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Creating Bridges: Spirituality & Philosophy:
Kabbalah: "Letters from Heaven:"
Spiritual Guidance from the Hebrew Alphabet
Mem
Water
Numerical Value: 40
The jewel of water (mayim)
Constricted in the desert (midbar)
Flows through Miriam (Miryam)
by Avigayil Landsman |
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Dedication
Rabbi Natan Margalit is both friend and teacher of a very high caliber. He is a Pisces, a natural lover of water. He's also a brilliant person who thinks deeply about many aspects of life and conveys complicated concepts with clarity, originality and humor. He is open to the responses
of his students, happy to expand his understanding of dense texts.
My learning experiences with Natan have deeply enriched my soul life and feed into the work I do with the letters. I am deeply grateful to him for his scholarship as well as his friendship, so I dedicate this month's teaching (with a few samples of his teachings) to his honor.
Continuing on the path
I've made an exciting discovery about the letters: the developmental relationship between one letter and the next. The letters' meanings create a sequential path; each grows into the next in some way. The lamed-mem connection can be perceived as one letter: "l-m-n-o." The connection between these two letters is intriguing because they are also both constructed with the letters chaf and vav. In lamed, the vav reaches towards heaven. In mem, the vav and chaf connect horizontally, implying the relational. While lamed focuses on one's upward path, mem speaks of joining with others in the way water brings people and places together through relationship. The numerical value of chaf and vav equals twenty-six, the same gematria (numerical value) as yud-hey-vav-hey, the Holy Name.
In my last column we learned that the letter lamed begins the words for teach and learn. The letter mem begins the word moreh, teacher. A teacher connects through learning and teaching with his/her student. Another word that begins with the letter mem is mayim, water that "connects" two shores. People connect over a cup of tea-water. Torah, the ultimate Jewish learning tool is also called water.
Flowing in and out
In an earlier column we learned that the letter tet has a funnel-like opening at the top for goodness to pour in. Once tet is filled to the brim with the goodness of tal, dew, it turns upside down, spilling the flowing mayim chayim of mem! The early derivation of mem is a symbol of a wave. If you look at the top part of mem you'll see that it looks like a wave.
Who's on first?
Mem is the first letter in the interrogatory words: what, why, when and who. Rabbi Hillel, quoted in Pirke Avot, "The Ethics of the Fathers," said, "If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? If not now, when?" In the same book we also read: "Who is wise? He who learns from all men. Who is wealthy? He who is happy with his lot. Who is strong? He who can control his passions." In all these questions, we are asking for the divine flow, the mayim chayyim, to flow through us, filling us with God's wondrous glory, as we chant, "Mi kamocha?" "Who is like you?" This line is taken from the book of Exodus when the Hebrews have safely traversed the opened waters of the Sea of Reeds into freedom after leaving their slavery in Egypt.
Similarly, when the constriction of limited vision is expanded into potential possibilities, we give thanks to the Infinite. Who or what is like expansiveness? Can we open ourselves to possibilities? Do we know who we are in times of stress? On what do we base our decisions? Are our decisions self-serving only or do we consider the good of all? If we can't be that wide, when will the day come?
The words of question: who, when and why, zero in on our core that the second quote illustrates. There's no concrete answer; and the road to wisdom, strength and satisfaction is not easily traveled. Just as the Hebrews constantly lost sight of the miracle of their freedom, we often take the miracle of our lives for granted. We have so much to be grateful for and yet we lose touch with the wonder of living, caught up in worrying about the future, obsessed with mistakes from the past, all of which serve to cloud clarity in this precious moment at hand.
Jump in-the water's fine!
At the top of the mem, we see the flowing line of a wave and can sense how the energy of mem is water. Mem is nearly closed in on itself--except for a small opening at the bottom. The Hebrew word for Egypt is mitzrayim, literally, the constricted place. The shoresh (root) of the word Egypt is metzer, constriction. Egypt is where the Hebrews lived in servitude to the Pharaoh. And Egypt has come to symbolize the narrow places in all of us where we are "dammed up." Any constriction, whether it be blocked bronchial tubes that interrupt healthy air flow or narrow perspectives that shut out the full range of possibilities in a given situation, limit the fullexpression of life. When we find ourselves in that Mitzrayim, we need to know how to call out to the expansive loving presence of God: the Source of hope and Giver unconditional love.
Consider the heaviness of icicles hanging from the eaves of your house in mid-winter. See how, hanging from a tree's branch, they can threaten to break that branch and shatter. Now think of the warmth of early spring and
how those very icicles melt into water. As the icicles diminish, their weight on the limb decreases and the tree is gradually freed from the dangers of the constricting cold. In the same way, when we allow the warmth of God's love to penetrate our fearful hearts, we can gradually let go of the constrictions of sadness and hurt and we can open ourselves more freelyto a wider realm of possibilities.
In Genesis, in the morning just after a night of holy wrestling, Jacob says, "God was in this place and I, I did not know!" It's hard to feel God's love when our hearts are closed. But even in our darkest moments, God is with us, loving us, waiting patiently to be welcomed into our hardened hearts. When we can bask in the warmth of God's love, the icicle becomesmayim chayim, the living waters.
In Psalm 118 we read, "min ha'metzar, karati Yah, anani vamerchav Yah"; "From my constriction, I called out to God and was answered with expansiveness." When we are enslaved by our desires and the further problems they can breed, we feel constricted and narrow. As difficult as this experience is, we must remember that we can still give birth to a new self. Prior to birth we must pass through the constriction of the birthcanal. The important thing is not to get stuck!
We are born with birth waters and continue to develop through further birth waters. Birth is a watery business! The letter mem occurs twice in the word mayim, water. In Torah, itself water, whenever we read about water we are cued to wisdom; just as water sustains the developing
life of an unborn baby, Torah sustains the life of the developing Jewish soul. In a broader context, we understand that all sacred text nurtures the soul yearning for connection to the Infinite.
With the beginning creation
Most people remember the opening words of the Torah translated as "In the beginning," but the actual translation is closer to the above caption. The act of creation is, in fact, ongoing.
One of the first acts of creation was the division of the waters. How can water be divided? Water is undifferentiated; it fills whatever space it is given. But the Torah speaks of a division into lower and higher waters, and this division begins the ongoing process of differentiation through separation. Like the separation at birth: from the waters of the womb and on through the waters of purification in our daily washing, to the finalpreparation and bathing of our bodies after death.
The midrash on this section of the Torah says that the lower waters cried out to be joined to the upper waters. The division was a rakiah--translated as expanse--but the word dome is a more accurate translation. Rakiah is something hammered out just as the heavens can be seen as a starry dome, hammered out sky with little lights poking through.
Our painful separation from this heavenly realm is experienced as painful because somehow we still recognize that a part of us continues to exist in that upper realm, though much of us resides in the material world, the world of assiyah, the world of action.
Miriam
Miriam, literally "bitter waters," was Moses' elder sister. She, and elder brother Aaron, worked together with Moses to bring about the liberation of their people. Miriam represented the power of the element of water: deep intuition, spiritual wisdom and healing. Miriam's work began when Moses was first born. At that time, Pharaoh, worried about the growing number of Hebrews in his kingdom, ordered that all their baby boys be drowned. Midrash states that Miriam intuited that her brother had a special mission, and she watched over him as the basket in which he was sent floating in the Nile landed him in Pharaoh's palace.
When the Hebrews safely traversed the Sea of Reeds to dry land, Miriam led the women in song. Perhaps what is meant in Torah as "The Song of the Sea" is that the sea itself had Torah to offer; the thunder on Mt. Sinai wasn't the only show in town! And Miriam even had the foresight to pack timbrels for the journey out of Egypt! They didn't have time to let the dough rise for bread, but Miriam made sure her sisters were prepared to boogie when the time was right.
During their travels through the wilderness after Moses liberated the Hebrew slaves, Miriam was a diviner of water, securing the substance much needed for survival. Water, as we know, is also a metaphor for wisdom. In a fraught episode after Miriam's death had ended the supply of water, Moses lost his cool before the people, and struck the water-yielding rock God had instructed him to speak to. This scene illustrates how important Miriam was to Moses in maintaining balance and sustenance. Miriam, a protector, a party girl, a diviner, was a vital link to the Hebrews' liberation--and a woman after my own heart.
From the silence. a word
Another Hebrew word that begins with mem is midbar, wilderness. The wilderness is the place of the Hebrews' wanderings. When the Hebrews were liberated by Moses (also beginning with mem!), they did not automatically become enlightened beings, loving and trusting God's compassion with complete and perfect faith. Far from it! They lived in fear and doubt.
Similarly, when we first leave a difficult situation where we do not feel fully empowered to be who and what we are, we do not automatically assume the posture of confidence, pride and joy. First, since the effort it takes to liberate ourselves is so exhausting, we need time to refuel our spiritual and emotional tanks in the same way a runner needs to take down time once the race is over. Just as a runner will walk around the track aimlessly to regain his composure, a newly liberated person needs time to donothing for a while, to regroup before plotting out the next course of action.
Rabbi Natan teaches that this is a liminal time often accompanied by doubt and fear. The wilderness (can be read: wild.er-ness) that the Hebrews traversed was wild, dry and challenging. They built the Golden Calf out ofdespondency and impatience. Just as the Hebrews built an idol, we must be wary of grabbing onto a substitute for the real thing. Our lives can only be of true value when what we do reflects our integrity. Learning this truth takes time; especially when prior to this moment we've been operating under someone else's notion of whom we are and what we should do.
When the vowels of midbar are changed, the word, midaber, speech, results: from the silence of the wilderness comes the word of God; from nothing comes something. A void is always filled; it's just hard for us to wait patiently. The Torah, our instruction, was received in the wilderness--the wilderness symbolizing the numinous place of not being fully present. The Hebrews are free but are not yet redeemed--they are still preparing themselves with what they must do to be fully realized. In Numbers 21:18 it says: "from wilderness a gift." The person who successfully surrenders his ego to God's will feels and receives the power of God. (S'fat Emet pp 219-220)
Won't you be my Neighbor?
Mishkan, "dwelling place." The shoresh (root) means neighbor. God is always near to us, like a neighbor, ready to listen to us and be our forever companion. We love God so much we make a little house for God to dwell in--the ark. We must remember that within our heart, too, is a ready-made dwelling place; only sometimes we forget it's there.
As "landlords" of our hearts, I think we raise the rent on God. We expect this God of miracles to give us everything our heart desires. We mistake our unfulfilled desire for immediate gratification, the frustration of our yetzer hara, with God withholding from us. When we feel dissatisfied with our lot, we lose faith in God and evict HIM. Then we realize that we have to accept whatever God can pay us; it is enough and more than enough to have this Eternal Neighbor by our side.
When life hurts us, we are angry with our Celestial Parent. We blame God for our problems and we wrestle through many a dark night until we are blessed to become Yisrael, God wrestlers. Then we can stand tall in our wounded state, finally able to connect with our higher consciousness and to accept the tough lessons of our unique wanderings in the liminal wilderness with its doubt and uncertainty. It is a path toward briah, where we hold everything with gratitude; a path toward wholeness, grounded in faith in this "tough single parent" who loves us through our kvetching. The story of Pesach is our constant search for, rebellion against and finalacceptance of the Infinite.
IMAGE: Here we see Miriam, the water diviner, standing in the wilderness, drawing up the buried waters hidden in the constricted place. May we all be like Miriam, sensitive enough to find our hidden resources, the sources of creativity and vitality that sustain us on the long trek ofour lives.
APPLICATION: Mem is telling us to embrace the process of identifying our constricted places and to move away from them. Is your soul parched like a desert? Where do you find your well of mayim chayim, living waters? What nurtures your soul as you expand your narrow interior?
What's a manna with you: a mermaid's chronicle
Dry Land
"But the Children of Israel walked upon dry land in the midst of the sea." (Exodus 14:22). Rabbi Elimelech of Lizensk comments on this line, that "Men are impressed only when they see events which are clearly miraculous. They fail to realize that nature itself is a great miracle in which they can behold the greatness of the Guide and Creator of the Universe each day."
I appreciated that this rabbi related this line to our contemporary struggle to find God's presence in the commonplace, in addition to special circumstances. I see our faith as a troublesome long distance love affair. You know, "He loves me, he loves me not." Depending on our circumstances, God's rating fluctuates like the stock market in a shaky economy. My goal in life is to maintain my faith in God no matter what my circumstances are. I know that everything that happens is another channel for God's lessons to refine my soul. I know this and, still I fail
miserably, complaining about the least disappointing things, from friends who don't call when they say they will to running out of chocolate when I amconsumed by a sweet tooth.
I take a daily walk, even in the winter. I have a very warm down coat, so there is no excuse for minus 5 temperatures to dissuade me. I live in a rural area of upstate New York in a fairly woody spot with views of the Catskill Mountains. Despite the glory of the natural splendor that surrounds me, I find that I battle with myself to put on my coat and venture outside. What is my resistance about, I ask myself. I wish I had someone to walk with. When I have a companion, I am encouraged to walk further.
It's harder to motivate myself to go long distances when I am alone, I thought. The more I thought, the more negative I got and I realized that I was complaining about my situation and scolded myself for not being gratefulfor all that I did have.
I thought about the Hebrews complaining in the wilderness and considered that complaining is a time-honored tradition--perhaps it's even genetically transferred! Maybe there's no escaping the kvetching trait at all. Maybe God even condones it. After all, there's no commandment that states, "Thou shalt not kvetch." Perhaps this explains why, after all these years, we are still the Children of Israel and not the Adults of Israel.
I continued walking down the road, feeling a bit bored with the same beautiful road that I walk on each day, when I noticed a trail leading through the woods with a magnificent mountain view. The mountains looked sugarcoated and dreamlike. The snow on the path was minimal, just enough to cover the bare earth, but not so deep as to make walking treacherous. AsI had waterproof hiking boots on, what was there to stop me? Let's go for it, I said, with a minor fear of some property owner shooting at me for trespassing.
--I need to digress here for just a moment to mention that last summer I was shocked to discover that a development company cut into the woods near my home, creating a new road in preparation for construction of more than thirty new homes. I was a bit sad to see these lovely woods torn into, but noted that my house, built some sixty years ago, had originally beenwoodland. Such is the price of progress.--
I found the crunchy, uneven, snow-covered ground fun to walk on. It had a springy quality that gently rocked and supported my body. As I walked on, the trees reminded me of the parted waters of the sea. Suddenly, I was transported into the Torah, walking through the sea. Such a miracle. "but the Children of Israel walked upon dry land." What did that mean in real time? What was it like for the Hebrews to be walking on a dry seabed?
Being a mermaid, I have a deep appreciation for water. The sea floor is teaming with life. I looked down at the ground and saw bits of pine needles, rabbit tracks and rocks peeking up through the snow that created delicate designs.
Then I thought back to the Hebrews. A dry floor would be filled with fish carcasses, dried seaweed. Not such a pretty sight. I continued walking on this wonderful path, created for snowmobilers who were notably absent. I was gratefully and contentedly alone and feeling very full. When I entered sunny areas, I was captivated by the jewel-like colors reflecting off the snow. The floor sparkled as if covered in diamond dust. This was truly miraculous; I was filled with awe. "God surely is in this place, anddo I know it!" I thought to myself.
I was no longer unhappy, but rather filled with the desire to continue exploring this trail leading to.... where? With the stunning, magical snow-covered mountains before me and the blue sky above me, I joyfully continued. The path symbolized a hopeful yet unknown future. On either side of me were the waters, standing upright, allowing safe passage, with a vision of Mt Sinai before me. Ah, to keep such a perspective in life! My body fell into a comforting rhythm as I continued exploring.
I have clocked the distance of this road, so when I walk, I am generally aware of the where along the way I am traveling. But in this state of epiphany, I lost all sense of time and distance and walked on in rapture. After a while, I wondered what I would find at the end. Perhaps this led back to the main road? Then, from the corner of my eye, I noticed the back of one of the new houses of the development. Signs of civilization, I sighed. Within another hundred feet, I came upon DRY LAND. The forest had been cut to establish another road! The land was stripped bare. No trees, no pine needles, no diamond snow. It was dead, dry earth, with the tread marks of large tires, tires of huge trucks.
I was stunned, but not dissuaded. I ventured to embark on this new texture to see where it led. I took no more than three steps and stopped. I could not continue. The hard, cracked surface reminded me of the sea floor that the Hebrew had walked on. The dead, lifeless sea floor. God had separated the waters so the Hebrews could pass, but had taken away the joyof the journey.
I turned back to the comfort of the crunchy, spongy forest floor. I felt a sadness pierce my soul. Tears welled up in my eyes. Yes, God had rescued the Hebrews, but the dryness of the experience was a challenging walk. They were leaving the fertile, Egyptian soil. Yes, they were slaves there, but their lives were known. In the midst of their servitude lay certainty. The dry, dead land yielded no known life. What was at the end of this dry path? Would it lead to the Promised Land? Would there belushness again?
I thought of our resistance to change, even when the change is helping us escape slavery. I think of oppressed spouses who stay in lifeless marriages, devoid of any satisfying love, but who stay, content in the security of a known home life. I think of progressive Americans who donot rise up in revolt against the tyranny of an oppressive government because of the known security we have. The truth is, change is hard to initiate, unless we have an Egyptian army at our tail, guaranteeing to killus if we don't fling ourselves out into the unknown.
I see another parallel to the dry land. It's the dread stillness before the dance, the empty canvass before the frustrated painter, the interminable time an artist faces when she has prepared to create and finds there's nothing arising. That uncertainty is horrible, painful and totally necessary. But once she gets through that dry land, having consumed many a pint of Hagan Daaz, she will take out her timbrel and dance.
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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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