THE UNIQUE DIVINE NAME
In the Hebrew tradition, a great deal of emphasis is placed upon the name of God. Although this name is represented most commonly by the four-lettered name YHVH (Jehovah), the tetragammon, the rabbinical texts tell us that this is but the condensation of an earlier name of God, called the unique divine name, which consisted of forty-two letters.
Although the exact spelling of this name has been lost, early commentators believed that it was encoded originally by the first forty-two letters of Genesis.The Talmud makes clear that this unique name was entrusted not to all, but only to those worthy to receive it: “The forty-two-lettered Name is entrusted only to him who is pious, meek, middle-aged, free from bad temper, sober, and not insistent on his rights. And he who knows it, is heedful thereof, and observes it in purity, is beloved above and popular below, feared by man, and inherits the two worlds, this world and the future world.”7
The Zohar also discusses this name: The forty-two letters are described as the “ornamentation” of the Holy Name; the entire name represents the whole and the forty-two letters represent its parts: “And the earth was void and without form. This describes the original state, as it were, the dregs of ink clinging to the point of the pen in which there was no subsistence, until the world was graven with forty-two letters, all of which are the ornamentation of the Holy Name.”8
There are other passages in the Zohar that suggest that the letters of the name are much more than just letters; they are assigned creative power, both in the upper world of unification (synthesis) and the lower world of division (analysis). Moreover, they are described as the supernal mystical principle by which the upper and lower worlds were created.
“The counsel,” he said, “alludes to the sublime mystical knowledge which remains hidden and undisclosed save for those that fear the Lord continuously and thus prove themselves worthy of these secrets and able to keep them.
Observe that the world has been made and established by an engraving of forty-two letters, all of which are the adornment of the Divine Name. These letters combined and soared aloft and dived downwards, forming themselves into crowns in the four directions of the world, so that it might endure. They then went forth and created the upper world and the lower, the world of unification and the world of division.... These forty-two letters thus constitute the supernal mystical principle; by them were created the upper and the lower worlds, and they indeed constitute the basis and recondite significance of all the worlds.”9If the first forty-two layers above and below correspond to these forty-two letters, then the supreme forty-third layer represents the ain, the supreme Godhead that embodies the name as a whole. In this way, the ain may be viewed as the cosmic speaker to whom the name refers, while the forty-two letters represent the forms of divine speech that lead up to the realization of the name and identification with the cosmic speaker. This presents another version of the 42 + 1 = 43 immortal wisdom, expressed in terms of the unique divine name.