7 Spiritual Energies

Between 2 of the 3 major Jewish festivals of the year - Passover & Shavuot - there are 49 days. This is not by coincidence, as the Jewish people left Egypt (on the 1st day of Passover) & traveled in the Egyptian desert for 7 weeks until they received the Torah on Mt. Sinai (on the day of Shavuot). There is a mitzvah to count each of these days, as we re-live the anticipation and character improvement our ancestors went through before receiving the divine Torah. But the number 49 is not by accident. Jewish mysticism teaches us that every soul is made up of 3 intellectual faculties & 7 emotional faculties, called "sefirot". The 7 emotional aspects of the soul are Kindness, strength, harmony, endurance, humility, bonding, and sovereignty. Furthermore, each emotion is made up of the other 6. So it's not simply that you have the ability to be kind or strong/severe, but rather that you have the ability to sometimes express true kindness to someone by being stern with them, a simple example being to scold a child who runs in the middle of the street, so as to teach them safe behavior. So that's how we get to 49: Each day during these 49 days, we count one of the emotional aspects we need to work on improving, each one made up of 7, totaling 49.

The fact that our souls are even made up of intellectual & emotional faculties in the 1st place, is because "G-d Created man in His image.." (Genesis 1:27). We have this spiritual DNA because G-d, on some level, includes these abilities within His Being. Towards the end of the earth's creation, the Torah says a verse that we recite over wine every Friday night: "Sheses yamim asah ado-nai et hashamayim v'et ha'aretz" - "6 days G-d made the heavens and the earth." Now the proper wording, seemingly, would have been to have said: "B'sheses - IN 6 days G-d Created..." That in that amount of time G-d Created the world. However, Kabbalah teaches that this wording is exact: "6 days G-d Created" means that the spiritual energy behind each day itself created the day. The 6 emotional attributes of G-d created & infused each day with its particular energy. It's not by chance that Tuesday - when the dry earth was separated from the waters - was the 3rd day of creation (represented by the 3rd attribute of Tiferet - harmony between 2 forces). Each of the 7 days, since the beginning of time, is infused with that particular, unique spiritual energy.

But what about the 7th day, the day of Shabbat where G-d Ceased creating? That day would correspond to the 7th emotional attribute known as Malchut - sovereignty. On a spiritual level, the 7th day of creation, Shabbat, seems completely untenable; impossible. As we have seen, G-d was actually emotionally invested in creation, infusing energy into each day to give it life in a particular way. But unlike a carpenter or weaver who takes materials and forms them into finished products and then can walk away from the objects intact, G-d was Creating the very material itself! The universe needs G-d's continual investment. So how can we survive on a day when (Kabbalah teaches us that) G-d Pulls Himself & His emotional faculties inward, to a higher level? The answer is a powerful one that we can meditate on every Shabbat to appreciate the day that much more. G-d doesn't remove His spiritual energy & emotional faculties from the universe, but rather elevates the universe together with Him inwardly. We, and all of the world around us, from the food we eat to the sky we see, is all uplifted to the level of G-d's intellect - above the emotions - a higher level than the weekday energies.

May we appreciate the power of these 24 hours from Friday night to Sat. night, when every song we sing and thing we touch and sense, can be appreciated on a completely higher dimension.

Shabbat Shalom!

*To learn more about the 10 Sefirot, see here

The Wedding & The Wine

With the recent beautiful weddings of my good friends Matan Darey & Megan Marcus, I am reminded of a long bus ride I had years ago, from Northern Israel to Jerusalem. I happened to be sitting next to a man with a guitar, named Shalev. Soon we were chatting away, and I was fascinated by his life story.

Growing up as a Christian in New York, Shalev always was attracted to Judaism. He really enjoyed the synagogue he visited for his friend's bar mitzvah. He even started learning Hebrew. One day, he was speaking to his priest at church. "Why don't you ever get married?" he asked. He didn't receive an answer. Intrigued, but with no encouragement, he slowly dropped his Jewish learning. As life went on, he forgot all about His Jewish phase. One day in college, he happened to meet a Rabbi. Discussion led to question after question, renewing Shalev's interest in Judaism. But one question really hit him hard. "Do you Rabbis ever get married?" he asked. "Sure, why not?" Answered the Rabbi. "Perhaps it's considered sinful?"

The Rabbi looked at him and said: 'Marriage, in Hebrew, is called Kiddushin - sanctification. Being engaged with the physical world, the Rabbi explained, is the entire purpose of creation. By elevating this material world in the proper way, by using it out for the good, its purpose for existing is realized. On nearly every holy day in Judaism, we sanctify the day over a cup of wine. In Hebrew, this is also called Kiddush. We reveal the spiritual within the physical, and we sanctify the spiritual with the physical together. The 2 unite, fused into 1.' Awed at the contrast between the 2 perspectives, Shalev slowly progressed in his Jewish learning and observance until eventually converting...

Now this isn't an attempt to disrespect other religions. Much beauty is to be found in all religions (well, since most came from ours, they must have some!) Rather, I was inspired from Shalev's highlighting of the unique beauty in the Jewish perspective. The material world isn't to be shunned - but rather elevated. Not only that, but through engaging & elevating the physical - we can achieve a higher level of spiritual goodness than even the most supernal of angels. But we must engage the world in order to elevate it, not to be lowered by it. Every day is a challenge to highlight the good, the holy, in everything we see and come in contact with. As hard as it is, that is our mission as Jews. The Ba'al Shem Tov even taught that a person's desire for the physical, is in essence his soul's desire to extricate the spiritual sparks found in that physical thing.

May this fusion of physical & spiritual lead us to the world's ultimate fusion with Godliness, with the coming of Mashiach. We are taught that during the Messianic era, nothing will really change; only that the spiritual, G-dly core of every physical thing will be revealed as the underlying reality of the world which it truly is.

Shabbat Shalom!

Mozart & Egypt

In this week's Torah portion, Bo, we read about the final 3 plagues against Pharaoh & the Egyptian people, as the Jewish people prepare to leave Egypt in freedom. But before they do, let's take a step back & ask a simple, yet fundamental question: Why did the Jewish nation have to go down to Egypt in order to be enslaved in the 1st place!? Couldn't G-d have kept us in the holy land - safe & sound - and given us the Torah there?

What has every nation who has ever abused the Jewish people had in common with one another? From Egypt to Rome, Babylonia to Greece, Spain in the late 15th-century and Germany in the mid-20th; all of these nations were powerful. But more than that, each of these nations excelled, perhaps led the world in - modernity and cultural advancement. The democracy & philosophy of Greece & Rome, the golden age of Spain, the emphasis & success of the art and music in Germany; each of these nations were at the forefront of their times in their appreciation of an enlightened culture. But did that "enlightenment" equate to having a moral society? It seems quite to the contrary! The more culturally advanced the nation was, the more cruel and disgusting were their actions!

Let's look at this on an individual level. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was brilliant. By 6 years old, when most kids his age were learning to read, Mozart had composed an entire symphony, to be performed by a full philharmonic orchestra! Ludwig van Beethoven, after becoming completely deaf, composed some of his most famous symphonies - unable to hear even one note of his composition! Niccolo Paganini composed such a complex violin concerto, that for 150 years no one was able to play it - except for Paganini himself. These brilliant souls obviously were blessed with amazing skills. But what type of people were they? From what we know, they had terrible character traits! Each one more unpleasant than the next. But how could that be!? Like the nations mentioned above, the reason why these amazing innovators weren't kind and gentle, was very simply because culture isn't Torah. Skills, knowledge, culture do not translate into goodness. Why not? It's because it doesn't penetrate into one's core - who I really am. Torah was given to the world to change one's inner self, to penetrate one's being in a way that refines the animal within. In simple yiddish: To make one into a mentsch.

And THAT'S why we had to go down to Egypt, as a precursor to accepting the Torah. If we never had, perhaps there would be wonder and curiosity as to whether we were missing out on the amazingly advanced culture of the super power Egypt! Innovative architectural pyramids, mathematics, you name it! G-d said: "OK, go and see if this advanced culture translates into a good society; into the best way of living life." Like the Nazis who lived culturally aware lives to the highest of degrees, we Jews have lived together with every leading nation & their cultures throughout history. Yet none have offered as kind and as just an outlook as what the Torah has given us. When we left Egypt, we could now truly appreciate Mount Sinai.

May we remember today as well, that as great as the advanced cultures & societies of today are, we must always turn to Torah and its guiding principles & values as our inspiration and guide to living a good life. Shabbat Shalom!