Tag Archives: Kabbalist Principles

Shefa: How the Kabbalah Understands Abundance

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Many people tend to understand the concept of abundance in rather narrow, material terms. Abundance is thought of generally as material wealth. The Kabbalist term, Shefa, applies a much broader perspective and a far wider definition to the concept; one that has very significant implications regarding how to experience life fully.

In Kabbalist thinking, the whole point to creation on one level is to be the recipient of God’s goodness. In Genesis, God is continually seeing the process of creation and Creation itself as being the embodiment of good. The entire universe is predicated on the foundation of good and the divine intention is therefore to continue to provide goodness to all realms in order to support that underlying base.

The concept of Shefa is a particularly important one in Kabbalist teaching; one that is central in understanding how the universe in general and humanity in particular are sustained. The principle implies the concept that like flows to like. God creates the world as the supreme manifestation of good and then sustains it constantly with the flow of goodness.

Though the word, Shefa, literally means abundance, in Kabbalist terms it implies considerably more than that. Shefa is actually, on the broadest level, the flow of goodness that comes to our world from the higher planes of existence. This means that first and foremost, the Shefa is a specific form of light that is sent down on one hand and drawn down on the other. It is the light of intended good and specific benefit.

This light is meant to add new vitality to the world and to enrich the experience of all who dwell on earth. In human terms, Shefa comes as blessing and has many forms. It can provide enlightenment, transformation and wisdom on the spiritual plane, evolution, growth and empowerment on the psycho-emotional level and resources,wealth and opportunity in the material world.

The Shefa is a dimension of the light of the Sefirah, Hesed. It is light that emanates from Hesed with a specific function. The light of Hesed per se is the force that gives life and sustains the world and all that is in it. That light is the energy of the Sefirah, Hesed. The Shefa is the derivative light of Hesed. The Shefa is that is blessing.

There is an intimate relationship between Hesed itself and the Shefa, but they are not the same thing. The Shefa is an energy that emerges from the light of Hesed. Its function is to bring blessing, benefit and enrichment to all the higher realms in general and the world in specific. The energy flow of Hesed is that of life force, the energy that enlivens both the higher levels of existence as well as our own. Without it the universe could not exist. Hesed’s energy is the lifeblood of creation as a whole and its flow is divinely ordained constant.

The Shefa, the flow of goodness, blessing, benefit and abundance is an additional element to the equation. Whereas the light of Hesed is a consistent factor in the maintenance of reality The Shefa is far more variable. It is effected by factors other than just the Divine Will.

The Shefa, on one hand, is send down from Hesed by divine direction, but on the other hand is drawn down to our level by need, by circumstance and in response to human action. Life force, Hesed, is sent from above as the sustaining power within creation. The Shefa, blessing and abundance, are a flow that is regulated. It is the level of benefit and enrichment specifically being activated and brought down from below.

The idea is that if there is a true need for blessing, healing and the manifestation of goodness on our level, in our lives, we have to seek it actively. We need to request it, make sure we are living our lives in a manner that renders us deserving of blessing and we must be completely open to receiving it when it arrives. As a result of our stimulus, the energy we are generating ascends and reverberates in the Sefirah of Hesed. Hesed, then responds by increasing the flow of the Shefa, which descends to our level proportionally.

We can be blessed and enriched in many ways that take on a multitude of forms, some recognizable and some extremely subtle. Abundance can come in many forms; physical  or emotional health, prosperity and wealth, enlightenment and wisdom, love and support, community and friendship, insight and expanded awareness, spiritual development and inner peace.

One way or the other, when the Shefa reaches us we are nourished, supported and nurtured. With the Shefa, the light in our lives expands and our whole reality and experience of life are positively enhanced. The Shefa is the arrival of the good in response to goodness. Through centering our lives on doing good, we send our light up through the higher realms of existence and stimulate Hesed, the source of goodness. What comes down to us  as Shefa as a result needs to always be understood as the purpose of creation as it is manifesting in our life.

Our response to this influx of blessings, richness and benefit needs to be  one of genuine recognition of the divine intent, the appropriate use of what has been bestowed on us and gratitude.

Rabbi Fisdel

The Internal Process of Redemption

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In the Tree of Life, the Kabbalist model of existence, the very center of human experience is the Sefirah of Tiferet, the level of the heart. The heart is seen as the core of our conscious connection with the world and with our lives in it. The heart is the psycho-emotional nexus that serves as the soul’s platform for being present in physical reality and acting out life purpose.

In other words, as sentient beings in the world, the Kabbalah sees the heart as our full conscious presence. We are totally present and conscious in life, only if we are operating effectively from the heart. Our experience in the world, our ability to receive from it and our work within it are all based on the combination of mind and emotion operating together from the heart perspective.

Full human consciousness in the world is understood to be the melding and balance of mind and emotion, which occur at the level of the heart. Being fully human means to be heart based and centeredness in the heart involves an internal balancing of thought and emotion.

The Kabbalist view is that one’s soul engages life through the heart. To be fully oneself and be present in life requires clarity, which in turn involves experiencing day-to-day existence specifically from an unencumbered psycho-emotional position. That is, being balanced mentally and emotionally in the heart centers us  and makes life a clear,  unobstructed reality. It is a way of being in the world and within ourselves at the same time to the highest degree possible. Being centered in Tiferet is the path of open heartedness, acceptance and compassion.

It is not hard for us to be thrown off course in life, if our heart energy is adversely effected, because we have lost our natural, internal center of gravity. Whatever encumbers or burdens the heart immediately impairs our ability to function as ourselves in the world. What shackles the heart is imbalance and the disruption of focus.

In order to understand this, we need to remember that the heart level, Tiferet is flanked on the left and right by four other Sefirot. Surrounding Tiferet are the Sefirot of Hesed, Gevurah, Netzakh and Hod. These are the forces of mind and emotion, in human terms. When functioning properly they support and give added expression to the heart’s energy. When out of balance, however, healthy psycho-emotional function is either thrown off track or worse, distorted.

Overemphasis or excessive focus on any or all of these levels can create a bondage of the heart, a restriction of the heart’s function and a distinct loss of psychological and emotional equilibrium. A heavy concentration of energy in one Sefirah leads to a depletion of energy in another, which invariably creates serious impairment and resulting malfunction, first in the heart and subsequently in the whole of one’s conscious existence. One’s life is no longer optimal. One is not free to be oneself, because the condition of balance has been undermined.

For example, taking on the concerns of others constantly is a distortion within Hesed. Excessive concern with one’s own issues is a malfunction in Gevurah. Not being able to sufficiently distinguish one’s own emotions from those of other people is a problem in Netzakh and harsh, incessant, internal self-judgment is a curse created in Hod. These are all distortions within the realms surrounding Tiferet. They have very detrimental effects that are all constrictive, impairing our ability to be truly heart centered and thereby fully oneself in life.

If we cannot fully live our lives, unable to be ourselves because the heart center is damaged, then we as individuals are under very serious constraint. Our ability to completely express who we are is being compromised due to the malfunction at our center. So, to a large extent our ability to fulfill our life purpose is under siege and we are in battle within ourselves. We are imprisoned by our own malfunctioning system.

How does one emancipate Self from the bondage of psychological and emotional imbalance and the chains it places on our being? The answer is through the process of Internal Redemption.

The basic meaning of the term “redeem” is to rescue something or someone through the act of purchase. In Kabbalist thought, one of the chief connotations of “redeem” is to restore someone to his or her original state. Energy therefore is exerted to rectify a state of denigration and re-establish the person’s integrity.

Redemption is not the healing process, though healing is often a decided effect. Redemption is not emancipation. Becoming free is the platform on which redemption can take place, but the redemption itself is the process of restoring an individual’s freedom of complete self-expression. Redemption is the return of a positive sense of self and the re-instatement of full function as a soul operating in the world.

When our heart has been burdened, weighed down, constrained or shut down, redemption is the process of readjusting the balance between thought and feeling. It is the realignment of the mind and the emotions, so that they become a united, inner harmony, a balanced ebb and flow of psycho-emotional interplay. That is the sign of a healthy, heart-based individual, who is fully and consciously present in the world and in the moment.

So, how is this accomplished?

The key is in the center pillar of the Tree. To regain the centrality of the heart, to bring back a reality of heart-based existence, requires reversing the displacement of energy that has taken place.

To engage the areas of overload directly either will exacerbate or possibly complicate the problem. At best, if a solution can be created by working through the problem areas, it will be a complex one. One is dealing with a bewildering array of variables and interactions that occur at this level, between Hesed, Gevurah, Netzakh and Hod.

To effectively bring Tiferet back into balance primarily involves drawing on the spiritual plane and allowing ones own inner light and wisdom to emanate down from the depths of one’s being, from the hidden realm of Keter, Khochmah and Binah.

The spiritual force of the soul, when one deliberately connects with it, will reach the heart directly and re-align it with life purpose as a matter of course. The resulting restoration of the heart will then redistribute the energy and bring all of the surrounding Sefirot back to normal function and harmony. The soul has to be called to redeem the heart. The heart redeemed, then rectifies the energy balance and flow within the surrounding realms. It simply does not work the other way around.

As the Kabbalists would say, this is a great mystery and one should ponder it very carefully.

Rabbi Fisdel

April 2011

 

About Light, Creation and Us

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The view in Kabbalah regarding the nature of light and its function is founded on the Creation narrative in Genesis. Biblically, when the heavens and earth were created initially the earth was in chaos and amorphous. God’s command, “let there be light” not only brings light into existence, but makes it the very foundation upon which creation stands.

The light at first is implicit in the darkness. God refers to the light as goodness and this reference is made before God separates the light from the dark. The light is then made manifest in its own right. At the point where this occurs, dark and light become the revolving cycle of time and of life. There is evening and then morning as each subsequent day of creation emerges.

As God first makes heaven and earth, the earth plane is described as a deep, dark field of chaos and turmoil. Since the darkness is specifically associated with the earth level as it emerges, light by implication is confined originally at the higher level of the heavens. On the earth plane, light is still hidden within the darkness. The heavens are stable and the earth is not. Light and the divine will implicit in it are at first contained in the heavens, not yet manifest on the earthly plane.

The earth at this point has been created, but not yet formatted. So then God says, “Let there be light”, meaning that light is being extended from the higher planes toward the primordial commotion on earth. The effect on our level, the earth plane, is dramatic and vital. Once the light enters this level, it establishes itself here by separating the experience of light from that of dark. Once integrated into our reality, the interplay of light and dark becomes the experience of good and the cycle of life. The reality of light per se is the ordering principle of creation. The presence of light creates and sustains order. There is evening. Then there is morning and another day of creation is finished. Light emerges and follows the darkness in the flow of creative forces. By doing so, the principle of light progressively brings things into existence and then serves as the force behind evolution and development.

On each day of creation a new level of reality unfolds successively. Light follows
the dark. The waters are separated and dry land appears. Then there is darkness again succeeded by light and vegetation appears on the land. The cycle of dark and light repeats and animals begin to appear and so on. Light is the understood as the force that both brings order to chaos, creates the cycles of time and also directs the forces of life that cause progression, change and development in all that exists in the world.

In the physical universe, darkness is the primal matter, the unformed frenetic commotion, waiting to be acted upon and given form and meaning. The dark is the potential of life. In response to the dark and in fulfillment of it is the light. It is the light, which acts upon the deep, on the vast ocean of darkness and potential.

The word of God, the articulation of the divine thought, ‘Let there be light’ is the act of bringing creation, the universe, as we know it, into clear focus and explicit form. Light is the organizational principle that brings everything into definition and imparts function and purpose to all that is. Light is also the very driving force behind change and evolution, which are the central pillars of physical existence. Light represents the flow of life and the expression of our experience as created beings.

Light is the manifestation of the divine will on all levels of existence. The soul is an
eternal spark of the divine, an intense focal point of pure light. So, as long as we are present on the earth, we must remain fully conscious of our role and responsibility here. Our task is to continually bring through the light of creative genius and by doing so, create new levels of meaning and understanding in the world in order to further the evolution of life experience.

We must remain ever conscious of the reality that we as souls are the very embodiment of light on the physical plane, which implies enormous responsibility. That is the essence of the Biblical message. May it be in our hearts and in the forefront of our minds always.

Rabbi Steven Fisdel

The True Dynamics of Prayer

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There are times in the course of our lives, when circumstances impel us to talk to God directly, to pray from the depths of our souls and to express our thoughts and emotions freely, outside the context of formal prayer. We feel the need to pray to God in a straightforward, personal, intimate manner.

When attempting to do so, we experience one of the most difficult aspects of personal prayer; formulating a starting point. If one is seeking to express themselves to God directly from the heart, the hardest part of the process is knowing where exactly to begin.

The true beginning of prayer is not knowing what to say. If one is coming to stand before God, what is there to say? What can we tell God, that God does not already know? Faced with the realization of how vast the universe is, we are often overwhelmed and speechless. How much more so, are we overcome with awe and humbled, when we approach the Creator of the Universe?

In human perception, the distance between God and man can often appear to be so vast, that God seems unapproachable or remote. Under such conditions, prayer would seem to be of no value nor of any purpose. One cannot get close to God, if God is so distant as to be felt to be beyond reach. This view of our relationship to God is really not workable. If one clings to the perception that God is remote and unreachable, there is really nowhere to go.

Prayer is best understood in different terms. Prayer, in Jewish tradition, is not meant to be recited per se. Rather, prayers are meant to be expressed. Prayer should not be relegated to mere verbal explanation or to the reciting of doctrine. True prayer is the meditation of the heart. Prayer, in its essence, is affirmation of our intimate relationship with God.

In the days when the Holy Temple stood in Jerusalem, worship was the act of sacrifice. In acknowledgement for what God had provided, or in acceptance of God’s Will, or in admission of a mistake, one would give something back to God. The offering could be the first fruits of the field. It could be a harvest offering, part of the bounty one received. What one offered to God was one’s most prized possession. One gave something of himself or herself.

The sacrifices were prescribed in detail by biblical law. God set down quite a number of Mitzvot regarding the exact nature of each of the sacrifices. The prayers recited were supplemental to the act of offering the sacrifice. Prayer was left up to the individual to express. King David wrote prayers and psalms to God from his own personal experience. The Levites in the Temple composed the liturgy themselves. The prophets and seers created songs and poems to God, throughout the Biblical period. As occasions arose, and the people were overcome by joy and thanksgiving, prayer was created spontaneously. This tradition extends all the way back to Moses and Miriam.

True prayer is the expression of heartfelt emotion. It is our dialogue with God. Whether we choose to put our hearts and souls into the prayers of the traditional liturgy, or whether we create our own, whether we meditate on the words of others or put our feelings into the wordless melodies of Niggunim, the same objective is being accomplished. We are reconnecting with God, through emotional reaffirmation.

We are affirming our essence as created beings by allowing ourselves to express our sense of self, our sense of thanksgiving and our sense of joy. We are open to communicating our exhilaration as created essences, directly to the Creator. By opening our hearts, we sing, we articulate, we rejoice and we connect with that which is at the heart of all existence, God’s Love and God’s Presence in the World.

To pray fully, is to allow the soul to open up and to reaffirm its connection with God, by honoring the experiences of one’s life. It is in the day to day world that we learn about ourselves. It is in the mundane realm of everyday life, that we experience joy and sadness, hope and disappointment, success and failure. What exalts these events and makes them important, are two factors; how we understand them and how we express them.

By expressing our feelings and emotions to God directly and by articulating our needs and our perceptions, we spiritualize our experience and elevate it to the level of holiness. We exalt our life, by elevating our life experience to the level of communication with God. That is why prayer followed sacrifice. From the doing, comes the understanding. From the understanding comes the joy. From the joy come the exaltation and the gratitude.

When we can drop the ego, and fall back to the point of true humility, when we are not too proud or too stubborn to talk to God, directly, heart to heart, then we give real meaning to our lives. Through true prayer, that which is heartfelt and consciously focused, we spiritualize our earthly existence. We transcend the plane of mundane consciousness and ascend to the higher realms of being, when we choose to live our lives as dialogues with God.
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To achieve communion with God, we must understand and offer prayer in its truest form, as emotional affirmation and as dialogue with God. We need to structure our lives as perpetual expressions of that interaction, which is the essence of prayer, thereby elevating the experiential content and spiritual awareness of our earthly existence. Let our prayers be like rivers, that well up from deep beneath the surface and create their own paths as they grow and extend toward their source.

Rabbi Steven Fisdel

Spiritual Emergence

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There are periods within our lives, when we, as individuals, go through tremendous internal change and deep soul searching. During such periods of introspection, transition and self evaluation, whether or not we are consciously aware of it, we have made a commitment to God and to ourselves. We have undertaken to do great inner work. We have committed our inner being to laboring, diligently, toward achieving greater self understanding. Through this process of internal focus, we deliberately orient our conscious selves toward facilitating our own spiritual growth.

In Jewish tradition, this process of inner soul work is an annual occurance. It begins with the High Holy Days of Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur, and culminates on the festival of Sukkot and Simchat Torah. Having passed through a three week period of deep soul searching, rectification, repentance and atonement, an individual emerges from the most intense and most spiritually charged periods of the Jewish year.

If one has done the work self examination effectively, he or she has succeeded in transforming themselves internally. They have utilized, properly, the Days of Judgement (the High Holidays) for inner cleansing and spiritual realignment and have reaffirmed their relationship to God, through gratitude and joy during the season of Thanksgiving (Sukkot-Simchat Torah).

Deep inner work, when done in earnest, brings with it very practical consequences on the psychological, emotional and spiritual levels. If we have carried out, fully, the process of searching our souls, admitting our mistakes, rectifying the damage we have done and realigning ourselves to the good, the flow of divine love, we come out of this experience, holy, cleansed and reborn. For we have reached within and faced our own failings. We have reconciled with God and now, place our complete trust in God’s compassion and guidance. A great door has been opened.

Once a door is opened, many things can happen. You can find the morning paper or the dog can get loose. Guests and friends can arrive or an unwanted solicitor can. Regardless, the result is that by opening the door, fresh air circulates, connecting you with the greater world outside. You find that you are free to come and go. There are a lot of possibilities. Some anticipated and some totally unexpected.

The same holds true, when one opens the door of the heart. True return to God and to Self must come from the heart. Without emotion or without allowing for the meditations of the heart and the inner knowingness it provides, we would not be human. It is the heart, that makes us in the image of God. By allowing for the opening of the heart, much is brought to the surface and to the point of direct experience. Some of what comes forth from within, is anticipated. Some is accepted. Some is welcome. Some is overpowering.

During spiritual change, we are constantly being prompted to move forward, to move beyond where we were, to where we need to be next. Often, our conscious mind is the last part of our being to know this. It is the conscious mind that is also the most resistant to change, frequently. In the intensity of periods of deep internal transformation and due to their enormous potency, one can encounter a storm of powerful feelings. One can experience an upsurge of issues or an onslaught of events, which are, completely unanticipated and quite possibly, totally overwhelming. This is part of the process of spiritual emergence.

I would define spiritual emergence as an internal shift, prompted by the soul, that changes one’s life by altering one’s perspective. This type of change can be very abrupt and disconcerting. However, it will lead one to the next level of spiritual awareness and development, if one chooses to ride the process out.

When a spiritual shift takes place that is being orchestrated from within, emotions long suppressed or left unacknowledged, can explode to the surface in order to be recognized and dealt with. Events can occur, that shake the foundation of a person’s beliefs and disrupt the traditional ways one has looked at or approached something. What is happening is important to understand.

When you experience such a shift, your inner being has made a decision. It decided, that not only is it necessary for you to move on spiritually, but also that you are ready and able to handle it, whether your mind thinks so or not. It is laying the cards out on the table and you have to play out the hand. If you handle the situations presented to you, if you work out the life puzzles before you and weather the emotional storm, you will emerge a spiritually stronger and more integrated person.

There is no right or wrong way to handle what your inner self is impelling you to deal with. The critically important element is simply, that it is handled and processed. Then and only then, does one move on.

When one, successfully, works through this soul directed process of change, one passes through and moves beyond guilt and shame. One arrives, ultimately, at the point of spiritual maturation. Here, guilt and shame have dissipated forever. The choice one faces, here, is crucial. The choice is between learning to grow, spiritually, as a soul or delaying progress, indefinitely, by not facing one’s issues.

To expand and develop spiritually is the essence of existence on all levels of being. Spiritual evolution is the very core of life. Sometimes, we are lead to seek the path and walk it diligently. We are prompted to make changes and are given the insight and courage to embark on the journey. At other times, the door is suddenly thrust open and we are booted out, finding ourselves on the road, de facto. Sometimes, that is the way it has to be. The choice to move on spiritually can come from conscious choice or it can be thrust upon us from deep within. The former path is that of spiritual quest. The latter one is the route of spiritual emergence. Either way, one finds themselves on the road to soul development.

Whichever way one comes to embark on the path, it will eventually be the cause of great excitement, anticipation and joy. For the road leads to God. It is the path of life improvement on all levels. It is the way of peace, if walked in honesty and integrity. Spiritual emergence is one’s arrival at a new crossroads in life. This is a sacred event. It is not to be feared. It is to be welcomed.

Travel the road of spiritual emergence and pursuit with earnestness and devotion. Always bear in mind, that the conflict, pain, anxiety and confusion, you may encounter, are only signs along the roadside. They are, by no means, the road itself. The way of the spirit is the path of inner peace.

Coping With Darkness

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With the coming of winter, we embrace not only the beginning of a new year, we are also faced with having to work through the season of darkness. During this season, days are still short and the nights are, determinedly long. The ground turns cold and vegetation is in stasis. There is no growth in nature, just extended darkness and cold rains.

There are seasons within our own lives when similar conditions prevail. Unexpected events, sudden change or misfortune, trauma or distress can affect us emotionally the same way. The loss of a job, the departure of a loved one, dashed hopes or broken dreams can send us into our own personal winters. That is part of the cycle of life.

For human beings, winter represents an end point. It represents the termination of an element or phase of our lives. There is a distinct finality to such moments, be it the conclusion of a relationship, be it the death of a loved one or be it the end of a personal era, manifested as a career change or a transition into middle age.

We humans, as sentient beings, have an option that neither the natural world nor the animal kingdom possesses. We have choice. We have the freedom and ability to alter our focus, to change the perspectives we have on our lives and our situation. We can perceive things differently, if we so choose to. An end can be mourned or it can be honored. The past can be pined for as an irretrievable loss or it can be cherished as valued experience. The decision is in our hands, exclusively.

During times of difficulty or pain, we can choose to sink into our own void and let the darkness overcome us. We can surrender to despondency, despair and melancholy. We can yield to anger, recrimination and aggression.

Surrendering to despair comes as a result of inaction. Outbursts of anger and hostility are reaction patterns to pain. Both approaches, one passive and one overt, lead to the same place, to a deepening of the darkness. Both stem from emotional investment in our own limited egos.

Winter, if properly understood, offers us a great opportunity. It is the season of regeneration, the season of rest. Darkness, in its truest sense, is not an absence of light nor is it the negation of light. It is the partner of light. Light is energy, growth and movement. It is joy, desire and achievement.

True darkness is the quietude of rejuvenation. It is the rebuilding process, by which the universe strengthens itself. It is the time, when the hidden forces of nature are busy regrouping. When there is darkness, life force is regaining it’s integrity, so that at the proper season it will reemerge and produce growth and revival.

Understanding this, we should look at the difficult periods of our lives in the exact same vein. When loss or disruption, misfortune or defeat affect our lives, we must embrace it. Such times are, in essence, an opportunity to close down what can no longer be, to relinquish what has already spent it’s energy or that which, simply, has finished running it’s course.

For spiritual, emotional and psychological growth to take place, we need to make room for it to happen. This involves a process of release. We have let go of what we no longer need. We have to relinquish that which we are still carrying within us, which may have been necessary and important at an earlier stage of our lives, but now has become either useless and burdensome to us or worse, detrimental.

This emptying process, though of great importance, produces a sense of loss and with loss comes grief. The aftermath of experiencing either a loss or a release is the process of grieving. It is, truly, necessary to grieve a loss. Grieving is essential to the process of letting go on all levels, emotionally, psychologically and spiritually. To grieve is to empty oneself out. By so doing, one leaves the cup empty, so to speak, making room for endless, new possibility.

Once an individual empties out the old psychological constructs and disposes of the accompanying emotional contents, the way is open to internal regeneration and eventually, to the attainment of a new state of consciousness. There is a critical stage of transition between one’s past, completed experience and a new expression of one’s life. It is achieved by passing through the grief.

The stage beyond grief is that of neutrality, rest and peace. Our periods of darkness should be times of release, inner quiet and restoration. True darkness is the season of renewal. As such, we should accept it with open mind and embrace it with a tranquil heart. It is the gateway to spiritual evolution.

Periods of darkness, when understood properly, are the times of post-completion. After we have let go and released what we have finished with, in our life experience, there is a sacred time of peace. There is a period of great quiet when we become whole. During this sacred time, if we are using the darkness properly, we avail ourselves of the opportunity and the need to focus on the hidden resources deep within us. The season of darkness is the time to attune ourselves to the deep wells of spirit within and let the waters, there, be replenished by our connection to God.

The season of darkness is not a time of barrenness. It is not a time of death. The season of darkness is the time of restoration and regeneration. It is dark, not in the sense of the absence of light, but rather, that darkness is the manifestation of the hidden, the secret and the sacred. It is peace.

May God who establishes peace in the highest heavens, grant us the courage to forego what has past, to dwell securely in the quietude within and to embrace its potential for the future. And we say, Amen.

Rabbi Steven Fisdel

The Human Dichotomy: Good and Evil

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The reality of Good and Evil expresses itself differently in Judaism, than in other religious traditions. Good and evil is not a strict duality in Jewish belief. Rather, they are seen as coming from the same basic source, God’s Will.

Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, thereby bringing them both into the world, by their actions. The act of assimilating the knowledge of good and evil produced its emergence in the world. In other words, good and evil was a potential that was brought into the world by man’s conscious decision. It was an act of will on mankind’s part. It did not have to be made manifest. In fact, God specifically had told the couple not to do so.

The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil stood at the heart of the garden of Eden. Therefore, it had a legitimate place within the structure of Creation. However, that was not meant for mankind to assimilate. God says so directly. He prohibits them from eating of the fruit of that tree. The Knowledge of Good and Evil, the full understanding of the polar principles that govern the functioning of the universe, was not meant for human beings to take upon themselves.

Once, having done so, the basic polarity of existence was fundamentally changed, as far as human experience is concerned.  Now, humanity was able to make subjective determinations. Everything would be seen through the focus of positive and negative, good and evil. Yet, much of this viewpoint is purely subjective. What is good for one person, may be evil for another. What is beneficial to one group of people, may be detrimental or devastating to another. What benefits one group, may be doing so at the expense of another.  When we make value judgements, we are overlaying connotations of good or bad on the basic duality of the world.

Everything in Creation is polarized into dualities. Living beings are either male or female. Space is polarized into left and right, forward and backward, up and down. Energy is the dualism of electricity and magnetism. Life takes place by movement within time and space. The basic duality of existence is inescapable.

So, what did Adam and Eve do when they ate of the Tree? They introduced subjective value judgment into the equation. Now, instead of seeing right and left or this and that as neutral and natural, they saw everything as good or bad. This added perception produces great distortion.  If one is looking at two apples, one fresh and one that is rotting, it is not necessarily true to assume that the former one is good and the latter apple is bad.

The rotting apple may fall to the ground and serve as badly needed fertilizer, which is good from nature’s standpoint. Whereas, there may too many apples on the tree, and the ripening one being considered, is draining off much needed resources from the other fruit. This prevents the apples on the tree from coming to full fruition. Hence, the whole crop of apples ultimately, will be ruined.

Goodness and Evil, good and bad are not always appropriate considerations. Much in life is actually neutral or a balanced admixture of positive and negative. Good or bad is merely a function of how something is being viewed.

Very little in nature is either good or bad per se. Rather, something becomes good or bad based upon how it is used. Enormous harm and tremendous evil have been done to countless people and nations over the millennia, in the name of what was thought to be the ultimate good.

The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil stood in the Garden of Eden to regulate the balance of the opposing forces, that constitute the very makeup of the world. That force of regulation was planted by God. The Tree was meant to serve Creation on a level of its own, beyond the pale of human comprehension and human thought. When Adam and Eve ate of the Tree, they took it upon themselves to decide, what in the world was good and what was evil. The making of such distinctions would inevitably derive strictly from their own narrow frame of reference. This was the sin of mankind. We set ourselves up as the ultimate judges of what is and what is not reality. Moreover, we continue to make such decisions, and we are doing so through the distorted lens of subjective value judgment.

By setting ourselves up as judges, we are preempting God, the true, eternal judge. Our distorted perceptions lead to inappropriate action, causing harm, damage and destruction on many levels. We are bringing evil into the world, through actions precipitated by confusion and misconception.

How do we escape this unending cycle of good and evil, progress and retrogression? The answer is implied in the Book of Job. At the end of the story, at the point where Job admits he cannot fathom evil and suffering, God forces the issue. God demands to know why Job or anyone else, for that matter, thinks they can know the mind and intent of God. The true roots of good and evil lie deep in the very fabric of Creation, in the Will of God. This is far beyond the scope of human comprehension. No human explanation will ever be adequate to even remotely approximate the true reality. Why does man persist in distorting the world and human experience by playing God and making subjective judgments and then casting them in terms of good and evil?
A return to Eden involves the surrender by humanity of this dualistic view of the universe, and the permanent release of judgmentalism. Mankind must move beyond the cycle of good and evil, that has dominated human experience from the beginning. We need to return to the original pattern of experience, symbolized by Eden. Mankind must allow itself to be guided by God directly, rather than by the limited insight of our own reason.

The question then, is how exactly is this achieved?  Before mankind was created, God judged all of Creation to be good. The universe is innately good, according to the Torah. No mention of evil is made at all, in the description of Creation.This suggests, that there is a universal Good that transcends both good and evil as we understand it. There is a transcendent Good that is at the core of all Creation. Good and evil are relative to each other. They are interdependent. Without one, the other ceases to exist. This relative good, that we usually experience then, is only a reflection of the transcendent Good that underlies Creation.

The dichotomy of good and evil that mankind brought into the world interferes with our ability to experience the true Good.  According to the Book of Deuteronomy, good and evil is really a set of choices that we are forced to make continually. Choose life and good or death and evil. Choose to serve God or choose to abandon God. Do not assume that understanding what God wants from us is hidden away somewhere or far beyond our reach. That is not the case. God’s Will is very near to us. It is within our hearts and souls.

This is what the Torah teaches us.  To reach the Good, we must pass through the dichotomy of good and evil. We must first strive for the good, listen to our hearts, study the Torah and work to serve God. We must remain firm in our convictions and resist the temptations of ego and misplaced emotion that lead to sin and destructive behavior. By working through the good and resisting the inclination to do evil, we move in the direction of connecting with the transcendent Good, the light of holiness and joy, that is beyond good and evil as we understand it.

The Transcendent Good stands alone. It is eternal. It is the underlying force in all Creation. This is the goodness, light and love that will one day rule all life on earth, when evil has passed away and the Kingdom of God is finally established. May our lives reflect that coming reality. May our daily existence be filled with a striving for the good, so that we each lay down a small part of the foundation of God’s everlasting kingdom, little by little, in our everyday life. If we do this, we become one with God and God’s Will.

Rabbi Fisdel

www.classicalkabbalist.org