Malachi 3:16
אז נדברו יראי יהוה איש את־רעהו ויקשב יהוה וישמע ויכתב ספר זכרון לפניו ליראי יהוה ולחשבי שמו׃
It was spoken between those who feared God, each man to his friend, and God paid attention and heard and it was written in the book of remembrance before him about those who feared God and those who thought of him.
In Masechet Berachot 6a in the Talmud we find a discussion of this biblical passage. The first part of the discussion uses this passage to demonstrate that each time two people meet to study Torah, the shechina is present. My experience is that the shechina is present whenever two souls truly connect, though studying the torah definitely makes it easier. This is a topic I wrote about earlier.
What follows is a wonderful lesson. Rav Ashi teaches that the last phrase "and those who thought of him" refers to those who thought about doing a mitzvah, but "were coerced and failed to do so". He continues that we learn from Malachi that God writes their deeds in the book of remembrance as if they had done the mitzvah. Later commentators teach that the coercion comes from the Yetzer Harah, the evil inclination, which always tells us to not do mitzvot. So even when we think of doing a mitzvah, we have to push through the additional layer of the yetzer harah in order to do it. If we don't always make it, we still get credit for trying.
What I love about this is the inherent forgiveness it implies. It's easy to beat oneself up for not doing things on a regular basis. I constantly hear people disparaging themselves for not meditating or praying or studying or working out or eating right, and sometimes using that as an way to keep themselves from doing it. Rav Ashi gives us another way a looking at it. We get credit for truly intending to do something that we just didn't manage to get done. Since the need for spiritual practice is the same everyday, we always get another chance to do it. We get credit for our intention, so we don't have to feel bad about not getting to it, and we get to try again tomorrow. It is our responsibility to try to be better, and if there are things that prevent us, even our own inclinations, we just have to try again with no punishment because we missed the time before. What a wonderful way of looking at things!
Showing posts with label Shechina. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Shechina. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Yibani ha mikdash
יבנה המקדש!
There are many times during the prayers when we pray for the rebuilding of the holy temple. It's my very humble opinion that it might already have happened.
The temple was the home of the Shechina, the aspect of God that is most present in the world. When the temple was destroyed, the Shechina went into exile with us. And, presumably, when we came back to Israel, she came back with us.
As I've written in an earlier post, I experience the Shechina as the energy created between two people. When I came to Jerusalem, I felt the power of this city. So many Jews here, so much energy created when they study, pray, and live together.
Maybe the Shechina has already made her home here and we didn't notice? We have built Jerusalem for a third time as a Jewish city. We live in a world where Judaism is decentralized and can never be recentralized again without destroying what was created over the past 2000 years.
So maybe we have already built the third temple, though not as it once was in all it's splendor and glory. We have built it through so many small synagogues and minyanim. Together, they shelter the Shechina.
So maybe we should not be reciting "may we be blessed to merit the re-building of the temple". but instead we should be saying: "we give thanks that we have merited to live during the time of the third Jerusalem." בנינו בית המקדש Amen.
There are many times during the prayers when we pray for the rebuilding of the holy temple. It's my very humble opinion that it might already have happened.
The temple was the home of the Shechina, the aspect of God that is most present in the world. When the temple was destroyed, the Shechina went into exile with us. And, presumably, when we came back to Israel, she came back with us.
As I've written in an earlier post, I experience the Shechina as the energy created between two people. When I came to Jerusalem, I felt the power of this city. So many Jews here, so much energy created when they study, pray, and live together.
Maybe the Shechina has already made her home here and we didn't notice? We have built Jerusalem for a third time as a Jewish city. We live in a world where Judaism is decentralized and can never be recentralized again without destroying what was created over the past 2000 years.
So maybe we have already built the third temple, though not as it once was in all it's splendor and glory. We have built it through so many small synagogues and minyanim. Together, they shelter the Shechina.
So maybe we should not be reciting "may we be blessed to merit the re-building of the temple". but instead we should be saying: "we give thanks that we have merited to live during the time of the third Jerusalem." בנינו בית המקדש Amen.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Rethinking the Shechina
The Shechina is understood as the feminine presence of God. When we feels God's presence, we are feeling the Shechina. I've never given much thought to what this meant, but recent study has made me realize that I had been thinking of the Shechina as the warm and fuzzy side of God. The presence that arrives which makes us feel whole and connected. But I think I've been wrong. Or at least not complete in my thinking.
With many Kabbalistic concepts, my methodology has been to compare the writing to what I have experienced in the past and see if they are explaining something I've experienced. If it doesn't, I try to connect to the author of the text, and then use that connection to feel what they were experiencing. Another variation on that is to use the text itself as a guide to try to find the experience. If I'm still drawing an experiential blank, I try my best to understand the concept intellectually and how it fits in to my larger understanding of shamanism, spirituality, and Kabbalah.
Shechina is traditionally associated with the lowest sephira of Malchut. I've been studying Shaarei Ora by Rabbi Yosef Gikatilla (1248-1310) with my Hevruta and we've just completed the first section on Malchut. He finds many different words in the Torah that connect to the Shechina and uses them to describe her different aspects. Two of the major descriptors of the Shechina are as an empty pool or mikvah that is filled up by the other sephirot, and as the gateway between the spiritual world and the physical one. The Shechina sits on the bottom of the sephirot and in order for us to access the treasure rooms above, we must first pass through Malchut. Likewise, when the higher sephirot act upon the world, they also pass through Malchut.
He seemed to imply that there are time when the other sephirot act upon us directly, through malchut, and times when the empty nature of malchut fills up with the higher Sephira and then malchut acts upon us. Practically, I'm not sure if we would be able to feel much difference between the two, though I would imagine that when the higher Sephira acts upon us directly, it is a more powerful experience as there is no mediator involved.
This makes a lot of practical sense to me. There is a veil or a gate between the spirit world and the physical one which can be called Malchut. Whenever we want to enter into the spiritual world, we need to pass through this gate. There are many different ways of doing this, through drumming, singing, praying, and others. But the idea of a gate or doorway makes a lot of sense with my past experience. It also didn't bother my notion of a warm fuzzy Shechina.
But at the end of Gikatilla's section on Malchut, he writes about Malchut wearing three types of fire, each associated with a name of God: black (Shakai), red (Elokim), and green (A-D-N-I). (I'll write another post with the whole passage and a longer discussion.) The Black devouring fire disperses bad spirits and impure things. The Red fire destroys everything around it, good and bad, like a plague. And the green fire causes fear, awe, and trembling upon all the created. Not so warm and fuzzy.
This version of the Shechina means that when the presence of God comes to us, it can be terrible and dark. It can use that dark energy to heal us and drive away dark spirits, but it can also destroy everything around itself. In this sense, when the Shechina comes to us, it's not always a good thing. I am tempted to link this to what John Myerson writes about dark energy and the dangers it presents when we use it, but I think that would be too much of a reach at this point. I want to see what else Gikatilla writes about dark energy, if I can use that term "black fire that devours".
In class yesterday, my teacher taught us of an idea in the Zohar that the Shechina is the energy that is created between people. The Shechina can be thought of as Knesset Yisrael (the gathering of Israel) . And from that we can understand that anytime people get together the shechina manifests. I experience this everyday. There is a particular power that manifests in my healing when there is a connection between myself and the patient. I just have been calling it a connection, but might I also be able to understand it as the Shechina?
That connection has a power, but it can be many different types of power and do many different things. I have to pay more attention to this to determine if what I am terming the power of connection is truly the presence of the Shechina. If so, it can lead to a whole new way of explaining the connections between people, and a new way of understanding how to call the Shechina. It is not just the presence we hope will descend upon us, but something that we intentionally draw towards us by improving the connections between us.
We'll see how that develops, but for now I am certain that the Shechina is not always so warm and fuzzy!
With many Kabbalistic concepts, my methodology has been to compare the writing to what I have experienced in the past and see if they are explaining something I've experienced. If it doesn't, I try to connect to the author of the text, and then use that connection to feel what they were experiencing. Another variation on that is to use the text itself as a guide to try to find the experience. If I'm still drawing an experiential blank, I try my best to understand the concept intellectually and how it fits in to my larger understanding of shamanism, spirituality, and Kabbalah.
Shechina is traditionally associated with the lowest sephira of Malchut. I've been studying Shaarei Ora by Rabbi Yosef Gikatilla (1248-1310) with my Hevruta and we've just completed the first section on Malchut. He finds many different words in the Torah that connect to the Shechina and uses them to describe her different aspects. Two of the major descriptors of the Shechina are as an empty pool or mikvah that is filled up by the other sephirot, and as the gateway between the spiritual world and the physical one. The Shechina sits on the bottom of the sephirot and in order for us to access the treasure rooms above, we must first pass through Malchut. Likewise, when the higher sephirot act upon the world, they also pass through Malchut.
He seemed to imply that there are time when the other sephirot act upon us directly, through malchut, and times when the empty nature of malchut fills up with the higher Sephira and then malchut acts upon us. Practically, I'm not sure if we would be able to feel much difference between the two, though I would imagine that when the higher Sephira acts upon us directly, it is a more powerful experience as there is no mediator involved.
This makes a lot of practical sense to me. There is a veil or a gate between the spirit world and the physical one which can be called Malchut. Whenever we want to enter into the spiritual world, we need to pass through this gate. There are many different ways of doing this, through drumming, singing, praying, and others. But the idea of a gate or doorway makes a lot of sense with my past experience. It also didn't bother my notion of a warm fuzzy Shechina.
But at the end of Gikatilla's section on Malchut, he writes about Malchut wearing three types of fire, each associated with a name of God: black (Shakai), red (Elokim), and green (A-D-N-I). (I'll write another post with the whole passage and a longer discussion.) The Black devouring fire disperses bad spirits and impure things. The Red fire destroys everything around it, good and bad, like a plague. And the green fire causes fear, awe, and trembling upon all the created. Not so warm and fuzzy.
This version of the Shechina means that when the presence of God comes to us, it can be terrible and dark. It can use that dark energy to heal us and drive away dark spirits, but it can also destroy everything around itself. In this sense, when the Shechina comes to us, it's not always a good thing. I am tempted to link this to what John Myerson writes about dark energy and the dangers it presents when we use it, but I think that would be too much of a reach at this point. I want to see what else Gikatilla writes about dark energy, if I can use that term "black fire that devours".
In class yesterday, my teacher taught us of an idea in the Zohar that the Shechina is the energy that is created between people. The Shechina can be thought of as Knesset Yisrael (the gathering of Israel) . And from that we can understand that anytime people get together the shechina manifests. I experience this everyday. There is a particular power that manifests in my healing when there is a connection between myself and the patient. I just have been calling it a connection, but might I also be able to understand it as the Shechina?
That connection has a power, but it can be many different types of power and do many different things. I have to pay more attention to this to determine if what I am terming the power of connection is truly the presence of the Shechina. If so, it can lead to a whole new way of explaining the connections between people, and a new way of understanding how to call the Shechina. It is not just the presence we hope will descend upon us, but something that we intentionally draw towards us by improving the connections between us.
We'll see how that develops, but for now I am certain that the Shechina is not always so warm and fuzzy!
Saturday, August 11, 2007
A simple yet powerful thought.
Tonight I went to see Morgenstern again. I got there late because I went to see a different chasidic master. This one was more populist and less powerful. It was interesting, but not something I think that I will do again.
When I got to Morgenstern, he was already speaking, so I just let myself drift into it. I sensed the calm and the focus of the room. Everything was very quiet and just Morgenstern speaking. I again went to the heavenly beit midrash where they scolded me for being late. I told them that I was at the other master and they told me not to go there again, but to come here.
Then I sat down to study there with a chevruta who's face was entirely a shadow, I couldn't see it at all. We started to study and he showed me the word אתה (you) and I understood that it includes aleph to tav, all the letters of creation, with the ה representing the 10 sephirot of the tree of life [Note on October 22, 2009: I don't understand this now, but would explain it as ה meaning Hashem which contains everything]. Then I was shown that אני (I) can mean אין (nothing). I was told that when I study, I have to pay close attention to my partner, and not get absorbed in my own stuff. If I can really make a heart connection, as well as a mind connection with my partner, then the study will be a very powerful experience. If I focus on that, the worlds can be open to me through study.
It's a very simple, but a very powerful thought.
When I got to Morgenstern, he was already speaking, so I just let myself drift into it. I sensed the calm and the focus of the room. Everything was very quiet and just Morgenstern speaking. I again went to the heavenly beit midrash where they scolded me for being late. I told them that I was at the other master and they told me not to go there again, but to come here.
Then I sat down to study there with a chevruta who's face was entirely a shadow, I couldn't see it at all. We started to study and he showed me the word אתה (you) and I understood that it includes aleph to tav, all the letters of creation, with the ה representing the 10 sephirot of the tree of life [Note on October 22, 2009: I don't understand this now, but would explain it as ה meaning Hashem which contains everything]. Then I was shown that אני (I) can mean אין (nothing). I was told that when I study, I have to pay close attention to my partner, and not get absorbed in my own stuff. If I can really make a heart connection, as well as a mind connection with my partner, then the study will be a very powerful experience. If I focus on that, the worlds can be open to me through study.
It's a very simple, but a very powerful thought.
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