Kabbalah derives from a Hebrew word KBL meaning literally “to receive instruction.” It has implications covering an immense area of inquiry. It implies a field embracing the whole of human investigations into our relationships with the spiritual side of our natures ever since we started thinking about them from every angle of approach. By itself the word is a “blanket-term” covering the complete study of Cosmos from a purely spiritual standpoint.

All human races concern themselves with cosmic calculations and spiritual speculations but in the case of the Semitic race in particular, some of them thought it best to begin by setting out a definite system for tackling the problem.

A sort of: “Before you start thinking, find out why, what, and how to think” idea. In the end, they decided the simplest way of all was the “One, two, three, four” method. Start with a single idea and work on it until another one came out of it. Then take those two ideas and combine them so that a third appeared. Push the three around until a fourth came out, and so on. Since humans calculated in tens because of having ten digits on both hands which have been used in primitive sign-language for countless centuries, they decided to adopt a decimal system for dealing with their ideas about Divinity and all related spiritual subjects.

The question was where to start. Since the teaching was that God began with Nothing why not start from there? The common Hebrew word for nothing (Ayn) was in fact a question in itself, deriving from two little words: “Eh na” meaning: “What now?” or “Where from here?” It really meant that nothing was known beyond that point. That produced another notion of formlessness, and so the word Sof - limits - got added. Ayn Sof. Since God’s creation was first supposed to be Light which was yet unmanifested as anything, the Negative state of Ayn Sof Aur, or Unknown and Limitless Light (Aur means Light in Hebrew) was conceived as a Zero or cypher = 0, out of which God was said to create everything in existence.

This Limitless Light focussed into active energy at the first state or “Sphere” in the sense of what a modern scientist would call a “field.” Kabbalists called this primal condition of pure power Keter, a crown or summit for two reasons. First they considered God to be King of the entire Universe, and secondly it signified the top or summit of anything. Here was the Supreme Summit of Creation.
From the combination of 0 + 1, came the idea of pure consciousness pouring out in a consequent creative stream. This was considered as a competence to construct anything and everything needed for Life. This called for supreme Wisdom, so this second Field or Sphere, was named Chochmah which means Wisdom in Hebrew.

Putting 0 + 1 + 2 Concepts together, it seemed obvious that something would be needed to react with if definite results were to appear anywhere, so out of them a third concept of a

Sphere arose which they named Binah which means Understanding. A reflective, instinctive sort of awareness. Now they had three types of consciousness to consider. These were:

1. Consciousness itself,
2. A masculine outgoing consciousness,
3. A receptive feminine consciousness. This seemed to be the process-principles of creation.