Meeting G-d

Meeting God: Or, the Integration of All of One’s Self We do not easily compare ourselves to God, for we know how imperfectly we reflect our Source. So we look to expressions of God where we find them in Jewish literature. For the mystics, God’s essential nature, as demonstrated through the sefirot, is most clearly understood in the Torah, which they see as, literally, God’s biography. A related insight that is very useful is to recognize the Torah’s stories as projections of what is always going on inside of our own selves. If the Torah is God’s story, then it is also ours, since we are reflections of God. Thus each of the characters whose stories are told in the Torah is an expression of a different aspects of God’s nature – and our own. The mystics see each of the sefirot expressed in the life stories of the major characters of the Tanakh. These stories, in turn, inform the character of the Jewish people’s religious approach to life and to God. Thus the divine flow moves through the generations and through history itself, and all students of Torah is invited to see themselves as following in Abraham’s footsteps. The Kabbalists saw Hesed as the faith of Abraham, described by the prophet as “Abraham who loved Me” (Is. 41.8). Abraham, the first of God’s true followers on earth, stands parallel to Hesed, the first quality to emerge within God. He is the man of love, the one who will leave all behind and follow God across the desert, willing to offer everything. Arthur Green, A Guide to the ZoharZohar, p. 43. An exploration of the sefirot as a key to finding our own sense of personal meaning requires that we follow Abraham’s example. Abraham was commanded to go out mi’artzekha, mimoladet’kha, umibeyt avikha, “from your land, from your home, and from your father’s house,” and set off toward a destination that he did not know. “From the land” means to put aside the culture and society in which we were raised and the nationalism we learned; “from home” is to become open to questioning the preconceptions we have about who we are and where we belong; “from father” means to find the balance between honoring our parents and discovering our own truth. We return to the Hasidic teaching that interprets the famous (albeit grammatically ambiguous) command to Abraham, lekh l’kha, as “Go to yourself.” If you would find the true path of your life, if you would find God, it is suggested, you must look within. This is not to say that the only God you can know about is defined by your own inner feelings; rather, the teaching is as old as the mitzvah of pilgrimage to Jerusalem. You must go yourself; you cannot send someone else for you on this journey. And you must bring yourself, your inner self: your sincerity, your honesty, your commitment. You cannot leave out the parts of you that you would rather hide or deny, and you cannot make contingency plans. It is taught that one must commit to one’s search for meaning b’khol levavkha, “with all your heart.” The mystics note that this form of the word lev, heart, in which the simple form of the word is amplified with the addition of another letter, bet, to become levav, seems like a doubling of the word heart. This doubling signifies that one must bring both one’s “good” heart and one’s “evil” heart, both the good inclination and the evil inclination. This is the discipline of kavvanah, of “intention.” In this overstimulated and noisy world of ours, we might define kavvanah as “paying complete attention with all the aspects of oneself.” One who explores the path of the sefirot will be challenged to pay attention, first and foremost, to oneself, as a necessary condition of ascending the ladder. But we will continue to struggle with our evil inclination and our moral lapses. As the midrash relates, even Abraham struggled with his sense of confidence and faith. If such a path was difficult for the Father of our People, kal v’homer, “how much the more so” for us? Yet, if we remember that we are created “little lower than the angels,” and if we hold on to the ladder with our people’s famous stubbornness, though we will fall sometimes, we will yet find a way to rise. To achieve a real integration of the self, we must find ways to accept our past reality, our past decisions and acts, at the very least as the necessary learning we gained to arrive at the present point in time. We are made up of all that we have been. Our efforts to build something of worth in this world necessitate that we summon all that is within us. Jewish tradition records that the building of the Mishkan in the wilderness required a long list of different materials and that each of the Israelites was needed to bring something in order for the Mishkan to be completed. The Izbitzer rebbe taught: [I]t says in the holy Zohar (Shemot 148a) that these elements [the different elements of the Mishkan] correspond to the foundational elements found in the human being, meaning that one should deliver all one’s elements and abilities to God, that God may rule over them according to the blessed divine will. Mei haShiloah, 87 In our essential structure, physically, emotionally, intellectually – and, most of all, spiritually – we are a Tabernacle, waiting to be constructed. How, then, to bring all the disparate parts together into a structure that might be raised to praise God? Recall the three pillars that hold up the world. These pillars define the three significant aspects of Jewish experience: Torah, that is to say, learning; Avodah, prayer, or processing the learning; and gemilut hasadim, acting upon the learning. These three pillars can also be understood as receiving, absorbing, andassimilating what has been received and given, and giving. The mystical approach to the individual practice of study, prayer and acts recognizes the fundamentally communal and interdependent nature of individual life and helps us to find our place in it. Of course, there are other Jewish approaches to this same basic human question; the mystical approach can provide guidance for those who are drawn to the deeper, hidden meanings behind the prosaic nature of our days and who are attracted to and intrigued by mystery and paradox. For the mystics, every word and every act are potentially world-shattering, or world-repairing; “the Kabbalist perpetually seeks cosmic significance in what most people would regard as mundane.” Avi Weinstein, in his introduction to Joseph Gikatilla, Gates of Light, Sha’are Orah, transl. Avi Weinstein, p. xviii. Exploring the sefirot and attempting to learn from that exploration and live by its teachings area lifelong struggle to rise beyond basic human nature, toward the realization of our human potential to be “little lower than the angels.” Within the framework of this system for understanding the meaning of all life, we are challenged to develop our own sense of purpose, our response to the gift of life. One end of the sefirotic ladder as Jacob saw it in his dream was mutzav artza, “planted upon the earth,” and the other end was rosho magia shamaymah, “Its head reached the heavens.” Angels – in Hebrew, literally “messengers” of God – were ascending and descending upon it. A wonderful image: in general, we do not expect people who have their feet planted firmly in reality also to have their heads “in the clouds,” but this is what the ladder does; it bridges heaven and earth. How else would the messengers be able to bring their communications back and forth between the different realms? From the point of view of Jewish mysticism, this ladder expresses the yearning of the created for the Creator, of the imperfect for the perfect.: iIt is the longing we all know for something beyond us, something that we cannot quite articulate but that we know we need in order to be complete. The image of the ladder invites us to set our sights higher and to realize our connection not only to the things of the world around us in which our feet are planted, but also to something beyond us and not quite perceptible – that which the soul can sense but not name. The ladder points toward the object of our striving – upward and outward, toward a sense of exaltation, and also upward and inward, toward a true and centered sense of self. We struggle upward, rising and falling all the time, in our spiritual journey toward the self we might become. The Maggid of Koznitz, Rabbi Israel Hapstein, considers our ability to progress spiritually, and the support of the Eternal in that rising, in a Torah commentary. He cites the ultimate statement of the human challenge: “For I am the Eternal, who brings you up [ma’aleh] from the land of Egypt, to be your God; you shall be holy, for I am holy.” (Lev. 11.45) Avodat Yisrael, parashat Shemini. For Hasidic theology, that the text uses the word ma’aleh, “causes to rise up,” is significant. It is the Eternal that draws the seeker toward the heights, even as the human yearns for that aliyah, that “rising up” toward Eternity. This Biblical text, therefore, can be seen to express neatly the Hasidic idea that it is the initiative of God, arousing us toward God, that helps us even to begin to develop the urge to strive upward and forward: God is the causative ma’aleh, “who brings up,” as the verse states. And with that help we are the olim, “those who ascend.” God brings us up from Egypt, and we rise up to Eretz Yisrael; God brings us up toward holiness, and we rise toward holiness, with God’s help, to God. The mystical term for coming close to God, devekut, “cleaving,” derives from the Biblical command to cleave to God: You must observe all these commandments that I have commanded you, and do them; love YHVH your God, walk in all God’s ways, and cleave to God. Deuteronomy 11.22 Love YHVH your God, listen to God’s voice, and cleave to God, for this is your life and the length of your days. Deuteronomy 30.20 The mystics understood devekut as that form of mystical experience which focuses on achieving a sense of connection, or even unification, with God. By linking the fulfillment of mitzvot with devekut, the Torah text itself testifies that there is no higher purpose for a human act. A holy act such as the mitzvah of Torah study lends itself perfectly: The essence of immersing oneself in Torah is to cleave unto the inner spiritual light of Ayn Sof [that which is without end] which is within the letters of Torah. This is called limmud l’shmah, “learning for its own sake.” Keter Shem Tov, 180 There are three definitions of the mystical goal of devekut as developed in Jewish thought. The first envisions devekut to be, in the Talmudic image, like the sticky cleaving of two dates. BT Sanhedrin 64a. Citing this image, the Rambam describes the human intellect as, at its highest realized potential, coming as close to the Divine intellect as possible – yet each intellect, the human’s and God’s, retains its separate character. The second form of devekut is envisioned as a union between the human and God: the human spark swallowed up in the Divine bonfire, the single drop of water within the sea. The third understanding of devekut is that of a reunion between the human soul and its source, to which it longs to return; this reconnection of the part to the whole develops in the late 16th and early 17th century as an interpretation of the verse that describes the human as helek eloha mima’al, “part of God above.” Devekut as an indirect connection was defined by some ancient Talmudic authorities, such as the school of Rabbi Ishmael, to be imitatio dei: thus, they taught, one could achieve devekut by choosing “to walk after [i.e. to emulate] the attributes of the Holy One, blessed be He. As He clothes the naked ... as He visits the sick ... as He comforts mourners ... [so ought you to do likewise].” BT Sotah 14a In contrast, the school represented by Rabbi Akiba’s teachings maintains that an actual attachment to God is possible: In this world Israel cleaves to the Holy One, Blessed be He, as it is said: “You that cleave unto God” [Deut. 4:4]. However, in the time-to-come they will become like [God]. For as the Holy One, blessed be He, is a consuming fire, as it is written – “The Lord your God is a consuming fire” [Deut. 4:24], so shall they be a consuming fire as it is written: The light of Israel shall be or a fire, and his Holy One for a flame.” [Isa. 10:17] cited in Byron Sherwin, Mystical Theology, p. 126. Techniques for achieving devekut are not clearly defined in Talmudic literature, but the clear implication of the Rabbinic teachings regarding imitatio dei is that one comes close to God through fulfilling the mitzvot. The Torah names those who keep the mitzvot d’vekim b’Adonai, “You who cleave to Adonai.” Deuteronomy 4.4 For scholars such as Maimonides and Rabbi Judah Lowe of Prague, who valued the perfection of the intellect, devekut was a goal reached by study of Torah. For the Kabbalists, the idea of devekut is further developed into the art of cleaving to a specific sefirah to repair and strengthen the connections between the sefirot and the human world below, so as to enable divine abundance to flow down: This is how a person merges himself with these qualities in thought, speech and action. For thought is the meditation we mentioned, speech is reciting the verse, and action is coming to the beit Knesset and bowing towards the sanctuary. Before the Amidah, he stands in the beit Knesset, his mouth a wellspring flowing with prayer, unifying yesod, the source of the wellspring, and the well into which is opens, which is the beit Knesset. And he rectifies the Shekhinah with all the power of his concentration during prayer. Moshe Cordovero, Tomer Devorah, ch.10 pp.42–-43 The word Shekhinah in Talmudic tradition means “immanent presence of God”; that presence is located in the lowest sefirah, which is nearest to the human level of existence. The sefirah is called malkhut, “kingdom,” referring to the world, which God, manifest as King, rules. But this sefirah, which serves as the link between upper and lower, is also identified with the Shekhinah, because it is this sefirah which bridges that which is beyond human perception and the human ability to sense the holy as an immanent reality. It is the place where one can sense and access the link between heaven and earth, between God and humanity. In this context, Rabbi Elimelekh of Lizhensk notes that the date palm is both male and female. The part that is female receives; the male part gives. Like the date palm, the Shekhinah is both female and male in function; it receives as a vessel, and it gives forth. No’am Elimelekh, Elimelekh of Lizhensk, Vol. 1, 19b. This is an interesting echo of the ancient depiction of the first human as androgynous, and will be explored in more depth below, in the Lesson on Malkhut. The medieval mystic Ibn Gabbai related the teaching of R. Isaac the Blind, who identified the essence of “the religious life of the enlightened ones and those who contemplate [God’s] name” as uvo tidbakun, “and to Him you shall cleave.” From a seminar on KabbalahKabbalah with Art Green, Hartman Institute, Jerusalem, 7 July 2004. The worshiper ought to contemplate and intend during his worship to unify the great name and join it by its letters and include in it all the [supernal] degrees and unify them in his thought, up to ‘Eyin Sof. And the reason that it is said: “and to him you shall cleave” is to hint to thought, which must be free and pure of everything and subdued, cleaving above in an everlasting and forceful cleaving, in order to unify the branches to [their] root without any separation. And thereby will the person who unifies cleave to the great name. Ibn Gabbai, Avodat haKodesh, II, 6 fol. 29a, cited by FIRST NAME Scholem, Major Trends, p. 54. Just how this is to be done is the question that a myriad of mystical techniques were developed to answer. Such techniques are known as theurgic: they are believed to have an effect on God. A mystic who practices such techniques relies on the logic that every person has an effect on All by virtue of being part of it. The theurgic approach to Jewish mysticism asserts that the nature of God can be influenced by human actions. As developed by the Zohar and Lurianic Kabbalah, the sefirot that constitute the reality of God are in disarray, alienated from one another, and out of balance. The mystic’s task, and the goal of the mystical experience, are to realign and reunite them through the fulfillment of mitzvot, especially prayer and Torah study, with the appropriate kavvanah. The reason for the mitzvot, then, is for the sake of the tzorekh gavohah, the “need on high,” which only the mystic can meet. Ibn Gabbai explained the basic concept of tzorekh gavoha: through creating the appropriate energy in the sefirotic system, the sefirot are activated and the divine abundance of emanation which powers and nourishes all creation, called shefa, is sent down, through the sefirot, to the lower reaches. Ibn Gabbai explains using the Zohar’s interpretation of Psalms 37.3, b’takh b’Adonai va’aseh tov, "The deeds below awaken the deeds above, the awakening below brings about the awakening above." Sefer haZoharZohar, Vayikra, Behar, 110.b, cited in Avodat haKodesh The theurgic effect is explained in another mystical source using the metaphor of one’s shadow, from the verse Adonai tzilkha al yad yeminkha, “God is your shadow at your right hand”: as you are there with God, so God is there with you….For that which exists on high is aroused according to the arousal of that which exists below. In this way the upper resembles the lower, in the way of a form and its shadow: they are linked and interrelated one with the other. The shadow is aroused according to the arousal of the form. Similarly, the actions which arouse the lower regions have an effect on the upper regions – good actions or evil. ... the upper regions listen and respond to the lower regions, and this opens the upper source and brings forth abundance of blessing and light. Beit haBekhira, sha’ar hagadol, 46. According to this theory of theurgic mysticism, God needs human acts, human doing, in order to be fully manifest. The mystic, then, seeks to respond to this need of God for the sake of God. In the kabbalistic system, the impulse that stimulates action comes from the lowest, nearest regions, which, we have noted, are identified with the Shekhinah and the community of Israel. This lower level is identified as feminine in the sefirotic system, which is not necessarily an unusual association. What is unusual is that the effect the mystic seeks to have on the upper regions, for the sake of tikkun, comes from precisely that lower level, which, understood as female, might be thought to be more often acted on than instigator. This understanding of the initiative power of the lower regions is expressed by the mystic interpretation of Genesis 2.5-6: No shrub of the field was yet on earth and no grasses of the field had yet sprouted, because God had not sent rain upon the earth…but a flow would well up from the ground and water the whole surface of the earth. The lower flow, which wells up from below, interpreted by this model as the “feminine waters,”, precedes the upper flow, identified with the rain, the “male waters.” Thus the more powerful partner in the dialogue, the “upper” God of Ayn Sof, is dependent on the weaker partner, the “lower,” mere human, mystic. In the 16th century, in Tzefat, Rabbi Isaac Luria formulated a mystical theology that posited three stages for Creation: atzilut, “emanation”; shevirah, “shattering”; and tikkun, “repair.” In the beginning, God withdrew to make room for creation and sent a light into the resulting empty space, from which the first sefirot were created. The sefirot are vessels containing the light of God. When the divine light began to fill the vessels, the first three vessels survived intact, but the lower seven were shattered. They fell into the abyss, and sparks of divinity were trapped within them. Tikkun involves the ongoing restoration of, according to Lurianic Kabbalah, 288 orphaned sparks, which can be anywhere. The purpose of human existence is to help God by seeking out and restoring the sparks, which takes place only through the doing of mitzvot. The sparks can be hidden anywhere, in animals and plants, anywhere at all. “The human task, according to Luria, is essentially a contemplative one,” which is to say that every physical act, every ritual act, every moment of human existence should be lived with kavvanah, understood as an abiding mystical awareness of the ongoing mission of looking for sparks of holiness everywhere. Every religious action, regardless of the kind, requires contemplative concentration on the partzufim and various combinations of the divine name in order to “raise up the fallen sparks.”… every action done in the world below – the material world – accompanied by concentration on the dynamics being initiated through such action … [causes the ascension of] the two hundred and eighty-eight sparks that were believed to be attached to the broken vessels. Lawrence Fine, (1986) “The Contemplative Practice of Yihudim,”, ed. Arthur Green Jewish Spirituality, p. 70. And in all the complicated details of mystical theology, “the crucial point here is that such reunification depends entirely on the efforts of human beings.” To take one example of the power of a mitzvah according to this theology, consider the regular and prosaic act of daily prayer. Here, prayer is understood as a way to facilitate the repair of the sefirotic system, and so the exact letters and words are of supreme, cosmic importance. For example, on Shabbat, to sing L’kha Dodi with the appropriate kavvanah, intention, is to strive to bring about the unification of the Divine Name and the sefirot associated with it. The act of praying, not only by experts in the practice, Morris Faierstein (“God’s Need for the Commandments in Medieval KabbalahKabbalah,” p. 57) notes that “authors differed [on] the issue of whose mizvot contribute to tzorekh gavoha. Is this concept applicable only to the deeds of a small elite whose worship has the proper kavvanah and is directed solely to the sefirotic world for the purpose of zorekh gavoha, or can anyone who performs a mitzvah properly contribute to zorekh gavoha even though he does not fully understand the kabbalistic basis of his act? In medieval KabbalahKabbalah, prior to Cordovero and Luria, in the sixteenth century, the issue remained unresolved.” In “God’s Need for the Commandments in Medieval Kabbalah”, Conservative Judaism Vol 36 (1), Fall 1982, 57. with the appropriate concentration on the appropriate sefirot brings about a yikhud, “unification” between them. One applies oneself to the work of facilitating yikhud only for the benefit of the tzorekh gavoha, the “need on high”; if there is any benefit to the one praying, it is welcome, but it is not the point. The mitzvah is done al shem yikhud kudsha berikh hu v’shikhintei, “for the purpose of the unification of the Holy Blessed One and his Shekhinah.” The responsibility to unify God and redeem the world through mindful performance of mitzvot is not meant to encourage us to arrogance. The Hasidic rebbe Simkha Bunam advised that “everyone must have two pockets, so that he can reach into the one or the other, according to his needs. In his right pocket are to be the words ‘for my sake was the world created’, and in his left, ‘I am earth and ashes’.” in Martin Buber, Tales of the Hasidim: Later Masters, p. 249. The difficulty, of course, is in recognizing the need of the moment. Considering that need leads mystics to musar, the mystical teaching of Jewish ethics. Musar: The Sefirot as Community The central importance of Jewish ethical acts places each individual in a position that would create untenabe anxietys without the guidance of communal ethical norms. First among them is the constant awareness that our every act is significant. How powerful, then, are our failures, our lapses from our own hopes for ourselves. Mipney khata’eynu galinu m’artzeynu, “Because of our sins we were exiled from our home” is a well-known and oft-cited Talmudic axiom. The ethical teaching that correct fulfillment of the mitzvot will lead to the end of the exile, however, is theurgic mysticism. Also part of mystical theology are the beliefs, taught by the mystical ethicist Eliezer Azikri, that coming to know God is a commanded part of a properly fulfilled mitzvah and that proper kavvanah, inner intention, is necessary. Azikri interprets the familiar phrase written above many Arks in many synagogues, da lifney mi atah omeyd, “Know before whom you stand,” with a mystical appreciation: “If in my laws you walk” – the meaning of these words is that you should be laboring in Torah. God did not say “if in laws you walk” but “in my laws”, that is to say, you must pay attention to the one from whom the laws come, and similarly in acts, “you shall observe my commandments and do them.” Only thus is the Holy One exalted. Eliezer Azikri, Sefer Haredim, p. 35. Azikri asserts that the Jewish exile was meant to last for only 1000 years, but because of sin it has been extended. Jewish sins are three: not seeking to know God, as “every ass knows its master”; laziness in fulfilling mitzvot; and the lack of teshuvah, which will perfect the Jewish people if done correctly and allow us to repair the destroyed altar of God. For a mystic, teshuvah is not just the act of rebalancing one’s relationship with God and the world through making reparation for a transgression; it brings about the unification of the Jewish people within the unity of God, that unity which Jews help to create by way of mitzvot. Teshuvah is the turning that is at the heart of the ability to see what might yet be in the world; it is a necessary skill for a mystic. Azikri quotes the Zohar, in which it is written that a bat kol, a “still small voice,” is heard “calling out ‘shuvu banim shovevim’ [“return, errant children”], and that bat kol goes forth from Horeb, woe to us for we do not hear it.” Sefer Haredim, 225. Horeb, of course, is where the burning bush first caused Moshe to turn and to see throughout this work, please decide if mystics is in the present tense or the past and make consistent is or was? source? source?