Accessing Sefer Yetzirah

Here’s some background information for anyone seeking to learn about Sefer Yetzirah.

Sefer Yetzirah (“Book of Creation” or “The Book of Formation”) is an ancient Jewish text: How old is a point of disagreement. So are its author, purpose, exact contents, and relationship to other Jewish text.

Sefer Yetzirah has been classified as mysticism, a part of kabbalah [“received”] tradition or in opposition to it; a work of magic or occult; a text of medicine, linguistics, and/or mathematics. It is often labeled “esoteric,” to highlight the teacher-required aspects of its content, and called “the earliest extant book of Jewish esotericism.” Some sources date the text from somewhere between 200 BCE and 200 CE. Others set its authorship much later. Many scholars note layers of commentary and expansion.

Books and On-Line Versions

Today, Sefer Yetzirah is available in several versions, with variation in the Hebrew text, as well as different English translations and commentaries:

Jewish Sources

Return to the Place

Return to the Place: The Magic, Meditation, and Mystery of Sefer Yetzir
by Rabbi Jill Hammer (Ben Yehuda Press, 2020) provides bilingual text with English introduction and commentary, footnotes and bibliography, plus meditations to accompany each section. The text R’ Hammer shares is not identical with the “earliest recoverable text” (see below), but it is referenced throughout. The Introduction, first chapter, and meditations (text and audio) are available, free of charge, at ReturntothePlace.com.

Open Siddur Project: Earliest Recoverable Text

The Open Siddur Project offers a bilingual version, “Sefer Yetsirah, a derivation of A. Peter Hayman’s experimental “earliest recoverable text” — vocalized and translated by Aharon Varady. The underlying text was crafted from many available sources by Dr. A. Peter Hayman (Mohr Siebeck, 2004). Vocalized Hebrew with an English translation is provided by Aharon Varady (2016) on the free, community-grown archive. (R’ Hammer discusses Hayman’s text in her Introduction and throughout Return to the Place.) The Hebrew in many other versions is unvocalized, so this is handy for those of us who struggle without vowels.

Various versions and translation

Sefaria, the free, pluralist Jewish text platform, offers a number of alternatives for reading Sefer Yetzirah. The are two interactive Hebrew versions, with translations into English, under the Kabbalah category. Sefaria also offers additional text in downloadable versions: Open the Community Translation or the Gra Version and then navigate to Download Text — scroll down on phone; sidebar on desktop. Although the platform is always expanding its offerings, commentaries currently available (spring 2025) are Hebrew-only. Related material is available on resource sheets in Hebrew, English, and other languages.

Print Editions

Commonly available used books and library editions include translations by Aryeh Kaplan (1990, 1997) and Isidor Kalisch (1877), both in the kabbalist tradition. These are also available as downloads at Sefaria.

Non-Jewish Sources

Note that these public domain sources are the ones that tend to show up on free sites, including WikiSource. These can also be found in libraries and on Archive.org.

William Wynn Westcott (Theosophist, Hermeticist, Free Mason), 19th/20th Century; public domain text, found on Sacred Text and WikiSource.

A.E. Waite (Hermeticist, co-creator of Rider-Waite Tarot deck), 19th/20th Century; text translated (1923) by Knut Stenring and “attributed to Akiva ben Joseph.”

More Access Issues

GENDER

Return to the Place generally avoids gendering God or using gendered divinity images, with some noted exceptions; R’ Hammer discusses these and other issues of gender and translation in the introduction and throughout the book. In addition, Return to the Place explores the possibility that divinity is of “composite gender” and stresses the importance of variety of many kinds within unity.

In contrast,

most translations gender God as “He” and use gendered images, like “King,” without comment.
Some add gender binaries to aspects of divinity, without discussing implications.
Translators’ choices vary around imot — “mothers,” “mother letters,” or, sometimes: “primary letters” — and avot, “fathers” or “patriarchs”; only Return to the Place explores these choices explicitly in the commentary.
Only R’ Hammer remarks on the reader’s gender, which is built into the Hebrew: “The reader in Sefer Yetzirah is grammatically gendered male (and, like God, engages in a dance with the feminine letters and elements).” — Return to the Place, p.xxxiii

BODIES and MINDS

R’ Hammer weaves throughout Return to the Place an awareness that not all bodies work the same — in terms of hearing, sight, standing, sexuality or reproduction — and not all minds operate similarly. To the best of my knowledge, other translations and commentaries do not.

KABBALAH and ACCESS

Return to the Place separates Sefer Yetzirah from kabbalah. This is a powerful point of access for me, and I note it here for others who experience kabbalah as a barrier. Many find comfort and enlightenment in theory and practice of kabbalah. I have been stymied by the particularism and binaries built into kabbalah’s foundational texts, however, and by associated demonization of the feminine; seeking to uplift feminine aspects of divinity does not work for me, either. But Return to the Place‘s focus on multiplicity and diversity as necessary to unity was a great help to me — and through this work I found my way to Sefer Yetzirah.

Moreover, once I found my way to Sefer Yetzirah, through Return to the Place, I was more able to explore some kabbalah-infused translations and commentaries.

If kabbalah doesn’t work for you — or, even if it does — I strongly recommend meeting Sefer Yetzirah through R’ Hammer’s introduction to the work.

Publisher: Ben Yehuda Press

Bookshop: SpatzReads

Not many used copies available.

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