Chokmah, Wisdom

Two: Breath from Breath.
With it He engraved and carved
22 Foundation Letters:
Three Mothers,
Seven Doubles,
And twelve Elementals,
And one Breath is from them.
— Sepher Yetzirah

Chokmah is unconstrained creativity, a continuation of the urge to Bestow that is Ain. It is force in the duality of force and form. (Form is Binah.) Chokmah bestows on all, regardless of worth or readiness to receive.

Chokmah is the Yod, י, in יהוה, and י designates Wisdom. Chokmah's divine name is given as יה, Yah[5], of which י is the first part. But Yod doesn't stand alone: it is joined to ה, a female principle designating Understanding. Wisdom without Understanding is meaningless. The two must be joined to give proper knowledge, and that is why that pair (ה is Binah) forms the base of the Supernal triad.

Chokmah and its sister, Binah, are the key to illumination. Sepher Yetzirah tells us, "Understand with Wisdom, be wise with Understanding" (I:4): Wisdom (nonverbal thought) can only be experienced — explained, made accessible to us — when it is clothed with Understanding (verbal thought). Wisdom without understanding, or understanding without wisdom, is empty. The Magician must learn to shift between them, oscillating between verbal Binah understanding and nonverbal Chokmah wisdom.

Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan notes that:

At the end of a word, when used as a suffix, the letter Yud means me or my. Wisdom is the essential nature of the individual, belonging to him alone. As such, it is the ultimate my. The same is true of the Sephirah of Wisdom (Chakhmah) with respect to the Infinite Being.

There are two parts to an occurrence, experience and analysis. Experience is the event itself as it occurs. At that point it is just an event, not good or bad or indifferent. Only after we think about the event does it acquire a conscience. This division between the event and its analysis is the division between Chokmah and Binah, Wisdom and Understanding.