True Monotheism
Introduction
Multi-Manifestations of the One God
Jewish Consciousness from the World of Atzilut
The Jewish Three that are One
The Consciousness of Atzilut Appreciates the Paradox of Proverbs
God's Spirit in the Verses from Isaiah
The Seven Manifestations of "I"
Mystical Insights
Seven Eyes and Seven "I"s
Positional Values Reveal More Sevens
According to Jewish faith, God is absolutely One. There exists no intrinsic duality or plurality in Him in any form whatsoever.
Kabbalah (Jewish Mysticism) teaches that the beginning of the creative process is the contraction of God's infinite light (= the Divine revelation that God is all). Then begins a series of steps, the first of which is the projection of a ray of God's light (= God's revealed Presence) into the apparent vacuum (= apparent state of space "outside" of God) which resulted by means of the contraction. Worlds are then created around the ray of light. This is to the cosmos as a soul to the body. For this reason our Sages say that God is to the world as a soul to the body.
After the contraction, God appears in many manifestations. These manifestations are relevant only following the initial contraction of God's light. From God's perspective, the contractions are not to be taken literally. God is, was and always shall be the One and Only. God's absolute Oneness is not to be understood in a quantitative sense (not as a "countable one"), He is "One but not in calculation," He is the absolute One Who creates all "numbers" from one to infinity. The meaning of the contraction is only in relation to our perspective.
After the contraction, when Creation receives its own perspective on reality, God may appear to the consciousness of that reality in a dual, triple, quadruple etc. manifestation. A dual manifestation would be two related manifestations, such as the transcendent light of God versus the immanent light of God. The most essential of God's Names, the Tetragrammaton, has four letters. Each of the four letters is a different manifestation of God's presence in reality, His power in Creation and His Providence over Creation. In the same way, God sometimes appears as five, six, seven and so forth. Very often we meditate on all the possibilities of appearances from the numbers one to thirteen. There can be even more than these. Each of the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet is a manifestation of Godliness. All of these possibilities when "traced" back to their ultimate source in God's infinite light before contraction "return" to a state of absolute Oneness.
As will be explained, the basic manifestation of three in Judaism is that of God, Torah and Israel. There is nothing essentially unique that distinguishes the number three from any other number. As stated above, God, the absolute One, can and does appear in any number that He so desires. Each number represents a different secret of reality that He creates (intended, ultimately, to reflect His absolute Oneness).
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