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Creating Bridges: Spirituality & Philosophy:
Kabbalah: "Letters from Heaven:"
Spiritual Guidance from the Hebrew Alphabet
Samech:
Support
Numerical value: 60
May every ending
be a beginning
filled with blessings!
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by Avigayil Landsman |
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Dedication
I dedicate this month's column to the many people who have supported me in my journey with the letters. I apologize if I have left anyone out. In addition to the people I have mentioned so far, I would like to thank my many students and querents whose questions led me to new frontiers. I especially want to thank my mother, Rhoda Landsman who was my first student. When I came home from Hebrew school she enjoyed learning the Hebrew words for common things, like milk, chalav. She always told me I'd be a teacher.
I thank Shelli Lipton for teaching me English calligraphy and offering me helpful artistic advice. Nathan Koenig loaned me a copy of "The Sacred Letters," videotape that offers rich and deep teachings of the letters from Talmud and Zohar. (If you are interested in seeing this video, see below) .
Susan Rosen, director of Miriam's Well in Saugerties and kabbalistic healer offered me much support and encouragement. She also helped me understand the four worlds and Aytz Chayyim better. It was her loving embrace that inspired the samech hug concept. Mary Sarsheen has been a major fan of my work and her enthusiasm has been a catalyst for continuing my writing. Brett, coordinator of staff programs at Omega Institute in Rhinebeck was an enthusiastic student after giving me the opportunity to teach a four week workshop there. His insights astounded me.
I want to thank Pauline Fournier at Mt. St. Alphonsus in Esopus for taking a chance on me by allowing me to teach at the center. Teaching there has been a deeply rewarding and enriching experience. I felt deeply connected to all of my students.
You might say that the letters brought Christopher White and I together as we met at my first class at Mt. St. Alphonsus. Although we come from different backrounds, we have discovered that the path to the heart is understood in many traditions. I am deeply grateful for his tenderness and kindness. The books I've used for information and inspiration are: The Inner Meaning of the Hebrew Letters, by Robert Harrilick; The Book of Letters by Lawrence Kushner; The Mystery of the Alphabet, by Marc Alain Ouknin; The Alef-Beit by Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsberg. And lastly, I want to thank my three brilliant, beautiful children for supporting me with their insights as I fumble my way through parenthood. I have been deeply inspired through my journey of parenting.
Origins
The origin of this letter may be the image of a fish's spine and ribs. The physical support of the fish is its middle with neither tail nor head. Other possibilities include the skeleton or tree branches that are the infrastructure to support its organism. Physical support is a metaphor for spiritual support, which is now associated with the letter.
The numbers game
` Samech's numerical equivalent is sixty; ten times six. Six is the communicator, the connector. The energy of samech is support, connecting, communicating to a higher level. If you look at samech you will see that it is a vav curved around onto itself! The connector connected, from bottom to top. That's what being close to God does for you. You, on the earthly plane are eternally connected to your cosmic source.
A mikva, the ritual bath of purification must contain one sixtieth of water from a natural source. If one sixtieth of meat is accidentally mixed with a dairy dish, it is still kosher to eat.
When we visit the sick, the Talmud says that we take one sixtieth of their illness away with us when we leave. When we sleep, we experience one sixtieth of death. Dreams are one sixtieth prophesy and Shabbat is one sixtieth of the World to Come.
Every ending is a beginning
Samech is the only completely closed letter of the original 22 letters. The letter's name means support. The letter reminds us of an ouroboros, a snake swallowing its own tail. This symbol is found throughout most early cultures. It suggests that the beginning is embedded in the ending. Just as you finish a project or a phase in your life, a new one is gestating. It is a law of physics that a void is always filled. We may fear endings because we feel there will be nothing to follow or that what comes next won't be as good as what we are about to lose or let go of but when approached with care and enthusiasm, our next project will spiral us up.
The power of the world is seen in a circle: wind whirls, nests are round, seasons cycle in a circle of time, as does the life of a person. The horizon is round and the sun's path around the moon is also a circle. The samech has no end and no beginning. Samech is the eternal, loving embrace of HaShem. The next time you give someone a hug, realize that you are making a samech with your arms. When two friends support each other with love, their egos disappear and there is no beginning or end to the energy of love that cycles between them.
The space inside the circle is the spirituality that exists inside it; the outside circle is their eternal love. God's love works the same way. The circle of samech lets us know that we are eternally "encircled" in God's love. Few of us can hold on to this truth, therefore, the word to doubt, "safek" starts with the letter samech. The conveyance of leadership, or ordination is done with the laying on of hands, called smichah. This word has the same letters as samech with different vowels. The Mishnah says that there are thirty bones in each hand. When the High Priest of the Holy Temple blessed the people, sixty bones were used (the word for bone also means essence). There are sixty letters in the Priestly blessing. What we learn from this is that we are blessed constantly with the Infinite's support.
The letter's shape embodies the phrase, "sovev v'mamaleh", surrounding and filling, two ways to relate to creation. We read in Isaiah 6:3, "The entire earth is filled with His Presence." Sovev v'mamaleh makes me think that God is constantly giving birth to us, like a giant mother, both surrounding us with her body and filling us with her tender mercy. We can imagine the samech as a giant pelvis, the largest bone of our body that supports the uterus, container for life. The pelvis is the foundation of our body, connecting our torso with our legs. We sit and stand with the support of our pelvis. This support is essential for the full function of our bodies. The pelvis is the center of gravity for the entire body just as Infinite Source of Blessing is the center of our soul. The pelvis receives the weight of the upper body and transits it to the legs. This is the arousal from above to below.
At times, we receive blessings from HaShem at times without any intellectual effort, and it flows through us in how our actions are elevated to a higher level. The support of the pelvis also absorbs the stresses of the lower body. Our day-to-day lives test our faith. Can we maintain our awareness of God's eternal support during a crisis and maintain our integrity? Or will we stumble, doubting and turning away from God? When we have a tenuous relationship with our Beloved Friend, we may stray from the long-short road (see the story in the nun column).
This constant support (sovev) encircling our organs protects their function (mamaleh). A mother's love for her child reflects the supernal compassion. The Hebrew word for compassion is rachum. The shoresh, root of rechem means womb. Ideally, when a mother holds her baby, she encircles him or her with unconditional love. Her love is special because within this love is her ability to tune into her child's needs, which on a deep level reveals his or her very essence. Her only concern is for her child's welfare and to nurture the unfolding of her child's soul. Without judgment, she celebrates her child's activities as an expression of that unfoldment. The child's activities are the mamaleh.
Mystical Recipe
It took me a while to wrap my mind around this concept, but once I did, I started to see all of life in terms of sovev v'mamaleh, including food, a calzone in particular. A calzone, you say? Sure. Think of the sturdy crust that holds the gooey, cheesey insides. Without the crust, the calzone would be a pizza topping waiting to happen, without the filling, you'd have an empty shell. Both the crust (sovev) and the filling (mamaleh) are necessary for a fulfilling life. We need the structure of daily life and the love that fills it.
The circle of Love
A Jewish wedding ceremony illustrates sovev v'mamalleh. The bride encircles (sovev) her groom seven times. This ritual is done to bring down the blessings from the seven sephirot, or divine essences. Their life together is the mamaleh. The wedding ring that the groom places on the bride's finger is sovev; her finger, which points to the future, is mamaleh. A beloved's love for one's beloved is sovev. We celebrate the natural evolution of our beloved's soul. We tune into our beloved through our loving embrace; the physical connection acting as a doorway to our love's soul. The tender, loving embrace is always felt inside our hearts.
We experience sovev v'mamaleh throughout all aspects of life. The outside of the samech is the realm of sovev, the angelic realm that is fixed. Angels do not grow or change in any way. The space inside is the realm of the ever-changing spiritual life of each of us, even of the realm of the light of the Torah. In the acrostic prayer known as the Ashrei, the line for samech reads, "God supports-somech-- all who fall and raises up all who are bowed down."
Many years ago, I had a very supportive friend who showed me great concern and did whatever he could to help me. Although we loved each other very much, we never hugged. One evening, after he helped me out, I impulsively rushed over to him and hugged him with all the unexpressed love that had built up over our twenty year friendship. "I love you," I said and he responded by hugging me with passionate tenderness. A week later, I was shocked to learn that he died of an unexpected stroke. He was only forty-two years of age. The memory of his embrace remains with me to this day.
Letter Journeys
A few years ago, I got a big "session" about samech, tet, vav and shin through experiencing excruciating pain in my-- you guessed it-- pelvis. I felt like my body had been torn apart. I shook from the intensity of the pain. This reminded me of a scene in the movie, "The Wizard of Oz" when the winged monkeys tore the Scarecrow's straw body apart and threw it all over the ground. The Tin Man asked him what happened. The Scarecrow replied, "Well, they took my left leg and threw it over there and they took my right leg and threw it over there..." to which the Tin Man quickly retorted, "Well, that's you, all over." My body felt broken, totally torn apart, like the Scarecrow.
We lose our awareness in God's eternal support when there is a tear (tarof) in our faith, a word beginning with the letter tet. The opening at the top of the tet results from tearing the samech apart. Our perceived disconnection with God's support can bring our quest for the goodness hidden within us, as evidenced by the shape of the letter tet bending into itself. A Bible story that focuses on tearing is dramatically told in parashat Vayeshev (Genesis 57:33). In the Torah (Bible), we read how Joseph's jealous brothers sell Joseph into slavery. They then tear his coat-the special coat that their father, Jacob had made for him-and dip is coat in animal blood in order to convince Jacob that his favorite son has been killed. The word tarof, torn is repeated twice. Why is it repeated twice? Whenever a word is repeated twice in the Torah, we know it's for a reason. It's emphasizing an important idea, beckoning us to go deeper into the text. Once for the physical tearing, the ending of his son's life, and the second time for the tear in the bond between the brothers. Perhaps it's more likely that the latter provoked the former!
When we enter a period of deep grief and tearing, we cry out to HaShem. The connector, the letter vav, brings the two hays of yud-hay-vav-hay (the Holy Name of God), the upper and lower worlds together. Consider that tet's numerical value is nine, as in nine months of gestation. When the vav enters into this torn tet, the three-pronged letter, shin is formed and we become shalem, whole/complete and are ready to recite "Shema! Yisrael, Adonai Elohaynu, Adonai echad!" "Listen up, you who wrestle with the Infinite! Your struggles and your joy are just flip sides of the same coin; it's all ONE!"
To get back to what happened on that night of excruciating pain: I understood that my pelvis is a samech, holding the rechem, the compassion I would give to a baby, represented by tet. The baby is a metaphor for creating, whether it is an art project or a new relationship. Go into the archives to see the picture card of tet; it has a baby inside the empty space the letter creates. Here we come to understand the microcosm of the samech. The Mother's support of new life is like the eternal support of God, holding us in an eternal embrace, placing the divine hands upon us so that we may fill (mamaleh) the world with our divine work. Kayn y'hi ratzon.(May it be Your will!)
Samech in a reading
If samech appears in your reading, you are being asked to focus on God's unending support. Pay attention to the many ways you feel the Eternal Source of Love blessing you with support. Look around and notice all the friends and good people who help you each day, from the child who opens the door for you when you struggle with an armload of packages to the cashier who smiles at you during a stressful day when you are running late to work.
Are you ending a relationship and feeling blue? Remember that the ending is embedded in the beginning, that the ending of this relationship can open you up to experience something new and wonderful. (Note: sing "Something's Coming" from "West Side Story." "Who knows? Could be….") It might not feel wonderful for a while, but believe me, if you learn from what you've just lost; you are on your way up the ladder.
Feel the Infinite presence of your Beloved Friend placing His or Her hands on you, infusing you with love, light and wisdom.
Image
The pelvis is the foundation of support in the human body and is a metaphor for Divine support (sovev). The Cosmic Pelvis belongs to the Great Mother. I believe that the "firmament" that God created in the Biblical account of creation was the Great Mother. The Hebrew word for firmament is rakia which literally means something hammered out, like a dome. We can imagine the pelvis was perhaps something solid and then hollowed out so that it could be filled again. This stable, solid mass became a hollowed out form, capable of supporting the ongoing process of creation, the primary metaphor of sovev v'mamalleh. Looking through the rear view of the pelvis opens us to the realm of entry into the secure, loving embrace of the Shekinah (in-dwelling Presence of the Divine) that constantly supports the dynamic roller coaster ride of activity we engage in throughout our lives. With the knowledge that you are constantly supported on your journey, you will be courageous! Open your heart to the unending love of the Shekinah as you move through the turbulent (birth) waters of life.
To get a copy of the video, "Sacred Letters," contact the Woodstock Museum at 845-246-0600 or e-mail Nathan at hello@woodstockmuseum.com
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Avigayil Landsman,
Torah Scholar, Calligrapher, Lecturer, Teacher & Creator of the "Letters From Heaven" Deck
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Avigayil has been a serious student of Torah for the last ten years and has written many d'vrai Torah(Torah lectures). She is the creator of Letters from Heaven, a Jewish divination system that incorporates the mystical meanings of the Hebrew letters, her chiddushim (new insights into Torah) and their application to the challenges of daily life. Her LFH readings offer seekers of all persuasions spiritual direction in finding one's authentic voice.
Avigayil is a multi-media artist who is best-known for the beaded breastplate that adorns the Woodstock Jewish Congregation's Torah. She creates personalized ketubot, beeswax Shabbat candles, shiviti plaques and other judaica as well as secular art in Sculpey, paint, and shadow boxes that combine disparate objects such as feathers, beads and wood.
Her Judaica (beeswax Shabbat and havdallah candles, havdallah spice boxes, shiviti plaques) and calligraphy cards are available for purchase at the Woodstock Jewish Congregation's judaica shop, Miriam's Well and her home. She also does private commissions.
Avigayil has taught enrichment classes in calligraphy for the Woodstock Jewish Congregation's Hebrew school. She prepares children and adults for becoming Bat/bar-mitzvah with humor and deep wisdom that come from her own unique way of living through the lessons of Torah. She has also given workshops and lectures on the spiritual meaning of the Hebrew letters and Letters from Heaven at Omega and Mount St. Alphonsus.
"Avigayil Landsman's interpretations of the Hebrew letters are original, witty, steeped in scholarship, and above all a genuine opening to our own spiritual wisdom." Rachel Pollack, creator of Shining Tribe Tarot Deck
www.rachelpollack.com
Avigayil is available for art commissions and LFH readings in person or on the phone. She may be contacted by e-mail at:
Avigayil1@earthlink.net
Website:
www.jewish-wisdom
-and-art.4t.com
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