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Creating Bridges: Spirituality & Philosophy:
Kabbalah: "Letters from Heaven:"
Spiritual Guidance from the Hebrew Alphabet
Just Who do You
Think You are Talking To?
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by Avigayil Landsman |
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Throughout my columns written over the past three years, I have used many names for God. In part, I've done this because many people find "God" an overly charged word. It's also become such an overused word that it doesn't seem to mean anything anymore. How many times a day do we hear people respond to surprises by saying, "Oh, my God," without any intention of invoking God's presence or energy?
I think part of the difficulty with the word "God" is that the concept of God as a vague, magical source of gifts for the good, mistakes "God" for G*O*D* the parcel delivery service (Guaranteed Overnight Delivery). People make deals with this "God" in the hope that they will be rewarded just as others experience a similar anticipation in their daily practice of purchasing lottery tickets. Their belief in God wanes when their prayers for fulfillment of some desired outcome go unanswered. This Unansweredness then provokes anger over unmet expectations.
The God I speak of doesn't respond in a simplistic, programmatic way. This God is not a being but a source of being or being itself, a force that propels one on the journey through life. The God I believe in is discovered in my experience of an inner knowledge of a benevolent presence in the world that transcends the malevolence of both human-made corruption (ie. politics) and the threatening forces of nature (weather, earthquakes, etc.). Our belief in God opens us to trust that things happen for "reasons" that reach beyond our reasoning abilities.
The God I speak of is not a noun but a verb, a process that demands we develop our inner nature through continual wrestling with our emotional and physical challenges, our inner and outer demons. The Biblical story of young David slaying the giant Goliath is a potent metaphor. Just what force energized the willowy David; what gave him the courage to take on such a beast? It is the same courage that an alcoholic must arouse to overcome his drinking addiction, or a rape victim has to embody to tackle the legal system.
There are many words, phrases and names that describe the multi-faceted aspects of this mysterious force. The progressive contemporary movements in Judaism have revised some of the traditional names that include: Master of the Universe, The Holy ONE Blessed be He, Teacher of the World. I prefer terms such as: Eternal, Infinite Source of Love, and The Divine. I'd like to add to this list the single word "LIFE." I use all capital letters to distinguish it from "life" in the mundane sense. "LIFE" is our deepest, foundational workaday experience of being alive.
LIFE: the source of it, the mystery of it, the wrestling with it, the source we imagine when we speak of miracles and faith. And, since we are all living life, our little lives are intricately connected and incorporated in the grand term, LIFE. Rabbi Arthur Waskow, a politically progressive rabbi likes to use the term, “The breath of life,” linking it to YHVH, the four-letter, unpronounceable name of God. As we have learned in earlier columns, there is no current knowledge of pronouncing these four letters, however; Rabbi Waskow pronounces as if a great wind were passing through all of existence.
My friend, Rachel Pollack, and I developed a word game I jokingly named Gevaltria, a playful combination of the word "gematria" (Jewish numerology) and the word gevalt, (a Yiddish exclamation, often paired up with another Yiddish exclamation, Oy! loosely meaning “Can you believe this?!). The way to play is to make a sentence extemporaneously from each letter in a word. The name, Amy, for example, became "A Mysterious Yearning" and "Artemis's Mysterious Youngster." Here are a few for LIFE: Love Itself Finding Everything; Love Influencing Floundering Efforts; Looking Infinitely For Energy. We can also play this game by shuffling the order of the letters in the word LIFE. We find that "if" is sandwiched between "le" the French article, "the." Le IF. Open yourself to the grand realm of infinite possibilities, "Le IF."
The other day I was waiting for my son who was at a doctor's appointment. I sat in my parked car in the business district of Kingston, reading psalms in honor of a recently deceased friend, a contemporary variation on an old practice that requires a person to sit in the same room with a corpse that is awaiting burial. My inner focus on honoring my dead friend through reciting psalms put me in a contemplative mood. When I looked up from my book of psalms, I noticed a sign with large lettering that read "Universal and Abstract." "Hmm. must be some new church," I mused. It turned out that the opened car door was covering the "L" in front of "and." The sign actually read, "Universal Land Abstract." I concluded that my misreading was another good name for God. My sister, a devout atheist, also added to my list of names of God. She taught me, while I was still very young, the word "intangible," a synonym for "abstract."
So, just who do you think you are talking to when you cry out, "Oh, God!"? Maybe you're calling out to the deepest knowing in YOURSELF, or to the greatest good YOU sense in humanity--despite, perhaps, tangible evidence to the contrary.
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Avigayil Landsman,
Torah Scholar, Calligrapher, 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.
"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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