Book of Formation - Sefer Yetzirah

Chapter I

Mishnah 5, part 1  (Mishnah 7 *)

Mishnah * I.5.1.  Ten vowels without standing alone,

Companion

Mishnah I.5.1.  [I.7]  Ten vowels without standing alone - The text of this mishnah begins exactly as the third part of Mishnah 1 begins:  "[The set of] ten vowels [which are rounded in the mouth] without standing alone."

bli mah - as explained in Tanya, "Igeret HaKodesh," Chapter 5, 129b, English note [12]
– in Yetzirah, Chapter I:2-9, 14.

Note

Mishnah I.5.1.  [I.7]  Chapter I, Mishnah 5 - The standard numbering of this mishnah in references is Mishnah 7.  This mishnah is numbered Mishnah 7 in the edition that was printed in Mantua – the city Mantova in the Lombardy region of northern Italy – in 1562 (5322 am).  The recension that editor and translator Nathaniel Segal has chosen was printed at the end of the Mantua edition as an appendix after other versions.  It is called "the short version" (Strack. 1992. Talmud and Midrash. Minneapolis: Fortress Press. pp. 374-6).  In this first chapter of the Book of Formation, each mishnah in the long version tends to contain more material than the shorter version does.  Consequently, in the shorter recension, this content is numbered Mishnah 5 while the longer version numbers this material as Mishnah 7.

Many of the earliest commentators based their commentaries on this long version.  These include Rabbi Shabtai Donolo (10th century), Rabbi Sa'adiah Gaon (931), Rabbi Eleazer of Wörms () (Strack p. 341) (vohrms in contemporary German; Wörms has had a synagogue since at least the 11th century).

* Definitions and Pronunciation