I remember two encounters with the Book of Formation in the mid 1990s. I bought Aryeh Kaplan's translation of and commentary on the Book of Formation. Of course it was interesting, but it didn't speak to me. Perhaps it was good as a meditation exercise for a mystical experience, but otherwise it was arcane and obscure even though I'm comfortable with the text's Hebrew and English is my native language. I wondered if I could do better.
The other encounter was with the last lesson in the Book of Formation. His Holiness, Grand Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, disseminated a correction to this last lesson as it's been printed in the Tikun Leyl Shavuot all-night study book. The first and last lessons from the Book of Formation appear there. By studying these two excerpts, it's reckoned as though the entire book has been studied as preparation for the holiday. I was intrigued by this last lesson. What was it teaching us? Does the Book of Formation contain a "grand theory of everything"? (I believe that it does.)
After pondering the words of the last lesson for a great while, I reached a conclusion about what the last lesson was teaching us. I presented this conclusion and my Talmudic reasoning in a short lecture to my worship congregation. As with other of my presentations, the reaction was mostly silence. I was not deterred.
In 2003 while in Israel, I found a traditional
European copy of the Book of Formation. Like Aryeh
Kaplan, most of the commentators present the book as a Kabbalah
treatise concerning the action of the ten
sefirot emanations from
When I moved to Kansas from Chicago in 2008, I started this work of doing a different type of translation and commentary – interpreting the Book of Formation as a grand theory of everything. I had the guidance of the writings of Chabad Hasidism to guide me. As I went along, I published my results on my website.
Even though I've described the Book of Formation as a grand "theory," it is not a theory as dreamed up by flesh and blood. It's the truth because it comes from the Torah.
This is a picture of the title page of what the original publisher called Tikun Lel Sch'wuoth. This is an offset printing from the original which was published in 5624 – 1864. No location.
This reprint was published by Chevrat Me'orer Yesheinim, Brooklyn, New York, 1965.
The text in the middle of the page tells us that the source for this edition was the book Shnei Luchot HaBrit by Rabbi Isaiah Horowitz (the Shaloh) (c. 1560-1630).