Sephiroth

Mercy

KHEH-sed

Origin 1270 to 1300

Chesed means Mercy, the fourth Sephirah, on the Pillar of Mercy below Chokmah. Its divine name is El, its archangel is Tzadkiel, and its angelic order is the Chasmalim, the Brilliant Ones; its planet is Jupiter, the great benefic of expansion and grace. It is the first Sephirah below the Abyss, where the boundless energy of the Supernals takes on measurable form as love, abundance, and benevolent order.

As a sphere of experience Chesed is mercy, generosity, kingship, and the building and organizing power of the loving ruler. It is expansive and giving, and it needs the balancing severity of Geburah to keep its overflow from becoming excess. It is symbolized by the number four, the solid square, and the figure of the wise and generous king, and it governs authority exercised through kindness, growth, and the structures that shelter and provide.

Facts

Origins

Origin Period

1270 to 1300 1Zoharic Kabbalah

Origin Periodthe subject's own account

1888 to 1900 2Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn

Origin Period

200 to 600 CE 1Sefer Yetzirah, where the ten sefirot are first enumerated

Origin Period

Chesed appears among the Sefer Yetzirah's original ten Sephiroth of Nothingness, a text Scholem places between the second and sixth century CE and which survives in recensions that do not agree in every particular. 1

Origin Period

Chesed's place in the now-standard system of ten Sephiroth, with the specific divine name, archangel and planetary associations recorded on this page, crystallizes in the Zoharic literature that Scholem locates in Castile between 1270 and 1300. 1

Origin Periodthe subject's own account

The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, founded in 1888, fixed Chesed's place within its own ceremonial correspondence system by 1900, the scheme this atlas follows for Chesed's Golden Dawn associations. 2Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn

Place of Origin

Sefer Yetzirah tradition, late-antique Near East 1

Place of Origin

Sefirotic system developed in Provence and Castile 1

Place of Origin

Western correspondences added in London 1

Language

Biblical Hebrew 1

Language

Aramaic 1

Attributions

Ruling Planetthe subject's own account

Jupiter 2Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn

Divine Namethe subject's own account

El 2Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn

Incensethe subject's own account

Cedar 3Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn

Gemstonethe subject's own account

Amethyst and Sapphire 3Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn

Plantthe subject's own account

Olive and Shamrock 3Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn

Queen Scale Colourthe subject's own account

Blue 2Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn

Tree of Life Pillarthe subject's own account

Pillar of Mercy 2

Identity

Position

4 of 10 1

Also Known As

Chesed 1

Learn More

Chesed, Mercy

Chesed, Mercy or loving-kindness, is the fourth sefirah and the first below the abyss, the highest of the seven sefirot that pertain to the created world. It heads the right-hand Pillar of Mercy beneath Chokmah and expresses expansive, benevolent, unbounded love, the outpouring generosity of the divine, grace given without measure. In the Kabbalistic scheme of balances Chesed's limitless giving must be checked by the severity of Geburah opposite it, for mercy without judgement would dissolve all form; the health of the Tree lies in the equilibrium of the two.

Chesed is also called Gedulah, greatness. Its divine name is El, the simplest name of God, associated with mercy and might. The sefirah takes its place in the doctrine set out in the Sefer Yetzirah and developed by the medieval Kabbalists; in the moral and psychological readings the Kabbalah gives the Tree, Chesed is the principle of benevolence, abundance and the open hand, the grace that founds the created order before it is given shape by the discipline of the sphere below.

Sources The ZoharTraditionally attributed to Moses de Leon with Sefer Yetzirah: The Book of Creation in Theory and PracticeAryeh Kaplan

Chesed and the Western Correspondences

Chesed is assigned the planet Jupiter, and the pairing is among the aptest in the whole system: Jupiter, the greater benefic of classical astrology, the planet of expansion, abundance, benevolence and good fortune, matches precisely Chesed's character as the sefirah of mercy and boundless giving. In the Golden Dawn correspondences of 1888 and in Liber 777, Chesed's colour is blue, and it corresponds to the four Fours of the tarot suits, the number of stability and foundation.

The Jupiterian attribution reinforces the reading of Chesed as the majestic, kingly, generous power of the Tree. As throughout, the sefirah and its name El belong to the Jewish mystical tradition, named in the Sefer Yetzirah and elaborated in the Zohar and the later Kabbalah, while the mapping of Chesed onto Jupiter, a tarot rank and a magical colour scale is the Hermetic Qabalah of the Victorian occult revival. The two traditions share the Tree of Life as a diagram but put it to different uses, the one contemplative and theological, the other a framework for ceremonial magic.

Connections