Chokhmah Key Facts
In Jewish Kabbalah
- Number
- 2 of 10
- Hebrew
- חכמה, pronounced khokh-MAH
- Meaning
- Wisdom
- Pillar
- Pillar of Mercy, at its head
- Triad
- Supernal triad, with Keter and Binah
- Divine name
- Yah (יה), the first letters of YHVH
- Partzuf
- Abba, the Father (Lurianic)
- Other spellings
- Chokmah, Chochmah, Hokhmah
In Hermetic Qabalah (Golden Dawn)
- Archangel
- Ratziel
- Planet / sphere
- The zodiac (Mazloth)
- Colour (Queen scale)
- Grey
- Virtue
- Devotion
- Vice
- —
- Tarot
- The four Twos
Chokhmah is the second of the ten sephirot and the first to stand on one of the Tree's outer pillars: wisdom as a flash, the moment an idea arrives whole, before it has been unfolded into anything with parts. This page keeps two traditions apart — Jewish Kabbalah, where the sephirot come from, and the Hermetic Qabalah of the 19th century, which added angels, planets and tarot cards.
What does Chokhmah mean?
Chokhmah (חכמה) is the ordinary biblical word for wisdom — the wisdom of Proverbs, where it is "a tree of life to those who grasp her", the verse that gives the Tree its Hebrew name. In Kabbalah the word narrows to something specific: insight in its first, undivided form, complete but not yet explained.
Two readings anchor it. Job 28:12 asks where wisdom can be found, and the Hebrew me-ayin, "from where", can also be read "from nothing". Kabbalists took it that way: wisdom comes out of Ayin, the nothingness of Keter, so Chokhmah is the first point of something at all. Chabad teaching, following the Zohar, also splits the word into koach mah, "the potential of what" — a power that is real but not yet grasped.
Chokhmah on the Tree of Life
On the diagram Chokhmah heads the Pillar of Mercy, the column of expansion that runs down through Chesed and Netzach. With Keter and Binah it forms the supernal triad, and it is paired with Binah the way a flash is paired with its working-out. Diagrams mirror left and right, so learn the pillar by the sephirah at its head.
Four paths touch Chokhmah on the familiar Western diagram: from Keter, across to Binah, and down to Tiferet and Chesed. Sefer Yetzirah ties the 22 paths to the 22 Hebrew letters, but it never says which letter joins which pair of sephirot; that wiring is a much later construction, and versions of it disagree.
Chokhmah in Jewish Kabbalah
- Divine name. Chokhmah is paired with Yah (יה), the first two letters of the four-letter name, familiar from Halleluyah — the name in its most compressed form, for the sephirah of compressed insight.
- Partzuf. In the Lurianic system of the 16th century Chokhmah is read as Abba, the Father, and Binah as Imma, the Mother. The two are described as a lasting pair, and the lower "faces" of the system are born from their union.
- Chabad. The Hasidic movement takes its name from the initials of Chokhmah, Binah and Da'at. Its founder, Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, explains the three in chapter 3 of the Tanya, where Chokhmah is the first flash of intellect that holds every later detail in concentrated form.
Chokhmah also has a place in ethical literature. Moses Cordovero's Tomer Devorah (16th century) gives a chapter to each sephirah as a trait to imitate; for Chokhmah it asks that a person's wisdom be ready to benefit others. Like Keter, Chokhmah is not part of Sefirat ha-Omer, which counts only the seven lower sephirot.
Everything in the second half of the panel is Hermetic, not Jewish. Archangels, planets, colour scales, virtues and tarot cards on the sephirot come from Western occultism — Renaissance occult philosophy, then Éliphas Lévi in the 1850s and the Golden Dawn after 1888. They are a consistent system — and a later overlay on a medieval Jewish structure.
Chokhmah in Hermetic Qabalah
The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, founded in 1888, spelled the name Chokmah and filed it into a table of correspondences. Its archangel is Ratziel; its celestial sphere is not a planet but the whole zodiac, Mazloth; its colour on the Queen scale is grey. The virtue most tables give, devotion, with no vice, comes from Dion Fortune's The Mystical Qabalah (1935), which also gives Chokmah the magical image of a bearded man.
In tarot the numbered cards follow the sephirot, so the four Twos sit on Chokmah: the Two of Wands, Two of Cups, Two of Swords and Two of Pentacles, each a force meeting its first opposite. The paths from Chokmah carry The Fool (Aleph), The Empress (Daleth), The Emperor (Heh) and The Hierophant (Vav). Crowley's Thoth deck later swapped the Emperor and the Star; the Tree on this site follows the Golden Dawn.
Chokhmah in meditation and practice
Chabad contemplative prayer, hitbonenut, works through the intellectual sephirot in order: a concept is first grasped in a flash (Chokhmah), then unfolded in detail (Binah), then held until it moves the heart (Da'at). The aim is not an unusual state of mind but understanding that reaches conduct.
In the Golden Dawn grade system each grade is named for a sephirah, counted up from Malkuth. Chokmah is Magus, 9=2 — one of the three grades of the "Third Order" that the Golden Dawn reserved for its Secret Chiefs rather than conferring on living members. Hermetic students meet it as a goal on the diagram, not as a working stage.
What is Jewish and what is Hermetic
| Chokhmah | Where it comes from | When |
|---|---|---|
| Name, "wisdom", head of the Pillar of Mercy | Jewish Kabbalah, Bahir and Zohar | 12th–13th century |
| Divine name Yah; koach mah | Jewish Kabbalah, the Zohar | Medieval |
| Abba, the Father | Lurianic Kabbalah | 16th century |
| Ratziel, the zodiac, grey; devotion | Golden Dawn; Dion Fortune | 1880s–1930s |
| The four Twos; Fool, Empress, Emperor, Hierophant on its paths | Lévi, then the Golden Dawn | 1850s onward |
Chokhmah follows Keter and flows into Binah, its partner at the head of the opposite pillar. See all ten sephirot on the Tree, or read the Kabbalah Tree of Life explained for how the pillars and paths work together, and Kabbalah for beginners for the difference between the traditions.
What does Chokhmah mean?
Chokhmah (חכמה) is Hebrew for "wisdom". It is the second sephirah on the Tree of Life: insight in its first, undivided form, the flash of an idea before it has been worked out, which Binah then unfolds.
What is the difference between Chokhmah and Binah?
Chokhmah is the flash of insight; Binah is the understanding that develops it into parts and structure. With Keter they form the supernal triad, and Lurianic Kabbalah pictures the two as a pair, Abba and Imma, Father and Mother.
Which tarot cards belong to Chokmah?
In Hermetic Qabalah the four Twos sit on Chokmah, and its paths carry the Fool, the Empress, the Emperor and the Hierophant. These are Golden Dawn attributions from the 19th century, not part of Jewish Kabbalah.
What is the divine name of Chokhmah?
Yah (יה), the first two letters of the four-letter divine name, familiar from the word Halleluyah. The shortened name suits the sephirah of insight that is complete but not yet unfolded.