Jewish Mysticism?Kabbalah

1. Jewish Mysticism?Kabbalah • Prison called life • Rocks and Mountains • The Opponent: Desire to Receive for the Self Alone • A window / Potential • Certainty and help

2. History • Begins around the 2nd century with two schools of thought the Merkavah/Chariot and Hekhalot/Chambers or Palaces • Students of the Chariot wanted to re-create Ez. Experience and ascend in the Chariot to explore the heavens. • The latter expounded on the journey through these heavenly precincts

3. Sefer Yetzirah/ Book of Formation • Foundational anonymous work – utterly unique • Creation was achieved through the manipulation of the 10 numbers and 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet, what the book called the 32 paths of hidden wisdom of God • The ten numbers are referred to as sefirot ( Hebrew for numbers) • The writer believers that if he can find the right combination of numbers and letters he can recreate Creation itself.

4. The language is personal and cryptic. It ends, “Their end is connected to their beginning and their beginning to their end as a flame is connected to a coal, that the master is solitary and there is no second, and before one what do you count.”

5. Sefer ha-Zohar/ The Book of Splendour – • pulse with the desire for God on every page • Recovering theosophical truths in the teachings of Torah, the mystics ascend exegetically into God. The text becomes a series of complex set of codes and keys to a higher reality. Torah is part of the very essence of God and to read Torah in their manner is to touch the wisdom and energy of the Eternal • Suggests that there is a left side and a right side within in the cosmos that are in constant tension

6. The Tree of Life solar eclipse, • Direct exposure to the power of the Almighty was as unimaginable as looking directly at a solar eclipse. • God is Eyn Sof/without end • How can Eyn Sof be manifested to us • Holy Texts and the sefiort (numbers) is another • The sefirot are a sort of filters a smoked glass if you will between us and God – they are channels that help us hear the radio signals of the All Powerful

7. Tree of Life • Each of them represent one aspect of the Godhead, Each is identified with a part of the body or aspects of the human personality • Highly interdependent with each one linked to several others

8. Sefirot: Song of the Soul • "[W]e must remember that, no matter how we define the sefirot, we must keep these rules in mind: sefirot are not separate from the Creator, Blessed be He, but are light emanated from Him in order to create. The actions of the sefirot are illuminations sent from the Creator, flashes of spiritual light diffusing from His source and remaining connected with it when they reach His creatures. Sefirot themselves are connected to each other and work through a blending of their strengths and qualities. The consequences of the sefirot and results of their actions are the totality of reality."

9. "When we remember, however, that God created a spiritual dimension in order to reveal Himself to man, such an expression takes on a completely new significance. For now, God's `image' does not refer to God Himself who is completely beyond all description. It refers to the basic conceptual model or structure that underlies all creation. It refers to the Sefirot.

10. "It is the Sefirot that make it possible for an infinite and transcendental God to interact with His creation. For they allow us to speak about God's immanence in creation, what He does, without referring too directly to what He is. It is in this sense that the Sefirot are the keys to the precise meaning behind the anthropomorphisms of the Bible, for they tell us about God's actions. And it is in this sense that man was created in "the image of God." For man is thus seen as a microcosm of God's creative powers. Man is a microcosm of the Sefirot."

11. Keter • Keter/Crown represents the first stirrings of Will within the Godhead, a primal impulse that precedes even thought but which is essential for any action to take place • It is also called Ayin/Nothingness, for it was out of the infinite void that the Almighty created • The name of God associated with Keter is I am what I will be • The body part associated with Keter is aura, the space above the head • Colourless

12. Hokhmah/ Wisdom • the first impulse to Create as it arose in the Creator • It is the flash of intuition or inspiration that precedes conscious thought • Sperm that will impregnate Binah/Understanding as the first step in the Creative process • The name of God associated with Hokhmah is Yah in the YHWH • right hemisphere of the brain • Color is blue

13. Binah/Understanding • divine inspiration begins to take on a definite form • is seen as the contemplative element of Divine Thought • is the womb and its union with Hokmah will give birth to the lower seven sefirot • intuition is refined into a conscious thought • letter hey in the YHWH • left hemisphere of the brain • color is green

14. Hesed/Loving Kindness • represents the benevolent side of God, the quality of unconditional love • associated with the Divine name El (supreme) • right arm • color is white

15. Gevurah/ Might • counter to Hesed • God’s wrath • Without Gevuah, the world would be so overwhelmed by God’s love that it would be reabsorbed into the Divine; without Hesed, God’s judgment would unleash forces of destruction on the world • Balance of justice and mercy • Associated with Elohim • Left arm • Red

16. Tifert/Beauty (or glory) • balancing force between Hesed and Gevurah (their offspring) • unites the upper nine powers • the primary male attribute of God (sometimes called mercy) • sometimes associated with the Written Torah • YHWH itself • Torso • Purple

17. Netzakh/Victory and Hod/Splendor • counterparts to one another • earthly versions of Hesed and Gevura • the former represents God’s active grace and the latter the manner in which judgment of the Deity is dispensed on earth • Hod is also associated with prophecy • Names Lord of Hosts/ God of Hosts • Netzakh right leg, Hod left leg • Also linked to the left and right kidneys, the testicles or the female breasts (sources of fertility and nurturing sustenance, respectively) • N – pink • H – dark pink

18. Yesod/Foundation • Channel that unites the other two middle figures of the tree • It is the means by which Tiferet the male principle of the Divine impregnates Shekhinah or Malkhut, the female embodiment of the Divine • Yesod is the way in which Divine Creativity and Fertility are visited upon all creation. • Is associated with the phallus and is therefore closely linked with the mitzvah of circumcision • Name is El Shaddai/ God Almighty • Color is orange

19. Malkhut/ Sovereignty • Culmination and synthesis of all the attributes of God • The quality that links the Eternal Sovereign to the real world • Malkhut is perhaps more familiarly known as the Shekhinah, the Divine Presence, God’s immanent and female aspect, the way in which we experience the Divine. • When the Jewish people are in exile, the Shekhinah travels with them • Mouth or foot • The final hey of the YHWH • Blue and black

20. General characteristics • Left side of the tree corresponds to attributes of power and justice • Represents the feminine side of God representing the fear and awe of God • Right side, represents qualities of unity, harmony, and benevolence, the attributes that characterize Hesed • World survival is founded on a balance between the two • Our behaviour in the lower world, our world affects the upper world • Only when the ideal balance of justice and mercy is achieved can there be peace and fulfillment and that can only be brought about through human actions – through self-mastery, through prayer and mediation and the fulfillment of the mitzvot