sefirah

/ˈsɛfɪɹɑː/

Etymology

From Hebrew סְפִירָה (s'firá, “sefirah”, literally “counting, enumeration”), plural סְפִירוֹת (s'firót).

Why this word is great

SEFIRAH — [Noun] Each of the ten divine attributes in Kabbalah through which God interacts with the universe, or the ritual counting of the 49 days between Passover and Shavuot. From Hebrew סְפִירָה (s'firá, "counting, enumeration"), plural סְפִירוֹת (s'firót). Unlike 'sapphire' (which glints with earthly brilliance) or 'attribute' (which flattens the divine into mere description), 'sefirah' is a vessel for the ineffable—a ladder between heaven and earth. It is the patient tally of barley sheaves in the Omer count, the prismatic refraction of divine light into wisdom and severity and mercy, the silent pulse of time measured not in hours but in spiritual ascent. To name the sefirot is to map the unmapable, to count what cannot be contained.

noun

Each of the ten attributes that God created, through which he can project himself to the universe and man.“Other nights, depending on how swanky the function and fashionable the gown, there might also be observed, tattooed in exquisite symmetry below Madame Eskimoff's bared nape, the Kabbalist Tree of Life, with the names of the Sephiroth spelled out in Hebrew, which had brought her more than enough of that uniquely snot-nosed British anti-Semitism”
The counting of the Omer, that is, the period of 49 days between Passover and Shavuot.