549) From Serafim to Sefirot: The Kedusha and the rise of human participation in the cosmic drama

The Kedusha in a 1745 Siddur according to the custom of the Arizal

Introduction

This article—drawing extensively on the research by Dr Leore Sachs-Shmueli—examines a fundamental shift in the mystical interpretation of the Kedusha, recited during the communal repetition of the Amidah (standing prayer). The Kedusha, with its liturgy dating to the fifth century CE (Fleischer 1998:305), was understood in early Jewish mysticism—particularly the Heichalot and Merkavah literature beginning from around the second century CE—as an opportunity for earthly worshippers to imitate and mimic the prayers of the heavenly angels who united heaven and earth through their recital of the Kedusha. In this ancient framework, human prayer was conceived as an echo of the primary celestial liturgy. However, with the emergence of the Zoharic corpus in the late thirteenth century (the Zohar first circulated around 1290), a significant theological shift took place. The angels, who were once conceptualised as being central to the Kedusha, were now relegated to the margins, while humanity assumed the pivotal role in a cosmic drama that sought to unite heaven and earth. 

Heichalot mysticism was, at its core, a hierarchical form of angelology and demonology, which the Zohar transformed into a more sophisticated system of Sefirot (ten divine emanations or spiritual spheres). Thus, the former Angel of Mercy, for example, was transformed and subsumed into the Sefirah of Chessed (Kindness), integrating angelic manifestations into a broader, unified cosmology in which humanity assumed the theurgical (or spiritually manipulative) agency that balanced cosmic power. 

Furthermore, the notion of prayer directly to the Sefirot—as practised by some Kabbalistic traditions—was also considered more refined than praying directly to the angels (Weiss 2020) [see: Kotzk Blog: 104) PRAYING TO ANGELS? and Kotzk Blog: 110) ANGELS IN RABBINIC LITERATURE:]. Sefirot were at least seen as aspects of God, while angels were considered to be separate entities. Praying to angels was viewed as dangerously close to idolatry, and the Zoharic Kabbalists offered an alternative theological redirection away from angelic prayer. This way, the Zohar offered a fresh approach to, and re-interpretation of, the essential Kedusha liturgy that both gave humans more theurgic agency and preserved a stricter monotheism. 

The Kedusha in the Zohar

Some mystical ideas within the Zohar became so canonical that they mirrored the authority of the 613 Mitzvot (commandments) of Halacha (practical Jewish law). Instead of being called Halachic Mitzvot, they became known as Zoharic Pikudin (Zoharic commandments, or more contextually, channels of spiritual energies). The Kedusha was one of these Pikudin. Ironically, according to Halachists, the Kedusha is not one of the 613 mitzvot, although it is a davar shebikedusha (a very holy practice)—a rabbinic law that requires a minyan (quorum of 10). According to the Zoharic Kabbalists, however, it was a primary part of the liturgy because it was conceived as the mechanism to connect the upper and lower realms, hence one of the Zoharic Pikudin (commandments). 

The Zohar even produced a work, titled Pikudin that dealt with theses mystical commandments. This anonymous Zoharic work—although it was probably authored by Moshe de León (d. 1305) (Sachs-Shmueli 2026:3), because it matches the literary style of another work we know to have been authored by Moshe de León, namely, Sefer haRimon (Book of the Pomegranate), which also deals with the reasons for the Mitzvot—formed another facet of the typical genre of Zoharic rationales for the commandments (Sachs-Shmueli 2026:9). 

In fact, one of the reasons scholars suspect the Zohar (which largely deals with the reasons for the commandments) to be a product of thirteenth-century Castile (north-central Spain) is that there was a profusion of works dealing with the Taamei haMitzvot, or reasons for the commandments, in the era immediately preceding the Zohar's emergence. 

The trail of the Kedusha from Heichalot angelology to Zoharic Sefirot

1) Azriel of Gerona (d. 1238)

The opening verse of the Kedusha liturgy clearly states that the worshipper is about to mimic the prayer of the angels, retaining the original intent of the fifth-century prayer: 

נַקְדִּישָׁךְ וְנַעֲרִיצָךְ כְּנֹעַם שִׂיחַ סוֹד שַׂרְפֵי קֹדֶשׁ, הַמְשַׁלְּשִׁים לְךָ קְדֻשָּׁה.

“We will sanctify You and revere You, like the delightful conversation of the assembly of the holy Seraphim (angels) who recite holiness three times before You” (Siddur). 

The developmental trail of the Kedusha from originally mimicking the angels' prayers as conceptualised in Heichalot angelology, to humans fusing heaven with earth through Zoharic Sefirot, was not an immediate or direct path. It first passed through the interpretations of the Kabbalists of Gerona (in Catalonia, northeastern Spain), and specifically Azriel of Gerona. He is known for introducing Neoplatonic thought into mainstream Kabbalah [see: Kotzk Blog: 527) Neoplatonic echoes in Chassidic Mysticism].[1] One of his main students was Ramban (Nachmanides, d. 1270). 

Azriel of Gerona is one of the first to reframe the Kedusha, shifting it from a previous angel‑mimetic liturgy to a theosophical interpretation that reads the angelic figures as spiritual manifestations (which he called ‘Sefirot’), later to become more fully developed into Zoharic Sefirot (Sachs-Shmueli 2026:6). 

Azriel of Gerona does this in his Perush haAggadot (Jerusalem: Mekitzei Nirdamim, 1945: 56), where he interprets the threefold expression “Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh (Holy, holy, holy)” (Isaiah 6) as referring to the Patriarchs, Avraham, Yitzchak and Yakov. This represents a shift away from angelic beings, as per the earlier readings of the biblical text in Isaiah, to the Patriarchs, who now characterise the three fundamental Sefirot of Chessed, Gevurah and Tiferet. Azriel of Gerona marks one of the first literary moves away from the angels of Heichalot and Merkavah mysticism to Sefirotic entities, laying the ground for further development of the Sefirot by the Zohar. 

Azriel of Gerona’s bridge between Heichalot angelology and the Zoharic Sefirot is especially significant, as it marks one of the early attempts to place humanity at the very centre of the cosmic drama. Humanity now has a major theurgical (‘magical’ or spiritually manipulative) role in uniting the Divine with the material world, and it does so—notably—by reciting the Kedusha. 

In the Kedusha liturgy, according to Azriel of Gerona, the triple Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh (Holy, holy, holy) corresponds directly to the holiness of the three human Patriarchs Avraham, Yitzchak and Yakov. Each of them is responsible for the potency of God to manifest. Thus, only by human intervention (theurgy) does God manifest as the God of Avraham, the God of Yitzchak and the God of Yakov, as per the liturgy of the opening of the Amidah prayer, which immediately precedes the Kedusha. As a result of this human intervention in the Godhead, the liturgy continues, “the whole world is full of His glory,” and “the Lord will reign forever” as Elokayich Tzion (your God) of Tzion (Ps 146:10), because the righteous human members of the community of the faithful intervened to restore the potency to God. 

Azriel of Gerona goes on to cite “Tzadik Yesod olam, the Righteous individual is the foundation of the world” (Proverbs 10:25), because without righteous human intervention, God remains impotent. He ends by citing “Ani ledodi vedodi li, “I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine” (Song of Songs 6:3), as the restoration of God’s potency is achieved through a mystical union between man and God, and between God and the Shechina through a sacred union imbued with divine intimacy (summary of R. Azriel of Gerona, Perush haAggadot, 57). 

This extract from Azriel of Gerona serves to consolidate the notion that prayers were more than just religious suplications and devotions. Instead, they became spiritual tools because the: 

“Spanish kabbalists sought to elucidate the explicit theurgical mechanisms inherent in prayer” (Sachs-Shmueli 2026:9). 

2) Yosef Gigatila (d. 1305)

It is interesting to see how Yosef Gigatila adopts a similar approach to that of Azriel of Gerona by also moving away from the angel‑centric cosmology of the Heichalot and Merkavah mysticism. While both clearly depart from the previous concentration on angelology, neither totally loses the connection to angels entirely. Gigatila agrees on the crucial role of the theurgic worshipper in achieving the sanctifications and unions, but he allows some degree of angelic ‘protection’ in the process of the letters set into motion by the one reciting the Kedusha: 

“[A]ngels do not activate or interact in the theurgical process of liturgy but serve as guards and defenders against impure demonic forces threatening the [male] sefirah of Yesod…” (Sachs-Shmueli 2026:22). 

3) The Zohar (1290)

The next step was the Zoharic embellishment of the Kedusha as a commandment and one of the mystical Pikudin: 

“This distinctive status of the Qedushah within the Piqqudin has perplexed many halakhic authorities, as no other known text, outside the circles of the Zohar, attributes such supreme legal importance to this prayer” (Sachs-Shmueli 2026:10). 

The Zohar corpus, which included the Pikudin, saw the Kedusha as a locus for effecting a union of the Sefirot. Additionally, the individual reciting the Kedusha becomes: 

“an agent drawing divine effluence into the physical world, thereby enabling a union between the material and divine realms” (Sachs-Shmueli 2026:9). 

Strikingly, the Pikudin removes the original explicit motif of human imitation of angelic worship —the very motif that opens the Kedusha, as described above—and replaces it with a theosophical, Zoharic account of sanctification. This omission of angelic mimicry in the Pikudin signals a firm shift from angel‑centric liturgical cosmology (as in Heichalot mysticism, where a union reached through a liturgical communion between God and Israel [‘unio-liturgica’]) to a theurgical and manipulative cosmology dependent solely upon human agency. Now, man—no longer the angels—is seen as pivotal in the cosmic drama uniting heaven and earth. 

The Zohar describes a technical spiritual process, involving the ascent of Hebrew letters, that gets set into motion through the theurgic agency of the worshipper. The letter ו (vav, which is masculine) is said to journey to the root קדש, and becomes קדוש. Next, the letter ה (heh, which is feminine) moves to the end of the newly formed קדוש, and becomes קדושה (Kedusha). The masculine and feminine energies are thus unified through the theurgic recitation of the Kedusha, and the cosmic unification of male and female, as well as heaven and earth, are thereby achieved. This theurgic act is known as the mystery of the verse: “I will be sanctified in the midst of the Children of Israel” (Lev 22:32). In other words, it is the actions of humanity, the Children of Israel, that affect this cosmic drama every time the Kedusha is recited (summary of Zohar III: 92b–93c).  

According to another Zoharic work,Tikunei Zohar, a marriage between God and the Shechina is brought about “[through the recitation] of Holy, Holy, Holy” (Tikunei Zohar, fol. 132a). Furthermore, Tikunei Zohar explains that each component of the liturgy contributes to the actual ‘formation’ of the Divine limbs and being. Failing to concentrate on the liturgy and prayers correctly may damage the Divine persona as well as the worshiper’s ‘soul limbs’: 

“Consequently, the text issues a warning that failure to fulfill one’s liturgical obligations could result in reincarnation, viewed both as a punishment and an opportunity to rectify the damage incurred” (Sachs-Shmueli 2026:27). 

Prayers to angels

Although, as we have seen, the role of the angels was severely diminished and minimised since the era of Heichalot and Merkavah mysticism, like Gigatila, it was difficult to break from them entirely: 

“In some cases, kabbalists interwove prayers to angels into a theosophic framework and retained their central role in the ascent of prayers. Books like The Peliah and Berit ha-Menuchah exemplify this approach, where the Qedushah’s words are seen as activating angels and divine names to fulfill specific needs. In Berit ha-Menuchah, the words of the Qedushah are incorporated into a personal prayer, attributed to R. Nahunia ben ha-Kanah. This prayer is perceived as a magical instrument that activates angels and divine names, with the ultimate aim of successfully fulfilling a specific need” (Sachs-Shmueli 2026:30). 

Analysis

We have traced the development of various interpretations of the Kedusha liturgy from straightforward mimicry of the prayers of angels to the more sophisticated cosmology of the Sefirot. There was clearly a move away from angelology and demonology associated with the pre-Zoharic Heichalot and Merkava period. No longer were angels the protagonists in the unification of heaven and earth, but humans now became the leading characters in the cosmic drama. Yet, notwithstanding the development of an alternate cosmology of Sefirot, it was difficult to escape angelology altogether, even in the Zohar. 

This makes Maimonides’ (d.1204) rejection of the common perceptions of angels—eighty-six years before the emergence of the Zohar— all the more remarkable [see: Kotzk Blog: 423) Maimonides calls the belief in Angels an “evil and blind foolishness”]. Still, as we have noted, the shift in cosmologies from the Heichalot to the Zohar was indeed significant. 

To what extent did Maimonides’ radical views on angels shape the shift in Jewish mystical cosmologies from Serafim to Sefirot, and from angels to humans as central cosmic agents? Paradoxically, the rationalist Maimonides may have played an inadvertent role in creating a mystical revolution.

 

Bibliography

Fleischer, E., 1998, ‘The Qedusha of the Amida (and other Qedushot): Historical, Liturgical and Ideological Aspects’, Tarbiz 67 [Hebrew].

Sachs-Shmueli, L., 2026, ‘Becoming a Holy Man: the Ethno-Moralistic Shift and the Marginalization of Angelology in Castilian Kabbalistic Intentions for the Qedusha’, Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy, vol. 34, 1-31.

Tzahi Weiss, T., 2020, ‘Prayers to Angels and the Early Sefirotic Literature’, Jewish Studies Quarterly, vol. 27, 22-35.

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[1] Socrates (d.399BCE) is famous for his questions, knowing that he knew nothing. Plato (c.427-347BCE) was his student, and Plato’s student was Aristotle (384-322BCE). Plato, an idealist, emphasised abstract reasoning and posited the existence of eternal, perfect Forms beyond the physical world. Aristotle, by contrast, was an empiricist who grounded knowledge in observation and experience, focusing on the physical world as the true locus of reality. Despite these differences, there is considerable overlap in their approaches, especially in the ancient context, where the boundaries between mysticism and rationalism were far more fluid than they are today. Five centuries later, the teachings of Plato were reinterpreted and expanded by Plotinus (c.205-270CE), giving rise to Neoplatonism—a school of Platonic thought that leaned more heavily toward mysticism and spiritual metaphysics. Central to Neoplatonism is the concept of the ‘One,’ a transcendent source from which all levels of being emanate in a hierarchical cascade—an idea that bears striking resemblance to later Kabbalistic notions of Sefirot or divine emanations.