Kabbalah-of-the-Golden-Dawn-Pat-Zalewski - D Ank Unlimited

38 The Kabbalah ofthe Golden Dawn
to be an obscure part of those books, though on closer examination the
distinction between the two is very obvious.
The Bahir consists of a series of discourses which have been compounded
into roughly 30 brief pages, though the length of it seems to vary
with the various editions. The various Hebrew teachers mentioned in the
book include Rabbi's Akiba, Elizer, Rahaumai, and Berachai. The discussions
in the Bahir are less sophisticated than those of the Zahar and give
brief hints of things expounded more fully in the 2ohar. In many
instances reading the Bahir first and the various relevant texts in the
Zahar, where more in depth information is given, one can trace a gradual
development of the concepts. The Bahir really appears to be the basic
essence on which the 20har proper was built, and as such, is a text of
prime importance.
The Bahir can be broken down into the following seven divisions:
1. Expounds the theory of Creation. The statement given here by
Rabbi Nechunjah seems closely allied to the Chinese Taoist view of creation,
as defined by Lao Tzu:
There was something formlessly fashioned,
That existed before heaven and earth;
Without sound, without substance,
Dependent on nothing unchanging,
All pervading and unfailing,
One may think that it is the Mother of all things under
heaven,
Its true name we do not know.2 4
Following Nechunjah's statement, Rabbi Berachiah says that Chaos
was always there, a belief that also echoes that of the Chinese Tao, or Dao
as it is now called. It is a point that does not so much relate to creation as
such, but more importantly refers to the transmutation of substance. At
this point the importance of the Hebrew letters are brought into close
scrutiny, such as the letter Beth being the first letter of the word
Bereshith-Genesis.
24 Tao Te Ching.