Kabbalah for Today - Installment 9
Hello! I am Gail Ginsburg Spiritual Director of esynagogue.org and this is Kabbalah for today. Practical guide to traditional Jewish mysticism designed to help you along your personal spiritual journey.
In our exploration of the Sephirot that tree of life, we now move on the Sephirot of Hod, which I will show you right here. Hod is representing majesty or splendor. Now when we talk about we talked last time about the Sephirot of Netzah, which meant victory or endurance represented by Moses, a kind of power that leads one in this world towards accomplishments, all those of course for the sake of heaven, for the sake of God.
The Sephirot of Hod represents instead a different kind of powers, spiritual powers represented by Aaron who is the first high priest. Aaron represents a kind of spiritual power that becomes in a person splendor or majesty. As God’s light is reflected through that person.
We are told in the Torah that the Jewish people specifically but I believe that all people who are devoted to God are lights to the nations. We are to be a light to the nations. We are to be reflecting the beauty and majesty of God in everything that we do. So how do we become bearers of this light? How do we become majestic and splendid in the same way that Aaron, the spiritual leader of the Jewish people was splendid?
I believe that it is through a variety of means taught to us by our Kabbalistic tradition. We are to engage in prayer and meditation. Prayer and meditation purifies, connect us with God and help us to understand the depths of ourselves.
We are also to engage ourselves in deeds of loving kindness. We are to be charitable, and warm and hospitable. We are also to observe the mitzvoth, we are to follow the teaching of the Torah of the Jewish law and we are to study. It is particularly to the idea of study that I want to address this particular video.
There are many opportunities in the world today to undertake a study of Judaism whether we are talking about traditional Judaism or the more mystical aspect of Judaism known as Kabbalah. You are fortunately blessed with many wonderful books. Synagogues have educational programs sometime colleges have educational programs, communities may have community educational programs focused on this. There are also many great online resources through which you can learn about Judaism. My husband and I co-direct Esynagogue.org which is devoted to online Jewish education. Not only do we have many videos that you can learn from, we also have an introduction to Judaism program, which some people use simply to learn others as the educational part of the conversion process geared particularly for those who live far away from a Synagogue.
We also have a Pharaoh Rabbinic program if you want to become in a sense a lay Rabi and lead a community. We have the means to do that. I will also suggest that you engage in personal Torah study, personal bible study. You may wish to do as I do and each day before I begin my mediation I either read a solemn or part of a solemn or a selection from the weeks’ Torah portion or partial and use that as a focus of my day and my meditation.
I will post on my website at list of the Torah readings for each week along with one of my personal favorite songs for each week. So as you begin your meditation on Hod ask for that the light of God to the illuminating presence of God’s love be with you and fill you and devote yourself to good deeds of kindness, to mitzvoth, to prayer, to meditation, and above all to study.
God’s joy, blessings and peace be with you always.
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