JTS MS 2367, fol. 81b

Notes

1. The opening completes the sentence at 81a:46 about the nations’ princes receiving abundance. Exodus 7:18 supplies the dead fish and the river’s stench. “Circumcise … again” recalls Joshua 5:2, while the first day of the month belongs to the base text’s compressed chronological scheme. “Crown” translates עטרה in the bodily image; the subsequent mystical referent is Shekhinah, provisionally expanding ש׳. The clause about ordinary practice does not instruct total withdrawal from embodied life. Joined rows 2–4, 8–9, and 14–16 are printed once, with explicit fragment notices; their original crop order is documented in the Hebrew source. Biblical, lexical, and layout note. ↩
2. Exodus 4:25 supplies Zipporah and the flint; Genesis 15:10 supplies the bird not being divided. The commentary links צפרה, “Zipporah,” צפור, “bird,” and צפירת תפארה, “diadem of beauty” (Isaiah 28:5). צור, “flint,” is also linked to צר/צורר, “adversary/oppressor.” The English changes rendering only where the Hebrew form changes; the wordplay is therefore given explicitly here. The phrase about returning home in line 12 remains broken and is not reconstructed from a standard biblical text. Biblical wordplay and textual note. ↩
3. The forty days recall Genesis 8:6. The exposition relates forty to the four legs of the Chariot; four times ten equals forty, but the factor ten is explanatory and is not written in this line. The short interlinear insertion in line 13 remains uncertain in both reading and syntax. “Light of the world” was checked in Main_14_F; the former “hidden light” is not retained merely because it suited the surrounding subject. Numerical, biblical, and image-review note. ↩
4. The wording recalls Moses’ abstention in Exodus 34:28 and Deuteronomy 9:9; “bread of adversity” recalls Isaiah 30:20. The crop sequence puts line 18 between two parts of a sentence: the sentence runs 17 → 19 → 20. The English labels that continuation rather than moving the numbered row. The roots in ירחיק, “distances,” and הדביק, “attached,” are retained as different verbs. Genesis 8:5 supplies the diminishing waters, tenth month, and mountain tops; the seventh millennium is the commentator’s interpretation, not the wording of Genesis. Biblical and syntactic note. ↩
5. The clause about darkness is uncertain and appears difficult beside “light of the world.” The transcription is not changed to make the two agree. The abbreviation מ׳ה׳ at line 24 is unresolved. At lines 27–29, the sequence is provisionally understood as denying independent rule while granting derivative power. The first מה׳ at line 28 is rendered “independently” only as an explicitly labelled conjectural expansion; the referents and expansions of מה׳ remain interpretive. Textual and interpretive note. ↩
6. Genesis 8:6–7 recounts opening the window and sending the raven. Both Great Parchment witnesses negate sending, though they differ in person and tense. “Cutting the shoots” is the image for a destructive separation of divine powers; compare Aher’s action in Hagigah 14b–15a. It is retained as a technical image rather than replaced by a general word such as “heresy.” Biblical, rabbinic, and witness note. ↩
7. Psalm 147:9 supplies “to the young ravens that call.” The commentary distinguishes Ishmael’s prince from Esau’s: both belong to judgment, but Ishmael’s receives upper waters identified as Chesed. The singular pronouns after plural “young ravens” follow the Hebrew’s shift to the prince. “Going out and returning” and the drying waters adapt Genesis 8:7. Biblical and interpretive note. ↩
8. Naomi is identified with Binah through נעם, “pleasantness,” in Psalm 90:17. The “dowry” is explained as the new soul and radiance offered from that grade. The ark phrase in line 36 is uncertain and does not yield a complete independent clause; no missing verb is invented. “Thought” renders מחשבה, a technical designation retained without imposing a different sefirotic name. Biblical, lexical, and textual note. ↩
9. Genesis 8:8–9 supplies the dove and the search for rest; Song of Songs 2:14 supplies “my dove in the clefts of the rock.” The abbreviation ע׳ is provisionally expanded as Atarah, consistent with the local feminine figure. The phrase about entering and leaving in peace recalls the tradition of Rabbi Akiva’s safe passage through the pardes: compare Hagigah 14b for the safe departure and 15b for ascending and descending in peace. JTS’s “as far as” announces a lemma range rather than a second action by Noah. Biblical, rabbinic, and abbreviation note. ↩
10. JTS currently reads לא[?], “not,” after an already negative clause. The expected sense might require אלא, “except,” but that conjecture has not been adopted. The awkward double negative remains visible. The “beginning of Thought” and “end of action” are consequently not translated as a smooth, certain statement of a doctrine. The following מקביל ומ׳ ומקבל is also incomplete: מקביל is rendered “corresponding [term],” while the unexpanded abbreviation is marked. Textual and interpretive note. ↩
11. The lamp-in-daylight proverb and “two kings … one crown” both occur in Hullin 60b’s account of the sun and moon. Here the lamp clause is damaged or disordered and repeats בטיהרא, “in daylight”; the repetition is preserved. The following explanation applies the shared crown to the dove’s return, but the text does not explicitly name the two kings at this point. No additional identification is inserted. Rabbinic and textual note. ↩
12. Genesis 8:10 supplies the seven-day wait, and Genesis 8:11 supplies the return at evening. שכר, “reward,” replaces the biblical dove and should not be silently translated back as “dove.” The sefirotic names expand the seven JTS abbreviations using Oxford’s explicit sequence; Gedulah is the name at the end, while the exposition uses Chesed. Psalm 89:3 supplies עולם חסד יבנה, here read as the building of the world through Chesed. There is no gematria calculation in this passage: the sequence contains seven named grades. Biblical, witness, and numerical note. ↩
13. The uncertain ריחוק / רחוק shifts from a noun to an adjective in the present transcription; both forms are left visible in English rather than normalized into a single conjectured lemma. The subject of המתעלה והמשגבה appears to be the middle line, first itself elevated and then raising the feminine figure. This reading is provisional because the sentence remains fragmentary. Textual and syntactic note. ↩
14. Genesis 8:11 supplies the olive leaf. The exposition places the feminine Shekhinah above the line identified as Written Torah and gives her the name Naomi associated with the upper Shekhinah. The next clause’s כחת׳ remains unresolved. The margin preserves “over the Torah and Naomi / and the lampstand and Zion, and standing / under Chokhmah, Binah”; another marginal item reads מרים, which could mean “bitter” (compare the nearby water passage) or the name Miriam; its intended sense is not established. A further item is illegible. These readings were recorded in the transcription’s image-review notes. The argument continues into 82a; the alignment of all these labels should remain provisional until that continuation is reviewed. Biblical, marginal, and witness note. ↩