שלשים ושתים נתיבות פליאות חכמהThirty-Two Wondrous Paths

shloshim u-shtayim netivot pli'ot ḥokhmahIn Gamatria ↗

Counting and spelling: the two chisels of creation.

The book opens by stating its thesis. With thirty-two wondrous paths of wisdom, God engraved and created His world. A long run of divine names follows (Yah, the Lord of Hosts, God of Israel, the Living God, El Shaddai and others), as if the paths were cut by naming. Creation happens "with three sefarim": sefer, sefar and sippur. All three words come from one root, and they are usually read as writing, number and telling. The next mishnah suggests that the thirty-two are ten sefirot plus twenty-two letters, so counting and spelling are the two tools of creation.

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