נעוץ סופן בתחלתןEnd Fixed in Beginning

na'utz sofan bi-teḥilatanIn Gamatria ↗

A flame bound to its coal, a ring with no seam.

The ten sefirot are not a line from first to last but a closed circuit. Their end is wedged into their beginning and their beginning into their end, like a flame bound to a coal. The flame leaps, yet it cannot exist apart from its ember. The reason given is unity: the Master is one and has no second, "and before One, what do you count?" Counting from one to ten therefore sits inside a oneness that comes before all number. Later Kabbalists often read this as the first and last sefirot joined in a ring.

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