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Creating Bridges: Spirituality & Philosophy:
Kabbalah: "Letters from Heaven:"
Spiritual Guidance from the Hebrew Alphabet
As Time Goes By
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by Avigayil Landsman |
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The purpose of rituals is to make a moment holy. Holiness is a difficult term to define and worth considering since this word is repeated throughout the Torah and prayers. A quality of holiness is separation. Separation removes someone or something from its current environment. A marriage in Hebrew is called a kedushin. This word’s root is kadosh, the Hebrew word for holy. We have all heard the concept of “holy matrimony” but what is implied by this term? A married couple is separated in some way from the community. They are not excluded, but they remain in a certain context apart.
The separation of Shabbat from the rest of the week is another example of holiness. The Ten Commandments in the Torah orders us to “keep the Shabbat and make it holy.” Shabbat is the seventh day of the week; it is a day of twenty-four hours like the other seven days of the week and yet there are qualities of this day that make it very different. Shabbat is a place in time, as Abraham Joshua Heschel writes in his book, “The Sabbath.”
The Sabbath is made holy through various observances, including the initiating rituals of lighting candles, specially made Sabbath bread, called challah and wine. The day is totally different from the rest of the week because no work is to be performed. One usually thinks of work as money-making activities, but in addition to this, activities such as travel and even carrying and cooking are prohibited by traditionally observant Jews.
These prohibitions were determined by the activities done in creating the mishkan (place where the tablets were stored and sacrifices were made during the time the Hebrews wandered through the desert towards the Holy Land of Israel). Any activity that parallels that of the mishkan is prohibited because the making of the mishkan parallels creation. Since we are made in God’s image, we attempt to model God’s behavior. Since God rested on the seventh day of creation, so do we humans.
The Hebrews worked for six days on making the mishkan and on the seventh day their labors ceased in order to reflect on what they had accomplished and to enjoy a much needed rest. My friend, Rachel Pollack commented that the mishkan model still has that quality of reference to a long gone world, but here it is a mythic world, and thus removing the behavior from time, at least the context of time. We are putting ourselves in the world-time of the builders of the mishkan. This is reminiscent of the dream-time of some Australian Aborigines. In today’s world, we continue to need a replenishing rest after a hard week of toil, therefore we separate ourselves from our work week by taking a rest day.
One explanation I have liked a lot is the idea that you should not change states of energy on Shabbat. Thus, while flipping an electric switch is not work it changes the state of energy.
There are prescribed rituals and there also personal rituals that transform the traditional or simply develop out of a helpful habit. A daily ritual in a traditional Jew’s life is to recite the prayer known as the Shema. The Shema declares the unity of all. All spiritual paths ultimately are one because they concern themselves with connecting with the Eternal, the Source.
The Shema is said by traditional Jews to declare that there is only one God. This prayer is to be recited when rising and before going to sleep. Keeping this tradition helps us to maintain a connection with a long chain of Jews who have also kept this tradition. When a Jew says this prayer, he or she is continuing the chain of history. The first letter in the first word of this prayer is the letter shin that has three connected vertical prongs. Some rabbis say that these three prongs represent our three forefathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. When we see this letter, our connection can go all the way back to them; we are one within the community of Israel.
Before I go to sleep each night, I observe a personal ritual of winding three special watches. The first watch belonged to my father’s Uncle Phil, the second belonged to my mother and the last has always belonged to me.
My Uncle Phil was a very affectionate, humorous and creative person. I had a very close bond with him; he seemed more like my grandfather than an uncle. I loved him so much that when he died I decided that if I had a son I would name him Philip in his memory. My uncle worked erratically because the business he worked in was seasonal. Once, when he had a successful season, he bought himself a watch with three diamonds on its face. My father recently gave me this watch to give to my son, but I am keeping it for him while he is in college.
My father was very young when he asked my mother to marry him. He didn’t have enough money for an engagement ring, so he saved up money to buy my mother a watch. It is a small, pink gold watch with tiny rubies and diamonds. She wore this watch until I was about seventeen and gave it to me when she got a watch with a bigger face, as she found the numbers too small to read.
My father bought me a Hebrew watch when he came back from a trip to Israel. I had just begun Hebrew school, so I felt very cool to have a watch with Hebrew letters (the Hebrew language doesn’t have separate digits for numbers, so letters stand not only for sound, but for numbers). The watch’s significance has grown as my connection to the Hebrew letters and study of Judaism has deepened.
Each night I hold three generations in my hands. The winding of a watch is a practical activity and it can invoke eternity. I was not alive when my uncle bought his watch and wound it every day. Now he is gone and I wind it for him. Time is eternal. One day I will be gone and my son will continue to wind the watch and will remember the stories about the man he is named for as well as his mother who kept the watch wound.
He will wind my mother’s watch and remember the story of his grandparents’ courtship. He will wind my Hebrew watch and remember his mother’s love of the Hebrew letters, her fascination with time and her penchant for collecting clocks. His continuation of this task has the power to move him out of the mundane moment to enter into sacred time, the dream-time of the ancestors. The watch winding will bring him into the three generations that preceded him. The three generations he knows connect to the initial three generations of Judaism (Abraham, Jacob and Isaac) that are represented by the three pronged shin. Thinking of the letter shin will remind him of the Shema. My son’s focus and intensions while winding these watches will lift the mundane to the holy transforming the simple act of winding a watch into ritual. As my son winds his watches, he will keep the memory of his ancestors alive and ticking! We were keeping time. Spiritual practice is about keeping time.
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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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