Elohim
[אלהים] Hebrew term with a wide variety of meanings. In Christian translations of scripture, it is one of many words translated to the generic word “God,” but this ignores the implications of the Hebrew letters. Primarily, the two letters ים indicate a plural word. The actual meaning of the word Elohim depends upon the context.
Significantly, the word Elohim is always used in acts of creation.
"SAID Rabbi Abbi: "The higher or celestial world with its accompanying spheres, though invisible to mortal sight, has its reflection and analogue, namely, the lower world with its circumambient spheres, according to the saying, 'As above, so below.' The works of the Holy One in the celestial world are the type of those in the terrestrial world. The meaning of the [first three] words [of the Bible], Brashith, bara אלהים Elohim is this: brasahith, i.e., the celestial world, gave rise or origin to אלהים Elohim, the visible divine name that then first became known. Thus אלהים Elohim was associated with the creation of the world, as Brashith was connected with the creation of the celestial or invisible world, that being the type, thus the antetype, or in other words, one was the reflection and analogue of the other, and therefore it is written, 'Ath hashamayim, veath ha-aretzs' (the heavens and the earth). The heaven on high produced and gave rise to the earth below." - Zohar
For example:
1. In Kabbalah, אלהים Elohim is a name of God that relates to many levels of the Tree of Life. In the world of Atziluth, the word is related to divinities of the sephiroth Binah (Jehovah Elohim, mentioned especially in Genesis), Geburah, and Hod. In the world of Briah, it is related beings of Netzach and Hod.
2. אל [El / Al] is “god,” אלה [Eloah / Elah] is “goddess,” therefore the plural Elohim refers to “gods and goddesses,” and is commonly used to refer to angels, cosmocreators, Dhyan-Choans. Humanity was created by the Elohim, to become Elohim:
"And אלהים Elohim said, 'Let us make man in our image, after our likeness...' So אלהים Elohim created Adam in their own image, in the image of אלהים Elohim created they them; male and female created they them." - Bereshit / Genesis 1
3. Similiarly, El [אל] is “god,” Eloah [אלה] is “goddess,” and the plural Elohim can also mean “god-goddess,” an androgynous divinity, a self-realized master (ie. a Beni-Elohim, "child of God."] Such beings can manifest the male or female aspects as needed.
"Observe that in any place of scripture where the male and female are not found united together, the Holy One is said not to dwell or be present with His blessing..." - Zohar
4. Yam [ים] is “sea” or “ocean.” Therefore אלהים Elohim can be אלה-ים “the sea god" [Neptune, Poseidon] or "the sea goddess” [i.e. Venus-Aphrodite, Stella Maris, etc.]
"The word אלהים Elohim is composed of two words אל EL and הים Ha-Yam, which signify The-Sea-God or The-Water-God. The word הים Ha-Yam “the Sea” has the same letters as ימה Yamah “sea”, by which the scripture teaches that all division of opinion [in the head], symbolized by the feminine term sea ימה Yamah, is right and just when its object is the glory of אלה Elah the divine [female], as then אל-הים El-Ha-Yam, “The-Sea-God” becomes united to אלה-ים Elah-Yam “the Sea Goddess... When the waters became separated, then אלהים Elohim interposed and became the point of union between them, and harmony prevailed and dissension ceased. The waters above the firmament, the male part אל EL ; those below, the female אלה Elah." - Zohar
5. Elohim אלהים means El אל, Elah אלה [god, goddess] united by Yam ים the sexual waters, at the end of the word אלהים Elohim.
6. The word אלהים Elohim also addresses the first triangle of the Tree of Life. The word אל El points at Kether. The word אלה Eleh points at חכמה Chokmah. Eleh אלה means "these," which is plural because the will of Chokmah expresses the multiplicity of אל El, the unity. And the final syllable of אלהים Elohim, is ים Yam which means "sea"; ים is also use to indicate masculine plural, ים Yom relates to Binah, the Holy Spirit, the third sephirah of the first triangle. So, the word אלהים Elohim embraces the Holy Trinity.
7. Elohim can refer to the creative principle, symbolized in Kabbalah as the sephirah Binah, and in Christianity as the Holy Spirit, and in Hinduism as Shiva-Shakti. This is hidden in the Hebrew as:
"The word Elohim is a plural formed from the feminine singular ALH, Eloh, by adding IM to the word. But inasmuch as IM is usually the termination of the masculine plural, and is here added to a feminine noun, it gives to the word Elohim the sense of a female potency united to a masculine idea, and thereby capable of producing an offspring. Now, we hear much of the Father and the Son, but we hear nothing of the Mother in the ordinary religions of the day. But in the Qabalah we find that the Ancient of Days conforms Himself simultaneously into the Father and the Mother, and thus begets the Son. Now, this Mother is Elohim. Again, we are usually told that the Holy Spirit is masculine. But the word RVCh, Ruach, Spirit, is feminine, as appears from the following passage of the Sepher Yetzirah: "AChTh RVCh ALHIM ChIIM, Achath (feminine, not Achad, masculine) Ruach Elohim Chiim: "One is She the Spirit of the Elohim of Life." - The Kabbalah Unveiled [1912], S. L. Macgregor Mathers
There are many more meanings of “Elohim.” In general, Elohim refers to high aspects of divinity.
"Each one of us has his own Interior Elohim. The Interior Elohim is the Being of our Being. The Interior Elohim is our Father-Mother. The Interior Elohim is the ray that emanates from Aelohim." - Samael Aun Weor, The Gnostic Bible: The Pistis Sophia Unveiled
"Rabbi Isaac said: "The creative Logos, the male principle [אל] was in the light and the female principle [אלה] in the darkness until the manifestation of [their union as] Elohim [אלהים], thus, in the work of creation they (Abba and Aima Elohim, Shiva-Shakti शिवशक्ति) became unified, and formed the necessary complements of each other. If it be asked, why were they separated and disjoined? it was that there might be a distinction between them; and they became united [אלהים] in order that the true light [אל] might be found in its complement, the darkness [אלה], and the true darkness [אלה] in its complement, the light [אל]. Though at present there are many different shades and degrees between them, yet, notwithstanding, they form but one whole, as it is written, 'Day, one.'" Rabbi Simeon said: "It is on this [sexual] union of light and darkness [male and female] that the whole universe is based and formed [ie. Genesis: creation]. In Scripture it is referred to and spoken of as a covenant. Thus, it is written: "If my covenant be not with day and night and if I had not appointed the ordinances of heaven and earth; then will I cast away the (sperm, zera זרע) of Jacob (Israel), and David my (עבד Obd) servant, so that I will not take any of his (sperm, zera זרע) to be rulers over the (sperm, zera זרע) of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: for I will cause their (את, their Schekinah שכינה, from) captivity to return (as fecundated mercury, within their Vav ו, their spine) and have mercy on them." (Jeremiah 33: 25, 26)." - Zohar
"'Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters' (Gen. i. 6). The word אלהים Elohim is composed of two words AL-HIM, which signify God, water, or sea... When the waters became separated, then אלהים Elohim interposed and became the point of union between them, and harmony prevailed and dissension ceased. The waters above the firmament, the male part [El אל]; those below, the female [Eloah אלה]." - Zohar
"As אלהים Elohim, by the operation of the two supreme sephiroth, the one male and the other female, descended below, therefore is he lord of the heaven and earth by conjoining and making them one, He it was who, attracted heaven to earth whilst the King on high attracts the earth to heaven, each of which has its own special way or path, that of the earth being broad and wide and referred to in scripture as "The path of the just is as the shining light" (Prov. iv. 18), whilst that leading to the Kingdom of heaven (the higher life) is referred to in the words "There is a path which no fowl knoweth and which the vulture's eye haft not seen, the lion's whelps have not trodden it, nor the fierce lion passed by it" (Job xxviii. 7, 8). The mystery of these two different ways is expressed thus: "Who maketh a way in the sea ים and a path in the mighty waters (Is. xliii. 16), and also by the Psalmist: "Thy way is in the sea ים and thy path in the great waters" (Ps. lxxvii. 19). When these two worlds become united and blended together they are symbolized by the union of the male and female, the one being then the complement of the other." - Zohar
""In ages long gone by lived a great and powerful king whose design it was to build palaces wherein to dwell and live in a manner becoming his royal grandeur. In his retinue of servants and attendants was found an architect, of great abilities and lofty genius in the art and science of construction, who made it the chief aim of his life to acquaint himself with the plans and ideas of his monarch and carry thorn into execution and doing nothing except by his authority and command.
The king was the Divine Being personified in scripture as heavenly Wisdom. אלהים Elohim was the celestial architect personified as "the heavenly Mother." אלהים Elohim was also the architect of the world below and was designated and known as the Schekina, and as a woman is not allowed to do anything without the consent and against the wish and will of her husband, all the palaces have been built by emanation. The father, through the Logos or Word, said to the mother: "Let this be done!" and it was done at once, as it is written: "And אלהים Elohim said let there be light and light was," that is, the Logos said to אלהים Elohim, the creative Logos, "let there be light." The master or lord of the palace speaks and the architect forthwith executes and thus were all the palaces or worlds made and produced by emanations, as, "let there be a firmament," "let, there be lights in the firmament," all were done on the moment. Regarding the present world, the world of separation, that is to say where all things appear to be independent of each other, the architect said to the master of the palaces: "Let us make Adam in our image and after our likeness." Certainly replied the master, it will be good to make him, but he will surely transgress and commit wrong against thee, in that he will be ignorant and foolish, as it is written: "A wise son is the joy of his father, but a foolish son is the heaviness of his mother" (Prov. x. 1). A wise son denotes man who came forth by emanation, a foolish son, created man."
Rabbi Simeon ceased speaking as all the students before him rose up and cried: Rabbi! Rabbi! Master! Master! Was there then a division between the Father and the Mother whether man should come forth from the father by emanation or from the mother by creation?
No, replied Rabbi Simeon, because man by emanation is male and female as he proceeds from the father and mother conjoined, as it is written: "And God said let there be light and light was." "Let there be light" connotes the part of man that emanated from the father; that is, the male principle; "and light was," refers to that part that emanated from the mother, the female principle. Man therefore was created androgynous with two faces. The emanative man possessed no special form or likeness, but the heavenly mother it was who wished to produce and provide the created man with a special image. Now the two lights emanating from the father and mother, called in scripture, light and darkness, the form of created man must of necessity be compounded from the active light proceeding from the father, and the passive light (termed darkness) that proceeded from the mother. As, however, the father had said to the mother that the emanated man if placed in the world would through frailty transgress and sin, he refused to take part in the formation of a human form for him. For this reason the light created on the first day was concealed and hidden and treasured up by the Holy One for the righteous, as also the darkness was created and reserved at the same time for the evil and wicked, as it is written: "The wicked shall be silent in darkness" (I Sam. ii. 9). And it was also on account of this darkness that man would, as foreseen, sin against the light, the father was unwilling to take part in the creation of man below on the earth plane.22b This also is why the mother said: "Let us make man in our image," that is of light, "and in our likeness," of passive light or darkness (which as has been stated is a materialized allotrophic form of light itself), which serves as a garment of the light as the body serves as a covering for the soul, as it is written: "Thou hast clothed me with skin and flesh" (Job x. ii).
As Rabbi Simeon ceased speaking for a moment, the students, one and all, pleased and delighted with their master's teaching, exclaimed: "Happy oh Master is our lot, in that we have had the privilege of hearing and listening to teachings that have never been delivered and imparted to anyone until now."
Resuming his discourse, Rabbi Simeon spake and said: "See now! that I even I am He and there is no אלהים Elohim with me" (Deuter. xxxii. 39). Give attention, oh students, to the expositions I am about to give of teachings handed down from ancient masters which I am permitted to impart and make known to you. Who was he that gave expression to the words: "Behold I even I am He"' It was the Supreme Being, the Highest of the high, the Cause of all causes. the one and only originator of the universe, without whom nothing was made that was made, in heaven above or on earth below, as we have already expounded in our remarks on the words: "Let us make man." From the plural form of this expression, we perceive that in the divine essence there are two hypostatic beings or Logoi who speak the one to the other at this moment. The second said to the first: "Let us make man" because it did nothing from itself, but by the permission of the first. He it is who said: "Behold I even I am He and there was no אלהים Elohim with Me"; that is, there was no אלהים Elohim with whom I consulted and took counsel, therefore, the logical conclusion is that אלהים Elohim who said "Let us make man" was a hypostatical Logos made for the creation of man.
Master! cried the students as they stood up. pardon our interrupting thee, but hast thou not said that the Cause of all causes said to the first hypostatic being or Logos, called Kether (Crown), "Let us make man."
Then answered Rabbi Simeon and said, note well the explanation I am about to give unto you. I have not said that He who is Cause of all causes is the same as the אלהים Elohim, or that He is not the same. In the divine essence there is no conjunction of persons or natures whatever as commonly understood. What conjunction there is in the divine essence is similar to that which exists in the male and female principles which are as one, as it is written: "For I called them one" (Is. li. 2). Because in the divine essence there is no multiplicity nor conjunction, therefore is it that God said: "Behold I even I am He and no אלהים Elohim is with me"; that is, I am אלהים Elohim and אלהים Elohim is I.
Then rose up all the students and bowed themselves before their master, Rabbi Simeon, and said: Happy and blessed is the man whom his Lord hath chosen and permitted to reveal and make known mysteries that have never been divulged even to the angels themselves." - Zohar