Yeshibah (Sitting) - As Above, So Below

In my previous post, I wrote:

One flaming spark came through the roof and landed in my mother's bed with her sitting up in it.

What symbolism can be revealed in the phrase “sitting up”? I asked myself. Rambam discusses the word sitting (yeshibah) in The Guide Of The Perplexed (Moreh Nevuchim, vol. I, chap.11). Shlomo Pines translates this discussion as follows (with some additional footnotes added by me*):

Sitting (yeshibah). The first meaning given to this term in our language was that of being seated. Thus: Now Eli the priest sat upon a seat [1]. But in view of the fact that a sitting individual is in a state of the most perfect stability and steadiness [2], this term is used figuratively to denote all steady, stable, and changeless states [3]. Thus, when promising Jerusalem permanence and stability while she is in possession of the highest ranks, scripture says: She will rise and sit in her place [4]. And it also says: He maketh the barren woman to sit in her house [5]; which means that He makes her firm and steady [6]. In the latter sense it is said of G-d, may He be exalted: Thou, O L-rd, sitteth for all eternity [7, 8]; O Thou who sittest in the heaven [9]; He that sitteth in the heaven [10]. That is, the stable One [11] who undergoes no manner of change, neither a change in His essence – as He has no modes [12] besides His essence with respect to which He might change – nor a change in His relation to what is other than Himself – since, as shall be explained later, there does not exist a relation with respect to which He could change.

The passage goes on, but this portion will suffice at the moment. It is significant to note the phrase in red as it pertains to sitting -> in my dream, my mother [13] is sitting, existing as a relation with respect to which He could change.

tzav letzav, kav lakav, ze’er sham, ze’er sham ... Kabbalah & Telepathy

see marzipan here and here

Footnotes:

[1] I Shmuel 1:9

[2]* hishtavut, equanimity, shiviti

[3]* atzmut

[4] Zecharyah 14:10

[5] Tehilim 113:9 – *in her house in her bed, hitkalelut (dream/torah)

[6] steadfast*, Tehilim 25:10

[7] Eicah 5:19

[8]* Netzach, victory, Reconstructing Rachel

[9] Tehilim 123:1

[10] Tehilim 2:4

[11]* Echad

[12] khal, Modes were attributed to G-d by some of the latter Mutazilites, notably by Abu Hisham (d. 933) and his followers.

[13]* partzuf imma

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