holy chuppah

the sapphire throne

Rosh Chodesh Tevet 5770 / 7th night of Chanukah

  
  וממעל לרקיע אשר על-ראשם כמראה אבן-ספיר דמות כסא ועל דמות הכסא דמות כמראה אדם עליו מלמעלה: צ

And above the firmament that was over their heads, like a vision of sapphire, there was the form of a Throne, and above the form of the Throne, was a form like the vision of a man on it from above. (Ezekiel 1:26)

The Kisey HaKavod is the heavenly "Throne of Glory.” According to the Zohar, it is here from where the souls of Am Yisrael were hewn - it is their spiritual root. The Kisey HaKavod is also related to the power of prophecy since it is the subject of one of the final prophetic visions experienced by one of the last great prophets, Ezekiel. He lived in Babylonia right as the Exile began after the destruction of the First Temple. Prophecy was being phased out as Ezekiel experienced his mystical vision. His description of what he saw is extraordinarily complex and detailed, involving different planes of reality, angelic beings and the likeness of the Heavenly Throne, a “vision of sapphire.” Some hold, including Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan, zt”l, that this vision contained the keys to prophetic meditation, and if properly understood, could serve as a road map to the return of true prophecy. The study of this particular chapter in Ezekiel describing this vision is called maaseh merkavah.

What else is known about the Kisey HaKavod? It is related to what is called the “form of man.” The name “Adam” is, in essence, the term for the perfect Man. We are able to attain this perfection via the middot or sefirot. For those who know a little about Zohar and Kabbalah, a total of ten sefirot comprise the paradigmatic man: Chochma (wisdom), Bina (understanding), Daat (knowledge), Chesed (lovingkindness), Gevurah (strength), Tiferet (harmony), Netzach (victory), Hod (splendor), Yesod (foundation) and Malchut (kingship). Each of these relate to the physical structure of man and was the template that God used to create the world, including the creation of man. Thus, it is only through these attributes that we can relate to God and understand any aspect of Him. Anything else is completely beyond the comprehension of a human being.

The Kisey HaKavod is also related to the war against Amalek, yemach sh'mo—a war that is called "God’s war" since He says, “My Throne is not complete until Amalek is wiped out.” Without entering into a discussion about the nature of Amalek, why he is the arch enemy of the Jews and why it is ultimately God’s war, it is enough to say that he is the disturbance (temporarily) preventing the revelation and completion of God’s sovereignty in this world.

It should be no wonder why the highest secrets of the Torah were revealed in Tsfat and surrounding area. According to the teachings of the Arizal, Tsfat sits directly under the Kisey HaKavod, and is why the Shechina retreated, after the destruction of the First Temple, to the Holy City of Tsfat, contracting Herself upwards, so to speak. The challenge is how to coax her down to touch the ground again in this physical world. This is Rebbe Nachman’s story, The Lost Princess, and one of the reasons why Reb Gedaliah Aharon Kenig, zt”l, took it upon himself to resurrect and rebuild the Old City of Tsfat. Since the power of the tzaddik is greater after his passing, Rebbe Nachman’s continuing efforts on high in the spiritual realm parallel the physical construction and ensuing soul tikkunim within Kiryat Breslev in Tsfat. It is an tumultuous and ongoing story, but Kiryat Breslev today represents this “touching down” of the Shechina, as well as a type of “soul laboratory” where ancient tikkunim are played out… in microcosm of course…

[Image of chair used by kind permission from R' Chaim Menachem Kramer of the Breslev Research Institute in Jerusalem.]

i got sidetracked

16 Kislev 5770

 

Apologies for the 4-week lapse in posts. I haven't scratched the surface of the material that I intend to post here.

I just got sidetracked with setting up another site with some great breslev content. The material is not watered down too much, so if anyone is interested in this type of hi-gear breslev material, please check it out: www.breslevtsfat.com. Boy, did I learn alot about Typepad.

There is ALOT of Chanukah-related material. The longer articles are worth printing out and reading at your leisure. You can see all of them by clicking here.

If you like it, please be sure to subscribe to the feed, since there will be much more material coming of all forms and types that has never been publicized before. There's plenty of English, but don't be intimidated by the Hebrew and Yiddish content (for those who know these languages, the material will be a mechayeh). It will eventually be filtered down into English in a variety of ways.

Hope to return to holy chuppah stuff next week, if not before, IY"H.

premier showing of "tsfat: city of redemption"

14 Cheshvan 5770

Here's the full 23-minute version of the video trailer posted earlier. Enjoy, this is the first time it is being posted online. Depending upon your connection speed, you might need to let it buffer first. (Once it starts playing, stop it and let it continue to buffer--if you don't have the patience to wait, open it in another browser window and do something else while you are waiting...)

the sun's problem

12 Cheshvan 5770

 

Whenever a particular generation has redemption potential, actual redemption always depends upon two forces, or let’s say two energies, coming together. While it’s true that theoretically any generation has its Mashiach candidates, practically, there are simply certain generations that have more redemption potential than others. But it will always depend upon the relationship between these two energies. Rebbe Nachman calls them the Greater Light and the Lesser Light, otherwise known as the sun-moon paradigm. Usually this union takes place between the mind and soul of "teacher and student." One gives and the other receives—the prototypical masculine and feminine relationship.

Using the sun-moon paradigm, the sun has a fundamental problem: its light is too bright and must be constricted to do any good. The moon, on the other hand, has no light of its own, only what it receives from the sun. Spiritually, this means taking intense light that would normally overwhelm (or shatter) the mind and constricting it into a beneficial light that can be comprehended. On a macro level, it means constricting an intense light so it can heal the world.

One of the most significant eras where the redemption almost burst out was during the time of the Arizal, Rabbi Isaac Luria, 500 years ago. Then, the sun-moon drama was played out in the Holy City of Tsfat between the Ari himself and his student, Rabbi Chaim Vital—and both were world-class all-inclusive souls. Between them, they held the world and the key to global redemption.

But that was then.

 

the microcosmic man...

12 Cheshvan 5770

 
…is the soul that holds it all. The original twelve tribes, the twelve sons of Jacob, form the roots of the Jewish people, and usually, each Jew is rooted in one of them. But there is a type of all-inclusive soul, called a "neshama klali," that has the spiritual root of all twelve tribes.

The tribe of Levi in general has this quality and within the Levites are the Kohanim, the priests who serve the entire people by being a conduit of blessing between God and the Jewish people. This is epitomized by the Kohen Gadol, the high priest who is able to effect atonement for the whole nation on Yom Kippur. Beyond the Levites and Kohanim however, there are individuals that, for whatever reason, possess this quality. Many of them are tzaddikim and leaders, many are not. And of course, there are countless variations in levels to the neshama klali as well.

Well, we have to mention Bilaam again, the shady character that mirrored Moses during the forty years Bnei Yisrael wandered in the desert. He was also a type of neshama klali, not of the twelve tribes, but of the seventy nations—the primal roots of the entire rest of the world today. In other words, he personified the essential qualities of every non-Jewish nation.

This point is important to know, since it is one of the secrets of how the final redemption will take place, or rather, how Mashiach will be able to influence the entire world—he will rule over not only the Jewish people, but the rest of the world as well (i.e. “the seventy nations”). The anatomy and technicality of how this will work out is a miraculous combination of events which we will only understand retroactively…    

the power of the microcosm

9 Cheshvan 5770

 
A microcosm is an entity that includes everything else. Because of this, it has the power to influence everything it encompasses. Holistic medicine, for instance, is based on this premise. Maps of our entire organism are imprinted all over our bodies, holding the keys to influence healing on every internal organ. There are countless examples of the microcosm in nature and it is really one of the wonders of creation.

The Jewish Temple in Jerusalem was such a microcosm. It included the entire world. If the non-Jews would have realized its beneficial significance to them, they would have posted guards around it, rather than destroying it. Once it is rebuilt, the entire world will once again benefit beyond imagination.

The microcosm can also apply to nations, countries, cities and the human soul. Of course, this is another term for “essential point.” Regarding a human being, the preciousness of this type of soul should be obvious, since mankind could theoretically be influenced relatively easily through such a soul.

However, it is not as simple as it sounds, since in reality, spiritual wars are fought over the control of these points. Sometimes we see it manifested physically, but not always. Since the destruction of the Temple and subsequent exiles, the fierce struggles over the control of this microcosmic power have been nonstop.

 

Perhaps all of this is a great over-simplification of many issues, since there are endless levels and variation to the microcosm. But it really can give a bit of insight into the anatomy of the final redemption, AKA, the geula shleima.

 

video trailer for "tsfat: city of redemption"

7 Cheshvan 5770

 
Here's a short video trailer of a longer film called "Tsfat: City of Redemption." I hope to post the full 23-minute version sometime in the near future. The film was made in order to answer the question, "Why should anyone care what goes on in Tsfat?"

 

a tsfat primer

7 Cheshvan 5770

 
Tsfat is one of the four holy cities in Israel. The other three are Jerusalem, Hebron and Tiberias. Each city personifies one of the four elements in creation, with four corresponding characteristics:

• Jerusalem: fire / anger (arrogance)
• Tsfat: wind / negative speech of all types
• Hebron: earth / laziness
• Tiberias: water / desire for physical pleasure

Turning each inside out, you get the positive characteristic, which is its “tikkun”—repair. In the case of Jerusalem, anger turned inside out is patience (humility). In Tsfat, turning negative speech into positive means not only not speaking lashon hara (any negative speech about another), but all the other aspects of purifying one’s speech: cutting out any coarse language, speaking positively and, of course, knowing when not to speak. If you actually live in one of these four cities, I guess it could be said that you face special challenges to repairing your respective city’s characteristic. God help us all.

 

All four cities are networked in a profound spiritual way, which means they have a higher spiritual relationship that the physical eye can’t see. Seen in that context, there is no competition between the cities, especially between Jerusalem and Tsfat. The exact opposite is true: Jerusalem and Tsfat are completely dependent upon each other, like heart and mind.

 

The Chasam Sofer, a leading sage in Pressburg (Hungary) in the early nineteenth century, once took great exception to Tsfat’s success. Tsfat had held the crown of Torah since the time of the Arizal, who completely revolutionized the understanding of the Zohar, i.e., “Kabbalah.” Together with him, the city attracted some of the most creative and saintly Jewish minds of all time, causing an explosion of unprecedented spiritual innovation in the late 1500s.

 

For the next two centuries, despite physical disasters, including earthquakes, plagues and pogroms, Tsfat continued to attract new residents who were choosing to settle in Tsfat over Jerusalem. And then, in 1837, there was another devastating earthquake, which leveled the city and claimed thousands of lives. When the news reached the Chasam Sofer in Europe, he eulogized the victims, adding that perhaps the spiritual cause of the earthquake stemmed from the “resentment” Jerusalem felt at being abandoned by her people.

 

However, the deeper truth is that the success of Tsfat is Jerusalem’s success, particularly when it comes to anything concerning the final redemption (including rebuilding the Temple in Jerusalem). The way is paved in Tsfat, and according to the Zohar, Mashiach starts out in Tsfat on his way to Jerusalem.

 

Tsfat is a precious city and a magnet for all kinds of essential points.

 

the essential (bad) point

4 Cheshvan 5770

 
There is another class of essential points that mirror the good essential points. And here, we can use the word “bad”. For every good point, there is a corresponding bad one.

But if we remember the lesson of the Eishet Chayil, the woman of valor from the book of Proverbs, any bad point turned inside out becomes a good one. There is one exception: the irredeemable point contained in the entity called Amalek that we are required to remember on Parshat Zachor—the Torah reading on the Shabbat before Purim. There will come a time when even the memory of this point is completely wiped out, but this is ultimately God’s war, not ours.

 

An essential bad point can be described as an attribute. And just as with an essential good point, there are also individuals who carry the essential bad point of a given attribute. What humility was to Moses, arrogance was to Bilaam, who was basically a big time sorcerer who possessed the same power of prophecy that Moses did, but from the impure side.

 

What are the characteristics of Bilaam? He was a world class greedy person. The power of his evil eye to harm others was legendary. Here are a few other aspects to the Bilaam personality (Likutey Moharan 36 discusses him in even greater depth) :

• Jealousy
• Lover of materialism, expressed as a hoarding mentality
• Looking at other people’s stuff and wanting it
• Not being satisfied with one’s portion, always wanting more

 

I am mentioning these characteristics to show the extreme, and as we identify in ourselves even a subtle hint of them, we can already start disassociating ourselves from these tendencies. Together with Divine assistance, if you do the work, it is possible to eventually phase them out of your personality completely. After all, we were each given a whole sack of bad characteristics at birth anyway, only to do the work and turn ourselves inside out.

 

It is said that Mashiach knows exactly how to harness the power of negative attributes (klipot) to effect redemption, i.e., to fix the world by restoring all the holy sparks in creation to their true place. But how can you restore them when they have fallen so far into the very materiality of creation itself? There are many examples I could bring, but I’ll give one practical example. Let’s say someone is extremely materialistic, possessive and greedy (together with their good points, because no one is completely "bad"). The messianic dynamic would be to use the very power of these bad characteristics themselves to dig down into materialism (“stuff”) in order to access places a more spiritually inclined person would never be able to reach, since they lack the same drive.

 

This is particularly true if these two share the same soul root. The more materialistic person temporarily takes the place of the more spiritual one until they reach as far into the depths of materiality as possible by possessing and hoarding as much materiality (and accompanying holy sparks) to themselves as possible. Once the work is completed, and the sparks are gathered together, the more material person is returned to their true place, leaving the original individual to come back and complete the work of that soul root. On a macro level, we can see how this dynamic was used to create the State of Israel, a story that is far from over. It is a wondrous tikkun, but who is able to tolerate the discomfort stemming from the (necessary) disorder created by the points being temporarily out of their true place?

 

And this is what is happening in the Holy City of Tsfat in her innermost chambers…

 

the essential point

2 Cheshvan 5770

 
In every generation, there are various specific individuals who carry the essential point of a given characteristic, called the “nekuda.” What this means is that they hold the innermost point of that quality. Others may have aspects of this point, but not its central essence. You can see a clear reference to this in Rebbe Nachman’s story, The Seven Beggars, the Third Day where it talks about the “heart of the world”.

 

This is true of many types of qualities for example like humility and kedushat habrit (sanctity of the covenant, i.e. total and absolute purity in sexual matters). There are individuals who actually hold these points. I once heard in the name of Reb Gedaliah Aharon Kenig, zt”l, that in the previous generation, the Baba Sali, zt"l, (Rabbi Yisrael Abuchatzeira) held the point of kedushat habrit and Rabbi Mordechai Sharabi, zt"l, one of the greatest kabbalists of the previous generation, held the point of humility. Interestingly, he was also considered the point of Moses, known for his profound humility.

 

This is even true about the Mashiach candidates, for example, Mashiach ben David and Mashiach ben Yosef. There are certain individuals who hold the essential Mashiach point in every generation, although there are generations that possess more redemptive potential than others. History is replete with examples of this.

 

And this would also be true of malchut, the attribute of “kingship.” King David held the malchut point in his time even though malchut is essentially a feminine attribute. The woman who inspired this blog seemed to me to embody the innermost point of malchut that upheld the world during her lifetime. Of course, I can’t prove it one way or the other, but I am pretty convinced of it nonetheless.

 

Everyone possesses an aspect of malchut which serves as a connecting point for numerous other related souls, like branches of a tree (you can check out the concept in Likutey Moharan 56). And each person spiritually influences the souls connected to them, usually completely unaware of anything going on, unless you are a Hollywood or rock star, or l’havdil, the Kohen Gadol on Yom Kippur. Some have a great number of souls connected to them, some have less (kind of like Facebook friends…). But even that doesn’t really express what is going on here since it depends on quality, not quantity. In other words, how “essential” is the point in each soul? A person could be influencing the world much more by being connected to fewer souls, if these held more essential points, i.e., still other souls, and so on. The connections between these souls serve as channels through which the spiritual influence flows. What a network.

Within these essential points lies the secret of the final redemption which will be facilitated through these channels, and once it begins, there won’t be anything that can stop it.