The Kabbalists never intended to convey the idea that numbers possessed special virtues. They merely represent them; for example 3 represents a life entity; without this ternary combination it would be impossible for life to exist. The self-existing Deity is a Triune Entity; so is every individual life form. Whether it be a _Monera_, the lowest structureless life organism, or _Man_, the highest in the scale of living beings. Number three is therefore called the generating number. Again, 7 is the harmonic numeral, there being seven primary grades of harmony, and in order to extend it, the scale of seven must be repeated, and every repetition lessens the harmony and tends to discord. The _Sepher Jetzirah_, which is recognized by the Kabbalist as the key of the Sohar, is a wonderful and obscure work. Its wisdom is represented in ten numbers and twenty-two letters. From the numbers “are drawn or cut” the twenty-two letters which are divided into three mothers, seven double and twelve single letters. According to the Sepher there were three acts of creation; 1st, _Conception or Idea_; 2nd, _The Word_; 3rd, _The Writings_. For example, _first_, God conceived in His own mind, the archetype of the universe which constituted the _design_; _second_, the Word represents the law and the energy it controls and directs in carrying out the design; _third_, the product arising from the second constitute the writings. The Sepher Jetzirah teaches that the hidden ways of wisdom are in the ten _sephiroth_, which are usually termed spheres. The Hebrews use the word “ways,” which with us mean degrees, forms or species. These hidden ways are the workings of the forces producing differentiation of forms, which represents the twenty-two letters, which are expressed as one in three, and three in seven, and seven in twelve, making twenty-two. The ten sephiroth interest us the most for they represent the unity and synthesis of numbers and the manifestations of Deity in nature. The first sefir is called the Crown on account of its being the abode of the _En Soph_[40] the unmanifested infinite Being; but the first form by which he became known was the _Memra_ or “word,” which is represented by the first three sephiroth, namely, _Kether_, “the Crown,” _Chochma_, “wisdom,” _Binah_, “understanding.”[41] To express it more clearly, the first three sephiroth comprise a Triune Entity, the verbalized spirit of God consisting of self-consciousness, wisdom and love which embodied the _Word_, “the heavenly man,” “the man on high,” (Ezekiel I, 26), the Adam Kadmon of the Kabbalist, the Paradisical Adam of Genesis, the Christ of the Christians and the Buddha of the Buddhists.