Gamaliel
“The Obscene Ones” · “The Polluted of God”
Shadow of Yesod · Ruled by Lilith
Yesod, “Foundation,” is the ninth Sephirah, the channel through which all the light of the upper Sephiroth descends into the manifest world of Malkuth. It is the lunar sphere, the sphere of dreams, of the unconscious, of sexuality as a cosmic principle. Yesod does not create the light, nor does it receive it finally, since it transmits, transforms, and acts only as the intermediary. Its symbol is the base of a column, that which holds the structure in place.
Gamaliel is the defilement of that channel. If Yesod is the pure transmission from above downward, then Gamaliel lets through itself the impurity, not the light. In the language of ritual purity this state is tumah, ritual impurity, not moral impurity. In the archive's reading, what should never have been mixed has mixed, since what should have remained separate instead joined together in the wrong way.
Correspondences
| Hebrew name | גָּמָלִיאֵל |
| Translation | The Obscene Ones; The Polluted of God |
| Shadow of | Yesod (Foundation) |
| Ruling demon | Lilith (in the aspect of Gamaliel) |
| Number | 9 as a clogged pipe |
| Quality | Defilement of the channel, impurity of transmission, the distortion of the unconscious |
The nature of Gamaliel
Lilith is among the most complex of all demonic figures in the Kabbalistic tradition, since the sources never agree on exactly what she is. In her original image she is Adam's first wife, who refused to submit and left Eden. In the later tradition she becomes the mother of demons, a succubus, a night spirit that steals children. The Zohar places her in direct connection with Samael and with Sitra Achra as a whole.
Her rule over Gamaliel, the ninth Qlipha, the shadow of Yesod, reveals a particular logic. Lilith was not destroyed or defeated; she left. Gamaliel is the space that remains after that departure, since what came in her stead never filled it completely. Underfilled, still occupied.
The demonic ruler
Lilith (לִילִית) may come from layla (לַיְלָה, night) or from the Sumerian lilu (night wind, incubus). In the Book of Isaiah 34:14 she appears as lilit in the desert among the beasts of a ruined city, which is the only direct mention in the Bible. In the Alphabet of Ben Sira (9th to 10th c.) the story of the first wife is first told: Lilith refused to lie beneath Adam (“I am like you”), pronounced the unutterable name of God, and flew away to the Red Sea. Kabbalistic tradition knows four “mothers of demons,” Lilith, Naamah, Agrat bat Mahalat, and Eisheth Zenunim, among whom Lilith is the eldest and the chief. → See the catalogue of rulers