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Creating Bridges: Spirituality & Philosophy:
Kabbalah: "Letters from Heaven:"
Spiritual Guidance from the Hebrew Alphabet
Beit
Bringer of blessings and morning
Housing new beginnings
Containing duality
by Avigayil Landsman
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The letter beit is the first letter in the word bayit, house. The ancient derivation of this letter is a bird's eye view of a house. In its current form it looks a bit abstract, but with a little imagination you'll see there is a roof, a strong foundation-even a nice porch outside! and it's opened on one side, ready for guests to enter. Featured this month is my spiritual portrait of the letter beit. (Letters from Heaven consists of cards with the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet as well as a second deck of "spiritual portraits" of the letters. The second deck is still in the works. Other letter portraits are pictured on my website.) In my spiritual portrait of beit, the tree symbolizes that we are housed in creation. Beit is the universal house. The universe is the house of the infinite, unbounded energy of aleph. The dagesh, or dot of the beit is a fetus in a womb, our maternal house. The earth is like a fetus in the womb of The Shekinah, the feminine aspect of God.
Although aleph is the first letter of the aleph-beit, beit is the first letter of the Torah. The first word of the Torah is b'reishit, literally, in the beginning. The beit is closed on three sides, opened on one. God created everything, including humans, but we are given free will to decide what action to take with what is given. The stories in the Torah are about struggle, choices and outcomes. All this is represented in the open side of beit. Since Hebrew is read from right to left we can see that the teaching of the beit in b'reishit is that everything that happens comes from opening the door of creation's house! God wanted us to feel at home in his world. In the Torah scroll, the letter beit, the first letter of the Torah is larger than the other letters to signal this important teaching.
Beit's numerical value is two, the number of duality: inside/outside, light/dark, morning/night, good/bad. Beit's lesson is that we must go through the dark to get to the light. The house creates a boundary that separates and protects us from the outside world. The base of the beit extends to the right, towards aleph, which tells us that the unbounded energy of aleph needs to be housed in the beit for protection and nourishment.
Pictured in the card is a tree enveloping a fetus. The fetus is the dagesh, or dot inside the letter that gives it the "b" sound. Without the dot, it would be pronounced, "vet." The tree is a symbol for all of creation, the fetus the life supported by it. Beit is the first letter in boker, morning, which is brought by the feminine presence of divinity. Mornings are the beginnings of each day. Everyday we are offered a chance to create our life anew. Beit is the first letter in the word boker, morning. "And there was evening and there was morning..." The creation story is a tale of duality: lower waters and higher waters, above and below, night and morning, life and death, love and hate.
The second word of Torah also begins with beit, bara. "Bereishit bara Elohim et ha shamayim v'et ha'aretz," "In the beginning of creating God created the heavens and the earth." Creation is our home. In the beit portrait, a pair of hands representing the world of briah holds the tree. Briah and bara share the same shoresh, root. In Hebrew, all words have three letter roots. Vowels change the meaning of the roots and additional letters and vowels create other words. Sometimes the connections are obvious; at other times the connection reveals a mystical teaching. In Kabbalah, Briah is the third of four worlds, or realms of consciousness. The first world is assiyah, the world of creation. In assiyah we are confronted on a basic level of the paradox implanted in life. Moving up to yetzirah, the world of formation, we approach life from a psychological perspective. We try to make sense of the dualities. In briah we are capable of holding duality rather than fighting against it. Extreme forces that threaten our safety, emotional stability or spiritual beliefs challenge most of us. Briah is a state of being free of judgment, where both sides of a situation, pro and con are held rather than forced out or denied. Briah is expressed in the line of a prayer, "thank-you for it all." We don't experience the world of atzilut, pure essence as corporeal beings. Our existence creates duality in that our egos distinguish ourselves from everything and everyone outside it.
The word barah, create can also mean organize which gives us the sense that everything necessary for Creation was already available; God just had to organize the mess. Sounds like life: we have everything we need; it just takes a while for us to put things in working order!
One of my favorite Hebrew words that begin with beit is baruch, blessed. "Blessed are You, Source of Creation...." is the beginning of every bracha, blessing. The root of baruch is berech, knee. We bend the knee when we pray to the Creator. We live in the presence of the Source of Blessing. As Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel said, "Just to live is holy, just to be is a blessing." Our mere existence is a blessing to God who is witness to our many mitzvot, a blessing to Divinity. "As we bless the Source of Life, so we are blessed." When we become aware that we are blessings to our loved ones and ourselves we consider our actions more carefully which raises our consciousness. The word baruch is also related to the word braycha, fountain. When we find the divine source within, we pour out our blessing like a fountain.
When we hear good news, we say, "Baruch HaShem," which can be loosely translated as, "Thank God," literally, "Blessed is The Name." A greeting to welcome guests is "baruch haba," "Blessed be those who come."
The Golden Dawn Tarot's equivalent for beit is the Magician who is the creative Force whose energy is collected and organized into the later form of the High Priestess! The Magician is the house in which the Divine Spirit dwells.(p35, The New Golden Dawn Ritual Tarot, Llewelyn)
If you pull the card Beit in a reading, this signifies a time of either focusing on your home environment or making more secure personal boundaries. It can also foretell of new beginnings. The aleph, unbridled, pulsating energy is housed in creation. If this aleph energy is the start of a new project, whether it is professional or personal, make sure that you have a strong enough container in which to hold that new energy. I've often heard people say they feel like they are going to burst because they are so overwhelmed by the new energy that has formed inside them. As exciting as beginnings are, taking that energy to a new place requires responsibility. A poor container can spell disaster of what began with the best of intensions.
Many of the teachings of beit make me think of the Disney cartoon, "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" where Mickey Mouse plays the part of the apprentice left in charge of cleaning his master's home. When he comes across his master's magic wand, he casts a spell on a broom in order to make the job easier, but being a beginner, things get way out of control and the broom multiplies into an army of out-of-control bucket-tossing brooms that flood the place. Mickey is the novice Magician with unchecked creative powers. How often do we feel like Mickey! Of course, I wouldn't mind having a magic broom to sweep up my home!
A friend, Nina Spiro pointed out that if you draw a circle around the beit you would see that a dove appears in the negative space. The base of the letter becomes the olive branch that the dove brought to Noah as a sign that land was close by after the flood. Soon he would be able to put down roots again and rebuild his house. The story of Noah thus teaches us about duality: land and water, destruction and recreation. The rainbow separates heaven and earth and is a symbol of God's covenant with humanity that never again would God wipe out creation by water, offering us a sense of hope of renewal and regeneration.
May we, who live in the current climate of global chaos and confusion call for creative beginnings whose magic is tempered in the house of love!
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Avigayil Landsman,
Torah Scholar, Caligrapher, 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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