On the Symbolism of the Seven Days of the Week

 

Having touched on quite a lot of numerical symbolism already here and there, we think it might be helpful to lay out the symbolism of the seven days of the week once in a short and concise manner, thereby effectively resuming a lot of what we have said so far. There are of course many angles from which one could approach this topic, but we for our part shall especially look at the symbolism of the seven days in terms of the creation week of Genesis (and the Torah more generally), as well as its ‘fulfillment’ in the revelation of Jesus Christ (“Quod Moyses velat, Christi doctrina revelat”).

 

Monday is linked to the moon, not only in the Germanic languages (Montag, Maandag, etc.) but also in Latin (Dies Lunae, Lundi, etc.). Whereas the Sunday (the first day of the week, the day of the “Fiat lux!”) is obviously the day of the sun and of the first metal gold, Monday pertains to silver, the moon, the waters, etc. Thus Sunday represents the ‘solar side’ of existence, the pillar of being, eternity, transcendence, and Monday the lunar pillar of becoming, time, immanence. They are ‘Boaz and Jachin’ (1. Kings 7:21), the two pillars on which the Temple of Universal Existence is founded.

The sefira of Sunday is Chesed (loving-kindness, grace, mercy) corresponding to the patriarch Abraham, for through Abraham God begins his great work of redemption; here God first enters into history, it is the “first day” of salvation, the day where grace breaks through.

On the second day of creation week, the day of Geburah (judgment, limitation, law), the separation of the waters takes place, and thus it is said that Monday is the day of multiplicity, duality, separation, etc. We have to sanctify the week on Sunday, for divorced from the oneness of the first day, the Monday (and by extension all the following days) become flooded by multiplicity and darkness.[1] Geburah is also linked to the Patriarch Isaac, who is associated with water (cf. Gen. 24, 26) and passivity (Gen. 22), and who’s likewise the father of duality (the twins Jacob and Esau). But Isaac who “carried the wood for the sacrifice” up the mountain (Gen. 22:6) is also a figure for Christ, “the lamb that God provided” (22:8), and thus we see how on the day of separation is already prefigured the suffering of Golgotha as well as the eventual reunification of all things in His Mystical Body. For God said to Rebecca: “Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples shall be divided out of your womb. And one people shall overcome the other, and the elder shall serve the younger” (Gen. 25:23). And under these we understand the Church and the Synagogue, Israel according to the ‘flesh’ (Esau) and the ‘spirit’ (Jacob), but also the two kingdoms that do battle in our soul, the kingdom of this world and that of God (the upper and lower waters).  

 

Just like the 3 is duality overcome, so the Tuesday, the third day of creation week (linked to the Patriarch Jacob), marks the balance of the preceding two. It sees the creation of “land of sea” (Gen. 1:9-10), thereby unifying the ‘stability’ of the first day with the ‘transience’ of the second by inaugurating the harmonious flow of ebb and tide between the two cosmic forces; and it is also in this way that God spoke to Jacob: “I am the Lord, the God of Abraham thy father (right side) and the God of Isaac (left side)” (Gen. 28:13). As the Zohar (Shemoth, 175B) says:

 

Jacob is ‘a complete man, dwelling in tents’ (Gen. 25:27). It does not say, ‘dwelling in a tent’, but ‘dwelling in tents’, which denotes that he unified the two ‘tents’ (of Severity and Mercy) … Jacob harmonized both sides: the Fathers (Abraham and Isaac) signified the totality of all, and Jacob signified the union of the Fathers.

 

As the fourth work (both in Gen. 1 and Gen. 2) God creates plant life, viz. the ‘seed-bearing’ and the ‘fruit-yielding’ tree (Gen. 1:11-12), and these two trees (which are literally called “the tree that is fruit and that makes fruit” and “the tree that makes fruit”) have often been interpreted as the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge.

From this we see that the Tree of Knowledge (“the tree that makes fruit”) is not actually antithetical to the Tree of Life (“the tree that is fruit and that makes fruit”) but is fully contained in it; it teaches us that in the more-than-luminous darkness of God (the Opposite of all opposites), being and becoming, light and darkness, Âtmâ and Mâyâ are One (Shiva-Shakti), and that it is only when the Tree that “makes fruit” (becoming) is separated from the One that “is fruit” (being) that it turns into the tree of death. 

This is also shown us to in the Holy Wounds on the Body of the Risen One: The Tree of Knowledge in the Tree of Life, the crucifying scars of finitude fully reintegrated into the Infinite Reality, without being effaced.[2] Yea, we might even say that the Corpus Gloriosum is somehow ‘completed’ by these wounds, that without them it would somehow be ‘less’, no matter how “illogical” that may sound to us at first: “felix culpa!” Indeed, this is a great mystery. [3]

Being the fourth work on the third day, the two trees mark the half of creation week, the “3 ½” that divides the 7 days. It could thus be said that the Tree of Life belongs to the 3, to the ‘Day of Tiferet’, the central pillar of Balance, Harmony, Beauty, etc., whereas the Tree of Knowledge already pertains to the 4, to time, development, mâyâ. This is further supported by the tradition according to which the Tree of Knowledge was a ‘fig-tree’, the fig being, according to Moses, the fourth of the ‘seven fruits of the earth’ (cf. Deut. 8:8).

This dual nature can be found in all aspects of the third day, for not only are there two creative works on this day (which produce both “land and sea” and the “two trees” respectively), but it is also the day of the ‘twins’ Jacob and Esau (just as Gemini is the third Zodiac), the former of which also marries the two sisters Leah and Rachel for whom he works 22 years in the house of Laban.

The “Tuesday” derives its name from Tyr, the Norse god of war, and in the Latin languages it is known as the day of Mars (Dies Martis, Mardi, etc.) linked to the metal iron. We see that the third day is not only the day of union (in Judaism weddings are often celebrated on Tuesday), but also the day where opposites meet (the hostile brothers Esau & Jacob) and thus it once more reveals to us the ambiguity of the two Trees, Life and Knowledge, Love and Strive.

We could also link the two brothers to the two aforementioned trees. Thus Jacob-Israel, who “stays in the camp”, represents the Tree of Life whereas Esau, the hunter who chases after the 4-legged beasts, represents the Tree of Knowledge (and just like Jacob and Esau share the same father so it is said that both Trees in Paradise come from the same root).

We also see how the principle of ‘inverse analogy’ finds its application here: the world is ‘upside-down’ and while in Paradise the Tree of Life is created first, here in the fallen world it is Esau who is the first-born. But yet Isaac blesses Jacob, the second son, the “illegitimate” one, for he is ‘blind’, he has closed his eyes to appearances and sees the ‘essential’ realities, hence why the prophet are sometimes called “the blind men” [4], for to be blind to this world means truly seeing (and in the inverted world the ruse of Jacob is actually a restoration of order).

Lastly we find this ‘dual nature’ also in the fruit of the third which is the grape, i.e. wine; for wine is both linked to tamas and sattva, it is either that which ‘drags us down’ to the earth or the ‘soil’ (as was the case with Noah), or it symbolizes the intoxication with divine love so often sung about by the Sufis, as well as the Eucharistic wine which is the ‘blood of the living Vine’ by which are unified into the Body of Christ (Joh. 15:5).

 

The fourth day of the week is Wednesday, the day of Wotan (or Odin), or the Dies Mercurii (frz. Mercredi), the day of Mercury (both as god, planet, and metal). Now mercury was used by the alchemist in the production of gold and indeed there’s a close correspondence between the fourth and the first day. The fourth day sees the creation of the sun and the other luminaries which appears as ‘crystallizations’ of the primal light of the first day (Sunday) on a lower level. And so too is Moses, the patriarch associated with the fourth sefira Netzach, like a second manifestation of Abraham, for he renews the covenant and with him there opens the second great chapter of salvation history, the time of the Law.

The staff of Moses which can ‘liquify’ into a snake (solve) and ‘harden’ back again (coagula) reminds us of the Caduceus of Hermes-Mercurius, and like Mercury Moses appears also as a kind of psychopompos who leads Israel out of Egypt into the Promised Land, from death into life (Odin was likewise called “the Wanderer”).

In German Wednesday is simply called “Mittwoch”, ‘the middle of the week’, and this is quite fitting, for the four is the maximum of extension in the world of duplicity (1x/+2 = 3, 2x/+2 = 4), and just like Moses inaugurates the second great (Israelite) covenant, so does the fourth day mark the beginning of the second ‘half’ of creation week (each cycle comprising four works à three day: 3x4= 7).

 

Most times it is inappropriate to count the Thursday as the “fifth” day (in the Celtic languages it is simply called “An Déardaoin”, ‘the day between two fasts’), for the 5 is impossible in time, it goes beyond it and is only attainable once the ‘4’ is overcome. Thus it was on a Thursday, the “fifth-day” (“yom heh” in Hebrew, “feria quinta” in the liturgical calendar), that Christ ascended into Heaven 40 days after Easter, literally rising above the limitations of time and space

The patriarch associated with the fifth sefira (Hod) is Aaron. Aaron appears on Moses’ ‘left side’, the feminine pillar, because he speaks for him (cf. Ex. 4:10-16), he manifests him ad extra. He is his ‘feminine side’, his “mâyâ-shakti” if you want, and just like Hod is the principle that first generates distinguishable forms, so Aaron gives form to the ‘inspiration’ flowing in from Moses.

The fruit of the fifth day is the pomegranate which also features in Aaron’s priestly vestment (Ex. 28:34). St. Gregory of Nyssa says that the pomegranate represents the philosophical life for “although outwards austere and unpleasant it is yet full of good hopes”.

‘Bitter-sweet’ is also the Last Supper, which was likewise held on a Thursday and which reminds us that after the ‘first half’ of the week is over (symbolizing creation and the Old Covenant) we’re now moving into the final stages of salvation history, the days of redemption (or ‘re-creation’) and the New and Eternal Testament.

 

Friday (Dies Veneris, Vendredi, etc.) is linked to Venus and so too in the Germanic languages it is the only day named after a woman (‘Frigga’, ‘Freya’, etc.). Woman can of course symbolize the Virgin (i.e. man’s primordial state) but the figure of Venus-Aphrodite reminds us more of woman as the seductress (Eva instead of Ave), like Pophitar’s wife who tries to seduce the Joseph (the patriarch that is associated with this day) and it is also said that from Joseph will come the “suffering servant” prophesized by Isaiah (the Meshiach-ben-Joseph).

Thus Friday is linked to temptation, the passions, suffering etc., and as the sixth day it is also closely related to the symbolism of the number 6 as we’ve previously laid it out: Anti-Christ, Nebuchadnezzar, Egypt.

Egypt, mizrayim, means ‘the form of twoness’ (mi-zar-ayim), the ‘suffering under duality’ (mi-zor-ayim). Man is created on a Friday, but it is also on Friday that he is seduced to eat of the ‘fruit of duality’ and that he is exiled from Paradise and sent into the ‘seventh day’ of this world, the “world of action” (olam ashiya).

Friday is also the day of the olive, the ‘sixth fruit’, which represents the ‘bitterness of time’, of exile, death, and slavery (“bitter as an olive” is a fixed expression in some languages). But it is also a sign of hope, of redemption, for just like man was created on Friday evening (i.e. as the second work of the sixth day), so too does the dove sent out by Noah return on a Friday “in the evening” (Gen. 8:10), carrying the olive-branch in its beak. The ‘dove’ in Hebrew is “jonah”, and so we see that the sixth day already brings the “sign of Jonah” (Matt. 12:39), the hope of the future Resurrection.

Friday might be the ‘day of bitterness’, but it  also carries in itself the ‘seed’ of salvation, the seed of the eighth day; for the olive already virtually contains the ‘oil’ (schemen in Hebrew, from schemonah, ‘eight’) that will bring the Anointed One. Man is the ‘work of the sixth day’ but he also the eighth work in total, the crowning opus of the whole creation week, and already in his Fall there’s the prophecy of the coming Redeemer, the “seed of the woman” (Gen. 3:15), and in this way it is (rightly) said that “Messiah existed before the creation of the world”.  

The sixth day is of course also the day of the Cross, of the passion and death of Our Lord Jesus Christ, ‘Good Friday’.[5] Jesus takes upon Himself all the bitterness of this world and nails it to the Cross; the olive is ground in the the ‘oil-press’, gath schemen, which, Hellenised, is: “Gethsemane”. [6]

Psalm 22 is titled: “To the Chief Musician. Set to: ‘The Hind of the Dawn’”, and it begins with the well-known: “Eli, Eli, lama sabachtani” – “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me”, uttered by Christ on the Cross.

Now ‘the hind of the dawn’ (ayelet ha-shachar) is the Hebrew word for what the West calls ‘the morning star’ (i.e. Venus). The morning star appears on the sky when the night is literally at its ‘darkest hour’, but this is also precisely why it is the ‘hind of the morning’, because it indicates that the night is about to end, that the darkest hour is overcome and that soon a new dawn will rise. And so this hour on the Cross is truly the ‘darkest moment’, the ‘eclipse’ of God Himself, but it is also this eclipse which ushers in the beginning of the night of death and sin.

The sefira associated with the sixth day Yesod, the ‘fundament’, for thus it is written: “The righteous one (tzaddik) is the foundation of the world” (Prov. 10:15) and as we’ve seen the sixth day truly already contains the foundation of the world to come.

In the microcosm Yesod is the sphere of our (ordinary) human consciousness, the ‘ego’ (analogous to ahamkâra or manas-tattva, hence also Yesod’s traditional attribution to the moon). Being the connecting (and separating) link between Tiferet and Malkut it could also be called “the ‘me’ that stands between God and ‘I’” (Simone Weil), and just like Christ is crucified on the sixth day so do we have to put our ego to death to be ‘enlightened’ in the oil of the eighth day (hence why the word “meshiach” is sometimes also used to designate the highest spiritual station, like that of “prophet” in Islamic esoterism).

 Yesod is also called “the obscured Mirror”, while Tiferet (the ‘spiritual sun’) is called “the clear Mirror” (just like Joseph mirrors his father Jacob on a lower level), for it is the reflection of Divine Intellect (the Word) in manifestation as the centre and heart of all that exists. And so it is also Tiferet, “the Holy One, blessed be He” (Ha-Kadosh Barukh Hu) that is said to be the principle of intellect in man, for it is He (YHWH-Elohim) who breathed the neschamah into Adam (Gen. 2:7). Thus, when “the nous descends into the heart” this could also be called “the blessing of Jacob”, for when the stream of the mystical Eden flows freely and ‘above’ and ‘below’ connect, then Joseph (Yesod) can inherit all things that Jacob (Tiferet) has.

 

Jacob inherited the cream of all more than the other patriarchs, he being perfect in all, and he gave all to Joseph. This was fitting, because the Righteous One [the Tzaddik, i.e. Yesod] takes all and inherits all, and all blessings are deposited with him. He first dispenses blessings above, and all the limbs of the body are disposed so as to receive them, and thus is brought into being the ‘river which goes forth from Eden’. Why Eden [meaning ‘delight’]? Because whenever all the limbs are knit together in harmony and in mutual delight, from top to bottom, then they pour blessings upon it, and it becomes a river which flows forth, literally, from ‘delight’. Or again, the word ‘Eden’ may refer to the supreme Wisdom, from which the whole flows forth like a river until it reaches this grade, where all is turned to blessing (Zohar, Beresheet, 247B).

 

The seventh is day is Sabbath day, the ‘Great Sabbath’ of Christ in the grave. We are also reminded of the Sabbatical year as prescribed in the Law of Moses (cf. Lev. 25) where, after six years, the earth is laid to rest for a year, and can only be worked again eighth year, meaning also that that what one eats during the eighth year (the oil) is made from the fruits of the sixth year (the olive).[7]

The Sabbath is the Saturday, the day of Saturn. In alchemical symbolism Saturn is also called “the King’s Tomb” or “the Sun’s Tomb”, for it is said that the ‘Great Work’ starts when the Sun descend into the House of Saturn (like the Divine Sun descending into the darkness of Sheol), i.e. with the ‘lead’ which is the beginning of all (the ‘base metal’). Saturn eats his children, in him all the other six metals/planets are ‘ground’ and dissolved into materia prima (just like in the seventh sefira Malkut all previous six sefirot are gathered together); it is the ‘dark night’ of putrefactio (or nigredo), the ‘raven’s head’ or caput corvi which is the ‘crown’ of the work, for without dissolution there’s no generation, and without death no resurrection is possible.

The seventh day is also the day of ‘this world’, olam ashiya (hence why it is said that trying to “change the world” is a sin against the fourth Commandment) and the word that most clearly instantiates the 7 is the ‘fish’ (dag: 3-4), the creature submerged in the ‘waters’ of becoming (likewise “salvation”, dlia, is derived from the word “bucket”, deli, so to ‘save’ someone means ‘bucketing’ him, removing the water). The pictogram of the seventh letter (zayin) was originally a boat with a paddle (and, as we’ve said before, the pictogram of mem, the ‘letter 40’, was a wave, MeM being also equivalent with “water”, MayIM) and this pattern of ‘seven-in-four’ is also found in the 28 days (7x4) of the traditional lunar month, the moon being of course the prime symbol for the transience of this world.

The fish (7) is the animal of the flood; it appears when the end meets a new beginning: The matsya-avatâra is the first avatar of Vishnu at the beginning of the cycle, the avatar who speaks the Veda, i.e. the first ‘word’ that is uttered.

Thus the fish is the first ‘form’ that appears in manifestation (Pisces, the sign of the two fish, of ‘duality’), whereas the ‘lamb’ (Aries, the first sign) is that what lies to foundation for the (new) world, just like the fruit of the first day is wheat, i.e. the ‘seed’ in which everything is contained, the seed of duality.[8]

The lamb sacrificed from the beginning is the principle of the world, it’s ‘foundation’, and thus it does not itself appear on the seventh day, in time. The lamb is revealed on the eighth day, on the day of Apocalypse (cf. Rev. 5ff.), but it also already present  as a ‘seed’ on the sixth day in Egypt, in the beth (ב = 2), the ‘house of duality’ (and he in whose house there’s no lamb to be found will be struck down by the ‘Destroyer’ and dies in Egypt; cf. Ex. 12:23). It is both the Pascha-lamb and the Lamb of the Last Day (the “lamb with the seven eyes”, i.e. that contains the complete sevenness in its Oneness)[9], Alpha and Omega; it is the lamb by which we travel from Egypt to the Holy Land.

The lamb is silent, “it does not open its mouth” (Is. 53:7) it is the principle of speaking, of the logos ekthetos, while it itself in the Silence that precedes all sound, primordial Oneness (“Deus purus Intellectus est sine strepitu linguae”). For being the Principle of manifestation (the primordial point Keter-Chockmah) [10] it does not itself become manifested, hence why Christ says: “Before Abraham [viz. Chesed] was I am” (Joh. 8:58)

Let us paraphrase a popular Passover-song (the equivalence of which can be found in many ‘chain tales’ or nursery rhymes of other cultures) which goes as follows:

 

My father bought me a little lamb for the price of two silver coins. Then the cat came and bit the lamb dead. The dog saw it, and bit the cat. The stick saw it, and beat the dog. The fire saw it, and burned the stick. The water saw it, and extinguished the fire. The ox saw it and drank the water. The man saw it, and slaughters the ox. And this was seen by the Angel of Death, who takes away the man out of this life. But God sees the Angel doing that – and He takes away the Angel of Death.

 

Again we see that the story starts with the lamb, which is then exchanged for duality (the two coins). But this sacrifice is not a ‘fall’ or a ‘tragedy’ –  a contrario!, it is a free gift from the Father bestowed out of love. But, alas!, death enters by the bite of the cat (we might also say: by the bite of the serpent) and thus the cycle of life and death start unfolding. However at the end there’s the death of Death, the reconciliation, God will set all things right (“and all shall be well, and all shall be well, and manner of things shall be well”).

He who views creation divorced from its Principle can only see the world of karma (cause and effect), the world of the sixth days, and remains blind to the primal ‘gift’. On Sunday the lamb is still in sight (“the cat bit the lamb”), but already on Monday (“the dog bit the cat”) the law of causality has become absolute.

Adam was supposed to lead the six days into the Sabbath, but when he fell the law of the sixth days became the law of the seventh day, of ‘this world’. And this is also seen in the life of David (“the beloved one”), the patriarch of the seventh sefira, who suffered many tragedies and fought many wars (even attaining his throne by slaying Goliath). Peace, it is said, only comes after David (Malkut) with Salomon (“shlomo”, meaning ‘peace’, ‘completion’). .

But nevertheless, even the seventh day is open to grace. The fruit of the seventh day is the ‘date’ (thamar) from which the wild honey is won. ‘Thamar’ means “she is bitter”, but it is also Thamar who gives birth to Peretz (meaning: “breakthrough”) the child which continues the line of Judah, the line which will bring David and Christ, the Messiah. And this is a premonition of the Nativity: Christ ‘breaking through’ into the seventh day of this world, to establish the Kingdom (Malkut) of God on Earth, like David, the builder of the Temple.

Thus Peretz shows us that grace is also present in the bitterness of this world, that one can already taste the celestial ‘honey’ on this very day, for, as the Law states, it is also on the seventh day that the slaves have the chance to free themselves (Ex. 21:2).

 

But like the Tabernacle was built over seven days and only completed on the eighth (cf. Lev. 8:33-9:1) – and so was the First Temple (2. Chr. 7:8f.) – so too the full completion, the full restoration, only comes on eighth day (Easter Sunday), with Salomon (Keter-Malkut).  

The eighth day is the day of the Messiah, the ‘Anointed One’ when the oil is poured out over the world to enkindle the fire of the Spirit: “Ignem veni mittere in terram” (Lk. 12:49).[11]

When the seventh day is olam assiah, the world of action (or of fact), the wandering of the Israelites in the desert, the Ark of Noah traveling the waters time after having left the Egyptian slavery of the anti-diluvian world (the sixth day), then the eighth day is that of the olam haba, the “world to come” that the Gospels talk so much about, the entering into the Holy Land, the New Creation.

And thus the journey from Egypt (mizrayim = 390) to the Promised Land (kanaan = 190) through the forty years of the desert is also a journey from duality to Oneness (390/190 = 2/1): it is the journey of Adam, from the Tree of Knowledge (sixth day) through time (seventh day) to Paradise regained (eighth day), it is the story of the Easter Triduum:  “After two days will he revive us: in the third day he will raise us up” (Hos. 6:2).

That we may thus attain to the Glory of the World to Come, so help us God. Amen.