Intro to Kabbala-

PART ONE

God created the universe and there are various in the .

The name of God that uniquely encapsulates the entirety of existence is Yud Kei Vav kEI and the prove is of Shema where it says Shema Yisrael Hshem Elokeinu Hashem Echad and that echad means oneness

Everything in this world is from determined amount of energy as physics tells us. No new energy is ever created and put in to or taken from the world- everything is energy and it just takes different forms and we call this energy God. He recreates us in every moment by sustaining this light or energy.

The other names of God like Shaddai or Elokim Svaot are other various attributes, forms, or garments of God. You can’t define God but you can describe him.

“Through my flesh I know you God” “Through your deeds”

What this means is we can never understand or define God but in the world we see actions and deeds and we believe there are a finite number of attributes we can see of God and in the Torah we are given the 10 we can see.

It is said that God looked into the Torah and created the world so when we try to look into the Torah and understand the world moving outward it becomes incredibly difficult since it is just so massive.

By looking out into the universe we can come to understand certain qualities of its creator.

Now, in this age of science, we have available terminology that is much more accessible for the common mind and it brings what used to be very abstract concepts into a simpler setting of understanding.

For example, our understanding of DNA tells us that by looking within any part of the whole you can see the entire being or creation and that makes sense in the infinite universe that we believe to live in.

Instead of DNA they would use words like seed, which contained the entirelty of the tree

The aim of this book is to transcend the one’s understanding if they solely relied on a dictionary- biblical hebrew is lashon hakodesh and it is separate/exclusive as in different

Ivrit, another name for the hebrew language, is ayin brit which means 70 and covenant- that which unifies- and there are 70 dimensions in the holy language and when u put all these definitions together u can get an impression to what the words mean

An example is Shamaim which is commonly translated to the heavens- that is not what it solely means, it can also be understood as destination, the world of potential, the world of thought, it can mean the collective unconscious etc and only when you aggregate all these understanding can u get the proper impression of the word

Over the course of this book we will become acclimated to the terminology of the Torah and understanding the implications to the very words used because without that we couldn’t properly understand anything we read in the Pshat.

A problem with the study of the Torah is that many people look into it and study various tid-bits of knowledge and they add up to a bunch of unique understandings that haven’t been coalesced into the big picture so what oftentimes happens is that the more Torah a person learns the more confused they become.

Based on the teachings of our sages, within the there is a foundation and framework that one needs to be previously acclimated to in order to study the various parts of Torah and properly conceptualize and put together what you will learn

It is a lens through which you need to perceive it

King Shlomo said that “It is in the nature of wisdom to contain the entire universe in but a word” We have to unpackage these words and gain the best understanding we can from them

This concept is also expressed by a famous writer, who once wrote a very long letter to his brother in law, and at the end of it he said sorry that he did not have time to write a shorter letter.

This relates to this name of Yud Kay Vav Kay because we are told in the that it contains the same essence as the Torah, which contains an infinite universe of wisdom inside of it, in that you can break it down and search out all the dimensions of the Torah and the inner soul within it.

PART TWO

PARDES is the hebrew acronym for Pshat, Remez, Drash, and Sod

Pshat is the exoteric, literal story, the grammar, the tenses and seeks to make the sense in everything- it is one-dimensional absolutely essential to the foundation of ur understanding as you continue into the next dimension of understanding

Remez means a hint and it is the dimension of interesting hints right below the surface of the text and it indicates that youre going a little deeper

Drash is a step further and Lidrosh means to search, seek, investigate and you really start to dig a little deeper here.

The information

Sod means secret but it refers to the inner essence of the text, there are 70 dimensions to every word in the torah at the level of sod and the numerological equivalent to sod is 70 as well and this is no cheap number trick- as we explore we realize it is an essential peart to th esystemization and structure to the torah

There was once a great torah scholar who wanted to go into the kabbala and make a commentary that could be as easy to understand as a rashi and when he finally compiled it all it was just too masive a work- u couldn’t have a commentary that was bigger than the book itself- so he went back into it and wittled it down as much as he could and when he finally succeeded he saw that it all came out to exactly rashis words.

Pshat is the equation while Sod is the entire formula and numerology that led you there- the study of will give you great insight but Pshat will package it all together. You begin to appreciate how beautifully everything is worked into each other and you see how Pshat and Sod are tired into each other.

We said that the specific name of God, Yud Kay Vav Kay, is just another way of saying Torah and it’s complete oneness. We believe that the endless worlds that were created, the endless levels of soul, are all contained in the Torah. It’s said that all the Torah is just different names of God and that means that in it we are breaking down the observable features of Yud Kay Vav Kay

Underneath Sod of there is another level called Chasidut and it is the unification of Pshat, Remes, Drash, and Sod. It is a system that allows us to understand all of them in a collective manner and to become an interactive participant in the search.

It took what was once reserved for the few and expanded it for the common man.

Rabbi Tov, the leader of the Chasidic movement, was a key figure in this effort. He was a great man who taught kindergarten for many years so he was great at taking Torah and making deeply meaningful yet simple parables infused with his knowledge that allowed individuals of all ages to internalize them and understand them differently.

The Torah is the same way in that it never changes but your understanding of it evolves as you grow and in this way the Torah is said to be like a mirror- it reflects the person looing into it and searching it.

R’ and Chasidut was attacked for these parables that packaged extrardinary amounts of knowledge because it was right after the time of Shabtai Tzvi who abused the more powerful and magical parts of the Torah and came forward as a false Messiah before converting to Islam under the sword.

Baal Shem Tov explains why he came forward with chasidut despite the adversity he faced with it. He gave a parable to explain

There was a crown (Keter) and a jewel on it that belonged to the king who had a son who was very sick and no matter what any of the physicians did they could not cure him until one man came along and said that if u crush down the jewel on the crown and feed it to your son then he will be healed and all the other physicians said no and that the majesty and glory of the kingdom shouldn’t be crushed down by a fool but the king did not are about the jewel he only cared about the health of his son so the man didn’t take heed and did it anyway and it worked to indeed cure the child.

R Baal Shem Tov believed taking this Torah, that had always been reserved for men who were deeply committed to the study of the text, and breaking it down in order to spread it would cure Israel who was sick at the time with a disconnect from Torah and he believed God would be alright with this because He is just like the king in the story who did not care about the jewel but the health of his child.

Sod has 3 dimensions to it- Kabbalah Merkava- the creation of the universe- which we are told is reserved for few to study as it is very complicated Kabbalah Ma’aseet- which is practical magic- permutations of the names of god, calling upon angels and demons, and binding them to amulets etc.… with it all comes terrible abuse and the blackening of the soul for those who practice it and do not belong playing with such things and with that in mind it is also called Sod which is secret because it is meant to be kept hidden Sodei Tor- the secrets of the Torah- the secrets where we look into the narrative and we see an amazing infrastructure where we realize brilliant teachings underneath and this is the part of Torah that was broken down and made digestible by Chasidut.

So when we talk about the Sod of Chasidut we are excluding the parts of Sod that are dangerous and not necessary to us as individuals

The comes to teach us the dangers of Sod by telling the story of Rabbi Akiva and three of his peers who went up into Pardes and hit the level of Sod- one died, one went crazy, one lost his faith and only Rabbi Akiva came back which goes to show that the deeper one goes into their psyche and consciousness the more dangerous it can be so just as we get deeper into the universe of Torah it is like getting deep into our own self and when one goes to the deep it can be very hard to return for with great genius can com great madness and so Chassidut made it digestible for the common man.

PART THREE

With the emergence of Chassidut came the ability of everyone to become acclimated with the Sodei Torah and that is where we could all then look into the narrative and find much deeper statements about how our soul works and the infinite root of existence.

When we talk about kabbalah we are exploring it in the lens of Chassidut because anything beyond that is unnecessary for finding clarity in the Torah.

As we mentioned before, no word in the hebrew language is one-dimensional and the various dimensions of these words add up to lend us an impression of its meaning, therefore- Why is it called kabbalah?

1. Kabbalah- on a very simple level- means to receive

It is called this because it was received by Moshe Rabeinu on Har Sinai This extends into the concept of Matan Torah, the gift of Torah, and Kabalat Torah, the receiving of Torah, and we celebrate them both- why do we celebrate our receiving of a gift- wouldn’t you only celebrate the gift or the person who’s giving it?

When dealing with receiving there is a good metaphor to understand-

If you are given a seed as a gift then that is just nice but if you then go and you plant it and toil with it and then harvest it and turn it in to food then you get major credit because you actually received what you were given as a gift.

2. It also translates to Tradition

-This is because this truly is our tradition, it is our Oral tradition but it was so massive that it was impossible to write it all down and throughout the years we wrote small parts of it down because of our fear that the information would all get lost but it was just too big to write down. -To make up for this in a way we kept rephrasing the Oral Torah into ways that we could better remember it- the entirety of Neviim and each story in Ketuvim are metaphors for the entire Torah and they, as well as all the other metaphors that were composed, are all in the pursuit of keeping the Oral Torah alive. -Another fear of writing it all down is that once someone reads a commentary they get the impression that they understand the text that’s being covered but that’s not the case, its just a small part of a much larger scheme and that was a misunderstanding that they wanted to avoid.

3. It is extremely dense and complicated, when you study kabbalah it is like exploring a sea, you need to receive it and as it expands and grows you need to constantly fertilize it and develop your mind in order to understand it- it is constantly in the state of Sod and you need to constantly receive the knowledge by storing it and adding to it

Building off of this, Kabbalah is also called Sod and the of sod is 70- there is 70 dimensions to this wisdom, the tikunei zohar explores them, and it means that you need to operate on 70 dimensions to properly receive it

Sod is also referred to as wine and that is because when you take grapes you need to break them down and store them and with time they will become richer and more potent and Sod is exactly the same way- if you take your knowledge of kabbalah and you break it down and understand it and then store it and do not forget it then it will become richer and richer with time and when you take these simple grapes of knowledge and add to them the potent wine of the sages then you can get drunk off of it This is significant for any time that you see the imagery of grapes or wine in the Torah- such as when Noach plants a vineyard and when the meraglim take grapes from the land of Israel, it is hinting at a much deeper understanding

3. Makabeel means corresponding or parallel to

It is called this because there are endless words in the Torah that correspond to other words that allows you to gain an extra dimension of understanding An example of this is the word Reshit- biRESHIT bara elokim et hashamaim viet haaretz and the kabbalah tells us that corresponding to the word reshit is chachmah so every time you see reshit you also think of it as chachmah so we can now understand that it also meant that with chachmah Hashem created the heaven and the earth In fact, we know this is a part of our tradition because it says Mara bu maasecha hashem- how great are your workks god- culom asitah bichachma- you made everything with chachmah

Chachma is also permuated to be KOach which means the potential of man and that, once you plug it into the same sentence of bireshit, therefore implies that because of the potential of man god created the world which is a very interesting concept Like this you can see that there is another dimension and the more kabbalah you study the more corresponding ideas you can learn, the deeper you can read into the text, and the more profound it gets Like this you begin to delve into the 70 dimensions of torah but it is essential to remember that all of these dimensions are connected to each other otherwise you are just putting out a bunch of jumbled understandings that can work to confuse people. The greatness of kabbalah is that it is a space that unites all the dimensions of torah, it is a system that works to make it all make sense and connect them. It is essential to take all of these understandings and root them around a singular structure or foundation in order to have a proper lens through which to understand it all and these are the purpose of the , which we will go into.

Imagine a world of infinite water and within that world there are various sized cups- the question then comes forth is which cup is given the most? The logical answer is the largest cup is given the most but that would be wrong. That is wrong because the very premise of the question is wrong. When we asked which cup is given the most, that is wrong because they’re all given the same- the infinite gives the same to everything, it is a totality and cannot change therefore the question should be which cup receives the most. We are all constantly in a state of receiving reality, which is where consciousness comes from and the idea is how can I expand my vessel to receive more- suggesting that perception is that which you receive, it is all inside of us and we can change our perception and therefore our reality

God is out there right now, he is naked before us, but there are endless layers between us of obscuration and hey take the various forms and attributes of nature and the universe

The idea of sight is Ayin which is also 70 and therefore the 70 dimensions of sod, so if we want to change the way we see this is the way When it said Shema Yisrael at Har Sinai, it was with a large ayin because we could finally see the oneness of god and to further understand this in the Talmud it says

Tah Shma, come learn/listen, but in the Kabbalah it says tachazi which means come see because the quality of listening is a building quality in which you build an understanding through the words that it is explained through. The difference with with kabbalah is that it gives the ability to see through its revelation of the corresponding ideas, and connecting this word to that word to that word, so that we become interactive participants in building and storing this information.

Kabbalah gives us an ability to see into that which is beyond. To help understand, when we see something we don’t need to really process it because its instantly understood- its just there and its very hard to give it words that properly describe it.

This gives insight to the experiences of prophets and people who have had near death experiences, they went to a place and saw something and when they come back down it takes a very long time to be able to properly give it words because these are things that were given to them to be seen rather than taken by them then processed and understood.

Because these were prophetic concepts that were given to us it took a very long time to give a language to it all and that is why kabbalah is called the language of roots- the torah is called the etz chayim, the .

What is the etz chayim? It’s the idea that you have a singular origin at the root, which then branches upwards and expands outwards. Torah is written with Hebrew letters that create a language called the language of branches as well and this expresses the idea that at one point various ideas can branch outwards as well.

For example, someone asks what is happy? One person answers a summers morning and another person says sleeping in on a summer day and these seem to be completely conflicting answers until you journey back to the root and realize that really it makes perfect sense- they are simply various extensions of one essence

Kabbalah deals with essences and in each branch we realize if they are all corresponding within the same root and so within the Hebrew language we deal with the concept of roots and they are very essential because when you get to its essence you can see how the various branches, or extensions, have come forth and it serves to unify them. This is the real purpose of Kabbalah, to serve as a way to receive the Torah as one unit and one entity.

PART FOUR

We are from all from an infinite source so it brings forth the often-asked question of how is it possible to create something from nothing, or, how can there be a beginning?

This is an aspect of theology which we will be given much more insight into because of the fact that this book will be centered on genesis- the beginning.

The Torah is translated as bible which is from the Greek word biblial which means big book and that’s not what the torah is at all-

One of the most crucial decisions in the creation of any work of writing or novel is the title, which is really meant to capture the purpose of the book or give some sense of insight into the thematic relevance or function of the overall book and it’s really very sad that most people don’t even properly understand the meaning of Torah- the very title of it all.

Torah is from Latur- to explore or investigate The Torah is always going to need to be explored and studied- you will never be able to complete your exploration and if you feel like you’ve figured it all out then you are not properly understadnding the Torah and you aren’t viewing it through the proper lens.

“Latur et ha’aretz”- we are told that the jews wanted to explore the land of Israel

And in fact Jews study the Torah in what is called the Beit , Lidrosh also means to search so it translates to the House of Search.

It is very important that we have the proper foundation to properly study the Torah, in fact, there is the concept of HaShalosh Esreh Midot SheNidreshet HaTorah Bahem, the 13 methods through which to study the Torah.

Now we will have to learn about the best way to explore the genesis, the names of G- d, and everything we learn- that way is through the sefirot.

PART FIVE

One of the ways we need to understand the Torah is that there is a deliberate blurriness to the events that take place throughout it and it is worked specifically so that only those that have been educated to learn it through the proper lens can make sense of it.

Something to remember is that the very, very, first thing we took from the Oral Torah and committed it to writing was the musical notes of the Chumash. That is, all those signs that it is sung, or ‘leined’, by because the belief was that if the Oral Torah was lost we could come regain some of our teachings through the melody.

We mentioned that the root of Torah is Latur, to investigate, but why is that not the title then? Why Torah? Because what we are investigating is the Hey- the five.

That is, the five tiers of the sefirot, called the partsufim, and the same goes for Chumash. It is not only five because there are five books of the Torah, that is an extremely simplistic understanding of the immense, it is really alluding to the five dimensions of reality to this world we live in- the dimensions of PARDES and Chasidut, which we mentioned beforehand.

So, Torah is to explore or investigate the five and Chumash is alluding to the same concept- this also corresponds to the Shechinah, the dwelling force that dwells within and above the five. And again with Teshuvah, from Lashuv which is to return, and now we can understand it as returning to the Hey, which is so much more than just a simple understanding because, as it is said, “Every person is always a Ba’alei Tshuva.”

Now, with this understanding kept in mind we can properly begin to understand the sefirot.

PART SIX- SEVEN

Another name for the sefirot is the ets chayim, or tree of life. No words can be taken at face value in the Torah.

1. Sphere in English, which is a derivative of various languages that we believe are all derived from the Hebrew language, means circles- the sefirot are also spheres.

2. Lisaper means to tell a story and the sefirot are the way through which we can properly tell the story, ** the sefirot are the stories

3. Lispor means to cut hair- the imagery of hair, which is found a lot throughout the Torah, holds deep understandings.

Hair is a metaphor for energy that is infinite being separated into parts- one strand of hair or two or more are all from the same whole but it comes out in parts and we can look at them individually to further understand the whole... each of the little emanations of the infinite can be looked at to help us understand this reality.

4. Lispor means to count- as the sefirot are a measuring system to judge the Torah and mathematically force it into definition.

When we talk in numerical sense it is in the effort of understand the infinity through a finite means. You can count to infinity in either direction, negative or positivel, but in essence you are only encapsulating the same 10 digits.

There are 10 sefirot- they are the 10 channels and parts that create all of reality.

There are the 10 sayings of creation, eser amarot, and they correlate to the 10 sefirot and through their interaction they can create infinity.

There are rules to the sefirot-

1. There is a Right side, a center, and a Left side.

When you talk about the RIGHT side you are referring to Endlessness, Formlessness, The infinite, Giving, The masculine essence or quality (not man), Boundlessness, Timelessness, The soul, It is also called heaven, It is the quality of always saying yes (as infinity has no boundaries or concept of no) It is called - because it can only give, there’s nothing you can add to infinity

When you talk about the LEFT it is the absolute opposite of the right- it is the Finite, The parts, The specific, The feminine quality, Time bound, Structure The quality of boundaries or saying no, DIN- justice

The right side is refered to as Ahava, love, and the left side is Yirah, which does NOT mean fear. That is Pachad. Whoever translates it as fear is setting themselves and others up for an estranged relationship from G-d and emotionally crippling experiences that many have had due to this misconception of fear being key. It is all sadly due to a mistranslation.

Yirah is from Ra’ayah which means proof, Ri’iyah which is a mirror, and the word Ro’eh which means to see. It is the idea of being cautious because you are seeing the truth and have awareness.

There are many people who love another person without really understanding them and it can very be destructive but if you have a true awareness of who the person, their details, you love is then you will act more cautiously since you are tuned into what would hurt or bother them. It can be beautiful with the right balance.

If one were to exclusively live in the dimension of only side then the right would be extreme giving, which always leads to spoil, and the left would be a world of extreme din and too much harshness, and because no one is perfect it would eventually lead to hate.

For this, the right is referred to as water which always gives and it always seeks to go down, it finds where someone is at a low and seeks to elevate them, and it is a life source. The left is referred to as the opposite, which is fire, and if you pass a boundary it will destroy you, just as with din.

We live in a perfect combination of the two- in the totality of it all. With that in mind we should know that the right and the left are therefore intrinsically connected.

We can look at the word Chomer which means materiality, it’s from Lechem which is the womb* and it is where the male (right) and female (left) combine, where seed and the egg combine. We can also see it in the actual egg and sperm- woman is born with her finite number of eggs whereas with man you can not put a number to the amount of sperm they will produce throughout their lives. Male is infinite and unbound and the left is what fertilizes, what puts into parts. And again we must repeat that we are not talking about the actual male and female but the qualities of them.

When we combine the two we get reality, which is the word Mitsiyut in Hebrew and is from the word Emtsah, which means the middle, where reality forms.

Mitsiyut is also from the word Matseh, which means to search just as the Torah means to search.

From Chomer, materialistic reality, we can rearrange the letters to get Rechem and Rachamim, which is mercy.

The center sphirah is where these ideas converge. It is where we understand that opposites can still be one- ezra kinegdo- the unity of opposites.

Another important thing to remember about the center sphirah is that it is the third.

The first is the right, Avraham. The second is the left, Yitzchak The third is the center, Yaakov- where the first two meet together

The center is the idea of Yaakov who has two names. The name Yaakov means heel and Yisroel, Rosh Lee, which means my head- he is the place where head and heel, beginning and end, merge. He is the very paradox the center sphirah represents.

He, and the center sphirot, is also the idea of heaven and earth uniting. This can be seen through Yaakov’s dream with the ladder rooted in the earth and stretching upward into heaven. Furthermore, it says that Yaakov was given EMET, which means the truth but it’s meaning is much deeper than that, kabbalistically it refers to reality. He was given the accurate understanding of reality without the degradation of the light that we all are victim to.

But there’s much more the word than that- if we look at the makeup of EMET we can see that Aleph is the first word of the Hebrew alphabet, Tet is the last, and Mem is the center.

Also, EM is mother and MET is death- it is the combination once again of beginning and end.

Again, it is the third sefirah- SHALOSH is a palindrome where it is a word spelled the same way from the front to back or back to front- like racecar or aviva Breaking it into two you get SHEL, this, and SHEL again, which embodies the meaning of its opposite, that.

Again with SHORESH, shor is to gaze and it means the same from the back to front- it is two opposites gazing at each other.

MEM is another palindrome- which we already said is the middle.

Hoveh- the past and the future are connected in the present by a palindrome

Palindromes are extremely common when we are speaking in terms of the middle sfirot, they are symbolic of the unity of beginning and end, opposites, and that is everything the center sfirah is symbolic of.

The aleph represents the merging of these two spaces through the way that it is written. It can be seen as a yud to the top right and an opposite yud to the bottom left with a diagonal vav between them. The top yud gives and the bottom yud does the opposite, it receives. And again, they are merged by the vav, a palindrome, between them which is the equivalent of SHESH, six, another palindrome. These are no coincidences.

Kabbalah is not the guide to paradise, it is the guide to paradox, and many have tried to fully resolve this and lost their minds trying so we must simply accept that the world stands on the unification of paradoxes- good and bad, light and dark, generosity and greed. The center sphirah is this paradoxical space where two opposites can exist as one.

When you are dealing with the right sephirot you are dealing with the YUD- it represents the giving and with the left you are dealing with the inverse of the spelling of the yud, which is DAI- meaning to stop. Again opposites.

You can see this with ISH, man, and ISHAH, woman- the letter yud is in middle of Ish and you have the letter hey in Isha- they both have the root ESH, fire, because they are both intrinsically ONE fire- in Ish the yud is a yud within a daled *(?)* and in Isha the hey can be seen as a yud within a daled – in this way they are also one and the same.

This is all part of rule number one to the sphirot and we need to remember all of these overall criteria when we continue on to study each of the sphirot individually and the way they interact with each other.

Rule number 2-

One way we can, in our limited capability, understand the set up of the sphirot is that they are each spheres within the larger ones but the larger spheres aren’t part of the smaller, like how we are all part of God but He is not us.

Visually it can be seen as a concentric circle with the largest one being Keter and the smaller within it being Chachma, then Binah within it, and onward.

They also correlate to the 10 Sayings of Creation- the first of which created the smallest circle and the second the one that goes around it and onward.

A way through which we can clearly see this is the 10 makot in Egypt- why 10 when God could have just done it all in one? It is because they were a purifying process for the dimensions of reality (the sphirot) that the Egyptians had corrupted, dirtied, and blocked the light out of.

The last saying of creation, or sphirah, was correlated to the first plague and so on until the first saying of creation was purified by the last plague. Once we understand it in this way we can look and really see the relationship between them.

The first saying of creation, the outermost sphirah of Keter, was “Let there be a beginning” and what was the last plague? Kill the beginning- kill all the first-born.

The second saying of creation, Chachma, was “Let there be light” and the second to last plague was Choshech, darkness, and it goes on- this is explored in the book Flames of Faith.

Through this we can see how the form of spheres is essential to our understanding of the way they work and correspond to the world.

Rule number 3:

The sphirah that is above gives to the one below it and that which gives is on a higher level. Keter is the highest level level of them all and it gives directly to the lower level of Chachma which gives to and is above Binah and so on.

The reason they are understood as levels is that the further down it goes the further is the degradation of God’s light, the more barriers that are clouding it from true understanding.

There is something called the back and something called the face- it is said that Moshe spoke Panim to Panim, face to face. This is obviously much deeper and meant as a metaphor but the question is what the metaphor means.

Panim is related to panimius, which means inner, which makes sense because if you look at a person’s arm or leg you don’t get true understanding to their inner self- you only get that through facial expression and communication.

So when we speak about Panim el Panim it means that Moshe’s inner essence was connected to God’s true inner essence- which is truly something too great to really understand.

When we talk about Panim el panim we also talk about the idea of the bread of shame* (where does this jump come from)- the shame of looking directly at someone that has given you everything and you have given him nothing.

The idea is that the God and the highest sphirah of Keter look down upon us and we experience Bosh, embarrassment, and are too ashamed to look into the eyes of that which gives everything to us.

“Yaer HaShem panov eleichah vi’chunecha”- that God’s face should look upon us and judge us favorably and “Matse chen bi’enei Hashem”, that you should find grace or favor in the eyes of God, hold a lot of imagery with God’s face or eyes. The understanding is that only that which gives can confidently look at that which is receiving because when you are ashamed you do not look into the eyes of the giver.

So, in terms of Kabbala, when something is looking at the back of something else this means that it is giving to it.

Because of this feeling of Bosh the receiver feels naked and puts on a garment to conceal and that garment contains a quality of the creator, i.e. the inserted attribute of the world- all the sphirot are adorned in their various garments and they combine to accomplish the task of God’s concealed light and degradation of presence so that we can experience matter and worldliness in the lowest world of Malchut.

However, when we know that the left side of the sphirot is the taker and the right side is the giver, how can we then say that the left and the right sides of the sefirot are equals when they are really complete opposites of each other? It is because the left truly receives (to echo our understanding from before of what it means to really receive) what it is given by purposing it towards its act of completion and through this it gives back to what it has received- by helping it be used to its true potential. Through this the left and the right sides can face each other, create channels between each other, and be equals.

This is why Natan, take, is also a palindrome. Because if you receive what you are given properly you can create a cycle and give back to it.

When you do this properly, when your actions truly channel the attributes of the sphirot and give back to them, you can shift the way God’s light shines down on you through the sphirot. When you do the opposite of this you further block the light of God.

Something very important to understand here is that there is no word for sin in the Torah. Chet is another destructively misunderstood word, like Yirah. Chet is also Chet-Aleph, which can be understood two ways- ‘To be cut off from the Aleph’ and ‘To miss an opportunity or mark.’

The light of god is an opportunity to be taken and made our own and when we work to our limits, when we have taken the light to its practical limits, then God will send more light through the sephirot.

This message is expressed when the Jews are running from Egypt and they are being chased. Moshe stops and prays to God and God asks him why he is praying when he needs to be practical and run. It is reiterated when they get to Dead Sea and they say “Mi Kamocha Ba’ali HaShem” rather than ‘Chamocha’- we learn that this is because the water was past their throats and up to their noses before God split the sea- it was only once they absolutely pushed the limits of their practical capabilities with the light that God had already given them that He came in and sent more light, here it was expressed through a great miracle.

We have to be our best. We have to be “Mi’Malah Min HaTeva”, we have to rise above our nature and do our best to take the light we’ve been given to its practical limits and then more light will come.

So, Panim el Panim, the face to face relationship of properly receiving and giving, is a real connection that is shared and two-way and it is called Yididut.

Yididut is where the Yad and the Yad connect. And that is why one of the names of god is Yud-Yud.

This Yididut is, what the gemarah says to be, the opposite to Avodat Zarah.

Another term that needs clarification is Avodat Zara- it is not idol worship. It is being in service of action that Zar, estranges, from the Hey, the 5 dimensions of reality.

Eved is a slave so its also about being a slave to Zarah. This can be slavery to anything apart from the infinite light- like money. There are people that devote their entire lives to money and it is only a finite goal, it is fleeting and only material and they are not really tapped into the reality of this world.

The Midrash brings the story of the worst type of slavery, that of the Jew’s slavery in Egypt. It says that Pharaoh commanded them to build these great pyramids and that would feel somewhat good, to be a part of something amazing that will last forever, but he would then destroy them and they would have to rebuild them, and it says that it was also built on quicksand so it wouldn’t ever have a ending creation that would last forever.

It is conveying the pursuit of building something that does not have an eternal life and then becoming a slave to it. It is said, “You can be a servant of a servant or you can be a servant of God”.

When you manifest your potential properly, when you give back to the infinite, you are a servant of Yedidut, you can elevate to being an Eved YUD-KAY-VAV-KAY, a servant of God.

Rule number 4-

Each sephirah refers to a name of God so when you see these different names, there is a deep correspondence and understanding to be learnt there in the Torah.

Rule number 5-

There are 22 pathways referring to the 22 letters that inter-connect the sphirot and each of the sphirot contain within them an expression of the attribute of each of the other sphirot. This is the idea of universe within universes.

Rule number 6-

The sphirot can be seen as a map of creation and man. It can all be seen as a metaphor for understanding your fellow man and, since we are created in the image of God, the quality of God that is perceivable by us.

We can understand this quality of what we can perceive of God by Moshe’s experience at the burning bush where he saw God without all of his layers and he asked God what He is and He answers with the highest name of God, which sits at the top of all of the sphirot, Ehiyeh Asher Ehiyeh, I will be What I will be.

This means that He can be to us only what we can each understand or fathom of Him. This means that the highest quality of God is simply a reflection of ourselves, He is like a mirror, and the greater we become the greater our understanding of Him can become. The greater our kindness, the better we can understand His.

Through this we can understand how the entirety of the sphirot can act as a map of consciousness. And as the consciousness expands so does the perception of God and the universe and, because of this, man is described as an Olam Katan, a miniature world. We believe that the potential for the entire universe is within each of us.

The sphirot can be seen as all of these things as well as a map of time- the entire evolution of creation and the ultimate plan of creation will be caused through them and so they contain all the answers to it all.

With all this in mind we can begin to explore the Sphirot- starting with the highest one of them all, Keter.

PART 8- 10

KETER:

The first sephira means ‘crown’, which suggests that the crown is not part of he body- it glorifies it, it’s unique only for that king, it is the source of power that distributes outward.

Keter contains absolutely everything within it. It is the highest sphirah, which means it is the least degraded from God, but it still holds a very small concealment from God because nothing finite can truly represent the infinite.

In fact, it starts with* (where is that started from? Is it a saying of creation?) , endless light, so we know there exists that level of concealment because there is a beginning to it. Otherwise, it would be specified as beginningless.

Bireshit rearranged is Ohr Shabbat, the light of Shabbat, because that is the day singularly devoted to recognizing beauty and amazing qualities of God.

Everything is made up of this light, there is nothing that exists outside of it.

Ohr Ein Sof is described as this vast formless and endless light that is also described as God’s Will, His Ratzon. It is also The Essence or Desire, Makor, which has the same gematria as Ratzon.

Efes is zero in Hebrew but it is also Aleph Sof, it means an eternal end which means the state of nothingness. Rearranged it comes out to Asaf, there’s no adding. This realm is truly incomprehensible because evn if we try to imagine nothingness we are still imagining something and that is exactly opposite to it. Its truly a realm without time, space, matter, and anything comprehendible to us yet miraculously everything comes from it.

Absolutely everything else receives its power through the channel of Keter.

It corresponds to the highest name of God- Ehiyeh Asher Ehiyeh.

Keter has an intimate relationship with the lowest level of Malchut, which makes sense because the two of them are the only worlds that have no duality, they do not have a counterpart sphirah, and therefore they exist in states of oneness.

Because of that Keter is expressed by Aleph, which represents all of reality and makes no sound. It exists in endless silence or oneness, because any sound can be broken down into parts of tone, volume, sound waves, etc.

Keter embodies the mirror-aspect of God that we mentioned because this is the highest finite level at which we, the finite, can possibly understand Him, the higher we grow as individuals the better we can understand this barely concealed identity of God. Because of this, Keter is also called Ani, with an Aleph, meaning I.

Avraham was told Lech Lichah, go to yourself- this is the meaning, go to your true self and the destination is God.

Ani also means Ein, nothingness. “Yesh MeAyin” It’s the world of nothingness because its singularity is so completely singular- even the number one can be broken down infinitely. Nothingness can also rest between opposites because it is the center from which everything can branch out, like numbers, in a positive direction or a negative direction.

There are key concepts in kabbalah that relate to Keter and when we hear them we know we need to view what we are learning through the lens of Keter as well.

This realm of nothingness is also called Mah. Mah also means what, because whatever exists is there because God wills it to exist. Mah also has the gematria of 45, which is the same as Adam. This is referring to a concept known as Adam Kadmon, which is the first of these key concepts.

There is a Midrash that says that Adam’s feet were in the ground and his body stretched all the way upward until his head was in the heavens and all the angels thought he was God so they bowed down to him and served him. This concept of Adam is referring to Adam Kadmon, the space of Kodem, before, existence. It is also the original man and simultaneously it is all of us. That is why it says Adam’s feet were here and his head was in heaven, because everything is contained within it.

Kadmon is also Atik Yamin, ancient days- the idea being that at the end of days this will have all been so that we would reach our ultimate ancient selves, because we have all lived countless lives and there is an aspect of the ancient within us all. King Shlomo is referring to Atik Yamin when he says “There is nothing new under the sun.”

At the same time, it is all just another aspect of Keter, this is possible because since Keter is at the root of everything then everything had to start and branch out from within it.

Keter is also connected to Adam because within every man is a part of God and it contains the knowledge of absolutely everything within it- that is why it says that when you save a life you save a world and a universe.

Another way to view the sphirot is as if they are organs- they all have their unique and important purposes in the body but they work as a whole, it is all one. At the same time this is only a means to understanding the attributes of God. Just as you can't grasp a thought with your hands, so you can't grasp God with your mind.

Keter is a suprarational space of existence; it is a realm that is above the mind. It is said that God looked into the Torah and created the universe- the world was made through words but everything is contained in God’s unique name that conveys His oneness and that name is YUD-KAY-VAV-KAY.

Everything can be found in this name and so the part of it that Keter correlates to is the tip of the yud. This part of the yud is the one commonality between all the 22 letters in the aleph-bet because, just as Keter contains everything within it, every single letter extends downward through that tip.

Keter is a place where the soul of man is so pure it is called Yechidah and it is where we all are until we are born. It’s the singular, absolute, and perfect place that is one with everything. We spoke of Atik Yamin, our ancient selves, and we are given all of this in the womb, it is then taken away and we are left with a taste of it so that we know, deep inside, whether or not we are acting like our true selves. It is the intimate standard that we understand of ourselves and by which we initially build ourselves.

“Chadesh Yimeinu Kikedem” “Renew us like the Days of Old” because Yam has the gematria of 50 which is the same as Kol, everything, because Atik Yamin really does contains everything and it’s interesting because the word Kulam, with the root of Kol, means everything and it can be rearranged to Klum which means nothing. i.e. the paradox of Keter.

We want to return to these ancient days, the root of everything. The word for progress in Hebrew is LiheetKadem, which is from the root of Kodem, before truly conveys this idea because we think that progress is all forward movement but it is really about returning to what was already there in potential.

The Ba’al Shem Tov says that when you pass away and go up to heaven you’ll see the potential of what you could have been and what you actualized in your life and in the disparity between the two is the definition of Gehenum, Hell. And this separation between your potential Keter self who is truly Bitzelem Elokim and your actualized Keter is usually enough to get you to reincarnate in the hope of raising yourself up even higher.

The world of Keter is also called Eden, which means pleasure and our concept of heaven. We are told that we all have a Chelek BiOlam Habah, a portion in the World to Come, and it is defined by the amount of measurable qualities you collect before you die. What are the measurable qualities? Your midot. The eternal portions of yourself that matter, your attributes, rather than the material that are just tools in this lower world of Malchut.

We believe that God is entirely good and is infinite therefore he lacks nothing but there is a lack if you don’t have someone to give to or a recipient of your kindness so he created us.

This is why Keter is also called grandfather because, literally, God created a family.

God gave each of us our own crown when we were given free will so that we could have the power to reject the attribute of his Keter within any of the 10 sphirot should we want to. We have will power because of this and we have the will to create whatever reality we want to.

We need to understand that our will is the emanation of all else within us. If you are told to think of a flower and you think of a flower- how did you think of the flower? You willed yourself to. How did you will yourself to will it? Truly think about that. When you think a thought, it is thought because you willed yourself to but where does that will come from? The answer is God. We have this ability to will because God gave it to us when He gave us each our own Keter. We have free will because he powers our ability to will at all. You can't turn off your will because if you will to turn off your will your still willing it.

Will is never taken from you, not in this world or the next and the greatest pleasure we have is to see our will fulfilled.

In the spiritual world of Adam Kadmon all real will has been fulfilled and that is also why Eden is in Keter, because the fruits of our will and pleasure are divinely correlated.

That world of where all will has been fulfilled and the potential of the perfect world exists was then split at the creation- it is said that “God Split the Water”, Mayim is 90 and when split you get 45 and 45 which is the gematria of Mah. He split it into what is, correspondingly to the crown, called the world of Malchut, the kingdom, which was then given to us in the hopes that we would choose to make it like God’s perfect kingdom in potential. (what the crown wants is always enacted by the kingdom) because of this Malchut and Keter are always really linked and they are both called Mah.

The way our will is set up and how Malchut connects to Keter allows us to truly choose whether or not we invite God in, whether or not we bring Him in, and that allows us to cultivate the most authentic relationship with Him. The angels have no such ability to choose to love God and that is why we are considered superior.

Will is also called the Music of God and the way this is derived is from Tsarei El- Princes of God. Who are these princes? They are the recipients of the crown who are in the image of the king and truly live in the will of God, made by his love, and they oversee the kingdom.

Tsarei El rearranged becomes Shir El, the music of God. It is an endless song that echoes out eternally and oversees everything and many mystics refer to it as a frequency. It is said that the angels sing a song constantly and it is all according to God’s will. People who are out of tune with this frequency to the extreme are called Rasha, someone who is evil, which can be rearranged to Ra’ash, noise and this is because there is a music that is in tandem with God and the world and when you reject it you are making noise to block it out.

When something is likened to Keter it is considered that aspect of glory because it is corresponding to that seat of power, it is the crown of royalty, it is the closest to God you can get.

Keter is also called Mashiach because it is the end game. It is the fruition of the ultimate plan that is only fully present there. As we said Keter is Mah and Adam Kadmon- Adam is Adam David Mashiach- it is the lineage of all time contained inside of Adam Kadmon and the ancient days.

When we say the word Kavod it also refers to Keter- this is obvious through the pasuk “Kivodo Maleh Olam” which means His Honor Fills All Worlds.

There are 13 points on the crown- Echad is gematria 13 and so we must remember every time we see that number that it correlates to oneness. There are also 13 attributes of Rachamim, mercy. Rachamim is above nature- it has nothing to do with nature or law.

Each of the sphirot are pathways from Malchut to Keter and vice versa. We mentioned that Keter is likened to water in the pasuk and it is in the nature of water to trickle down. It wants to trickle as far down as it can get and on its way down it purifies and cleans. When we allow the light of Keter into this world it purifies it.

God also destroys with water and we see this often, especially with the Mabul. *expound

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Based off of our discussions above these are all key concepts in kabbalah that relate to Keter and we should hear them as trigger words so that we know when we hear them we need to view what we are learning through the lens of Keter as well.

Kavod, Rachamim, Will, Mayim, Grandfather, Eden, the tip of the yud, Ani, Nothingness, and the level of the soul that is Yechida are all key words that instantly convey and necessitate the insertion of the deeper understanding that Keter entails.

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There is an opinion that there is an 11th saying of creation- “It is not good for man to be ‘Livad’, alone” and that this saying created the sphirah of Da’at. Through Da’at God was no longer alone, it aided the true connection with man. ** right?

It is also important to note that Keter directly channels down into Da’at and it does not take form until Da’at. Keter is everything unformed but Da’at is consciousness and where it all begins to take shape- it’s the connected and intimate. There are many who say that Da’at is simply the lower extension of Keter where it receives further concealment before going to one of 3 other sphirot. You can see how this makes sense when you look at the chart of the sphirot and see that Da’at is right below Keter.

“Da Lifnei Mi Atah Omed”, “Know before who you stand” but then we say that no mind can grasp God and its because we aren’t talking about thought, it’s more than that- its that this entire experience of life gives an impression that rests within you and speaks to you on a deeper level. Its like the relationship between a man and his dog- it is not an intellectual connection because the dog can never truly understand the man but they definitely do share a connection of something deeper, much more emotional, and that’s the imprint and experience Da’at.

Something that this understanding can illuminate is the title of Orthodox which has become so loaded down with subtext over the years when the true root of it is simply put in Hebrew- the name for a religious person in Hebrew is Da’ati, it is someone who truly feels and has a connection with God. Nothing else. Not every Jew has to be like every other or Orthodox but everyone has to be Da’ati, everyone has to feel a connection to God- that is why the whole world was created, that’s the connection God needs to have with us.

Da’at is also another definition for reality, like everything else in the center sphirah.

The name of God that corresponds to Da’at is the combination of Yud and Hey, it’s the idea of Chachma and Binah combined but we can't forget that Chchma and Binah combine to make Keter so whatever we understand of Da’at can also be seen as a further revelation of Keter.

“Ki Bi-Y-AH HaShem Tsur Li-aming” “With Yud and Hey God formed the world” and it is said that when Adam ate from the tree of Da’at he was told he could form worlds.

God’s will is also Da’at- he wants us to have Da’at so that he can have union with us, so that we can have an actual relationship with Him.

You can't really know Keter- the Kabbalists talk about it and call it touching but not touching because you can sort of understand, almost touch it, it when you talk about it but you can never really understand it, you can never really touch it- Keter. When you talk about Da’at it’s all about touching and connection within this expanding consciousness that is the one of the greatest pleasures we are capable of deriving and which we continuously further through our efforts in our reincarnations.

We talk about Adam and Eve in the garden having this experience of the expanding consciousness- it says that the fruit was good to see and good “LiMaskeel”, to contemplate. Its talking about this expanding state of awareness.

With all that in mind Da’at is not considered one of the 10 sphirot because it is really just part of Keter that is further dressed in Chachma and Binah and that begins to take form and create consciousness.

When Adam and Eve ate from the tree they immediately realized that they were naked because they had tapped into this part of themselves called Da’at and realized that they were without connection. They were without any garments of connection or experience within consciousness to dress themselves in and their existences were bare. They were suddenly Livad, alone.

Da’at is where the consciousness and unconsciousness mind converge, it’s a space of oneness and a sensitive union for two opposites that were always really one, as is the purpose for all those in the middle sphirah.

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Chachma is the unconscious and divine mind. We said that it was with Chachma that God created the world. You can look at Chachma as the map or eyes because it is what God envisioned.

Chachma is Koach Mah, the potential of everything. It is the masculine element of giving- it gives the light to everything.

Chachma is the spark of inspiration but it is still formless. It is said “Sof Ma’aseh BiMachshavah Tchila” “The end was made with the plans of the beginning.”

Chachma is the spark of inspiration but in order to embody the idea and for it to be real you need to integrate with it in order for it to become real but the only way for this to happen is to form it and substantiate it with boundaries through Binah and Da’at.

Everything that was made in the creation was called Tov in the Pshat but the first thing that was called Tov was light so we must equate this light with everything- what this means is that everything that was made is really just this light. It corresponds to the idea of energy in Physics- we believe that everything is made of this energy. Chachma carries the light of everything, it vitalizes everything, and we need to remember all the attributes of it and the right side of the sphirot.

Chachma is also Koach Adam, the power of man- because there is nothing comparable to the power of man to become wise and this relates back to the Tree of Da’at, Knowledge.

It gives us a little insight into why the way to access everything was through a tree at all. Why couldn’t they just touch a mysterious tablet? Why’d they have to eat something? Because in order to properly attain wisdom and understanding every person must integrate it into themselves and then become it through experience. A person can have a spark of inspiration but nothing will come of it unless they bring it into form. That’s why they had to eat it- they had to truly incorporate it and integrate it into their very beings.

We learn that Da’at actually frames the expression of the Wisdom and we learn that the fruit of the Tree of Da’at was wheat. Kabbalistically speaking there are 10 phases of the growth of wheat. 10 is Yud which is the letter corresponding to Chachma from the tetragrammatation (sp?) and again to the 10 Sayings of Creation. Everything expands outward from it like a seed but its not real until its planted in Binah and cultivated in Da’at.

Real Chachma is expressed through Yedid Adam. We get it from the Gematria of Koach (Power or Potential), from Koach Adam/Mah, which is 28 and that is equal to Yud and Yud bound through a Vav. It’s the idea of the Yud and the Yud coming together to hold hands and create all of reality where every man is actually interconnected because there exists the reality that everything is sourced from the Yud and there is a universal unconscious. The opposite of Avodat Zara is Avodat Yedidut because when you work to connect to the reality of everything interconnecting and being part of the oneness then you become tied into the truth of reality whereas zara alienates you from reality.

Between Chachma and Da’at is Binah, though.

Binah is from the root Boneh, to build, and to listen* (shma?). When you listen you take the components and build a grander perception- Binah is also the idea of logic, which takes all the parts and builds them up to consciousness.

With Chachma everything is just seen but in Binah is where things are given forms and words. This is why Chava, Chavya, means speech and why Binah corresponds to the name of God Elokim because it is Aleph Milah, all the words put into a singularity.

All the words and numbers, mathematics and thought, are all in the beginnings of formulation here- this is where they are all beginning to be put into the context of being perceptible to man.

Binah is also called Imah which is mother and has the same letters as Amah, which is a measurement, and that makes sense in terms of its purpose in creation and its positioning in the left side of the Sphirot.

Elokim is more so suiting because “Everything is made Bitselem Elokim”, “Everything is made ‘because of the covering of’ Elokim”- because when you are inside of your mother, Imah, she covers you and protects you until you are defined enough to give birth to and Malchut is called birth.

Another definition of Chavya is desire, as she desires to return to the larger piece from which she was created, the piece being the rib of man that she was made from. Binah is just as much this definition of Chavya as any other because it yearns to return to and cleave to Chachma and receive more and more from it so that it can fertilize it, shape it, and beautify it.

As a result of this yearning to detail Binah also relates to Schinah because it encompasses the dwelling force of the feminine.

This aspect to Binah is also why it is called Gan Eden as all is fertilized there and the defined space of mind can be understood there, it is just in a much expanded state of consciousness. This is why when people have near death experiences they describe this experience of rising above themselves and experiencing a profound sense of clarity within their own consciousness- this is where they are travelling to.

The way you navigate through the endless space that is Chachma is through Binah. Nikevah, the feminine, is also Nukvah which means to specify and set wages. Everything exists because of Chachma but everything ‘matters’ because of Binah.

God had the entire universe but none of it mattered unless it could be experience by someone and here is our first step to such reception. The Yud is the giver that is Chachma and the Hey is the receiver that takes to complete and that is Binah- together they came together to create the world.

This concept is also the reason behind why Adam didn’t eat from the Tree of Life, of immortality, because there was no need for it- all they really needed was the access to Da’at as a means to elevate themselves and bring them to closer levels of relation to God. Immortality would impede that actual experience of feeling the truth of your relationship with God.

Binah breaks into the 6 sphirot, where the heart of character is. These are the 6 sphirot of character and attribute. It is the world of Yetsirah where the Yetser Harah and Yetser Tov are created- it is where the individual channels their light through the good or through the bad. The light of God IS 50% there and 50% not, which makes it the perfect ground for decision.

Binah, at its highest level, is the flow of Gan Eden manifested and the 6 sphirot are where the death experience manifests. In a way, Keter, Chachma, and Binah never truly shatter- they are manifested in everything, but that is not true for the Zeir Anpin.

This is found in the word Bireshit- Bara Shet, He created six. These are the six expressions of the world and they were held within the potential of the beginning from the very start of creation; it was all a journey to creating man as we are now. Everything was only in potential though until Adam and Eve actively chose that they wanted to make it reality. They had to make that choice because what would free will be if we didn’t choose to want it.

There are concepts that bind together these four parts of

Chachma is also called Shamaim which can be broken down to Sham Yam , there is the days. Binah are all the moments in those days and its called Eretz. It’s all really one. The six sphirot of the Zeir Anpin under this relationship of heaven and earth are referred to as heaven again and once again Malchut underneath it is earth and so it’s a repetition of this relationship.

Sham Yam, there are the days, also relates to a deep concept that the yetzer harah was created on the sixth day, there are six days and there are six of these midot and Shabbat recreates the next six days where you need to actualize these midot- the action you make in Malchut influences the next six days to the Shabbat. While Chachma and Bina are the world of Yud and Hey in the tetragrammation, but the worlds of real tikun and expression of midot is in the Vav (six) and Hey for Malchut (which correlates to Bina’s Hey- Upper Gan Eden and Lower Gan Eden).

This repetition of relationships between the four sectors of Chachma, Bina, the Zeir Anpin, and Malchut occurs once more as Chachma is the masculine, the father, and Bina is feminine, the mother, and then this relationship is repeated with the Zeir Anpin being the masculine, the son, and Malchut is the feminine once more as the daughter. This is why there is discussion of incest in the dialogue of the sphirot.

Just as the sphirot relate to the names of God they also relate to the names of patriarchs and the matriarchs. Binah relates to Leah- El Hey, to the Hey (not a coincidence) and Leah had six sons, for the six midot, and one daughter, Dina, and we call Malchut Din because it correlates to Elokim, which correlates to the Hey so there’s the upper Din of Binah and Lower Din of Malchut.

We need to be conscious of the way we view the sphirot from Malchut up to Keter or from Keter down to Malchut. We need to realize also that the sphirot that are immediately opposite to each other as you work up and down the diagram are uniquely correlated to each other. Keter and Malchut are very intimately related. and Chachma are very connected and so on.

And now we go into the Zeir Anpin, starting with Chesed.

Chesed is Chet Sod, which means vitalizes secretly. Chesed is related to the patriarch Avraham, it expresses the quality of endless giving. It can receive from Chachma which is placed right above it on the diagram of the sphirot so it has the ability to receive from it directly.

Chesed isn’t necessarily a quality for the positive, Avraham is the expression of Chesed done positively and beautifully and Chesed is related to Ahava. Avraham was also the essence of community, his tent was always open and that can be dangerous because one can lose the sense of self within the community if not balanced with a sense of individuality. Chesed is the outpouring without limitation.

Related to Chesed though is incest because incest is the product of being incapable of placing boundaries upon your sexual lust.

It is also said that the Mabul was a Chesed and people have tried to rationalize how it’s possible that it was a kindness but it wasn’t at all. It was referring to this quality of extreme outpour without limitation, and it can be deadly. The rain was basically water without limitation- it all dropped as one and destroyed everything overwhelmingly.

Right opposite Chesed is , which is the attribute of wrestling what’s given into limitations and is related to the concept of Yirah. It defines what things aren’t; it’s a negative space. It correlates to the patriarch Yitzchak, Ketz Chai- the boundaries of life and it has a pathway to receive directly from Binah. Yitzchak literally said that Avraham should put a knife to his neck at the Akeidah, he was so understanding of the boundaries of the word of God that he said he would die for it- it is the essence of Gevurah.

Gevurah is also laughter. “Man plans and God laughs” is a quote from Iyov and Yitzchak is Gevurah, laughter, and it says that when you plan something and the light gets blocked and it doesn’t happen that’s the interference of Gevurah and it’s doing it with character, with laughter, like you have to have a sense of humor to interact with Gevurah.

Mark Twain said that humor was the positive side of the truth- to have a sense of humor you have to be very critical, in order to see something’s flaws and see the irony behind it. This sheds light on the character of Yitzchak, he wasn’t only intense Din but he had an ability to see the great humor in life as well.

A way to understand-

What is a drop of water? Is it Chesed or is it Gevurah?

Chesed is the water that’s in the drop and Gevurah is the edge of and line outlining the shape of the drop, exactly where it cuts off.

We have to remember that if the world was created off of Din the world would cease to exist, the word Dy is in the root, it means to stop. That is why the world was created with Chesed and then tempered by Din and limitations.

Also to remember is that each of these sphirot has a quality of each of the other 10 sphirot held within them so you have a reality of Chesed SheBiGvurah.

So, Chesed tempered with Gevurah gets , Harmony.

Tiferet is Yaakov, the unity between the two extremes. This is really the first time that these two opposites are merged and it’s a very delicate balance. Yaakov is also the third, Shalosh, Shel and Shel- of this and of that. He balanced it all successfully out of this completeness; notice that he had no evil children unlike Avraham and Yitzchak. We mentioned the themes of balance in Yaakov’s name when we spoke of his relationship to the middle sphirah. These include his name Yisroel, the dream with the ladder, his relationship with Emet.

He is also called the Zeir Anpin because the rectification of all those sphirot is the state of Emet. This also sheds light on Emet because Em is Binah and Met is Malchut and when the Zeir Anpin are channeled harmoniously it allows a direct conduit of God’s light perceptible to us through.

Tiferet ultimately deals with beautifying the balance of these opposites as the dimensions begin to become more defined. It plays with the draw of both sides.

The next sphirah is , which correlates to Moshe and means victory. It’s this intense victorious power. Its an eternal dominant power and that’s what Moshe was, he was unbeatable. It’s masculine strength that doesn’t want to stop giving.

Hod means praise but it can also mean grace and splendor as well as to admit because when bad things happen you have to have the ability to admit you don’t know everything and you have to have faith in God.

Hod is the feminine left side of the sphirot and it’s the idea of taking Netzach and partitioning it, giving it out in a balanced manner. It’s tact and patience and it correlates to Aharon. He balanced Moshe’s righteous conviction and forward momentum with temperance and judgment. Hod is also because it’s this overwhelming quality and you just have to be receptive to it and let it do it’s mission.

Hod can be compared to being a parent- even when a parent knows he’s right, the technique with which he passes that onto the child is crucial.

Interesting concepts that descend from this all- You have Avraham, who’s carrying the Yud from Yud-Hey, and Sarai, who has a Yud and she’s given the quality of Hey, of Binah, so she can birth Yitzchak and he carries that Hey down to Gevurah which is right underneath it. *Explain this better.

Avraham also has the Gematria of 248 positive commandments, these positive commandments are the way that we are supposed to pursue pleasure in this world; God says you have your positive commandments, and we should use our Chesed, our Netzach, and our Chachma and go out and pursue it and find the pleasure in it.

The left side is negative and it’s saying to withhold those desires and there are 365 of them, which is interesting because there are 365 days in a year and the left side is that which correlates to the quality of time.

248 reduces to 14 which is Yad and 365 also reduces to Yad and when you put them together you get Yedid.

Finally, between Netzach and Hod is Yesod. It’s called the Brit, it’s the sexual organ, it’s the tip of the male genitalia. It relates to Yosef Hatzaddik, which isn’t a jump from Aharon because it’s in the middle sphirot and right above him is Tiferet, which we said correlates to his father Yaakov.

It’s Yosef Hatzaddik so it’s always correct and everything ultimately channels down into Yesod, which means the foundation, before coming into this world of Malchut.

We need to understand that there is a quality of perfection within each of these sphirot because there’s that aspect of Keter within each of them, it’s just that the light from it within that sphirah can be blocked, culminating in imperfections of character or situation, but you can work to correct for that blockage through your tikun- it is again this concept of every physical action having a spiritual reaction.

When we learn that Yaakov gave Yosef a Technicolor dream coat- what does that mean? It means he gave him the key to understand the 7 colors of energy, the 7 sphirot that we can comprehend, and he gives him a garment to be dressed in this acquired understanding.

Yesod is the foundation to everything, it’s again the idea of Shamayim and when we pray for Yorid HaGeshem, Yorid HaTal, these are metaphors for water, Keter, coming down to us from the heavens through the sphirot.

When you clean up your Yesod you can come into this world with the perfect foundation to become man.

Chesed is the secret and hidden vitality and as the light from it descends through the sphirot it gets dressed in the various garments of the other sphirot and when it gets to Yesod it gives it the Yud of potential and Chachma.

One of the dimensions of this is wine- Da’at is the grape and as the knowledge trickles down the sphirot it becomes richer and richer until it descends into Malchut which is called that’s the Gematria of Kos, cup, and then we have Chachma which is bread, the Vav of the midot is the knife, and Malchut is also the world of Shabbat. This is the source of the title Shulchan Aruch, the Set Table.

To be close with God we have to evolve our Da’at but what does it mean to be close in the spiritual realm?

Closeness in the spiritual world is based off of the similarity between things- everything that’s alike the attributes of Hitler is in the realm and everything that is alike Moshe is in that spiritual realm, that is why it’s Midah, it’s a measurement of your character.

When it comes to Gehenum, there are different levels to it and its intensity is based off of what you’ve done and what kind of person you are. In Gehenum there is the potential for the refinement of character and it changes who you are when you come out on the other side of that process but you still aren’t a perfect being and with that imperfection comes the intense desire to rectify and break through the concealment you can sense between you and God and that’s what leads to the decision we each make to reincarnate.

Finally, we have Malchut, which is essential because it is the Delet, it is the doorway to the reality we work in. It is also Delet, which is without everything and simultaneously Dalut, which is a pale where everything collects because it is the doorway to the possibilities of both everything and nothing.

It’s all dependent on our experience and our action- our actions instantly create our reality- if we do positive action we shift the light coming to us positively and the same for the negative. We decide what our vessel channels.

Malchut is also called name because this is where everything is given a name and is defined- Ushmo Achat, one name, equals Ratzon, Desire, and Keter is called the same thing. It reminds us of how Keter and Malchut are connected.

Our job is to rectify the shattered world of Malchut, the death experience, ad work it to emulate the attributes of God. This is why Malchut is also Emunah because it’s not an intellectual quality, it doesn’t just mean faith, its also really loyalty and with desire you prove what you are really loyal to and what you really strive toward with your actions in this world.

If your desire and loyalty are towards the good then that is what your action will actually manifest as and in that sense it becomes very black-and-white and defining- that’s the difference between the quality of Desire in Keter and Malchut.

Malchut is also called Eretz because it’s the Aleph, mastery, of Ratz, desire. It’s also call Oni, because it’s where you rectify the Ayin- there are seven sphirot garmenting the light and within each of them are 10 layers so it becomes 70- and Ayin literally means desire so it relates back to the previously mentioned Ratzon.

Oni is also ‘me’ but it’s the fake me, it’s the developing me and it also means poor because you need to earn everything you have.

Malchut is also called Peh, the mouth, because its where we can articulate our potential and actualize it. That’s also why it’s called Dibur, the active speech, and it’s the Aseret Dibrot because Malchut is where the 10 commandments are manifest and needed to be adhered by. It’s Poh, from the same word, because this is where you really are and where you are changing yourself.

It’s where we earn what we receive, and when you shift the doorway in Malchut the doorways to everything else shifts. You can change where your are but the sphirot don’t change, the light that comes down is infinite and meted out exactly the same- it’s only how you receive it.

With Tchiyat HaMetim, it’ll happen because the light of Chachmah will pour into this world and it will restore life into the death experience. It’s also to occur in the 7000th year, the Shabbat.

This lower world is the daled and you try to bring down the Yud and make it a Hey- a rectified Malchut world that reflects the will of God.

It says that Moshe ascended Har Sinai, and it means that he ascended his midot, it says Shemah, Mah is his everything of Keter- he overcame it all at Har Sinai and he ascended to receive the Oral Torah and that is Binah- he went to Binah, to the world of Hey to receive the Chachma and in this world of Malchut we expand the Hey as much as we can to overcome ourselves on our own level.

*get the reason for why we are called yehudim again because that’s an interesting thing to include