Chapter 4
The Link between Heaven and Earth: Kabbalah’s Own Top-Ten Countdown
In This Chapter
Getting to know the ten forces of the universe and the human soul
Analyzing the Tree of Life from different angles
Understanding how Kabbalists experience the forces of the world
Kabbalists believe that a superficial look at the world is simply that — a narrow and limited grasp of reality. They believe that a lot more is going on beneath the surface of what people see.
In this chapter, you discover the Kabbalistic belief in ten fundamental forces that drive everything, and you find out that humans can manipulate those forces. In fact, the heart of the life of the Kabbalist is the manipulation of these ten fundamental forces that God uses to create and sustain the world.
Seeing below the World’s Surface
Some people believe that a person is born, lives, and dies. In other words some people think that you begin at the moment of conception and cease to exist when your body merges into the earth. But according to the great Kabbalists throughout history, there’s more to life than often meets the eye.
The Kabbalist’s task is to pierce the seemingly hard surface of the reality of the world and glimpse the reality of God. Through deeds and prayer, study, and intense contemplation on the abstract, unknowable God, the Kabbalist has faith that a more clear and real apprehension of reality is possible.
Kabbalah provides the student with the tools he or she needs to break through the surface of the hard and concrete reality. In the same way that a molecular biologist has tools allowing him to see electrons, protons, and neutrons and the spaces between objects, so too the Kabbalist has tools in the form of knowledge of the ten sefirot (seh- fear -oat), the four worlds (see Chapter 6), and the teachings of the Torah that allow for a vision of the reality within all the perceived reality.
It’s tempting to say that Kabbalists don’t trust surfaces, but that isn’t entirely true. More accurately, a Kabbalist sees the surface of things and recognizes it for what it is — a surface. Think of the human body. You look at the human body and see all its external features. If you were to simply stop there, you’d get an accurate view of the external form of the body. Yet beneath that external form are major and minor organs, veins and arteries, different kinds of cells, and all kinds of bodily functions happening simultaneously.
A Kabbalist makes the same assumption about the world: The surface that one sees certainly exists and provides lots of information about the world itself, but beneath that surface are all kinds of activities vital to a more complete understanding of God’s universe.
The world is filled with God
A few ideas and assumptions made by Kabbalists come together and offer a very different view of reality. First and foremost, the tradition of Kabbalah teaches that everything in the world is filled with God. This is a basic assumption of Kabbalah, but of course, it can’t be proven. In fact, Kabbalists don’t even think of proving it. For a Kabbalist, the world is filled with God, and this is as plain and as evident as anything else. A Kabbalist experiences the world as filled with God.
Everything that happens in the world, even the most seemingly trivial details, all occur because God allows it. Everything is from God. Pleasure, pain, beauty, harmony, evil — everything. God knows what is best, so if something doesn’t work out the way you want it to, the assumption is that this is ultimately the way God wants it. In a sense, Kabbalah is based on a paradox: As fundamental a belief as the fact that everything that happens is ultimately from God is the belief that humans have free will and choose freely.
God is constantly creating and sustaining the world
Another primary assumption in the tradition of Kabbalah is that God constantly creates the world for the purpose of bestowing good to the world. You might say, “How do we know that?” The Kabbalistic answer is that this isn’t a matter of belief; it’s the reality that’s perceived by the Kabbalist. Kabbalists believe that by diligent study, prayer, and proper action, you can see reality more clearly and know that God is indeed in everything and that God does give divine goodness to the world.
Kabbalists believe that the world humans exist in isn’t the harmonious world that it could be. When Kabbalists refer to Gan Eden (gahn ayden; the Garden of Eden), they conjure up a view of a world of harmony. It is, in fact, the task of each person to do what he or she can to repair the disharmony and put things in their right order. Kabbalists teach that the proper human use of the fundamental forces in the world is the task of humans. Kabbalists learn to recognize the ten forces and see reality in terms of their functioning.
A new creation every moment
At least one traditional observer puts it this way: God continues to create the world, and if God were to hesitate for a moment and glance in another direction, the entire universe and everything in it would disappear. Kabbalists believe the world is being created anew at every moment, and thinking that time flows uninterrupted is an illusion. Every moment is an entirely brand-new moment for the universe; although the world looks the same at this moment as it did a moment before, that’s simply an illusion.
One of the fundamental implications of this notion of God’s continued creation is that God is involved with everything that goes on in the universe. As the Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Hasidism, stated, “Even the movement of a single blade of grass occurs because God wills it to occur.”
According to Kabbalah, God doesn’t form the universe out of nothing. Rather, creation is really an act of revelation. As one Kabbalist put it, creation is an emanation from the divine light. Kabbalists believe that God shines this divine light and forms it, limits it, and transmutes it into the world. As Kabbalists frequently note, the world couldn’t possibly exist within the actual light of the Divine, so one of the mysteries of creation is that God hides or contracts, limiting God’s infiniteness and withholding light, in order to continuously create the world.
The Ten Fundamental Forces that Sustain the World
A primary notion within Kabbalah is the belief that the world is created and sustained by ten channels of divine plenty. These ten channels are referred to as the ten sefirot.
The ten sefirot are not simple. Kabbalists point out that each of the ten sefirot has many different meanings and gradations, and they appear in various Kabbalistic texts using varying and alternate terminology. In one of the basic Kabbalistic texts, Sefer Yetzirah (see Chapter 13), the sefirot are described as numbers. But generally speaking, the sefirot are referred to as emanations, or qualities of God. In the 12th century Kabbalistic text Sefer Ha Bahir, the ten sefirot are related to the ten words or sayings by which the world was created. In the major Kabbalistic text, the Zohar, other words such as “powers,” “gates,” “lights,” and even “garments” refer to the ten sefirot.
Kabbalists throughout the centuries have developed a system that views the ten sefirot as the fundamental building blocks of the world and of the human soul. God creates the universe continuously by emanating the ten sefirot and combining them. An important view of Kabbalists is that humans are a microcosm of the world, and just as the world is created and sustained through the ten sefirot, the soul of each individual consists of the ten sefirot.
The Bible says “Ten Utterances,” not “Ten Commandments”
In the Kabbalistic tradition, there’s no such phrase as “The Ten Commandments.” The term in Hebrew is Aseret Hadibrot (ah-ser-et hah-dib-rote), which translates to the Ten Utterances. (Not quite as catchy as “commandments”. . . .) Kabbalists have linked these ten utterances to the ten sefirot and conclude that the world was created and continues to be created through ten divine expressions.
The Zohar contains a remarkable statement that God looked into the Torah before he created the world. The implication of this image is that the Torah holds the blueprint of reality. More specifically, the chart of the ten sefirot is considered the blueprint of the world and the blueprint of the human soul.
The chart of the ten sefirot has appeared in many documents throughout the centuries. Frequently, the ten sefirot are drawn as an arrangement or a configuration resembling a human being, with each of the ten sefirot corresponding to one of the organs or limbs of the body. This illustration is sometimes known as the Tree of Life (see Figure 4-1). In this section, I describe each of the ten sefirot individually using the Tree of Life configuration.
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Figure 4-1: The ten sefirot as the Tree of Life. |
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The crown
The uppermost sefirah on the chart of the Tree of Life is Keter (keh- tehr; crown). Unlike the other sefirot, which have parts of the human body as reference points, Keter doesn’t refer to a human body part but rather refers to a royal crown sitting on top of a head. This depiction offers a hint at the meaning behind Keter.
Keter is often referred to as the divine will and the source of all delight and pleasure. Keter contains all the other sefirot in it, and it’s often said that Keter activates the soul from above. Kabbalists suggest that one should picture God sending divine light and power down through the top of the head, infusing the entire body with all of its abilities and qualities.
Keter is considered to be the link between the infinite world of God and the finite world in which people live. Keter starts the flow of each of the sefirot into the next, and the sefirah on the bottom returns to Keter at the top and completes the circle.
In response to the commonly asked question “Why did God create the world?,” Kabbalists agree that God didn’t create the world because God needs it. To say that God needs anything implies a deficiency, and one can never say that God is deficient in any way. Many Kabbalists indicate that God created the world in order to create the human being and that God created the human being in order to give the human being pleasure. It follows, then, that the greatest pleasure that a human can experience is knowledge of God. Nevertheless, in the final analysis, Kabbalists agree that God creates the world through Keter , the divine will. In other words, God “wills” the world, and it is through God’s will that the world is created.
Each of the ten sefirot has a name of God corresponding to it. The name of God that corresponds to Keter is Ehveh (eh- veh), which is a form of “I shall be.”
Wisdom: The intuitive mind
The second sefirah, Chochmah (khokh- mah), translates as wisdom and is often referred to as intuition. Chochmah is the basis of the human’s ability to grasp things intuitively. By coming from Keter, Chochmah is considered to be a higher wisdom — the wisdom that’s somehow inborn.
In my experience raising birds, I’ve seen intuition firsthand. Many birds have laid eggs in cages in my living room, and I’ve had the privilege of watching baby birds emerge from those eggs many times. I often marvel that the birds seem to know what to do without being taught; they know how to eat, bathe, preen themselves, and do many other things without benefit of a school, class, or book. The higher wisdom within them knows how to be and how to manifest as a bird.
Note that Chochmah, a top sefirah on the right side of the Tree of Life, is sometimes referred to as conception. Kabbalists often refer to right side and left side when looking at the configuration of sefirot in this diagram. The right vertical line is considered masculine and sometimes is referred to as father or abba. The left side is considered feminine and is referred to as the mother or ema.
The name of God often associated with Chochmah is Yah. Kabbalists have also associated biblical figures with several of the sefirot, and the biblical figure corresponding to Chochmah is King Solomon. This connection isn’t surprising, of course, because wisdom is associated with the archetype of King Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived.
Understanding: The analytical mind
The sefirah of Binah (bee- nah) means understanding. Binah manifests the ability of logical analysis. For example, simple algebra indicates that if A = B and B = C, then A = C. One’s Binah allows for easy understanding of this simple set of equations.
In a way, Binah is seen as Chochmah ’s partner (see the preceding section for an explanation of Chochmah ). These two sefirot, often referred to as father and mother, male and female, and “two beloved friends” and the interaction between them are often described in erotic language. Binah, as the sefirah that takes information and figures it out internally, is sometimes referred to as the divine womb. Some Kabbalists go so far as to say that Binah gives birth to all the sefirot that come after it.
Another way that Chochmah and Binah are a pair is that Binah probes the meaning of that which comes from Chochmah. Kabbalists often refer to Binah as the ability to make distinctions between and among things. They relate the word “Binah” to the Hebrew word livnot (liv-note; to build). Binah takes the abstract wisdom from Chochmah and builds on it, expanding and developing it.
The name of God connected to the sefirah of Binah is Elohim (eh-low-heem), and the biblical figure that’s often connected with Binah is the matriarch Leah.
Scientific sefirot
Modern theorists observe that Binah and Chochmah correspond neatly with left-brain and right-brain thinking. Of course, the notions of Chochmah and Binah predate such theories by many centuries, but it’s not unusual for Kabbalistic insights made generations ago to foreshadow scientific discoveries.
Another observation is that the Tree of Life looks very much like the double helix of DNA. In addition, the combination of masculine and feminine result in the creation of the sefirot that follow them.
Da’at: The crystallization of awareness
The sefirah of Da’at (dah- aht) is referred to as knowledge.
Da’at is different from Chochmah and Binah. Whereas Chochmah is intuition and Binah is understanding or the ability to grasp concepts, knowledge is an accumulation of experience. In other words, there are three ways in which a person knows the functions of the mind or of consciousness: through the intuitive grasp of Chochmah, through the analytical powers of Binah, and through the accumulation of one’s experiences, known as one’s Da’at.
Imagine putting your finger into a hot flame. In some ways, you hesitate to put your finger into a flame because your intuition tells you that the dancing blue, yellow, and red flame offers some danger. In another way, your Binah prompts you to avoid putting your finger in the flame because you figure that if the flame is sufficiently hot, then putting your flesh into the heat will not serve it well. Your powers of figuring things out are at your service. Additionally, your experience of flames in the past — your Da’at — tells you not to put your finger into the heat.
Expansion: The impulse to give
The sefirah of Chesed (keh -sed), which translates as grace, is the fourth sefirah. It’s characterized by an expanding impulse and is sometimes referred to as Gedulah (geh-doo -lah), which means greatness. (Sometimes, the entire right vertical line of the Tree of Life is referred to as the side of Chesed, which makes sense because the right side is known as the masculine side, and Chesed ’s nature as an outgoing force corresponds to that male reference.)
Kabbalists also refer to Chesed as love, the inclination towards things, the attraction to things, the outgoing flow, an opening up, and a giving of itself. On the configuration of the ten sefirot as a human figure in the Tree of Life (see Figure 4-1), Chesed is associated with the right arm. The right arm reaches out and gives, and Chesed represents a love that’s given freely.
Chesed also refers to kindness and benevolence, but it’s a lovingkindness that knows no restraint. The third verse of Psalm 89 says that the world was built with Chesed. Whereas the preceding three sefirot of Chochmah, Binah, and Da’at are intellectual sefirot, Chesed is the first of the emotional sefirot.
The name of God that’s connected to the sefirah of Chesed is El (ehl), and the biblical figure associated with this sefirah is Abraham the patriarch. Abraham is the legendary figure of love and expansion, which explains his connection with Chesed. Abraham was known to live in a tent that was open on all four sides so that he could easily see visitors and invite them into his tent as guests. This outward thrust of welcoming visitors and guests so easily associates Chesed with both Abraham and the masculine.
Contraction: The impulse to receive
Gevurah (geh-voo -rah), often known as power, is also sometimes referred to with the Hebrew word din, meaning judgment, justice, or law. Gevurah also can mean restraint, concentration, fear, control, or awe.
Kabbalists teach that every sefirah has both a positive and negative aspect, and this duality is perhaps most clear in the sefirah of Gevurah. The discipline and restraint side of Gevurah can manifest itself in a positive or negative way. Gevurah is contraction, and too much contraction or too much judgment can result in squashing or in something disruptive. On the other hand, the strength aspect of this sefirah is an inward withdrawal, a concentration of power; that concentration of power can result in hate or fear but also in justice and control.
Love is often considered feminine (like maternal love), and toughness is considered masculine. But in the Kabbalistic cosmology, the opposite is the case. Chesed is expansive and therefore male, and Gevurah encloses and constricts and is therefore feminine. Kabbalists note that Gevurah is strength, and yet the path to Gevurah is the path from Chesed. In other words, true strength comes through giving. Gevurah harnesses the energy of Chesed.
One can easily see Chesed and Gevurah at work in the world. Child rearing, for instance, is an artful combination of expressions of Chesed and Gevurah. If a parent is too permissive, the result can be disastrous for a developing child. Similarly, if a parent is too repressive and restrictive, the result is again sad and unhealthy. But in combination, Chesed and Gevurah serve a parent well. At almost every moment of a parent’s relationship with his or her child, he or she faces the question of just how much Chesed and just how much Gevurah to offer. A combination of the two results in a healthy child.
The name of God associated with Gevurah is Elohim (eh-low-heem ), and the biblical figure associated with Gevurah is the patriarch Isaac. Isaac is a far more passive personality in the Torah than Abraham, who’s associated with Chesed (see the preceding section). Although Gevurah is sometimes seen as negative, it isn’t negative to the Kabbalist, and instead is often referred to as an aspect of God’s kindness. The divine light pours down from God, and it would be impossible to exist if that light weren’t restricted, controlled, and harnessed. The Gevurah aspect restricts the divine light and allows for the world to exist. Both Chesed and Gevurah express different aspects of God’s love and of love in the world.
Harmony: The desire for balance
The sefirah of Tiferet (tee-fehr -et; beauty) is a combination of harmony, truth, and compassion. Tiferet is also a balancing of the two sefirot that precede it, Chesed and Gevurah. The word “Tiferet” comes from the Hebrew word pa’ear (pah-air ; beauty). Tiferet is the ability to merge the flow of Chesed, which is open and outpouring, with the restrictive nature of Gevurah and achieve an appropriate mixture of the two. Tiferet is sometimes referred to as Rachamim (rah- khah-meem; compassion or mercy).
On the chart of the Tree of Life shown in Figure 4-1, notice that Tiferet is at the center. It’s the central sefirah between right and left and between top and bottom. The part of the body that corresponds to Tiferet is the upper torso.
Perhaps most important to Kabbalists is the fact that Tiferet is also a symbol of the Torah. As a way of life, the Torah teaches the Kabbalist how to achieve the right balance in life. Tiferet manifests the ability to create the proper balance between Chesed and Gevurah. Often the expression of Chesed, which is lovingkindness, may be a grievous error if a situation doesn’t call for such kindness. Similarly, the severity of Gevurah is sometimes too fierce for a particular moment or occasion.
The name of God that’s connected with the sefirah of Tiferet is the most sacred of all God’s names in Kabbalistic tradition, the Tetragrammaton (also known as the four-letter name of God), Y-H-V-H. This connection isn’t surprising given that Tiferet is a symbol of the Torah.
The Biblical figure associated with Tiferet is Yaakov (Jacob), who’s known in the Torah as Israel. The three patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob correspond to the three central sefirot on the Tree of Life: Chesed, Gevurah, and Tiferet. Just as the first triad on the Tree of Life, Chochmah, Binah, and Da’at are often referred to in Kabbalistic literature as a unit, so too is the second triad on the Tree of Life, Chesed, Gevurah, and Tiferet (lovingkindness, judgment, and harmony) a unit. Whereas Kabbalists consider the first three sefirot of Chochmah, Binah, and Da’at mental processes or processes of consciousness, the lower sefirot, Chesed, Gevurah, and Tiferet, are the sefirot that act directly upon the world. In some ways, each person is constantly navigating life through these sefirot.
Victory: The urge to get things done
The sefirah of Netzach (neh- tzakh) may be referred to as victory or eternity. Netzach is the sefirah of conquest; it’s also the capacity for overcoming. My Kabbalah teacher likes to say that Netzach is the profound urge to get things done.
Kabbalistic literature frequently points out that all the sefirot are pure in their essence but that each has a positive aspect and a negative aspect. In the case of Netzach, it’s the urge to get things done, but its negative manifestation may be workaholism, when the urge to get things done is out of control. Another example of Netzach is when something is put into the marketplace before it’s ready, a sort of overenthusiasm.
The name of God that’s connected to the sefirah of Netzach is Y-H-V-H Tzvaot (tzih-vah-oat ; the Lord of Hosts). The biblical figure associated with Netzach is Moses. As an accomplished leader, it stands to reason that Moses is associated with the sefirah of victory and the urge to conquer.
Glory: The way of persistence
The sefirah of Hod (hode), often referred to as splendor, is sometimes described as persistence or holding on. Hod is also the power to repudiate obstacles (a reference to persistence).
Just as the three sefirot before Netzach (Chesed, Gevurah, and Tiferet ) are sefirot that act directly on the world, the next three (Netzach, Hod, and Yesod ) are even more directly connected to the real world in which people live.
Think of Netzach and Hod as a progression from the urge to get things done to persistence or holding on. When you want to participate in a task, you begin with Netzach. When you’re in the midst of doing something and want to continue to do the task at hand and not poop out, you need to exercise your persistence, your ability to hold on. Suppose you want to climb a mountain, for example. The urge to climb that mountain is Netzach. During the climb, your desire to muster up enough discipline to continue the trek is Hod. You can’t be successful with just one and not the other.
One contemporary teacher sees Hod as incubation and the place where you design the wrapping for the idea or let it percolate to a deeper level; it’s the place of enhancement, deeper inspiration, of completing something with full consciousness for it to be the best that it can be before it gets out there.
The name of God associated with Hod, Elohim Tzvaot (eh-low-heem tzih-vah-oat; the God of Hosts), also indicates the close similarity between Netzach and Hod, which is connected to the name of God Y-H-W-H Tzvaot. Hod is usually associated with the biblical personality of Aaron, who was Moses’s brother and the first High Priest of the Jewish people.
Mark your calendar!
Each of the seven lower sefirot, beginning with Chesed, corresponds to a day of the week. The day of the week associated with Yesod is Friday. Friday night is the inauguration of the Sabbath, when the Kabbalist actually takes part in a kind of wedding ceremony, marrying the divine presence in the world. A Kabbalist even calls the Sabbath a bride. According to the Kabbalistic sages, Friday night is also the best time for a husband and wife to make love.
Yesod: The bridge-builder
The sefirah of Yesod (yeh-sowd; foundation) is thought to be the vehicle or carrier from one thing, person, or condition to another.
The organ of the body associated with Yesod is the penis or phallus, which is appropriate when one considers that the essence of Yesod is the ability to make connections. Keep in mind that these associations are symbolic, so the connection that one makes with one’s teacher, friend, or parent must never be a sexual one but is nonetheless a reaching out in a desire to connect.
In the same way that Tiferet is a balance of Chesed and Gevurah, so too is Yesod a balance between Netzach and Hod. Yesod stimulates the desire to connect, receive, and give. On the Tree of Life chart (see Figure 4-1), Yesod also appears between the central sefirah of Tiferet and the last sefirah of Malchut (see the next section). Yesod is the channel through which the central sefirah of Tiferet can unite with the ultimate, concluding sefirah of Malchut.
One of the names of God connected with the sefirah of Yesod is El Shaddai (el shah-die; the Almighty God, or God Almighty). The biblical character associated with Yesod is Yosef (Joseph), Jacob’s son. Just as the sefirah of Jacob comes after Abraham and Isaac on the Tree of Life, Yesod comes right below Tiferet , or Jacob, resulting in Jacob’s favorite son, Yosef. Yesod is sometimes referred to as the foundation of the world, known in Hebrew as Yesod olam, and is seen as the balance of the productive energies of Netzach and Hod.
Sovereignty: The ultimate receptacle
The last of the ten sefirot on the Tree of Life is Malchut (mahl-khoot ; kingdom). The word “Malchut” in Hebrew is melech (meh -lekh; king).
Malchut can be seen as the fruits of all one’s labor. Whereas Yesod is the sefirah that corresponds to the penis or phallus (see the preceding section), Malchut corresponds to the feminine form of the divine. The connection between the Yesod and Malchut is a kind of cosmic sexual union that ultimately gives birth to all the activity in the world.
The day of the week that’s connected to Malchut is the Sabbath. The Sabbath is the summation and accumulation of all the work of the week, and Malchut is the recipient of all of the sefirot above it on the Tree of Life (see Figure 4-1).
The name of God connected to Malchut is Shechina (sheh-khee -nah; divine presence), which represents God’s presence in the human world. The Shechina gathers the energies of all the other sefirot and offers them to the world; it creates a bridge between God and the world. The biblical character associated with Malchut is David, the great king of Israel.
Ways to Look at the Tree of Life
The configuration of the sefirot on the Tree of Life isn’t as straightforward as it appears at first glance. A lot of information is packed into the Tree of Life. For example, there are three vertical lines in the Tree, each containing three sefirot, with each line having its own significance. There are also three triads, or groups of three sefirot, each also with its own significance.
Lots of things are going on in this depiction, and Kabbalists interpret it from a number of different angles. In this section, I show you some of the ways Kabbalists look at and analyze the chart.
Placement
The placement of each sefirah on the Tree of Life gives insight into its nature. For example, Keter is on the top of the chart, and Malchut is on the bottom. This placement makes sense because Keter is known as the sefirah of connection, the primary connection between God and the world, symbolically coming from above, and Malchut is the primary connection between humans and the world and is seen as the final sefirah, a summation of all the others. One can picture Keter pouring down from above through the crown of each person. Malchut, on the other hand, is on the bottom because it’s the goal of creation, the physical universe and all that’s contained within it.
Vertical lines
The chart of the ten sefirot consist of three lines:
Middle line
Right line, sometimes referred to as father
Left line, sometimes referred to as mother
The location of the sefirot on these lines isn’t haphazard. Kabbalists studying the relationships between the sefirot in each line can understand, for example, why Tiferet is on the middle line. Tiferet is, after all, harmony and balance. They can also see why Chesed and Gevurah are respectively on the left and right sides of the Tree of Life; these two sefirot constitute a pair at two extremes, just as the Tree of Life reflects.
Horizontal lines
The horizontal lines of the Tree of Life reveal three pairs of sefirot. By examining each pair, each of which forms a horizontal line of the Tree of Life, the Kabbalist begins to understand how each pair is a tool for living a Kabbalistic life.
Chochmah and Binah:
When a Kabbalist uses his mental faculties, he employs a combination of Chochmah (intuition) and (Binah) logical analysis). A Kabbalist may say that, at any given moment as he thinks, he’s going back and forth between Chochmah and Binah and between a combination of the two because some situations call for more intuition and others call for a more logical analysis.
Chesed and Gevurah:
In all relationships, in almost everything a Kabbalist does, she’s constantly negotiating Chesed (giving) and Gevurah (receiving) and finding the proper balance for every situation. As I mention in the section “Contraction: The impulse to receive” earlier in this chapter, the pairing of Chesed and Gevurah is clearly evident in a parent’s relationship with his or her child. When a parent relates to a child, in some ways it’s a constant interchange between love and kindness and discipline. In the most basic sense, the parent has to find a balance between saying “yes” and saying “no.”
Netzach and Hod:
Particularly when a Kabbalist works on something in the world, he’s actively exercising the sefirot of Netzach (the urge to get things done) and Hod (persistence).
Netzach prompts him to participate in the task before him, and Hod keeps the Kabbalist motivated and provides the power and strength to see a job through to its conclusion.
Triads
Following are the three triads on the Tree of Life:
Chochmah (wisdom), Binah (understanding), and Da’at (knowledge): These three sefirot correspond to mental or intellectual activities.
Chesed (lovingkindness), Gevurah (justice), and Tiferet (harmony): These three sefirot comprise emotional lives.
Netzach (eternity), Hod (splendor), and Yesod (foundation): These three sefirot generally act on the physical world in which people live.
The three sefirot in each triad form their own groups because the three sefirot in each case have some common levels of connection. The sefirot are placed where they are on the Tree of Life because of these connections. In other words, the chart of the ten sefirot is a well-thought-out configuration. Every detail has an inner logic that helps to reveal the wisdom contained within the chart.
Sefirot within sefirot
Kabbalistic tradition teaches that each of the ten sefirot has each of the ten sefirot within it. For example, Chochmah has
The Chochmah of Chochmah
The Binah of Chochmah
The Da’at of Chochmah
The Chesed of Chochmah
The Gevurah of Chochmah
The Tiferet of Chochmah
The Netzach of Chochmah
The Hod of Chochmah
The Yesod of Chochmah
The Malchut of Chochmah
This same pattern applies to each of the other sefirot. These connections illustrate the interdependence of the sefirot; none of them stand alone. Here’s an example of how sefirot within sefirot works: You see that your small child is about to touch a hot stove, and you realize in a split-second that the only way to protect your child from getting burned is to slap her hand and thrust it away from the stove. In that split-second, you experience the Gevurah of Chesed: Your urge to protect your child comes from the lovingkindness you feel (Chesed), and your decision to slap your child’s hand, both to protect it and to impress upon the child that what she’s about to do isn’t good, is discipline and judgment (Gevurah). In other words, your act is one of Chesed, but the vehicle used to express that lovingkindness is Gevurah.
Pulling the Strings of Existence: The Work of the Kabbalist
Kabbalists consider the ten sefirot, as a group, to be an all-inclusive system depicting the entirety of reality. In addition, they see the ten sefirot as organic, meaning to say that just as the human body has various organs, each of which has its own function, so too do the ten sefirot . Each has its own function that is unique. Similarly, just as the various organs of the body complement each other and work together, so too the ten sefirot work together and combine in various ways. You can say that, although the ten sefirot are the basis of each of us, each person is different and unique based on the various combinations of sefirot. Some people have a tendency toward more of one sefirah than another, which accounts for everyone’s individuality.
There comes a point in the study of the sefirot when one almost feels like a postal worker sorting mail in front of a wall full of mail slots. With each experience, the Kabbalist sees the ten sefirot at work more clearly and can file them into the slots on the Tree of Life.
Kabbalists conceive of the universe as a downpour of divine plenty from above that constantly creates and sustains the world. This downpour comes in the form of the ten sefirot, which manifest out of the pure divine light that shines from above. God contracts and forms each of the sefirot and their combinations, and this action results in the continuous creation of the world.
Regarding the sefirot, however, Kabbalists teach that the relationship goes both ways between God and humans. Not only is there a downpour of divine light in the form of the ten sefirot, but also there’s a response from humans who use the ten sefirot and show God their thoughts, deeds, and actions, which are really the ten sefirot in various combinations. This is the basis of the idea of reward and punishment. Humans use or abuse the world and experience the consequences of their deeds. Kabbalists conceive of a universe in which God is aware of every minute detail of what is going on, so God knows how each person uses the ten sefirot, either for the repair of the world or for its destruction.
Imagine, for example, that you work in an office and have specific tasks to perform for your profession. You use the ten sefirot constantly; here are a few examples:
Binah: A task before you requires additional time to think through the matter, research it, and discuss it with others.
Gevurah: As a supervisor, you notice that one coworker is getting sloppy in his work. You have to sit down with him to discuss ways to better organize his work and perform with more precision.
Yesod: You realize that that coworker needs some close attention and direction and may even need to be mentored.
Chochmah: You encounter a situation in which you have to react not with your head but with your intuition.
Tiferet: You discover that you and your colleagues aren’t getting along very well, and you need to get together to iron out your differences and solve certain common problems.
In other words, a Kabbalist can look at his or her actions and thoughts, compare them to the system of the ten sefirot, and recognize their correspondence. Studying the ten sefirot and their relationships, especially with a master teacher, begins to reveal the system of the ten sefirot as a profoundly insightful system for life.