Hi, my name is Gail Ginsburg. I am a Spiritual Director of esynagogua.org and this is installment seven of Kabbalah for Today. A practical introduction to traditional Jewish mysticism updated for you, today.
We continue our exploration of the Sephirot with my favorite Sephirot, Tiferet. I want to review for you a chart of the Sephirot just you can see where we are structure wise. We begin up here at the top with cotter order or the crown moving on, this is difficult because it is backwards Chokmah or wisdom, Keter or understanding, Chesed compassion loving, kindness, our last discussion was of Gevura, strength or judgment.
We now find ourselves at tiferet beauty. The secretly tiferet is located at the balance point between Chesed loving kindness and Gevura or strength. If we look at this as a physical representation to tiferet is the area of our heart, our mid section. Were many say the soul resides. The tiferet beauty is understood as balance. Beauty is understood as fitness, appropriateness, rightness for the task, also certainly the esthetics sense of beauty, something that is pleasing to us.
If we look at the torah and consider what is describe in the torah as being beautiful. We might get an idea of what is this all about. We talked about people being beautiful and I think this is not only external representation but discussion of their internal qualities of their spiritual beauty. Rachel is beautiful. Jacob is particularly understood as beautiful, in fact, he is the patriarch most often associated whit the sierra of tiferet. Abigail, wife of King David is understood as being beautiful. Jarrusel is beautiful. Signer or Israel is beautiful. Trees are beautiful, even Egypt is described as being beautiful in a certain way. Returning from captivity is beautiful. So, people are beautiful. Nature is beautiful. Spiritual ideas are beautiful. Many different qualities associated with beauty in the torah.
But for us, I think it is best to understand this as a point of balance between compassion, loving kindness and judgment or strength and for us we need to hold ourselves in balance. As we consider beauty in our lives, let us look at what is beautiful to us. My husband and I were discussing this last evening. What do we consider beautiful? We start of with the obvious, the world of nature, and our children and then moved on to more esoteric ideas, such as spiritual beauty, and the beauty that we find in music and in arts. I suggest that you surround yourself with this much beauty as possible.
There is a lot of ugliness in the world today, probably already has been. So, why subject ourselves to images that are adjuring or unpleasant or violent. Spend time in the world of natures. Spend time with creatures and plants and arts and music and the torah. And all those things which feed our souls, feeds ourselves to increase the balance and the harmony and the peace, within our lives and in the world for more we are at peace, the more the world will be at peace.
In terms of meditative practice, of course we begin with the three six three breathing. Focus your energy in your heart, in the middle of your body and draw down the light into this part of yourself. As you do so, more physic light around your body and find places were you are not at harmony. Places that hurt, places that feel tense. Invite that light into yourself, increase the harmony and peace within your body. Then also, I will certainly focus on any relationships that are in this harmony, and try to bring that light feeling in to those as well.
So, as you meditate, bring the light into your mid section, spread throughout your body, through your relationships and throughout the world. Until next time I wish you God’s joy, God’s blessing and God’s peace.
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