For about twenty years I’ve been a student of Kabbalah, yet I have steadfastly refused to teach Kabbalah or talk about it and I rarely even use the word. That’s because when someone says Kabbalah, you’re never sure what they’re really talking about. There are a number of different schools of Kabbalah, each with its own set of symbols and metaphor, and its own language to talk about the secrets of Creation, Revelation, and Redemption. Those systems as they developed were sometimes bound up with a particular time and culture. You could spend a lifetime trying to master the language of Kabbalah and quite possibly miss the whole point of it.
I’m a very practical person. Whenever I’m learning something or doing a spiritual practice, I always ask, what is the point of this? How does this learning or practice affect the way I live my life? Does it make me more compassionate? Does it open my heart and make me less judgmental? Does it connect me to God, to my community, to my own deepest truth? For all these years I’ve stayed on the edge of the esoteric study and discussion of Kabbalah because it didn’t seem practical in the sense of making me a better, kinder person. I want to spend my life learning how to give and receive — how to be a better lover — how to open myself to the gifts of this world and receive the Life I have been given… how to become generous with those gifts so that they will benefit others. I want to be a channel for the flow of Creation. It seemed to me that the danger of Kabbalah is that you can get so busy mastering its complicated systems that it becomes impossible to simply live and embody the basic principles of Kabbalah. So I’ve been wary.
Today I’m going to break my own rule and share with you the kind of Kabbalah that I practice. In the course of my own spiritual journey I have had glimpses of a great Mystery that underlies this physical Reality. I call that Mystery, God. It is a fiercely loving and powerful force that wants to pour itself into this world, if only we might open to it. God is a flow and a countenance that moves the process of the evolution of consciousness. When I do open to that flow I find that my natural response is generosity. As my heart opens to the gift of Life in each moment, it just naturally overflows in the form of kindness and creativity.
The word Kabbalah means “Receiving.” To be a Kabbalist first of all entails becoming Receptive to the flow of the Divine as it pours into this world.
One of the central texts of Kabbalah is called Zohar. It’s a kind of spiritual adventure story that recounts the journeys of Shimon Ben Yohai and his companions as they travel through a mythical magical landscape. At certain points in the journey, the companions turn to each other and quote a line from Genesis…. this is the most repeated line in Zohar and it holds the secret of the kind of receptivity that makes one a Kabbalist.
V’nahar yotzei me’Eden, l’hashkot et haGan.
(A river comes forth from Eden to water the garden.)
(Genesis 2:10)
When we are connected up to that Divine Flow of miracle that is always flowing from the Source, then we look for ways of keeping that connection or getting reconnected when we get lost. As Kabbalists we don’t only receive the Divine Flow… we become a channel for that flow and give ourselves in service. To love God means to serve God’s Creation. The flow is circular… from God into this world and through our generous hearts back to the Source. We serve God in Prayer (the Hebrew word for prayer is Avodah — service) and we serve God by loving the world, living a life of Kindness and Justice.
In the book of Exodus, the Freedom that we aspire to can only be manifest through our relationship with God. God has brought us out of slavery for one reason… “to be your God” …to exist in holy relationship. To be in relationship requires both receptivity and generosity.
Nearly a third of the Book of Exodus is about the building of the Mishkan. I used to think this was the most boring part of Torah. (First, there are the instructions for building, and then the descriptions of building all in excruciating detail.)
But I realized that the Mishkan text is really about constructing a spiritual practice so that the Divine and Human can interact. Building a Mishkan means making a place for God to dwell. Va’asuli Mikdash v’shochanti b’tocham. Make for me a holy place so that I can dwell among, between and within you. This is the key to our Freedom. Without the Mishkan, the place where spirit and matter meet, we are doomed to slavery. Without the Mishkan, the place the Divine and Human converse, we remain enslaved to the outer, merely physical, surface reality. Our Freedom connects us with the infinite, with the Soul. The Mishkan is the place where our receptivity and generosity can be cultivated and nurtured. The Mishkan is our spiritual practice.
We can’t build that place out of a sense of obligation or duty. Only the willing and generous heart can participate in the building of the Mishkan.
So… How do we find our generosity?
One answer is that we find our generous and willing heart through prayer. Through prayer we step into the widest perspective and express our deepest yearning for Freedom and our most expansive appreciation for Life.
Ashrei yoshvei vetecha od y’hal’luchah
Happy are those that dwell in Your house; they keep on praising.
(Psalm 84:5)
May we all radiate with the happiness that comes from knowing that we live in the God-House and may praise pour forth from that knowing.
© Shefa Gold. All rights reserved.