Vayekhulu Hashamayim / Daat Torah

in light I walk ... Iyov 29:3, Niddah 30b

וה vayekhulu hashamayim אה
and the heavens were completed ... Bereshit 2:1
Avraham Abulafia & student, Sefer Mafteach Hashemot & Sefer Hakdamah

daat Torah -> making the Torah personal

ה celtic ogham letters

א unique aleph

ה elements (name in ogham & hebrew, peace in english & hebrew, magen)

ו hebrew letters


R' Yitzchak Ginsburgh of The Inner Dimension on the Divine Name, Akvah:

This hidden Name of God never appears explicitly in the text of the Bible, though it appears abundantly "encoded" in the form of initial letters (rashei teivot) and final letters (sofei teivot) etc, of Torah phrases. Akvah is pronounced thusly, written alef, hei, vav, hei.

It is associated in Kabbalah with the sefirah of da'at (in particular with its "right side," the concentrated power of the mind to elicit love in the heart) or, sometimes, with the sefirot of yesod (the power of the tzadik yesod olam to connect heavens and earth, as will be explained). Just as da'at is hidden within the ten sefirot from keter to malchut, so is the Name Akvah hidden throughout the Torah.

The Name Akvah is often refereed to as "the goodly Name of God," for it is numerically equal to the word "good" (tov = 17). It is the primordial light of the first day of creation which God saw to be "good" and concealed in the Torah only to be revealed to the world (the righteous souls of Israel) in the future.

It first appears in the Torah in the opening verse: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." The initial letters of the four words "the heavens and the earth" spell Akvah. The preceding phrase, "God created" = 289 = 17 squared. From this we learn that God's purpose in creation is, in general, to manifest His infinite Divine goodness throughout reality, and, in particular, to combine and unite together the two created realms of "heavens" and "earth"--the spiritual realm and the physical realm.

read more of the article ...

primeval, probing, testifying
all around, from where
unfolding the mystery
stampeding like tahtonka
understanding hunting me down
running in endless light, beyond the night
with one more sound
completely true
from the timeless time to come
unsealing a secret of the seventh day
silently striking
igniting unblemished recognition
as candles upon the wind
awaken

Footnote: tahtonka is native american for buffalo

technorati tags: Torah Kabbalah Judaism kabbalistic poetry mysticism jewish mysticism jewish people am yisrael keltoi celtoi celts ogham mystical alphabets celtic knot magen david daas Torah daat Torah Abulafia

Torah Nistarah & Kli Kibbul

In this post, I discussed a dream involving a golem with a white head. The golem corresponds to a novice Torah scholar. The white head corresponds to the white light of the flame of chochmah and the 3-headed shin (of the tefillin shel rosh) of this world where (The Inner Dimension):

In the flame of a candle one sees three levels of light: the "dark light" around the wick of the candle, the white flame encompassing it, and an amorphous aura around the white flame itself. Each of these three levels of revealed light manifests a dimension contained within the invisible flame present in the coal. In general the flame symbolizes love, as is said: "as mighty as death is love...the flame of God." The dark light corresponds to the love of Israel, souls enclothed within physical bodies. The white light corresponds to the love of Torah. The aura corresponds to the love of God. These are the three essential manifestations of love as taught by the Ba'al Shem Tov.

In this post, I discussed Torah Nistarah in the hidden ark of the keltoi, corresponding to the 4-headed flame of the future world [1] where (The Inner Dimension):

The fourth head of the shin of the future - the revelation of the essence of the coal itself - corresponds to the love of the Land of Israel and, as our Sages teach: "the Land of Israel will in the future spread to incorporate all the lands of the earth."

where subsequently Chaim B. at Mishmar reminds us, the aron and the luchot are one unit:

Ramban assumes that the aron is defined by its place and function in the Mishkan, but according to Rashi, the aron can exist independent of the Mishkan and as an essential component of the luchos themselves.

and where Chaim B. further points out:

R' Soloveitchik explained that the other kelim were sanctified based on their utility in the mishkan; once the mishkan was disassembled, their status as klei kodesh was negated. Only the aron by virtue of its intrinsic connection to the luchos retained its status even when the Mishkan was disassembled and required kohanim for transport. The gemara (Yoma 72b) derives halachos of how a talmid chacham should act from the construction of the aron - just as the physical aron held the luchos, a talmid chacham holds within him the Torah learned. Just as the luchos could not be given without the accompanying aron, a person cannot absorb Torah without first transforming him/herself into a proper "kli kibbul" to receive that Torah. The gemara (Shabbos 32b) writes that amei ha'aretz, the uneducated, are punished for calling the aron kodesh by the name "arna", meaning just a box (see Rashi, maharasha).

Taking all this together, while some may choose to mock me, do not mock my Torah.

Footnote:

[1] The 4-headed shin of binah/imma -> tevunah and imma ila'ah, In the writings of the Arizal it is explained that "the coming world" refers to the level called tevunah, whereas the "future to come" corresponds to the level called imma ila'ah, which is higher. (R' Yitzchak Ginsburgh, The Alef-Beit).

technorati tags: Torah Kabbalah Judaism mysticism jewish mysticism shechinah sacred feminine luchot kil kibbul

Professional Profile Added

I really need a job. These past several years of even meager shabbat observance & Torah study have destroyed my career and access to normal career opportunities. In view of that, I've added a professional profile link on my blog. If anyone can help me out, I'd appreciate it. My life can't continue on like it has for the past decade.

I am not interested in being drawn to job interviews when the only purpose is to "see how much I'm worth". Don't even go there.

Lineage & Halachah Ve-Ein Morin Kein

In discussion of Reb Chaim's article on the halachic status of Pre-Sinaitic Jewry, Ilan comments:

Pinchas had a problem due to genealogy too, sort of what you said when he was worried that people would claim that he killed Zimiri to cover up his own lineage, as his mother was a midianite and therefore he might be a gentile.

I'd like to throw a question out into the blogosphere regarding this, as I'm hearing this particular aspect of the Pinchas story for the first time.

If the story is true, then how is this particular genealogical uncertainty (regarding Pinchas and kehunah) connected to halachah ve-ein morin kein (as it must be, in light of Pinchas' Hashem-sanctioned atypical act of zealotry)?

There is a significant bit of understanding resting here waiting to be discovered. What is it? אתתא asks.

technorati tags: Judaism Torah Talmud Torah Halachah halachah ve-ein morin kein Pinchas kehunah

It's An Old Halachah

I dreamt.

There is more to the dream than what I'm going to report, which is merely the end of the dream. A master kabbalist, like a combination Jedi warrior-king, was in retirement. He had a son who sat at a medieval-like table in the main receiving hall observing all that was about to transpire. There was no woman or mother to the son around. The Jedi and his son were the only members of his immediate family unit. He and his son comprised his entire core family unit.

A golem came to his place and sought an audience with the retired master Jedi. An audience was granted.

As the golem approached the Jedi master, he picked up the master's hand off a plate (like a scepter might rest on) and handed it to the master. The master Jedi put his hand back on for the audience with the golem. It was like a scepter hand of some sort. He would talk with the golem, Jedi to Jedi.

The golem was trying to convince the retired Jedi-warrior king to come out of retirement for the upcoming war with the aliens. The Jedi-king was reluctant. He had suffered much in battles of the past. His heart was wounded. He wanted to maintain his peaceful retirement. He felt the battle couldn't be won in this time.

The golem was persistent against the Jedi-king's refusal to reenter service as a Jedi warrior. The Jedi-king felt it would likely be futile to try to explain his reluctance to the golem. How could a golem possibly understand his thinking and feeling on the matter!? the Jedi wondered to himself - yet nevertheless, he went over to the golem to try and demonstrate why it was futile for him to even try ...

He put two long thin alien-like fingers on the golem's white [1] robot head. What if the aliens have two fingers? the Jedi asked the golem, as if the two fingers tracing all over the golem's white robot head were a torture of some sort that the golem hated. The golem was silent.

What if the aliens have 3 or 4 fingers? the Jedi upped the trial of the golem, putting 3 and 4 fingers on the golem's white robot head - now the golem broke a heavy sweat. The Jedi put 5 and 6 fingers on the golem's white robot head, saying: what if the aliens have 5 or 6 fingers!? The golem was now sweating profusely, indicating its weakness as a golem. It was having a hard time not breaking out in phobic terror to the 6 fingers on its head. The Jedi was confident that the golem could now see its weakness and the futility of fighting the upcoming battle.

The golem did not deny its achilles-heel weakness, so the Jedi removed the fingers from the golem's sweating terrified head. But, the golem was not perturbed away from its mission to draw the Jedi-king back into service for the upcoming battle, despite its recognition of its own flaw. The golem knew it could not fight the aliens like a seasoned Jedi-warrior king, but it could accomplish what it came to this master Jedi to accomplish - to draw him out of retirement and back into service.

The Jedi had moved away from the golem, sure now that he golem could see the futility of his plea to the Jedi. But the golem had a wild card that the Jedi master could never have imagined - and he played it.

Ok, the golem said, offering up this final wild card argument. The golem's white robot head spit out a piece of paper toward the Jedi - what about this! - the golem challenged as the piece of paper drifted like a feather, falling to the floor between the master Jedi-kabbalist and the golem.

The Jedi-master froze, recognizing the slip of paper. He was astounded, absolutely astounded! He stood frozen with amazement for a moment looking at the slip of paper before picking it up. As the Jedi's fingers picked up the slip of paper, the memory flooded back.

He remembered the prophecy a black woman had delivered to him during his youth, when he was a young Jedi warrior. She hadn't understood the prophecy, but she had delivered to him this note with the message-prophecy (which consisted of some old obscure halachah that not many people remembered) written on it for sometime in the future - the contents of the note may have been sent to him from his Jedi superior officers at the time.

I could hear the words she had said to the Jedi-warrior as she had handed over the note to him in that ancient time ... it's an old halachah ... she had shruggingly told the Jedi-warrior, handing over the note with the prophecy-halachah written on it.

As he had looked down at the same slip of paper the woman had delivered so long ago as it had lain on the floor at his feet, the Jedi-king knew! the prophecy was true!

The golem knew his mission was a success. He could read the Jedi's reaction. The Jedi-warrior king, in picking up the slip of paper, was leaving retirement and reentering service as not only a Jedi-warrior, but now, as a Jedi-warrior king.

I woke up, with the words - it's an old halachah - reverberating in my mind.

Footnote:

[1] The white flame corresponds to the love of Torah. The Inner Dimension on the letter shin ש.

technorati tags: Torah Kabbalah Halachah

Short Jerky Lines Of Shalshelet HaKabbalah

Mr. E commented (regarding my poem, End Of Days):

sentence fragments
short jerky lines
random words
trying so hard to sound wise
does'nt mean anything
need poetry class
fighting ghosts within
what did that line even mean
no grammer
no puntuation
Im a poet
look at me
if I make it look profund
you don't know i have no clue.
So boring
I like burriots
I must be smart
I read a book once
god talks to me
he says im the lord of the dance
so wise so jewish
I like to say kabbalah
look at me
im Madonna

How nice. First of all, let me be perfectly clear - I am not trying to sound wise. I have no problem being either a fool or a rasha - as I have written in this story - The Fool & The Rasha.

Second, it's my blog and I'll write bad poetry on it if I want to.

Third, the wisdom of poetry isn't by virtue of profound words, it is by virtue of the kavanah and hashra'ah attached to those words.

Fourth, short jerky lines may not good poetry make, but short jerky lines do make a shalshelet, as in shalshelet hakabbalah, pivoting between mashpia and mekubal.

technorati tags: Torah Kabbalah shalshelet mashpia mekubal hashraah

Recognition From The Eye Of The Storm

This morning, I dreamt.

It's not clear where I was, but it was some type of community school-like building. People were urgently going about doing mundane things, yet there was a clear mystical current running through it. The setting of the dream was distinctly kabbalistic. I knew it even in the dream. There was a man there and we recognized one another as "master kabbalists", although this was an unspoken recognition.

Time was strange - like time was caught in some timeless place between time. Something historical was in the air. A storm was coming. Whatever was coming had the taste of traversing time to find us.

The entire school congregated in a particular part of the school complex - it was safer there. There were many children in the room. I saw the finger of a tornado coming toward our shelter in the distance. One of the children had run up from behind me where they were all sheltered and grabbed onto me. Ohmygosh! The tornado was here! and it was too late to put the child safely behind me again, so I pulled the child closer instead. The tornado reached down into the room and ripped the child out of my arms.

The tornado had meant to try to take something from me. It could not have succeeded. I knew these things, even in the dream. But, in its attempt, an innocent child had been taken. As our mutual grip on one another had been broken, and as I helplessly watched the child's form fading into the wind, I could sense that the tornado sensed defeat. It knew it could never take from me whatever it had come to take.

The tornado changed form and hovered like a mechanical eye, gazing at me through some separating screen which surrounded the place we were in. In its eye was recognition. Some timeless recognition. In its defeat, it doubtlessly knew who I am.

I woke up.

ליאורה חנה אלישבע צברה בת אהוביה ואדר

technorati tags: Torah Kabbalah oneiromancy ruach Hashem nevuah

Beyond Teshuvah

No offense specific to the Beyond Teshuvah blog rabbi, but I've changed my mind about adding the Beyond BT blog to my blogroll. Organizations such as this aren't for worthless people like me who don't matter to the community. For a decade I've tried, and yet, been left to die. Let those who matter continue to be the ones whose teshuvah efforts are supported by the community. I don't number among them. I number among those left to die.

I just can't relate to the site at all.

Yirah Ila'ah

1996 - (Posted in My Ba'alat Teshuvah Story)

from a sidefolding
looking, seeing something yet not yet
like a great plain of immaterial fire and space
rolling and unfolding
like billowing waves of timewater and lava
empty of place
sensing
in it, deep deep eternal
trembling in sight of it
balancing, returning the gaze
burrowing
into the folding, where I
I was, looking feeling the mind
expanding greatly
one
mo-ment longer
going
past boundaries trembling
in awe of it
the greatness and power of it
from fear and being no thing
admitting I, I looked until
I could look no
more
the last great drop of awesomeness
in it

technorati tags: Torah Kabbalah kabbalistic poetry jewish mysticism mysticism aravot yirah ilaah awe sacred feminine

Eternal Flame

Describing a repetitive dream from babyhood through young adulthood. (Posted in My Ba'alat Teshuvah Story.)

Behold, He that keepeth Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps ... Tehilim 121:4

over and over, a repetitive dream
curling through forms everchanging
yet the basic message, ever unchanging
turning years, over years
over years, those
occupying babyhood and childhood
even through the thirties, though winding down
those stricken
by something hideous it seemed
as teeth grew in and fell out
over and over, filling up my mouth
completely inside, overflowing
and no matter how many times
I spit them out
like time sped up, with each evacuation
pushing more out, and iterating
within the emptiness revealed
in the mystery concealed
with some urgency
fathomless
spitting out what, I'll never know

and, as I grew older
the repetition, probed deeper
deep deep down
into the inner jaw bone
as the innards dissolved away
teeth and roots, uprooted
exposed into the brain
the naked rawness
revealed
hide hide, in my mind
for now
as my hand covered my mouth
fleeing in the dreams
away into, into no thing I could see
yet crushed and broken
this in the dream, seeing
the untruth I was fed, but not meant to be
even then
moving silently, even then
still everpresent
each dream transformation testifying
as to why this thing
happened to me
set like a riddle
engraved clear through the door
with a voice never silenced
even then
during the long dark, dark night

technorati tags: Torah Kabbalah kabbalistic poetry nevuah ruach Hashem prophecy oneiromancy