Sefer Yetzirah 3

1Three Mothers, Alef-Mem-Shin—Their foundation is the palm of guilt and the palm of innocence, and the tongue of edict decides between them.

2Three Mothers, Alef-Mem-Shin—A great secret, concealed and covered and sealed in Six Rings. From them emerge Fire and Water, being divided male and female. Three Mothers, Alef-Mem-Shin is their foundation—from them are born Fathers from which all is created.

3Three Mothers, Alef-Mem-Shin—In the World are Air, Water, Fire. The heavens were created first from Fire, and the earth is created from Water, and the Air decides between the fire and the water.

4Three Mothers, Alef-Mem-Shin—In the Year are Fire, Water, and Wind. Heat was created from Fire, and cold from Water, and satiation from Wind deciding between them. Three mothers, Alef-Mem-Shin—In the Person, translated reluctantly as ‘person’. It derives from the root נפ״שׁ NPSh, having to do with breathing, refreshing, and resting; its etymological relationships with curiously similar roots like נשׁ״ם NShM ‘to breathe, pant’, נשׁ״ף NShP ‘to blow’, and נשׁ״ב NShB ‘to blow’ are unclear. On one level, it refers to the individual person or creature, i.e., ‘that which has breath’, similar to the term נְשָׁמָה neshamah (cf. [Psalm 150:6]), and might be translated ‘person, individual, being’. On another, it refers to something less tangible, approaching the kind of phantom essence implied by the English term ‘soul’. And on yet another level, it refers to the physical body, the primary metaphorical sense in which the term is encountered in the SY. Nefesh thus refers all at once to the material and immaterial essences of individual personhood, uniting ‘body’ and ‘soul’ in a single term for which English, inheritor of the philosophical duality between mind and body, lacks any true counterpart. are Fire, Water, and Wind; the head was created from Fire, the belly was created from Water, and the chest from Wind decides between them.

5Three Mothers, Alef-Mem-Shin—He carved them, hewed them, combined them, and with them He sealed Three Mothers in the World, and Three Mothers in the Year, and Three Mothers in the Person, male and female.

6He made the letter Alef reign over Wind, and He bound to it a crown. He combined them, this one with that one. With them He sealed the Wind in the world, and satiation in the Year, and the chest in the Person—male with Alef-Mem-Shin and female with Alef-Shin-Mem.

7He made the letter Mem reign over Water, and He bound to it a crown. He combined them, this one with that one; He sealed with them the earth in the World, and cold in the Year, and the belly in the Person, male and female—male with Mem-Alef-Shin and female with Mem-Shin-Alef.

8He made the letter Shin reign over Fire, and He bound to it a crown. He combined them, this one with that one; He sealed with them the heavens in the World, and heat in the Year, and the head in the Person, male and female [male with Shin-Alef-Mem and female with Shin-Mem-Alef, written thus in the N.Y.].