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This essay brings a fresh approach to the early kabbalistic work, the Sefer Bahir (the Book of Clarity, tenth to twelfth century, Hebrew). It does a close reading of its imagery, focusing on water, to illuminate its contested provenance and to challenge prevailing conceptions of its function. Most scholars agree that the work was composed in two layers (tenth and twelfth centuries), which together articulate the sefirotic cosmos at the heart of kabbalah. Close study reveals significant differences in the two layers, as the first is set in a dry and rocky landscape with water supplied by springs and cisterns, and the second in a lush and stormy place with a sophisticated plumbing system. Composed in different milieus, they articulate different cosmologies to cultivate different experiences: the first confounds taxonomic categories to cultivate an affect of mystical unity, while the second creates categories for an orderly cosmological system.

The Sefer Yetsirah, the Book of Creation, is a cosmogonic work, narrating the creation of the world with the ten sefirot and the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet. The text is semantically difficult, its reception is varied, and its structure is poorly understood. Various commentators have made competing claims about the nature of the Sefer Yetsirah. Some say it is practical, or theosophical, while others believe it to be a work of philosophy. I propose that there is a discernible pattern in its organization which is key to understanding its meaning and function. This pattern is a ring composition, a form commonly used in the Hebrew Bible and in late antique and early medieval works. The ring-composition form highlights passages that emphasize the practical application of the Sefer Yetsirah. Its generic form is just as important as its words in conveying meaning. With the aid of formal analysis, it is possible to better understand the meaning and function of the text, as well as the history of its reception. THE SEFER YETSIRAH (SY) is a cosmogonic work, narrating the creation of the world with the ten sefirot and the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet, written in Hebrew and composed anywhere from the third to the ninth centuries. It is one of the core texts of kabbalah, and while it and its commentaries introduce and develop some of the

This article uses a performance studies methodology to examine the transformation of the human body in sixteenth-century Safed School Kabbalah, focusing on practices described in Moshe Cordovero's Tomer Devorah and Sefer Gerushin , and Yosef Caro's Maggid Mesharim . It is argued that the topos of exile is key to the construction and purpose of these rituals: by enacting the conditions of exile that they wished to change, participants enable a ritual transformation of the body which in turn enables amelioration of the condition of exile. The result of these practices is a new theodicy, attributing new meaning to human suffering.