Isaiah Horowitz

 The Sheney Luhot

ha-Berit of R. Isaiah

ben Abraham Horowitz

known as "The Holy Shelah"/

The generations of Adam

(English transl. volume in

Classics of Western Spirituality

Paulist Press 1996)

Its author interweaves different

threads of rabbinic learning

to produce a seamless garment

of mystical pietism.

The soul is composed of 248 white limbs and 365

red sinews which are spiritual; it clothes itself

in the human body, in accord with [Job 31:2 ]

You clothed me in skin and flesh, and wove me

of bones and sinews,

in the soul's image and pattern.

In the pattern that was made for it,

in the garment of the 248 white, physical

limbs, which are the white bones of the

human body and the 365 red, physical sinews

which are the red sinews of the human body 

that are full of blood.  For the garment has

to be made in the pattern and likeness

of the one who wears it. . .The soul must

resemble God, just as the Holy One, blessed

be He, is called a person. [Ezekiel 1:27]

. . .and on the likeness of the Throne, a likeness

resembling the appearance of a person.  This

is the secret of YHVH which when spelled in

full, equals Adam"  (page 194, transl. Miles

Krassen, also editor/introducer for CWS Series).