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The Sefirot: a Hasidic Perspective on the Spiritual Journey

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The Sefirot: a Hasidic Perspective on the Spiritual Journey The Sefirot: A Hasidic Perspective on the Spiritual Journey by Yaacov David Shulman (c) 2004Yaacov David Shulman 6022 Highgate Drive Baltimore, MD 21215 (410) 358-8771 [email protected] 3 The Sefirot INTRODUCTION Elijah began to expound: “Master of the world, You are one, and beyond all accounting. “You are higher than the highest, more hidden than the most hidden. “No thought can grasp You at all” (Patach Eliyahu). Beyond all universes, beyond all thought, beyond all conception, is the one primal Being Whom we call God. “The true nature of this Being,” teaches Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto, “cannot be understood by anyone besides Him. All that is known about Him is that He is totally perfect” (Derech Hashem 1:2). The Jewish mystical tradition teaches that in order to create the many planes of being that culminated in our world, God brought into being ten sefirot, or vessels. These sefirot consecutively filtered God’s spiritual light so that universes separate from Him could emerge. In this way, God could bestow love on others. He could be 4 The Sefirot revealed to others as a giving king (cf. Likutei Halachot, Yoreh Deah, Tolaim 4:5). These ten sefirot are still active, for God continues to recreate all of creation at every moment. The pattern of the ten sefirot exists on many levels. Every object and every process in the world is a working through of the energies of the sefirot. Every Jewish practice and holiday presents a theater for the energies of the sefirot to flow. In addition, like an infinite hologram, each sefirah contains within it all the other sefirot (LH, Hoshen Mishpat, Geneivah 4:6). And in our own personalities and our own lives we can find analogues to the divine processes of the sefirot. Thus, the classic work, Tomer Devorah, in which every sefirah is linked to an ethical quality states, “It is fit for a person to be similar to his Maker.” And Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, the sixth rebbe of Lubavitch, taught, “God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image’ (Genesis 1:26). All the heavenly levels are found in man. The word adam–man–is related to the word edameh–I will be similar–as in the verse, ‘I will be similar to the One above’ (Isaiah 14:14). Man below is an image of the sefirotic lights and vessels above. All levels above are found in man below.” Because we contain an analogue of the sefirot within ourselves, we can intuit the spiritual truth of the upper worlds. Furthermore, through our acts here below–acts of goodness and of religious meaning, such as keeping the Sabbath–we can influence the heavenly sefirot and draw down their positive energy (Likkutei Dibburim, p. 246). 5 The Sefirot In particular, we can use the sefirot as a model when examining and attempting to improve our spiritual lives and struggles. This analogue between the sefirot and our personal work in relating to God in a profound and deeply-felt way is a theme that is discussed at length in the Breslov Hasidic literature. This is particularly so in Likutei Halachot (Collected Discourses on Jewish Law), an eight-volume collection of essays by Rabbi Nosson, a major student of Rabbi Nachman. This work parallels the sixteenth-century collection of Jewish law, the Shulchan Aruch (The Prepared Table). But whereas that work, the foundation of modern halachic practice, is a practical manual, Likutei Halachot uses the halachah as a take-off point for brilliant expositions of Breslov Hasidism. Likutei Halachot forms the basis of this book. The Ten Sefirot The first sefirah is called keter: crown. It is the most transcendent of sefirot, the closest to the blazing, inconceivable light of the Infinite One. Then the light of keter is filtered down to the second sefirah, chochmah: wisdom. Chochmah is the incipient flash of what the structure of this world will be. From chochmah comes binah: understanding. Binah is the broadening and development of that primal flash of insight. The culmination of chochmah and binah is daat: knowledge. Because keter is so exalted and hidden, it is sometimes not counted as a sefirah. In such a case, daat is counted. Daat represents the union 6 The Sefirot and integration of chochmah and binah. Now the balanced flow of Divine energy can proceed. The next sefirah is chesed: lovingkindness. A much more tangible form of creation is taking place. This first step is an untrammeled outpouring of limitless love. This is balanced by the next sefirah, might. This is the sefirah of holding back and constriction. It is a necessary placing of boundaries on the exuberant force of a loving creation. These two forces are integrated and balanced in the following sefirah of tiferet: beauty. Now love and withholding are in balance, with a slight tilt toward love. After this comes netzach: victory. This is again, on a more tangible plane, a sefirah of giving. This time the giving is one of overpowering and overcoming. Netzach must be balanced by hod. Hod is related to gevurah. It is more gentle, a receiving openness to Divine energy. These two sefirot of netzach and hod combine in yesod: foundation. Foundation is the conduit for all the sefirot above it. Through it, like water through a sluice, energy flows down in a directed stream. It is a holy energy that must be directed and controlled wisely. Therefore, it is analogous to human sexuality. The final sefirah is malchut: kingdom. This sefirah, which has received the energy of all the sefirot above it, rules the world over which it hangs and which it permeates. Each one of these sefirot has a wealth of characteristics, and can be known by a plethora of names. Besides this, the sefirot interact in a complex set of relationships. 7 The Sefirot A primal dynamic of the sefirot is the balance between male and female energies. The sefirot are arranged in three columns. The right-hand column is male, the left-hand female, and the middle column blends the two. The paradigm of the sefirot is repeated infinitely, one set within another. Imagine a series of infinite universes. At the very bottom is our own world, with its billions of galaxies, each containing billions of stars, spanning distances of billions of light years. This universe is merely a small part of the more spiritual universe directly above it. And so does creation rise, level after level, in a scope of unfathomable greatness. The higher universes contain a profusion of spiritual energies that we can barely imagine, filled with spiritual beings and processes. Higher and higher do the universes ascend. And in each one, we are aware of the progressively more powerful flow of divine energy coursing down. We rise from level to level, like an explorer tracing the source of a mighty river. Finally, we come to a level that totally baffles us, that overwhelms our most evolved and purified spiritual being. It is as though we stand beneath a roaring, battering, brilliant Niagara Falls of overpowering spiritual energy. All our thoughts, conceptions, our consciousness and awareness are shattered. We have come to the limit of any created being to understand Godliness. Beyond this is the great source of Being that created beings can only experience as an exalted Nothingness. And the energy that flows through all these universes is the dynamic flow of processes running in a complex and never-ending interplay of balanced and interacting energies and vessels. These are 8 The Sefirot what we call the sefirot. The Jewish mystical tradition teaches that even this conception is a corporealization of processes that transcend our human intellect. In the upper worlds, there is no space and there is no time. Therefore, all the words and concepts that we use to describe the sefirot are hopelessly impoverished. Just as a poem can recreate the mood of a magnificent vision, so can the descriptions of sefirot give us a taste of the spiritual world that flows above and about us. But the prime purpose of this work is to discuss the sefirot in a way that can provide inspiration and direction for our own spiritual journeys. This writing proposes to present one way of viewing the model of the sefirot: a modern interpretation of Breslov Hasidism. It is by no means an attempt to be definitive or even to cover the bulk of the subject. The approach is not technical, but impressionistic. And the characteristics of the sefirot are not hermetic. Thus, the same quality–such as joy–may be related to different sefirot. Two other English-language books are recommended. Aryeh Kaplan’s Innerspace has been described as the best English-language introduction to Kabbalah. Mattis Kantor’s Ten Keys: A Guide for the Entangled is an original study of the sefirot as psychological paradigms. The Sefirot and Beyond “You are He Who emanated ten rectifications and called them ten sefirot, to rule with them the hidden, unrevealed universes and the 9 The Sefirot revealed universes. “In them, You are hidden from humanity. “You are He Who ties them and unites them. “Because You are within, whoever separates one from another of those ten sefirot is considered as though he had separated within You. “These ten sefirot proceed in order. “One is long, one is short and one is in-between. “You are He Who rules them. “But no one rules You–neither above nor below nor from any side. “You made them garments from which blossom souls for humanity. “You prepared a number of bodies for them–called bodies in relation to the garments that cover them” (Patach Eliyahu).
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