Mysterious Kabbalah....Part 3

Netzach, Hod, and Yesod



In the Kabbalistic schema, netzach and hod balance into yesod. If tiferet is the heart center, bringing together the various emotional energies to the core of inner balance, yesod is the sexual organ, bringing together the various productive energies to the place of generativity. Recall that all sefirot have anatomical correspondences: hesed, gevurah and tiferet are right arm, left arm and heart-center; netzach, hod, and yesod are right leg, left leg, and sex organ.





In some charts of the sefirot, yesod is simply the phallus, and in many Kabbalistic texts, it does function in this way. But the situation is actually more complicated. Sexually, yesod is the conduit between male and female energy, and as such includes both male and female genitalia. Think of it in terms of generation and procreation. Yesod is where the energies come together — the Kabbalists did not have an idea of "genetic material" as we do, though it maps on quite well — and are united into manifestation, which is malchut — the last sefirah which we'll get to next. For a man, this can be understood as bringing together all the energies and projecting them out into the world. For a woman, it might be understood as bringing together all the energies so that their manifestation can be birthed