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Creating Bridges: Spirituality & Philosophy:
Kabbalah: "Letters from Heaven:"
Spiritual Guidance from the Hebrew Alphabet
The Letters Lead the Way!
by Avigayil Landsman
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Ever since God said, "Let there be light!" Jews have been fascinated with the power of words. God brought everything into being through the power of speech, which consists of words, and words are created with letters. According to the kabbalistic text, The Sefer Yetzirah (Book of Formation), the Hebrew letters existed before the Torah, even before Creation! The letters are the building blocks of Creation.
In Torah, the spelling of words using one letter over another or a word containing unvoiced, seemingly "unnecessary" letters indicates a special significance. Abraham, the first monotheist in the Torah, was first called Avrum in Hebrew and when he reached a higher level of consciousness had the letter hay added to his name, and became known as Avraham. The addition of this letter acts as an insertion of the divine since hay is one of the letters associated with God's unpronounceable name. The earliest derivation of the letter hay is of a praying figure. Avraham was the first person to believe in one God; he's got the praying hay to prove it!
The Torah is the sacred text for the Jews, originally written in Hebrew. The letters of the Hebrew alphabet-in Hebrew, the aleph-beit are acrophonic, the principle of using a sign to represent the first letter of the word it stands for. For example, aleph means ox. The letter derives from a symbol for an ox. Over time, the symbol was simplified to the point where it was no longer seen as an ox. It is the first letter of the aleph-beit, the only one that has no sound. Herein lies a teaching! Hebrew was the first language that used letters as sounds only.
The main purpose of divination decks is to make spirituality direct. Many people think they are not spiritual and cannot get in touch with the ineffable; however many of these people become quite effusive when they have a Tarot reading. The imagery resonates in their sacred territory previously guarded by self-doubt. My Letters from Heaven deck is strongly influenced by Tarot and other divination decks. The purpose of doing readings is to get clarity and guidance on life issues. In addition to this, because Letters from Heaven is using the Hebrew letters, emanations of the divine, whatever one does with these cards is hemshech laasot, the continuation of creation through our actions. Each time one works with the cards with true kavanna(heart directedness or divine intent), one is drawing nearer to God. A spiritually evolving person knows that what he or she does affects not only those around him/her but other worlds as well. As one familiarizes oneself with the letters, one brings those essences into his/her being. This is part of creating a mishkan(sanctuary) in ourselves. God instructed Moses in Exodus 25: 8 "let them make a mishkan so I may dwell in them" which is interpreted as the kavanna to make a sanctuary in our hearts, a dwelling place for holiness within us so that our actions are carried out with mindfulness and awareness.
Some Jews may feel a bit squeamish about divination, as there is a prohibition against consulting oracles or the stars in Deuteronomy 18:10-12: "Let there not exist among you... anyone. who practices time-frame-occult or who divines portentous events or a sorcerer. walk in perfect trust with Adonai, your God." When one looks at the text more closely, one understands that the prohibition has to do with supplanting God. Working with Letters from Heaven guides and that guidance comes from God. A reader is a kli, a vessel or vehicle, just as a mail carrier is not the writer of the letter. "Walk in perfect trust with Adonai" means that no person can supplant the ultimate mystery of life. Since everything comes from God, we must accept the Mystery. We also have free will and choice. God's will is that we not be passive victims in our lives; that we see that we are co-creators with God. The spiritual direction we get from the inner meaning of the Hebrew letters will help us learn from our circumstances. We can then make more intelligent decisions that will better our lives. Nothing other than intelligent action can improve our future.
When we ask for direction, the letters are there to guide us. Exodus 28:30 mentions the urim v'tumim, literally "lights and perfection" that are to be placed inside the breastplate of judgment, one of the eight articles worn by the High Priest. The breastplate of judgment was so-named because it atoned for perversions of justice. Twelve stones, engraved with the names of each of the twelve tribes were set on the breastplate (Exodus 28:20-21). All twenty-two of the letters were included. The Talmud describes the process of how the urim and tumim worked. When a prophet or priest would hold the breastplate and the spirit of the Shekinah (indwelling presence of the divine) would rest on his shoulders, the letters would light up and he would then organize the letters into words, which would spell out the answer to the question. In this case, it was used to tell the future; would a king have victory or not, etc.
This ancient form of divination has inspired Letters from Heaven readings. The querent and the reader discuss the matter at hand after some meditation and the querent then places his/her hand over the deck. The letters selected often spell out a word relevant to the issue. The cards connect to the sacred principles, which leads to higher awareness. The cards are tools for transformation, helping people get in touch with their inner truths.
Just as we see pictures on many levels and focus on various elements in them, the Hebrew letters' shapes hint at objects. One does not need prior knowledge of Tarot or Kabbalah to appreciate Letters from Heaven. As with all spiritual paths, the symbols speak of the collective unconscious. Every letter is part of our journey. Another way to understand how the letters are the building blocks of Creation is to consider the elements. The wood grain of trees reflects the clouds and the water's tide creates swirls in the sand that resemble wood grain. This is the calligraphy of the world! The essence of creation is contained within the patterns made by the elements! Think, too, of the constellations imagined by the ancients from looking up at the patterns of the stars. In the same way, if we look deeply into the letters, images emerge from the essences contained within them!
The central prayer of Judaism is the "Shema". This prayer declares the divine unity of creation; the purpose of all paths is to connect a soul with God. The prayer said immediately after the "Shema" is the "v'ahavta," a prayer that instructs us to love God with all one's heart, soul and might. One morning while reciting v'ahavta, I focused on the line that said, "You will place it as a sign in front of your eyes." The word for sign, ot also means letter. My thought was that when I placed all the letters in front of me, I would have all of creation facing me, so when praying, I have planted all of creation in my consciousness. Everything, both the blessed and the cursed are available for me to experience!
In future articles, I will describe the derivations of the letters and how their development influenced their meaning. In addition to the original derivations, I will describe other images I see in the letters. These images inspire teachings. For example, the negative space inside the letter tet looks like a fetus to me. Tet is the first letter of the word tov, which means good. The teaching is that the fetus is the combined goodness of his/her parents. The good fetus points to the fact that all creation is good, as we read after each day of creation, "God saw that it was good."
There are several words in the Torah where certain letters are written larger or smaller than others, while other letters are doubled or missing. One can attribute this to a scribal error, but the Torah interpreters through the ages have had a field day with such wonders. The traditional view of the Torah is that everything in it is there for a reason; it is up to us to understand why. These scholars, myself included, find hidden treasures/teachings. For example, the rabbis say that the halfway point of the letters in the Torah is the letter vav, found in Leviticus 11:42. The fulcrum of the Torah is the letter vav whose inner meaning is divine connection. I interpret this to mean that the purpose of Torah is to connect us to higher realms. The words that the rabbis ascribe to be the midpoint of the Torah are found in Leviticus 10:16 are "d'rash, d'rosh," meaning, "interpret, interpret." When two words are repeated in Torah we need to consider their significance. The combined meaning of these phenomena for me is that through our endeavors to continually interpret Torah we will connect with divinity. "The Torah was given once; our effort to understand it goes on forever." Our spiritual growth is realized through studying the mysteries contained within the Torah. And the letters lead the way!
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Avigayil Landsman,
Torah Scholar, Soffer, 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:
jewishwisdomandart@
hotmail.com |
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