Beit and Lamed - The Magician and the Guardian Angel
Beit means house and can refer to any type of 'dwelling place' from a tent to a temple, pigsty to palace, to the whole cosmic creation as dwelling place of the divine 'presence'. As the first letter in the Torah it is first in the building of the 'cosmos', creation. Its value is two, the 'first' number. In the Sefer Yetzirah it is attributed to Saturn [there are variations in late redactions], significator of architects, builders, craftsmen.
In kabbalah the builder [BNH - BoNeH] is the 'son' [BN] whose mother is 'understanding' [BN 'son', from BNH - Binah, the third sefirah, to which Saturn is also traditionally attributed]. The son is identified with the 'Prince of the World' YHVAL [YHV/IAO + the divine suffix AL, by gematria BN and YHVAL both =52], which is the first [of seventy] names for the Angel Metatron. Metatron designates the 'Active Intellect', a personification or manifestation of the 'divine intellect' and 'father' of the human intellect or 'son' [BN]. Metatron is called the 'youth who is old', as he is the first of all created things, thus the divine name associated with the letter Beit is 'BChUR', which means 'youth' [but he is an elder, not a lad, thus in keeping with the attribution of Saturn].
The builders building blocks, the atomic elements from whose permutations all things are created, are the letters of the Hebrew alphabet. The letters are the'stones' from which the House [beit - cosmos, words, the divines name(s) or logoi] are built or constructed. The 'son' is Shem [BN becomes ShM by means of a cipher], who was the son of Noah who according to tradition taught Abraham the secrets of the letters and sacred names [shem in Hebrew means 'name'] as recorded by Abraham in the Sefer Yetzirah. A practicing kabbalist magician is called a Baal Shem, 'Master of the Name'. A biblical example is Bezalel, builder of the Tabernacle, who 'knowing the combination of letters with which heaven and earth were made' was able to build the tabernacle as an exact microcosm of everything in heaven and upon earth. So great was his magical powers, resulting from his knowledge of the creative powers of the letters, that according to kabbalistic tradition that 'for him it would be a little thing to create a man or any living creature.'
Another example which may relate to the image of Atu I as a cobbler is that of the patriarch Enoch. In a tale that according to Scholem originated with the German Hasidism in the 13th century:
"The patriach Enoch, who according to an old tradition was taken from the earth by God and transformed into the angel Metatron, is said to have been a cobbler. At every stitch of his awl he not only joined the upper leather with the sole, but all upper things with all lower things. He accompanied his work with meditations which drew the stream of emanation down from the upper to lower, so transforming profane action into ritual action, until he himself was transformed from the earthly Enoch into the transcendent Metatron, who had been the object of his meditations." [On the Kabbalah and its Symbolism, p.132].
The prime experience in the initiation of the Baal Shem in their passage to becoming magicians and prophets is the 'encounter with the self.' The Baal Shem has to invoke his 'self made perfect', his higher self or guardian angel, which appears to them in their own image as his 'shadow' or 'reflection'. This personal guardian angel then teaches the Baal Shem all magical knowledge and enables them to prophesy.
As in astrology Aries in the natural order of the zodiac is associated with 'self', so its opposite, Libra, is associated with this 'perfect self' as 'other'. Libra in the SY is attributed to the letter Lamed, which among other things is said to symbolize the power to direct and control the animal instinct.
The guardian angel is symbolised by an angel closing the mouth of a lion, after the Angel who 'shut the mouths of the Lions' protecting Belteshazzar, chief of the magicians, exorcists, Chaldeans and diviners [also known as Daniel] in the Lion's den. According to kabbalisitic texts, possibly influenced by neoplatonic doctrines, this Guardian Angel was Daniel's own 'self made perfect'.
This personal angel is a mediating principle between the magician and the angel Metatron, or the form in which Metatron the Active Intellect can be drawn down. As such another of the names of the angel Metatron is 'one two', symbolising the self and the higher self as other.
Kwaw