Typologies

I recently stumbled across the Michael Teachings. As I read through the different archetypes and personality typings, I became very impressed with the system and it's approach to understanding a person's basic personality. Habitually, I began to compare and contrast it with different systems I know and finding the flaws in this system. It was then that I remembered the advice given to me by my mentor John: If it works, use it, if it doesn't, throw it out.

Typologies are ways of making sense of an infinitely complex world. They give us boxes and labels to help us comprehend the world around us. In a western mode of thought, we are always looking for the one true typology. We argue about the merits and values of each system and which is the best.

The truth is that the world is so varied that some typologies are true now while others are true later. Some are true for some people, and some for others. Judaism itself has many ways of dividing up and understanding people, so much so that it would be impossible to say for sure that there is one true set of Jewish typologies.

In the end, John's advice is best. If it's useful, then learn from it. Take what it's offering and use it as a tool for growth. But if it's not useful, don't get hung up on it and try to force it to work, just look for the next thing that can help you grow.

Photo courtesy of Andreas E J

Processing Fear

There are three facets to using fear for power.

You need to learn to feel/see the fear itself, and not react to it with another emotion - usually sadness or anger. Then you can get used to it so you can identify it in your life. The more time you spend with it, the more you will get desensitized to it so you feel but don't act on it's advice. Finally you feel compassion for yourself for having been so scared and send the fear Love. In that moment, you will reclaim the power of the fear.

Photo courtesy of Dean Ayers

Does fear of God connect us to God?

This weeks Torah portion contains an interesting and very Jewish way of connecting to God. The background: the Hebrews are wandering in the desert. Miriam has just died and they have run out of water (there are many good midrashim about that connection). The people come to Moshe and Aaron and are complaining bitterly of their thirst.

Numbers 20:6:

ויבא משא ואהרן מפני הקהל אל פתח אהל מועד ויפלו על פניהם וירא כבוד יקוק אלקים: וידבר יקוק אל משה לאמר

Moshe and Aaron came away from in front of the community to the tent of meeting. They fell on their faces and they feared the presence of hashem their God. And God spoke to Moshe saying...

The key phrase here is "feared the presence of hashem their God". There are several ways of understanding this phrase. Either he feared to have the presence of God enter the room, or his fear was the way he connected to God.

Moshe was going through a tough time. His sister had just died. The people he had saved from slavery with miracles and wonders were complaining bitterly that he was now going to let them die in the desert. He did not know what to do. He came to the Tent of Meeting, where he normally would go to talk to God and fell down on his face instead of just walking in. Moshe was fed up and exhausted. He wasn't sure he wanted to talk to God. He was scared of what God might require him to do.

Or maybe he was just scared. He was in the middle of the desert and midrash states that Miriam always dealt with finding water (in corporeal or mystical ways). He was scared that he really had no solution for the people's need for water. And that fear connected him to God even though he was in a place where he felt no connection to God.

God had mercy רחמים on him. He told Moshe to talk to a rock and it would produce water. It was a simple thing to do. But Moshe was so emotionally worked up that when he went to the rock, he struck it with it his staff instead of speaking to it. For this he was prevented from entering the land of Israel. Perhaps God knew that Moshe needed to turn from a crisis leader to a leader of peace, from one who can send plagues to one who can talk for his solutions, but Moshe couldn't make the transition.

When we are emotionally charged, we are full of fear. It can lock us into ourselves and prevent us seeing the world around us. Or we can engage with our fear and use it's energy to grow closer to God.

Photo courtesy of Bootload

Joseph: the master at just being

We asked while studying this week: why is it that our forefathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob sacrificed on a regular basis, but Joseph never did? Neither did God speak directly to him, but he did receive messages in the forms of dreams, though they were more metaphors to be interpreted rather than clear words. So what shifted between the first three generations of Jews and the fourth?

My Hevruta asked if God was always with Joseph, so there was no need to build an alter or sacrifice to bring himself closer to God. At that point, I felt the presence of Joseph come into the room and he showed me how he experienced the world.

Joseph was a person who was always open to the flow of energy around him. He could perceive it and used it to make choices that based on where the energy would flow most powerfully. He could perceive it in others and his reactions to them were guided by his energetic perceptions rather than his physical ones. In that sense, God was always with him because he could always perceive God around him and in the world. He had no need to increase the energy around him as he knew that it was always there.

When his brothers threw him in the hole, he didn't fight or run away because he could perceive that it was the correct thing to happen. I imagine he was very puzzled by it, but he went with the flow as he always did.

When Potifar's wife tried to seduce him, he ran because he could see her evil intentions and knew her seduction was a power play rather than an expression of Love. He ran from her because he could see through her.

When he interpreted dreams, he could feel the meanings within them. He could see how the energetics of the dreams matched up with reality.

He was the master of Being. He didn't puzzle about life or try to make things happen. He just went where the flow was strongest. He didn't need to build power to get close to God because he could always perceive God in the world.

Photo courtesy of Joseph Brauer

And God arose from upon him

ויעל מעליו אלקים במקום אשר דבר אתו

And God arose from upon him[Yaakov] in the place where he talked with him

Genesis 35:13

This verse occurs at the end of a message Yaacov receives from God, and signifies the end of the message. This is a very interesting way of describing a spiritual experience and union with God. Kabbalah often talk about Ruah Hakodesh (holy wind) that descends upon people and allows them to receive information, but here we only learn about it when it ends. I think that in itself is very common. People often move into an elevated state of consciousness slowly and don't realize how high they've gone until it's over.

The Ramban writes that it was not a prophetic vision or dream alone, but that the Shekinah came to him where he stood, and put him on the path to truth. He cites Genesis 17:22 as another example of this type of experience. We must also ask if the place mentioned is a physical place or a spiritual place or a place within Yaakov?

Yaacov has a great variety of spiritual experiences. He has prophetic dreams, he gets messages directly from God, he wrestles with Angels, and, as seen in this verse, he experiences mystical union with God

The question is where is the place within you where God can connect to you? How can you make the space within yourself to invite God to descend upon you?

Wrestling Fear into Transformation

My hevruta Shmuel Shalom Hacohen teaches experiential Torah. It's often difficult to explain what that means, but our study this past week really made it clear to me. It's when studying Torah is not simply the intellectual process of trying to make sense of the text. It's when studying Torah makes sense of one's life. The process of making sense of the text is the process of making sense of one's own life and self. If that process links directly to one's heart, then the study becomes a healing ritual to connect one to God and break through klipot (barriers) and blockages.

The story we studied was Yaacov's first meeting with Esau after years of separation. Yaacov had a lot of fear about the meeting. He'd been told by God to return to the land of his birth, but that meant seeing his brother Esau.  The last time he saw Esau, Esau was swearing to kill him. In Genesis 32:10, Yaacov prays to God that his meeting will go well and expresses many of his fears. What follows is the wonderful story of his wrestling with an angel all night. A close reading of the text will show that this was a night of transformation for him, allowing him to move beyond his fear, beyond his image of himself, and transform the relationship between himself and Esau.

The story begins with Yaacov leaving his camp, at night, with his wives, handmaids, and children. He crosses over the מעבר יבק which literally translates as the "empty passage" or "the passage of desolation". He helps his family to cross a river, but remains behind alone. He is in the midst of his family, but isolated from them. When fear is in control, it separates us from those we love. His family has moved on in the journey, but he remains stuck in his own desolation.

He then struggles with a man until dawn. Another aspect of a person lost in fear is their anger with the world, especially when the fear is about one's personal safety. It doesn't matter who this man is (Gn 32:30), Yaacov would have found a way to fight with him. Had he not been lost in fear, he might have welcomed the man in to talk, but as is, he struggles and fights with him.

It becomes clear that they are evenly matched and so the man touches Yaacov's hip and dislocates it. The man then begs to be freed from the struggle as the dawn is approaching. Yaacov asks for a blessing in return. The man asks for his name. Yaacov, he replies. Yaacov יעקב derives from עקב ekev, or heel. He was named that way because when he was born, he was grasping the heel of his twin Esau. עקב ekev also means footstep. Yaacov had been following in his brother's footsteps his whole life.

The man changes his name to Israel, one who struggles because Yaacov struggled with God and with man and was up to the challenge. Israel, ישראל can also be interpreted as ישר אל straight to God. When the sun rises, he names the place Paniel for here was the place where he saw God face to face (Panim פנים).  On this night of struggle, after injuring himself, Yaacov was finally able to connect directly to God and was no longer trying to imitate his brother.

The result? "He raised his eyes and saw, and there was Esau coming with 400 men" (Gn 33:2). Esau was also clearly expecting a fight. But with his fear no longer in control, Yaacov could truly see Esau and understood that he no longer wanted a fight. By changing himself, Yaacov had changed Esau and their relationship. The work done on himself reflected into Esau and both were changed by Yaacov's night of struggle.

So when Yaacov approached him, he sent his wives and children first, not his fighting men. When the two brothers saw each other, they embraced and cried. Yaacov was truly Israel then - no longer following or fearing his brother, but able to stand as equals and truly love Esau.

This interpretation arose during our Hevruta study. When I was going over my notes later on, I suddenly realized that this was me. I am going to be in the states in a few months and will be seeing an old friend with whom I've had some problems over the past few years. I've been worried about the meeting and trying to figure out how we can avoid fighting. I realized I need to find out what I'm afraid of, experience it for myself, and allow that change to shift my relationship with my old friend. It feels as if most of the change has already happened as a result of this study. This is the essense of experiential Torah study.

Photo courtesy of Docman

Animal guides

Photo courtesy of Kirklandj

A common question I hear is if Judaism has animal spirit guides or totem animals. There are  references to angels that appear in the form of animals, but the idea of an animal spirit guide is not commonly found in Jewish mysticism. During a Zohar class, we studied a story of two men who went on a journey and were led by an Eagle. It conversed with them and eventually turned into a man who brought them to the heavenly beit midrash (house of study).

I'm not a person who has ever been attracted to animal spirit guides or totems. Most of the souls I encounter are in Human form, if they have a shape. I share this reference in answer to the questions I've received and for those who do interact with spirit animals.

From the Zohar, part III, page 161 bet, parsha Shelah. Translation by my teacher.

He [the spirit guide] turns to them and says, go out from here, you are meritous, you are righteous. They went out. That appointed being gave them each a rose and they went out. When they went out, the door of the cave was closed and couldn't be seen at all.


They saw that Eagle that was coming down from that tree. And he went into another cave. These two they smelled their rose and they entered into there. And they met the Eagle by the opening of the cave, he said to them: “Please come in true righteous ones, friends, because I have not seen the joy of friendship from the day that I'm here. Only with you.”


They entered into the cave. They arrived in another orchard and the Eagle is with them. They found people there studying the Mishna. So then the Eagle transformed into the image of a person in garments of glory shining like them [the masters of the Mishna]. And he is sitting like one of them. He said to those that were sitting there [the two people in the story]. Give honor to these masters of the Mishna who came here because their master has shown them great wonders here.


One of them said, Do you have sign? They said yes, we do. They took out their two roses and smelled them. The masters of the Mishna said “please sit down master of the yeshiva, sit down true righteous ones.” They were happy with them, and they sat down. At that time, they learned there 30 Halachot that they did not know before this, and others secrets of the Torah.