...Other sources, however, discuss Abraham's knowing and using Jewish
mystical secrets. Abraham is credited as the source of the mystical
secrets of the Sefer Yetzira, the Book of Creation. Sefer Yetzira
gives meditative techniques for mystical healing, creating new
bodies, teleportation, and more. Sa'adia Gaon writes that our text of
Sefer Yetzira was written in Talmudic times, but the methods taught
in the book date to Abraham. The last section of Sefer Yetzira itself
describes "Abraham our father" making use of these meditative secrets
to bring new creatures to life:
"And when our father Abraham looked, saw, understood, probed,
engraved, and carved, he was successful in creation, as the Torah
writes, 'and the souls that they made in Haran' (Genesis 12:5)." 4
The usual explanation of Genesis 12:5 is that Abraham and Sarah had
spread the knowledge of monotheism, bringing people's souls closer to
God, not that they had actually created new people. But the Sefer
Yetzira's interpretation is, if anything, even more consistent with
the words of the Torah, and identifies Abraham among the early
practicing mystics.
Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan's extensive English commentary on Sefer Yetzira
notes that Abraham lived in the 18th century BCE, the same time
period in which mystical books, such as the Vedic Scriptures, were
written in the Far East, making it logical that Jewish mystical texts
would also have been written or conceived at that time.
While some commentaries indicate that "The land to the east" might be
Arab areas just to the East of the Land of Israel,[5] most understand
this to be referring to the Far East.
Jewish tradition is not clear on whether Abraham taught the Children
of Ketura the secrets of Sefer Yetzira or other mystical secrets. But
the Zohar tells the following revealing story:
"Rabbi Abba said: I once was in a town where the children of the east
live, and they taught me some of their ancient wisdom and showed me
their books of wisdom.... I said to them, my children, all of this is
similar to what we have in our Torah, but you should avoid these
books, to avoid idolatry.... The ancient children of the east
possessed a wisdom which they had inherited from Abraham, who had
imparted it to the children of his other wife... in time they
followed that wisdom to many false roads." [6]
On 10/23/07, Shoshanna Walker wrote:
The BGDKFRT variations are not later developments, they are already
mentioned as the 7 (yes, reish is included) double letters in the
Sefer Yetzira which is ancient ancient ancient.
On the significance of Resh as a double letter, see:
Geoffrey Khan, 'The pronunciation of resh in the Tiberian tradition of
Biblical
Hebrew', Hebrew Union College Annual LXVI (1995), 67-80.
Ilan Eldar, "The double pronunciation of the Tiberian Resh", Leshonenu 48-49
(1984-85), p 22-34 (Hebrew)