need to focus our attention on the division based on the paragraphs, the first one we looked at, where the 10 parts were the “Ten Words.” Next, we need to find a model of the ten sefirot that resembles the characteristics of the paragraph division. There are two specific characteristics we are searching for: 1) that the first two sefirot are as one paralleling the fact that the first “word” contains two commandments: “I am Havayah your God” and “You shall have no gods besides Me.” 2) that the final two sefirot—foundation and kingdom—should be both distinct yet appear as one because “Do not covet your neighbor’s house” and “Do not covet your neighbor’s wife” appear in one verse that is divided into two paragraphs.

The model we are looking for is found in the very first source to mention the Ten Sefirot, Sefer Yetzirah—the Book of Formation—which states at the conclusion of its first chapter:

These are the ten matterless sefirot. One is the Spirit of the Living God; Spirit from Spirit, and Water from Spirit, and Fire from Water; and the extremes Above and Below, East and West, North and South.

We are probably more familiar with the names of the sefirot being: crown, wisdom, understanding, etc. However, Sefer Yetzirah has its own unique naming scheme. According to the commentaries, Sefer Yetzirah divided the crown into two parts—the crown’s interior and its exterior—and therefore its reckoning of the ten sefirot does not include either knowledge (da’at) or kingdom (malchut). In the Zohar and later Kabbalistic texts, the crown’s interior is known as Atik Yomin and its exterior is known as Arich Anpin. Where is knowledge? There is a well-known principle that when the crown is enumerated, knowledge is not, and vice versa.

Thus, the partzuf of the sefirot in Sefer Yetzirah is:

  • Atik Yomin (יקִתַּע יִנִמֹיו) – One, the Spirit of the Living God
  • Arich Anpin (יךִרֲא יִנִפְּנַא) – Spirit from Spirit
  • wisdom-chochmah (הָמְכָח) – Water from Spirit
  • understanding-binah (הָינִבּ) – Fire from Water

The most explicit instance of a model with ten elements in the Torah is the Ten Commandments. Though the English term “commandments” is not precise, the Torah explicitly mentions that “he [Moses] was there with God for forty days and forty nights... and he wrote down on the tablets the words of the covenant, the ten words.”

The phrase “the ten words” (עֲשֶׂרֶת הַדְּבָרִים) has been translated by many as “the Ten commandments.”

Clearly, it would make sense to correspond the Ten Commandments in our parashah, Yitro, with the ten sefirot. Before we begin discussing how to do this, let us look at a beautiful mathematical allusion to the propriety of this correspondence. The “filling” of “the ten words” (עֲשֶׂרֶת הַדְּבָרִים) is עין שין ריש תו הא ד לת בית ריש יוד מם whose value is 2868. Incredibly, this is the same as the sum of the names of all ten sefirot: “crown, wisdom, understanding, loving-kindness, might, beauty, victory, acknowledgment, foundation, kingdom” (כתר חכמה בינה חסד גבורה תפארת נצח הוד יסוד מלכות).

Building the Structure

To properly correspond the Ten Commandments with the sefirot, we must begin by understanding their structure in the Torah. As it turns out, structure-wise this is one of the most complex passages in the Torah and even identifying ten distinct elements is not so simple.

Ten Paragraphs (Parshiyot)

Let us start by looking at the way in which the “ten words” referred to by the Torah itself appear in a Torah scroll. The Torah’s text is divided both into verses and into paragraphs—parashot, both of which were given to Moses. In a Torah scroll, the end of a paragraph is marked by whitespace; outside the Torah scroll, the convention is to mark the end of paragraph with a letter פ or ס. The “ten words” referred to are thus:

  • (2) I am Havayah your God who has brought you out of the Land of Egypt, from a house of bondage. You shall have no other gods besides Me. (3) You shall not make for yourself a sculptured image or any likeness of what is in the heavens above or on the earth below or in the waters under the earth. (4) You shall not bow down to them or serve them. For I am Havayah your God, I am an impassioned God, visiting the guilt of the parents upon the children, upon the third and upon the fourth generations of those who reject Me. (5) But I show kindness to the thousandth generation of those who love Me and keep My commandments.
  • (6) You shall not swear falsely by the Name of your God, Havayah, for Havayah will not clear one who swears falsely by His Name.
  • (7) Remember the Sabbath day and sanctify it. (8) Six days you shall labor and do all your work, (9) but the seventh day is a Sabbath to Havayah your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or daughter, your male or female servant, or your cattle, or the stranger who is within your settlements. (10) For in six days Havayah made heaven and earth and sea and all that is in them and then rested on the seventh day; therefore, Havayah blessed the Sabbath day and sanctified it.
  • (11) Honor your father and your mother so that you may long endure on the land that your God, Havayah, is giving you.
  • (12) Do not murder.
  • Do not commit adultery.
  • Do not steal.
  • Do not bear false witness against your neighbor.
  • (13) Do not covet your neighbor’s house.
  • Do not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male servant or female servant, his ox, his donkey, or any of his possessions.

Note that according to this authoritative division in the Torah scroll itself what are usually identified as the first and second commandments (“I am Havayah your God,” and “You shall have no other gods”) appear in the same “word”—meaning, in the same paragraph (parshiyah)—reflecting the sages’ statement that these two commandments were heard directly from God. Moreover, only in these first two commandments does God appear as a first-person object, meaning that He is speaking about Himself. Everything else is written with a second-person object, “you.” Also, the phrase, “I am Havayah your God” (כִי אָנִי הוי' אֱלֹהֶיךָ) appears twice in this paragraph, once in the first “commandment,” and once in the second.

Two Tablets

The way the “ten words” or elements are colloquially identified can be seen in any representation of the two Tablets of the Covenant on which they were written found in every synagogue. The colloquial division presents 5 commandments on one tablet and 5 on the other and looks like this:

Left TabletRight Tablet Do not murderI am Do not commit adulteryYou shall have no Do not stealYou shall not swear Do not bearRemember Do not covetHonor

Lower Cantillation

A third way to divide the text into 10 follows the lead of the cantillation marks. Here we encounter a unique phenomenon that has no parallel: there are actually two different sets of cantillation marks for the text of the Ten Commandments. One is called the “lower” (טעם תחתון), the other is known as the “upper” (טעם עליון). In principle, when one reads the text in private, one would use the lower cantillation marks. When reading the text in public, the upper set of marks is used.

For a full explanation of the rationale behind these two sets of cantillation marks, let us quote from Shulchan Aruch HaRav (Orach Chaim 494:10-11):
The reason for the two melodies is that the first [the higher set of cantillation marks] is structured according to the manner [in which the commandments] are written [in the Torah]. For each commandment is a separate section.... The second melody [the lower set of cantillation marks] is structured according to the way [the Torah] is [generally] read... It is [always] forbidden to fully interrupt one’s reading in the middle of this verse, even if one is reading [it] only as an individual. [The rationale is that] the division [of the] entire [Torah] into separate verses is a halachah transmitted to Moshe at [Mount] Sinai. It is forbidden to interrupt in a place where Moshe did not make an interruption at Sinai. Since it is forbidden to fully interrupt the reading between these four short sections [“ Do not murder. Do not commit adultery...”], therefore even when they are read together, they should be read in a melody that joins them, making them a single verse. For in truth, they are a single verse, since there is no verse in the Torah that is shorter than three words....
When [reading] communally as well, it is only forbidden to stop [in middle of those passages] because of people who enter or leave [in the middle of the reading], as stated in sec. 138. [otherwise, one may stop in the middle of a section.] Therefore, [these passages] are read in a melody that breaks [them] into several verses, for in fact, they are several verses when counting the [total] number of verses [in the Torah].
On Shavu’ot, however, it is customary to read [the Ten Commandments] communally using the first melody, [i.e.,] to read each commandment as a single verse, [even when the commandment contains several verses or only part of a verse. The rationale is that since] the Ten Commandments were given on that day, we read them in the same manner they were given, each commandment constituting a distinct verse.
There are some who follow the custom of always using the first melody when reading [the Ten Commandments] communally, even on Shabbat Parashat Yitro and Shabbat Parashat Va’etchanan. [According to this custom,] the second melody is only used when a person reads [the commandments] in private.
See also in length Y. Weinfeld’s Ta’amei HaMikra, pp. 70-100.

According to most of the commentaries on the Masoretic text, the upper set of marks divides the Ten Commandments into 9 verses. But the lower set of cantillation marks divides the text into 13 verses:

  • (2) I am Havayah your God who has brought you out of the Land of Egypt, from a house of bondage.
  • You shall have no other gods besides Me.
  • (3) You shall not make for yourself a sculptured image or any likeness of what is in the heavens above or on the earth below or in the waters under the earth.
  • (4) You shall not bow down to them or serve them. For I am Havayah your God, I am an impassioned God, visiting the guilt of the parents upon the children, upon the third and upon the fourth generations of those who reject Me.
  • (5) But I show kindness to the thousandth generation of those who love Me and keep My commandments.
  • (6) You shall not swear falsely by the Name of your God, Havayah, for Havayah will not clear one who swears falsely by His Name.
  • (7) Remember the Sabbath day and sanctify it.
  • (8) Six days you shall labor and do all your work
  • (9) but the seventh day is a Sabbath to Havayah your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or daughter, your male or female servant, or your cattle, or the stranger who is within your settlements.
  • (10) For in six days Havayah made heaven and earth and sea and all that is in them and then rested on the seventh day; therefore, Havayah blessed the Sabbath day and sanctified it.
  • (11) Honor your father and your mother so that you may long endure on the land that your God, Havayah, is giving you.
  • (12) Do not murder. Do not commit adultery. Do not steal. Do not bear false witness against your neighbor.
  • (13) Do not covet your neighbor’s house. Do not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male servant or female servant, his ox, his donkey, or any of his possessions.

Higher Cantillation

As noted, the higher set of cantillation marks divides the text into 9 parts:

  • (2) I am Havayah your God who has brought you out of the Land of Egypt, from a house of bondage. You shall have no other gods besides Me. (3) You shall not make for yourself a sculptured image or any likeness of what is in the heavens above or on the earth below or in the waters under the earth. (4) You shall not bow down to them or serve them. For I am Havayah your God, I am an impassioned God, visiting the guilt of the parents upon the children, upon the third and upon the fourth generations of those who reject Me. (5) But I show kindness to the thousandth generation of those who love Me and keep My commandments.
  • (6) You shall not swear falsely by the Name of your God, Havayah, for Havayah will not clear one who swears falsely by His Name.
  • (7) Remember the Sabbath day and sanctify it. (8) Six days you shall labor and do all your work (9) but the seventh day is a Sabbath to Havayah your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or daughter, your male or female servant, or your cattle, or the stranger who is within your settlements. (10) For in six days Havayah made heaven and earth and sea and all that is in them and then rested on the seventh day; therefore, Havayah blessed the Sabbath day and sanctified it.
  • (11) Honor your father and your mother so that you may long endure on the land that your God, Havayah, is giving you.
  • (12) Do not murder.
  • Do not commit adultery.
  • Do not steal.
  • Do not bear false witness against your neighbor.
  • (13) Do not covet your neighbor’s house. Do not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male servant or female servant, his ox, his donkey, or any of his possessions.

The Ten Words and the Ten Sefirot

Now that we have seen the possible divisions of the text of the Ten Commandments, we can turn to corresponding its 10 elements to the sefirot. First, we need to focus our attention on the division based on the paragraphs, the first one we looked at, where the 10 parts were the “Ten Words.” Next, we need to find a model of the ten sefirot that resembles the characteristics of the paragraph division. There are two specific characteristics we are searching for: 1) that the first two sefirot are as one paralleling the fact that the first “word” contains two commandments: “I am Havayah your God” and “You shall have no gods besides Me.” 2) that the final two sefirot—foundation and kingdom—should be both distinct yet appear as one because “Do not covet your neighbor’s house” and “Do not covet your neighbor’s wife” appear in one verse that is divided into two paragraphs.

The model we are looking for is found in the very first source to mention the Ten Sefirot, Sefer Yetzirah—the Book of Formation—which states at the conclusion of its first chapter:

These are the ten matterless sefirot. One is the Spirit of the Living God; Spirit from Spirit, and Water from Spirit, and Fire from Water; and the extremes Above and Below, East and West, North and South.

We are probably more familiar with the names of the sefirot being: crown, wisdom, understanding, etc. However, Sefer Yetzirah has its own unique naming scheme. According to the commentaries, Sefer Yetzirah divided the crown into two parts—the crown’s interior and its exterior—and therefore its reckoning of the ten sefirot does not include either knowledge (da’at) or kingdom (malchut). In the Zohar and later Kabbalistic texts, the crown’s interior is known as Atik Yomin and its exterior is known as Arich Anpin. Where is knowledge? There is a well-known principle that when the crown is enumerated, knowledge is not, and vice versa.

Thus, the partzuf of the sefirot in Sefer Yetzirah is:

  • Atik Yomin (יקִתַּע יִנִמֹיו) – One, the Spirit of the Living God
  • Arich Anpin (יךִרֲא יִנִפְּנַא) – Spirit from Spirit
  • wisdom-chochmah (הָמְכָח) – Water from Spirit
  • understanding-binah (הָינִבּ) – Fire from Water
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Gal Einai | February 14, 2025