Dear Family of Friends,
Over the past few Shabbatot, I have had the great pleasure of gathering with a few learners to study a series of seven mystical concepts (known as sefirot) associated with the seven weeks of the Omer that extend from Passover to the summer harvest holiday of Shavuot – on which tradition tells us our people received the Torah at Sinai. Mystical wisdom is famous for being elusive and hard to grasp, and there have indeed been moments of confusion in our classes; we have also found the ideas to be deeply resonant to our modern lives, and I’d like to share a few of these concepts with you.
According to the mystics of the kabbalah, the fundamental force that built and still maintains the universe is love. Say what you will about the role of love in the existence of rocks and trees, we all know that no child – or adult, for that matter – can thrive without love. Both our personal relationships and our communities are founded on g’milut chassadim – acts of lovingkindness — and depend upon that force for their continued existence.
Gevurah, the counterpart of chesed, is the face of God that Isaac encountered when bound on the altar. It is judgement and unyielding reality. It is also the force that limits and controls the flow of creative love, and the source of discipline and boundaries in our experience. If creative talent is the flow of chesed, gevurah is the capacity to diligently practice and turn that creativity into skill.
Unboundried love can also be a destructive force. Parents can be either smothering or overly permissive. Unwanted amorous attention can be as distressing as unrequited love. A desire to give to other people can lead us to give away so much of our money, our time, or our energy, that we end up with none left to give another day. While the world is animated by love, it cannot exist on love alone.
The kabbalists see these two forces of chesed and gevurah coming into balance in tif’eret. Love, properly channeled, manifests as compassion. An excess of gevurah leads us to be judgemental of others; too much chesed can be oppressive or exhaust itself. But when the two impulses are in balance, we are able to truly see another person and their needs.
In our weekly meetings, we take the time to examine how these forces manifest in our own lives, inviting us to mindfully question our habits and bring wisdom to our relationships. As we explore each of the remaining sefirot, we prepare ourselves for our own receiving of Torah on Shavuot.
