"Sefer Yesirah" and Its Contexts. Tzahi Weiss

to designate the traditions found in this literary corpus contextually, according to period and location, is problematic. Nevertheless, there are significant differences between the Hekhalot texts and those of Ḥasidei Ashkenaz, and there is no reason to doubt the origins of the Hekhalot literature in Babylonia and even earlier in Palestine. The common scholarly assumption is that most of this literature was created between the late tannaitic and geonic periods.³⁸ I have therefore chosen to adopt an approach to the Hekhalot literature that is based on an inclusive and comprehensive overview rather than a reading of specific isolated paragraphs. This overview allows us to distinguish and extract the predominant approach to the creation of the world from letters in the Hekhalot literature.

      The creation of the world from the ineffable name figures in the version of a prayer transmitted by R. Akiva to R. Ishmael at the end of ma’aseh merkavah, in which R. Ishmael asks how one can look above the seraphs, to which R. Akiva responds that when he stood in the first celestial palace, he uttered a certain prayer that allowed him to see from the first palace as far as the seventh: “R. Ishmael said: I said to R. Akiva: How can one contemplate above the Seraphs that stand above the head of ROZYY³⁹ YWY, God of Israel? He told me: when I ascended to the first palace, I prayed a prayer, and I saw from the first palace to the seventh palace … and what was the prayer? Blessed be You, YY, Unique God, who created His world with His one name, who makes everything with one utterance.”⁴⁰

      The special formula in the blessing of R. Akiva enlightens us as to the existence of two traditions of creation that appear side by side: the creation of the world from the ineffable name; and from the speech of God: “who created His world with His one name, who makes everything with one utterance.” This is similar to the thought expressed in the above-mentioned Prayer of Manasseh.⁴¹