Tree of Life Tales: A Collection of Stories for Hanukkah
© Yehudit Goldfarb 2014
(Revised manuscript version of 2013 collection)
Written by Yehudit Goldfarb and arranged according to the
sefirot on the Kabbalistic Tree of Life.
These
tales are meant for people of all ages to be read during Hanukkah each
evening while watching the Hanukkah lights, or at any time of your
choosing. They are dedicated to my children and grandchildren with the
hope that they will provide them and all people with a glimpse into the
journey of the soul. They are arranged according to the
sefirot of the
Kabbalistic Tree of Life and can be read throughout the year on the day of the week corresponding to each
sefirah,
e.g., Sunday is the day of
Chesed, Monday is the day of
Gevurah.
Table of Contents
Epigraph
First Night of Hanukkah:
Chesed
A Great Light in the Darkness: A Midrash about Yocheved, Mother of Moshe
The Tree in the Middle of the Meadow
Second Night of Hanukkah:
Gevurah
Yosef Loved to Walk in the Woods*
Third Night of Hanukkah:
Tiferet
Harvester of Light: An Unfinished Tale
Fourth Night of Hanukkah:
Netzach
Encounter in the Forest
Fifth Night of Hanukkah:
Hod
A Hut in the Woods: A Story About Queen Ariella
Sixth Night of Hanukkah:
Yesod
Shira and the Green Stone
The Tower in the Forest
Seventh Night of Hanukkah: Malkhut
Serach's Veil
Serach and Grandfather Ya'akov
Serach's Story of Yocheved's Birth
Serach and Aunt Dina
Eighth Night of Hanukkah:
"Zot" Hanukkah
Chana bat Shmuel
Chana and the Grove of Olive Trees
Chana's Underwater Walk
Coda: Meditation on Rock and Roots
The Kabbalistic Tree of Life, definitions assembled in ascending order
*This story was published in
New Mitzvah Stories for the Whole Family, edited by Rabbi Goldie Milgram and Ellen Frankel, Reclaiming Judaism Press, August 2014.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Epigraph
Layers of space and time
call to me with their hidden stories.
I shy away from being a witness,
yet I am drawn to learn the truth
of how the infinite unfolding
emerges into consciousness
and creates holiness at each winding.
Yehudit Goldfarb (11/30/2009)
---------------------------------------------------------------
First Night of Hanukkah: Chesed
A Great Light in the Darkness: A Midrash about Yocheved, Mother of Moshe
The Tree in the Middle of the Meadow
"A Great Light in the Darkness: A Midrash about Yocheved, Mother of Moshe"
Every
morning since the baby was born I carefully part the heavy blanket I
drape over us during the night, praying that he is still breathing. We
have to sleep under such a heavy blanket at night because of the radiant
light that emanates from him. To us he is like a candle in the
darkness. We are not sure to what degree his light is visible to
others, but if anyone were to discover his existence, he would be
killed, and, very likely, we would also be.
During the
day I keep the shutters closed, and so long as Miriam stands on guard
to peek through the shutter at the walkway leading to the house, I lift
him from the bed and hug him and nurse him and play with him. But at
night, his light is so bright and of a quality so different from
ordinary light that I can only nurse him when we are both far under the
heavy blanket.
Every morning when he falls asleep after
a long drink of my warm milk, Miriam brings me reeds she and her
brother have gathered near the river. The reeds are strong and supple. I
began to weave a basket for the baby shortly after he was born. Now it
has been three months and we can’t hope to hide him from the
authorities much longer. I have finished the weaving, and today Amram
and Aaron are going to help me line the outside of the basket with pitch
so that it will be waterproof and will float on the Nile like a little
boat. Miriam has been weaving a large blanket to protect the baby
inside the basket, and Amram has created a moveable lid for the basket
to protect him from the heat during the day and from the strong wind
that comes up every night from the east.
Each day as I
sit down to work on the baby’s little ark, I can hardly take my eyes
off him. He is so perfect in his beauty. He already has thick dark
eyebrows and long lashes. Some of his original curly dark hair has
fallen out, but the newer, more permanent hair that has grown in its
place is even curlier and has a reddish tint when the sunlight shines on
it on the rare occasions when Miriam momentarily opens the shutter.
His little lips are full and move in many different shapes as he sleeps,
as if he is speaking in his dreams, conversing with someone I can’t
see.
I’ve known that there would come a day when I
would have to let go and trust in the God of my ancestors to watch over
him. There comes a time with every child when that is true, but at
three months! That is asking too much from a mother. Yet, yet, I’ve
had visions, and Miriam has also had visions, that show this beautiful
baby as a grown man wearing very finely woven garments such as those
worn by the Egyptian royal family.
So I work and watch
and pray. Amram and I have decided to set him in the river tomorrow.
It is now almost summer, and the nightly wind has decreased to a gentle,
cooling breeze. Tomorrow is Pa’ro’s daughter’s birthday. The
Egyptians will have better things to do than look for newborn Hebrew
boys to drown in the river. There will be parades and parties and
people dressed up in costumes. Hopefully, we will be able to carry a
basket of “fruit” to the river unnoticed. And Miriam will be able to
stand in the reeds and watch over the basket without being seen.
Perhaps, perhaps, someone, maybe some young Egyptian woman, will find
him and fall in love with him as we have and take him home to raise him
without telling the authorities. Perhaps we will be able to watch him
grow from a distance. Perhaps the God of my ancestors, who watched over
my Uncle Yosef when he was thrown into the pit, will protect my
beautiful son also and will let him live….
Today the
most extraordinary miracle happened. I can only praise the God of my
ancestors for allowing me to live this long to witness how a day which I
expected to be the most heart-wrenching of my life could turn into one
of my happiest.
The first sign that hinted to me that
greater reality was guiding us was the fact that when we drew the heavy
blanket back from the baby this morning, his extraordinary light had
diminished, so much so that there was only a slight glow, just above his
skin—not so extraordinary a light that a person would be scared of him,
but just enough of a glow to attract and draw to him a curious person,
or so we hoped. I nursed him for what I thought would be the last
time. I held him tenderly, trying to pour through my arms as much love
as he would need for a lifetime. Then I laid him gently onto the
blanket Miriam had woven for him, wrapped him snugly and placed him in
the basket. We all left the house together–Amram, Miriam, Aaron, and
myself. I carried the basket, and we acted as if it were a picnic
basket and we were a family going to the river to celebrate the birthday
of Pa’ro’s daughter.
All went as planned. It was so,
so hard to place the basket in the river, but I knew it must be done.
Perhaps the most difficult part was turning away from the river and
walking home. My whole body resisted moving forward. I made myself put
one foot in front of the other, feeling with each step that I needed to
consciously send all my energy to my legs if I were to keep from
collapsing. I gained some strength from knowing I was not alone. We
all walked toward home, sharing our pain in silence, except Miriam, who
hid in the reeds along the river bank and became the eyes for us all.
It
was barely two hours later when she came home and asked me if I would
be willing to nurse a baby for Pa’ro’s daughter, for, as Miriam
explained to me when I started to tremble at her question, “Pa’ro’s
daughter has found a beautiful baby boy floating in a basket on the Nile
and has decided to adopt it since she is convinced that it must have
been send by the gods as a birthday present for her.” My gratitude is
unbounded, my life restored to me.
"The Tree in the Middle of the Meadow"
The
large tree at the center of the small mountain meadow seems wider than
it is tall. Its rich brown branches extend horizontally from the
broad trunk marked with numerous folds where bark has grown over scars
from broken limbs. It is different from the trees in the forest that
form the circumference of the meadow. They are all tall and
straight, as if competing with one another to reach the sky first. The
tree in the meadow seems to want to reach out to each and every tree at
the edge.
Second Night of Hanukkah: Gevurah
"Yosef Loved to Walk in the Woods"
Yosef
loved to walk in the woods alone, especially early in the morning, even
before the sun came over the horizon and lit up the small clearings in
the woods. He was seven years old, the eldest child of an elderly
couple who lived sparingly but comfortably.
One
December day, when it had already begun to get cold but before the first
snowfall, Yosef wasn't able to take his usual early morning walk
because his mother needed him to help at home to prepare for Hanukkah
guests who were coming to stay for several days. But his duties were
over before the sun had set, so he decided to go to the woods for just a
little while. He had a specific tree he liked to visit and sit under
to sort out any problems he had in his life.
That day,
when he approached the tree, he found an elderly man with a long white
beard and a dark brown woolen cap sitting in the very spot he liked to
sit. He hesitated at the edge of the clearing, undecided about whether
to enter into what now felt like the old man's space. The old man, who
had been poring over a very large book, sensed his presence and raised
his head. He stared straight at Yosef with large, clear blue eyes that
seemed to penetrate deep within his soul.
Yosef
shivered, but he didn't feel afraid. The man's eyes had a kindly look.
Deciding that he would approach the old man, he gathered the courage to
say, Shalom. The man didn't respond in words, but he motioned him to
come closer. Yosef stepped into the clearing. As he did, he felt a
change come over him. His feet felt bigger, his legs longer; he found
it difficult to walk upright. It felt as if some outside force were
making his back curve and were forcing his hands toward the grass
below. He noticed his hands were changing; they were becoming paws with
long nails. Coarse hair was growing on their backs and pushing his
shirt out from his arms. He was turning into a bear, a large brown
bear.
He wanted to pinch himself to see if he were
dreaming, but that was impossible with his new paws. He tried to calm
himself: "I am just imagining this. This isn't really happening to
me. It is impossible." He wanted to ask the man: "Who are you?" But
when he raised his newly furry head, he saw that the space under the
tree was empty. He was alone in the clearing in the woods. The sun had
sunk below the tops of the trees. And he was a bear!
He
moved slowly but gracefully in his new body. He realized his new fur
protected him from the cold, and he couldn't help but utter to himself
Baruch Ha-Shem (Thank God!).
Needless
to say, Yosef didn't return to his elderly parents. How could he now
that he had been transformed into a bear? He knew they would be
suffering a great deal because of his disappearance. He tried to think
of a way to let them know that he was still alive, that they shouldn't
lose hope of seeing him again. All he could think of was to visit the
garden of his old house every week before Shabbat and move something
around from where it had been. He knew his mother would notice the
changes, and he hoped that if she saw that there was a change from week
to week at the same time each week, she would recognize that someone or
something was trying to send her a message. But he didn't want to
frighten her, should she happen to see him, now a large brown bear,
coming out of the woods and entering her garden. His concern for her
kept him from carrying out his plan. He contented himself with watching
the house from the woods every Friday afternoon until he could see the
light of the Shabbat candles glowing in the window.
This
pattern went on for many years. Yosef became a full-grown bear. He
learned to find food and places to sleep, and he thanked
HaShem
(God) that he had at least been transformed into a strong animal with
good survival skills and that he hadn't lost his sense of identity as
Yosef. He had been an avid reader even at the age of seven and decided
during that very first week that he would observe each Shabbat by
resting all day and telling himself stories that he had read when he was
still a boy. He tried to keep himself from thinking about the future,
or speculating on whether the transformation would last forever, or if
there was a way to become a person again.
He lived as
much as he could in the present and appreciated each gift of food and
drink that kept him alive. He remained alone. Once or twice when he
saw other bears in the woods, he walked the other way, making it clear
to them that he didn't want to socialize. He also remembered to say the
Sh’ma upon waking in the morning and going to sleep at night. He did
not feel the instinct to hibernate, which meant that he had to work very
hard in winter to find enough food.
One Friday
afternoon, after he had watched the light of the Shabbat candles in the
window of his parents home for an unusually long time, he walked back
into the woods along the same path he had taken as a seven-year-old
boy. And there, under his favorite tree, sat an elderly man with a long
white beard and a dark brown woolen cap. He was holding a very large
book, and like that day so many years before, Yosef hesitated at the
edge of the clearing. He realized that this strange man might have the
power to transform him back into a human, and he felt a fear deep in his
belly. What would it mean to be a person again? Would he be able to
live with humans and be accepted after so many years living the life of a
bear? Did he want to live with humans again?
The old
man sensed his presence, raised his clear, bright blue eyes and stared
at him. Yosef felt a great change come over him, and he fell to the
ground in a profound sleep.
When he woke up it was
night, Shabbat in fact. It didn't take him long to realize that he no
longer had bear fur growing from his skin. He had indeed turned back
into a person, an adult man, who was wrapped in a heavy bearskin pelt.
The old man with the clear, bright blue eyes was leaning over him,
singing to him softly in a language he didn't recognize but which caused
beautiful images to appear in his mind's eye: flowers of many colors
and shapes, mountains with vibrantly green trees and glistening streams,
lakes with all kinds of animals and birds moving along their edges and
reflected on their smooth surfaces, and many other visions that soothed
his spirit and felt like gentle guiding lights to accompany him in his
transition back into the human world. Then images of humans began to
appear, starting with those of his family and friends as they looked
when he had last seen them. When the singing finally stopped, Yosef's
heart was awake with a desire to reconnect with the human world.
The
old man helped Yosef stand up and walked with him in silence to the
edge of the woods. With slow deliberate steps Yosef walked through his
mother's garden and around the house to the front door. As he
approached, tears welled up in his eyes when he saw three small lights
shining through the glass box containing his family Hanukkiah. He
paused to breathe deeply, letting the Hanukkah lights open his heart in
yearning to see his parents whom he had hidden from for so many years.
Then gently but firmly he knocked on the large wooden door of his family
home.
Third Night of Hanukkah: Tiferet
"Harvester of Light: An Unfinished Tale"
Alexander
wanted to be someone special. He wanted to create something that would
bring a smile to people's faces, that would touch their hearts deeply,
that would make them better people, wiser and more loving. He didn't
know where to begin.
"Alexander! Time to do the
dishes. Come in from the porch and wash the dishes from supper. Then
go do your homework. You need to get to sleep early tonight because you
have a field trip tomorrow and you need to catch the bus by 5 am."
Alexander
rose slowly from the rocking chair on the porch where he had been
watching the clear blue sky change to orange and red and a deep magenta
as the sun descended lower and lower below the horizon. His dreams of
being an inventor would have to wait until another sunset before being
re-enlivened.
The next day turned out to be a turning
point in his life. He went with his school to the ocean. He wandered
away from his classmates and discovered a cave in the cliff to the north
of the beach where they were picnicking. He didn't hesitate to enter
the cave, even though it was very dark and he had forgotten to bring a
flashlight. He walked slowly, letting his eyes adjust to whatever light
there was and stretching out his hands in front and to the sides to
keep from bumping into the walls of the cave. He continued until he
found himself in total darkness.
Then he took a deep
breath and shouted "Halleluyah" as loud as he could. With that, a door
opened at the back of the cave and light came streaming in. He was
astonished and pleased, and not at all afraid.
He
couldn't see any details beyond the light, but he decided to walk
through the door. Then his mother's voice came to him: "Everything is
not what it seems. What if you walk into another universe and you can't
get back? How do you know that the door won't shut behind you?"
He
hesitated. The door shut and the light was gone. Only dark remained,
but it seemed a different dark. It felt "sparkly"–that is the only
word he could think of to describe the difference, even though there
were no sparks. It was as if the light that had flowed in from the
other side of the door had remained in some almost tangible form.
"What if...? What if...?" He said to himself several times, not knowing how to finish the question.
"What
if I could become a harvester of light?" There, it was out. "But what
is a harvester of light? Is it someone who works with solar energy? What
is the light I want to harvest? Does it even exist in the material
world?"
He began to feel very confused. He wanted to
cry. He found himself being flooded by waves and waves of emotions:
joy, fear, hope, despair, yearning, doubt, and, in the end,
gratitude–overwhelming gratitude for having been granted a glimpse of
the light–and humility in the face of task ahead.
Fourth Night of Hanukkah: Netzach
"Encounter in the Forest"
The
leaves were beginning to turn incandescent shades of yellow and orange
and red. Many had already fallen from the quaking aspen that marked the
entrance to the deep green forest with its towering incense cedars and
ponderosa pines. I could hear the crunching of the leaves under my new
hiking boots that I had bought specially for this cross-country hike
between Lake Spaulding and French Meadows. I began to walk with a beat
so that the leaves underfoot would become my accompaniment.
"Halleluyah!" Crunch, crunch. "Halleluyah!" Crunch, crunch. I swung
my arms forward and back in an exaggerated way as I took large steps
through the colorful layers of autumn leaves.
When I
reached the big trees, there were a few leaves on the ground, but mostly
pine needles and scattered cones. I slowed my steps and shortened
them. I felt as if I were being watched. I stopped altogether under a
very large incense cedar that seemed almost friendly. I stood still and
listened to the song of the birds high above me. Then one sound began
to stand out from the others. I could see that it came from a small
bird resting on a bough not more than five feet above my head. She (for
I was sure it was a female bird) was a mixture of deep blue and white,
with a small outcropping of red feathers just below her tail. She sang
what I could only call a niggun, a soul song. It didn't have any
distinct sequence that I could figure out, yet it was always melodious
and very, very cheerful. The bird seemed to want to lead me somewhere,
for she would move from bough to bough along the right side of the path
and would often come back toward me as if to say: "Please follow me."
I
hesitated only a moment before going off the path to the right to
follow the little blue and white bird. I felt I knew the bird from some
other lifetime. It was a former child of mine, or maybe a beloved
cousin. I felt I wanted to give it a big hug and tell it my life's
story, and I had to keep reminding myself: "It is only a bird in the
forest."
"But is it?" I couldn't help responding to
my rational self. "Aren't birds a form of angels, each with a specific
message for us?"
"What is your message for me?" I found
myself asking aloud. And then, from somewhere, deep inside, I heard
the words: "Life is precious, patience is golden, love is natural, and
joy is the reward."
Fifth Night of Hanukkah: Hod
"A Hut in the Woods: A Story about Queen Ariella"
Queen
Ariella was beginning to lose her calm. She had wandered for over six
hours in the woods and had kept her hope up that she would stumble upon a
trodden path or road and find her way home, but she seemed to become
more and more lost the more she walked. She had thought about sitting
under a tree and praying very strongly while sending out energy waves
of, "Please come find me!" But she was too restless to stay still.
Walking
invigorated her, and she didn't feel her hunger so much when she was
constantly moving through new environs–even if one grove of trees looked
almost identical to the last. Still, she could hear the birds chirping
above in the boughs of the tall trees, and that cheered her on. She
began to feel that her getting lost was not an accident, that
someone was calling to her from deep within the woods and drawing her
ever closer, even if it meant that she was moving farther and farther
away from her home.
The sun was now just above the
horizon which she could barely see through the broad tree trunks. The
trunks were heavily covered with moss on their north side. She had
tried to use the moss on the trees like a compass, but sometimes the
moss was so thick it encircled the tree trunks and she couldn't orient
herself by it any more.
The sun was in the west, but
that didn't help much because she didn't know which direction home was
from where she now stood. And stood she did. She decided to stand
still for five full minutes, turn around three times with her eyes
closed, and then walk forward for five minutes in the same direction,
all the while praying hard that she would get a revelation of the way
out of this maze. She figured, why not try this adaptation of a
children's game? Maybe being like a child again and surrendering to the
magical universe would at least keep at bay a little longer the fear she
felt rising in her stomach.
And so she stood still for
what she figured was about five minutes, closed her eyes and turned
around three times, opened her eyes and walked forward. Before five
minutes were up, she spotted a hut. There was a glow coming from a tiny
rectangular window on the side of a small hut built of logs. She felt a
mixture of delight and fear. Her child's magic had worked! But would
the hut have within it a friendly person who could guide her home, or a
wicked witch as in the fairy tales of her childhood?
She
felt she didn't have a choice. She tried to assure herself that the
magic would not have worked were its purpose harmful. And so she
stepped forward into the light of the window and peeked inside.
There
sat an old woman in a rocking chair by a glowing fire. She was
knitting and singing softy to herself. The vision of the old woman,
who looked vaguely familiar to Ariella, gave her courage. She walked
around to the door of the hut and knocked three times, gently but
firmly. She could hear the old woman get up and approach the door. She
heard a kerplunk. Perhaps the old woman was limping. Perhaps she had
an artificial leg.
The door opened and there stood her
Great-aunt Isabella. She had thought Aunt Isabella had left the country
on a long sea journey, never to return. She called out involuntarily,
"Aunt Isabella!"
Isabella stared at her as if she couldn't see her. Ariella soon realized that she didn't see her. She was blind.
"Aunt
Isabella, I am Adriana's grand-daughter, Ariella. Do you remember me? I
am now the queen, for my mother passed on last year. I am lost in
these woods. Can you help me find my way home?"
A very large smile grew on Isabella's face as she listened to Ariella's voice. She seemed to be recalling scenes from long ago.
"Come
in, come in, my dear. I am so happy you got lost enough to find me. I
remember you well, even though you were only four years old when I
left. You had long blond curls and soft blue eyes that shone like the
clear sky in the early morning. I remember you used to love to dance.
When I came to visit, you would have me sing and you would create a
dance on the spot. You were so proud of yourself, yet not arrogant. I
thought you were the most fluid dancer in the world, but, of course, I
was partial. I had had only boys. You were the first girl child in two
generations. Yes, I remember you."
Ariella glowed inside as she listened to Isabella and remembered those visits of old.
Sixth Night of Hanukkah: Yesod
Shira and the Green Stone
The Tower in the Forest
"Shira and the Green Stone"
Shira
carried the small green stone in a heart-shaped velvet bag attached to
her belt. Her mother had sewn the bag for her out of fabric from the
cape her mother had worn on her wedding night. It had been a deep
magenta color, but now some of the velvet had worn away and the
underlying deep red threads could be seen peeking through.
Shira
valued the velvet bag as much as she valued the stone that had been
given to her on her sixth birthday by her mother's mother, Grandma
Alice. Both her mother and grandmother had died in the flu epidemic
less than a year ago, and her Aunt Julie, her mother's sister, had
welcomed her into her family until Shira's father would return from the
front. Her aunt had received a letter from her father saying that she
was to send Shira on a train to a little town just outside of Cracow
where he would meet her and take her to their new home.
Shira
looked out the window of the train as green fields passed by,
interrupted now and then by a clump of tall trees. She held onto the
velvet bag with her right hand as the fingers of her left hand began to
twirl the yarn that tied the bag's worn top. She debated within herself
whether to pull the stone out and look at it. She hadn't done so since
her mother and grandmother died, even though she had worn the velvet
bag every day since the funeral.
The green stone had
taken on a luminous quality for her, and she was afraid that if she
actually looked at it, she would find it to be just an ordinary stone,
something anyone might find while walking along a beach. Her
grandmother had told her that it had been sent to her from the Holy Land
by her sister who had settled in Jerusalem, so Shira liked to imagine
the people who might have noticed the stone before it was carved out of a
larger rock face and sent to Eastern Europe. She also liked to imagine
that the stone had a memory of what it had seen in the Holy Land, that
if it could talk it would tell her unbelievable tales.
Shira's
eyelids began to droop, and as much as she did not want to fall asleep,
she seemed to lose all power to resist. Before she knew it, she found
herself in a circular green meadow with a very large green stone at its
center. The stone was shaped like the head of an elderly woman. The
stone had white veins that appeared as wrinkles on the old woman's
face. Small plants had taken root on top of the stone so that it
appeared as if the old woman's hair stood straight up. The face in the
stone appeared friendly, not at all scary. Shira decided to talk to the
stone; it looked so much like a person.
"Who are you?"
Shira asked. To her surprise the stone remained silent, but she was
sure that she had detected a movement around the eyes. She tried
again: "Who are you? Did you know Grandma Alice?" Again silence, but
Shira felt a tremor from the ground moving ever so slightly, and the
tremor made the stone shake just enough to look like a nod. With that
nod still vivid in her mind's eye, Shira woke up with a start.
The
train had stopped, and she could hear the conductor call the name of
the town where her father was to meet her. She started to tremble with
excitement. It had been four years since she had last seen her father,
and she could barely remember his face. She got up quickly, grabbed her
coat and small suitcase, and left her compartment. It was only after
she descended from the steps of the train that she reached instinctively
for her velvet bag and realized it was gone. At that moment she heard
her father call her name: "Shira, I'm over here."
Shira
could not believe that the man who called to her was her father. She
had always thought he was a very tall man with wavy black hair and an
exceptionally large brow. This man wasn't much taller than she was, and
the dark knitted cap he was wearing clung so closely to his head that
he seemed not to have any hair at all. There was neither a curl nor a
wisp of hair peeking out from under the cap, which was pulled down
almost to his eyebrows so she couldn't tell if his brow were large or
small.
A great fear suddenly enveloped her. She
shivered. Her stomach felt like a dozen butterflies were fluttering
next to its lining. She felt her heart beating in her chest. Her mouth
was dry, but she couldn't swallow.
"Shira, over
here. I'm over here," she heard her father's voice echoing in her
ears. But she couldn't move, not even in the direction from which the
voice came. She felt people bumping against her as they poured out of
the train onto the platform and toward the gate that separated those
descending from the trains and those waiting to meet them. She knew
that she only needed to take a dozen or so steps to reach the gate and
come face to face with her father, but her legs wouldn't move. It was
as if she had turned into a pillar of salt, like Lot's wife who couldn't
resist looking back on the destruction of Sodom.
"Why
can't I move?" she asked herself. "Am I afraid that if I embrace my
father I'll be betraying my memory of my mother? What if this man is not
my father? What if he is only pretending to be my father? What if he is
a mean man, or even an evil man?"
"Oh, Mama," she
found herself crying out from her hurting heart. "Oh, Mama, where are
you? Why have you abandoned me?" Instinctively she reached for her
velvet bag, and the emptiness in the place where it usually hung brought
tears to her eyes. She had never felt so alone in her life. Even
after her mother died, she hadn't felt so alone. Her aunt had so many
little movements and turns of phrase that were like her mother that only
now did she feel the fullness of her mother's absence.
"Young
lady, would you like me to help you find your way out?" she heard a
soft, gentle voice beside her say. The gentleness, and sweet lilting
quality of the voice, reminded her of her grandmother Alice, who had
given her the green stone, and with the image of her grandmother, she
found her limbs become light and her life energy return. She found
herself slowly nodding her head up and down, to indicate yes, she did
want to be helped. "Yes, yes. Please. Can you help me?" she heard her
own voice say.
"The Tower in the Forest"
Shira
was extremely tired. She focused her attention on placing one foot in
front of the other, not even looking ahead to see where she was going.
She was on a narrow path in the forest, and there wasn't much for her to
see, even if she raised her head. Then she noticed that the ground had
turned golden in a circle of sunlight. She lifted her eyes and found
that the trees had grown thinner. In the distance she could see a
verdant meadow filled with wildflowers. At the far end of the meadow
there was a very, very tall cylindrical stone tower that seemed to reach
up to the heavens. The meadow was bathed in sunlight, but a mist
surrounded the upper part of the tower so Shira could not discern its
actual top.
The tower reminded her of stories from her
childhood about beautiful women being locked up in towers. She felt
strongly drawn to the tower, as if a part of herself had been locked up
in it a long time ago. Her energy returned, and her senses became
acute. The green of the meadow carpet was exceptionally vibrant. She
could smell the fragrance of the flowers without even bending down. She
said a silent thank you for the beauty of the vision and then hurried
toward the large wooden door at the base of the tower, hoping it would
not be locked.
The iron clasp on the door was easy to
move, and she soon found herself inside. She left the door slightly
ajar and started to climb the spiral stone staircase. There were no
signs of human habitation. She climbed up and up, no longer feeling
tired at all. In fact, with each step she felt she was being lifted
from above. Up and up she went, with only occasional windows on the
side of the tower through which she could see the green meadow below and
the surrounding forest.
Finally, she reached a level
space and saw a red door with white and yellow wildflowers painted all
over it. The sight brought a smile to her face. She realized that her
breathing had been rather fast and shallow, so she paused and took three
deep breaths as she stood in front of the bright door.
She
was excited and happy and a little frightened. She wasn't sure if
anyone lived inside the tower, but she felt a warmth radiating from the
gaily painted door which encouraged her to knock and see for herself.
As she raised her hand to knock, she said a little prayer: "Please,
HaShem, may You be with me always." Then she knocked lightly on the
colorful door.
Almost immediately the door was opened
by a very tall woman who was elegantly dressed in a long skirt and
long-sleeved blouse with a high neck. The woman was more than a head
taller than Shira. Her long hair was arranged around her head in a
crown-like braid, and she wore a lavender flower above her right ear.
She was the epitome of elegance, of a person well-groomed and dressed in
a way that bespoke confident centeredness and great compassion.
Shira
stepped back in awe. She knew that this towering woman was one of the
"mothers"–even though she didn't know what she meant by that. So she
asked in a very soft voice: "May I come in, Mother?" The woman nodded
in silence and ushered her inside a room that was lined entirely with
richly colored woods.
"Do you have a question for me,
my child?" She heard the woman ask, and, indeed, she felt like a child
in her presence, for the tall woman had an aura of eternity. Shira had
no way of guessing her age, nor did she feel the need to know. She felt
her heart growing large with a question, but she had difficulty finding
words to articulate her yearning.
"How am I to serve
HaShem with my whole heart and still be fully present in this world?" she heard herself ask.
"Being
fully present in this world is serving
HaShem with your whole heart,"
the elegant figure in front of her responded. "Here, my child, take
this silver amulet to remember that you are in fact always in
HaShem's
presence and are always serving
HaShem. Keep the amulet in this satin
pouch around your waist, and if you are in doubt about which way to turn
or what decision to make, hold it in your right hand and become as
present as you can, as quiet as you can, until the answer wells up
within you. You have all the wisdom you need within you. Just practice
listening."
At that moment, a young girl of about nine
years old came into the room from a door at the rear. She took Shira's
hand and pulled her through the door into a corridor in which a still
younger girl was leaning on the banister of a staircase leading up.
Then she pulled Shira through another door that led to another
staircase. As she started drawing Shira upward, the young girl began to
sing: "We are seven sisters who live in a tower at the edge of a
meadow in the center of the forest. We climb to the seven heavens and
bring down the light." As they neared the door at the top of the
stairs, the girl stopped singing and turned to Shira with a smile. "I
am called Tiferet," she said in a voice that continued the melody of the
song. "Isn't Tiferet also one of your names?" she asked.
"Yes,"
Shira answered hesitantly, surprised that the girl knew about her
hidden name, the name she used when she made up stories about herself.
"How did you know?"
Before the girl could answer, Shira
awoke and found that she had fallen asleep on top of the thick feather
quilt in her new bedroom in her father's apartment.
Seventh Night of Hanukkah: Malkhut
Serach's Veil
Serach and Grandfather Ya'akov
Serach's Story of Yocheved's Birth
Serach and Aunt Dina
"Serach’s Veil"
Serach
felt a strong need to be by herself. She had spent all morning with
her Grandfather Ya’akov. He had been feeling depressed again. Every
few months he would descend into a place of deep sadness and not want
anyone around him except her. Yet he wouldn't talk to her at these
times. He just wanted her around him, somewhere within his sight. In
fact, now that she had some time to reflect on it, she realized that he
almost never allowed her to go beyond the garden surrounding the tent.
Until
recently, she felt proud that he gave her so much attention. She was
his “favorite” grandchild. He would share with her stories from his
childhood that she never heard him tell anyone else. He would show her
his grandfather’s journal of his trip from his homeland so far away to
the land of Canaan. He told her about his Uncle Ishmael and his twin
brother Esau, but most precious to her were the stories he told about
her Uncle Yosef who had died before she was born.
He
had been her grandfather’s “favorite” son. Sometimes she worried
whether she too would die young because she was her grandfather’s
favorite. Just as Yosef had been given a magical coat that had been
passed down from her great, great ancestor Adam, a coat that was
supposed to give its wearer the ability to understand the speech of
animals, her grandfather had given her a multicolored veil which he told
her had once belonged to her great-grandmother, Rivka, who had worn it
on the day she met her future husband, Serach’s great-grandfather,
Yitzchak. Serach kept the veil buried under the floor of her room in a
small wooden box that she had carved herself. She only put the veil on
when she felt overwhelmed by the energy surrounding her.
Serach
went to her room to dig up the veil, even as she worried that it would
somehow bring disaster upon her. After all, her Aunt Dina had been
wearing it on the day she was taken by Shechem. And yet, every time she
put on the veil she was filled with a sense of love, as if the love of
all her ancestors had been absorbed into its fabric and was protecting
her. She started to dig in the corner of the room where she had hidden
the box. She loved her grandfather so much that sometimes it hurt. She
felt a tight knot in her stomach as she thought about his suffering
over the dishonoring of Dina and then over the loss of Yosef. She knew
that in one part of her being she wished to be another Yosef to him.
She shivered. If she succeeded, would that mean that she was fated to
be killed by wild beasts? Another part of her cried out to be seen for
herself–a little girl who wants to explore the world beyond her
grandfather’s tent. But if she does, will she be taken captive like her
Aunt Dina? She felt confused. Who am I? What will be my story?
Serach
could feel the box with her fingertips. She didn’t mind the dirt under
her fingernails. She dug faster until she could get her whole hand
around the corner of the box. She could feel the beat of her heart in
her throat. She slowly opened the lid and pulled the veil out. As she
laid it gently on her long dark silky hair, she felt comforted. She
felt loved. She felt at peace.
Then she placed it over
her face and she saw the figure of a handsome young man who had the
face of her grandfather but the clothing of a very wealthy man, as if he
were the ruler of a foreign country. She held her breath as she looked
at his beauty. Could this be the spirit of Yosef? She knew deep in her
heart that her grandfather didn’t believe Yosef was dead. She was the
only person with whom he would speak of Yosef, and she had come to love
him, even as she felt that he was the cause of her confinement.
She
moved toward the tent opening and looked out at the desert. She saw a
caravan in the distance. It was heading toward the tent. Her father
and nine of her uncles were returning from Egypt. A wave of fear
floated over her, and she heard her grandfather’s voice within her
urging her to count the people on the camels. One, two, three, four,
five, six, seven, eight, nine. Nine. There were only nine. Ten had
gone down, and only nine had returned. She started to cry. Another
brother had been lost. Would she be next?
"Serach and Grandfather Ya’akov"
Each
morning I would visit my Grandfather Ya’akov after he had finished his
prayers and had eaten a little meal to break the fast after the long
night. We had to ration our food very carefully since there was a
famine in the land. My father and his many brothers had left for Egypt
more than a week earlier to buy some food for us, and until they
returned we only had little meals with long intervals between them.
In
the mornings, to pass the time, I would sit with my grandfather and he
would tell me stories of my ancestors, of his mother Rivka and his
father Yitzhak, of his grandparents Sarah and Avraham, and even farther
back to his ancestor Noah who survived the great flood many hundreds of
years ago. I would ask many questions about little details, such as
what was my Great-grandmother Rivka wearing when she met Yitzhak for the
first time? Who gave her the veil with which she covered her face when
Yitzhak approached her? How did Grandmother Leah come to possess it? I
was particularly fascinated with the veil, which my Aunt Dina first
showed to me when I was very young, promising me that it would one day
be mine, and which my grandfather presented to me on my seventh
birthday, with my aunt’s blessing.
I became so
familiar with the characters in Grandfather’s stories that I began to
create dances to act them out. I would also make up songs to give voice
to my ancestors of long ago. My grandfather loved to watch me dance.
He would remember, or perhaps create from his own imagination, more and
more details of the stories just to see how I would incorporate the new
information into my dance. I would play in turn each character in a
story. It was a way for me to get inside my ancestors and bring them
alive for me.
My favorite scene was from the story of
how my Great-grandmother Rivka drew water from the well for all of
Eliezer’s camels. I loved pretending to be a camel—to imitate its slow,
deliberate, undulating walk, and then to bend over as if I’m lapping up
the water Rivka offers me. I would try to convey a different
personality for each camel. Sometimes Grandfather would tell me more
than one version of a story and then ask me to tell him which I felt to
be the true version after I had danced each of them. Occasionally I
would dress up using pieces of cloth that my grandfather kept in an old
trunk. He would tell me the story of the cloth fragment, and I would
then dance its history. Soon I began to understand the significance
of inanimate objects in shaping our lives.
Grandfather
and I spent many wonderful mornings in this way. During our time
together my grandfather’s depression would temporarily lift. My father
told me that Grandfather’s depression dated back to the day when
Grandfather had sent my Uncle Yosef to seek out his brothers, a journey
from which Yosef never returned. No one would tell me the story of that
day or answer my questions about Uncle Yosef, except to say that he “is
no more.” Although I had heard rumors that he had been killed by a
wild animal, my father and uncles would not say straightforwardly that
he was dead, only that “he is no more.” Mentioning his name made my
uncles angry, all except Uncle Binyamin, whose eyes would fill with
tears whenever I brought up the subject. But he too would turn away
from me and not answer.
When I asked my grandfather to
tell me a story about Yosef, he would not get angry and he would not
cry, but he would become very quiet for a long while. Then, in a voice
very different from his usual deep resonance, he would tell me a story
about Yosef as a young boy. After he finished he would be quiet again
and I would sit in silence with him, imagining the beautiful boy Yosef.
I wished that he were around for me to play with. I wished that I
could know him because I could see how much my grandfather loved him.
Then
came the day when my father and uncles returned from Egypt for the
second time. They had gone down to Egypt to get food for us. It was
very early in the morning, while Grandfather was still deep in prayer
and I was playing in the garden in front of his tent, when I saw the
camels on the horizon, and I saw many wagons as well. I ran across the
dry earth to meet them. My father saw me and got down from his camel
and ran to me. He picked me up in his strong arms and swung me around
so that my legs flew out. We laughed in joy at being together again.
Then he became very serious and put me gently down in front of him.
“Serach,”
he said almost in a whisper. “You are now quite a big girl and I have a
great favor to ask of you.” I stood up a little straighter and waited
for him to speak again. He was silent for a long time. I felt my heart
flutter and something inside me knew that he was going to speak of
Yosef and that somehow my life would never be the same.
“Serach,
you have a very special relationship with your grandfather,” he finally
continued. “He talks to you in ways he never talks with anyone else,
and his spirit opens to you in a way that happens only with you. He is
calmer with you and almost happy. We have some very important news for
him, and we are afraid that if any of us were to tell him he would not
survive. His heart would stop and he would expire. We want you to be
the one to tell him, in your gentle way, with your song and your
graceful movements."
My father paused again. He opened
his mouth to speak several times, and then closed it, lowering his eyes
to the earth and moving his foot in the sand in a little circle, as if
to gather the courage to tell me what it was he wanted me to tell my
grandfather. Finally he spoke slowly and deliberately. “We have seen
your Uncle Yosef. He is alive and well, living in Egypt. He has become
a great and powerful man there, and he has sent wagons to bring us all
down to Egypt to live near him so we will have plenty of food for our
families and our animals. Go now. Go and sing to your grandfather that
his beloved Yosef is alive.”
"Serach’s Story of Yocheved’s Birth"
My
most vivid memory of our journey down to Egypt is walking beside my
Uncle Levi’s wife. She was very, very pregnant. She had put on a lot
of weight during the pregnancy and had to walk with the help of a cane.
We children had started calling her Candy—sort of a combined reference
to her cane and to her custom of giving us candy whenever we happened to
come into her kitchen while she was cooking dinner. As she gave the
candy to us she would always say with a large grin and twinkling eyes,
“I’m giving you this now so you’ll remember how much I love you, but
don’t eat it until after supper.” And the remarkable fact was that we
would wait to eat it.
Candy was a short woman, a full
head shorter than Levi. Her hair was long and dark, and she liked to
braid it with colorful ribbons threaded between and around a single
thick rope of hair. That was another reason we felt Candy was the right
nickname for her: her head sparkled in the sunlight like a collection
of rock candies. Her disposition was sweet as well. She never got
angry or impatient with us children when we came by to tell her about
our latest quarrels or to ask her to explain our dreams.
When
we were about halfway to Egypt Candy shared with me that she liked the
nickname we had given her but that now that she was about to give birth
she wanted to be called Shira. She considered herself a cheerful and
upbeat person, and she was concerned that she would moan and scream
during labor. She hoped the new name would help her to sing through the
birth. So we made a pact. We decided that we would sing all the way
to Egypt. We would sing sweet songs, not sad ones, and we would try to
influence her fate.
It was an extremely hot day when we
finally neared the walls of the first border settlement in Egypt.
Candy—or Shira as I had begun to think of her in my mind after six days
of singing—told me that she could feel her belly contracting. I offered
to stop with her by the roadside to rest, but she said that she wanted
to walk through the contractions. It felt more natural to her. In
fact, she speeded up so I could hardly keep up with her. Her cane
barely touched the earth. It was as if the baby inside of her had
became lighter and was giving her extra strength and urging her forward.
Just
as we got to the wall of the city, Shira said to me quietly: “It is
time.” She wanted me to sing to the baby a song of emergence, just as I
had sung to my Grandfather Ya’akov the revelation that Yosef was
alive. My song had given Grandfather new life. Upon hearing it, he had
told me the story of his other name, the name he had acquired on the
way home to Canaan, the name Yisrael. Then he had said to me: “My
dearest Serach, if it is really true that Yosef is still alive, may you
be blessed to live forever and to witness the unfolding of our family’s
story.” I kept imaging that morning with my grandfather as I sang to
Shira. Less than an hour later, with the help of my songs, Yocheved was
born, and I began to realize that my calling was to be a midwife to
souls, both young and old.
"Serach and Aunt Dina"
Serach
had always been a little intimidated by her Aunt Dina. Dina was tall
and slender, with dark eyes that seemed to penetrate the depths of her
soul whenever she spoke to her. Dina was not harsh. In fact, she was
very gentle when she spoke. But she seemed to prefer being alone with
her thoughts.
Serach could not remember a time when her
aunt had ever approached her, and yet she distinctly felt that Aunt
Dina liked it when she would come up to her and show her pictures she
had drawn, or tell her about a new discovery she had made, or share with
her a dream she had had. After the showing, telling, or sharing was
over, Aunt Dina seemed to retreat into her own world again, leaving
Serach to wonder about the reality of the connection she had felt with
her aunt only moments before.
By the time Serach was a
young woman, she had grown to love her Aunt Dina very deeply. She
admired the dignity with which she carried herself. She was a little
envious of how restrained Aunt Dina was in her speech. Each word she
uttered seemed to carry worlds of meaning of which Serach felt she could
only get a glimpse. She often felt the vibrations of the words days
later, and sometimes she would suddenly grasp a level of meaning that
had been hidden until then.
She, herself, loved to
talk. She would go from tent to tent among her numerous uncles and
aunts seeking someone who would be an audience for her latest idea or
story. Her cousins were mostly younger than she, and they didn't have
the patience to listen to her long narratives. The adults tolerated her
and often let her accompany them as they did their chores. They would
help her expand upon her ideas or elaborate on her stories.
But
her favorite aunt was Dina because, although she said little, it felt
like she listened with a depth that drew out of her a deeper telling
than she experienced with anyone else. Over time, Dina's attentive
listening inspired Serach to create paintings to accompany each new
story.
Eighth Night of Hanukkah: "Zot" Hanukkah
Chana bat Shmuel
Chana and the Grove of Olive Trees
Chana's Underwater Walk
"Chana bat Shmuel"
“Connecting to the One of All Being,
sliding into and out of the shells
that support consciousness–
that is the journey we all take.
The narrow place with thick walls nurtures growth
until it reveals the constricting limits.
Boundaries that provide privacy
can become stifling encasements
that accentuate separation and isolation.
Yet, with a turn of awareness,
an elevation of perspective,
a deepening of knowing,
we can melt the too-tight walls,
crack the embryonic shell,
and emerge into a new level
of challenge and growth.”
Chana
looked at her mother’s writing on the now yellowed scrap of paper that
had once been a letter. She tried to call up in her mind’s eye her
mother’s features, her way of moving, her loving gesture of reaching out
to gently sweep Chana’s hair from her forehead–a gesture which had felt
like a caress and which even now, when Chana concentrated, could evoke
the sound of her mother’s voice saying, as she did each time she swept
the hair aside: "Chana, let me see the fullness of your face. You are
so beautiful. You are G-d’s gift to me after my time of sorrow.”
As
a child, Chana did not know what her mother meant by “time of sorrow.”
She didn’t know that her mother and father had great difficulty in
conceiving, and that before her birth there had been numerous
pregnancies that never brought forth a child. Now that she herself was
possibly pregnant she sensed a new depth in her mother’s words.
"Chana and the Grove of Olive Trees"
Landscapes
had always been an important part of Chana’s life. She grew up on the
hillside facing Mount Meron, in an old stone house in Tzfat on the same
street and a little to the south of the beautiful Abuhav synagogue. It
wasn’t very far for her to walk down to the old cemetery and the tombs
of the Holy Ari, Yosef Caro, and Hannah and her seven sons. There was a
trail near the north end of the cemetery that led to a grove of six
extremely old olive trees. They were short and had knotted broad trunks
with many undulations in the bark that formed beautiful patterns of
light and shade, especially when the late afternoon sun was shining on
them.
One tree had an opening in its trunk that was
large enough for Chana to walk through. To the southwest of this tree
was an olive tree with two trunks joined about a meter above the earth
forming a foundation which in its shape resembled the Hebrew letter
Chet, the letter with which her name began. A unified trunk grew from
the horizontal line of the Chet and then branched out in all directions a
few meters above its base. In the late fall all the branches would
become heavy with large black olives. The grove felt like a sacred
place where no one would dare to hit the trees to harvest the olives,
although, occasionally, she did notice a low branch which had been
picked clean.
As a young girl she would spend many
hours every week in this grove. Sometimes she would sit on the soft
ground facing Meron and observe the shapes, colors, and textures of
everything around her. In the winter, each time she came she discovered
new plants growing under and near the trees. Sometimes she would close
her eyes and wait for images to appear on the screen of her eyelids.
Chana
remembered one particular day when she had received a vivid image of
her grandmother walking up the trail toward her. The dark green
mountain ridge was behind her grandmother. Scattered white and grey
clouds were low in the sky above Mt. Meron. The edge of the sun was
just emerging from behind one of the clouds so that rays of light
radiated down toward the earth and seemed to cause her grandmother’s
white hair to glow. The rest of her body remained a silhouette. Chana
had felt suffused with warmth from her presence. Then a bird had cawed,
and when Chana opened her eyes she had found that she was bathed in the
light of the setting sun. Chana remembered how her eyes had filled
with tears, and how, putting her face in her hands, she had cried with
deep sobs from the intensity of her missing her
Savta who had passed away the previous year.
"Chana’s Underwater Walk"
"Dictator of leaves, of falling olives, of tearful babies,
all is within your compass. The rhythmic
ringing of the rain on the metal roof
brings me to the present, the now of eternity,
urging me to let go of visions past and future.
How may I serve You? How gather
my scattering impulses under Your guidance?
When is enough already too much
and quietude an act of giving?
You breathe into me anew at every moment,
how can I know Your will?"
Chana
was in a reflective mood. It had been raining for two weeks with only
occasional times when for a few hours the clouds would hold back their
treasured abundance. On some days, a thick white mist accompanied the
rain and transformed the world outside into various shades of grey. Such days often led Chana’s mind into fantastical places.
Now,
as she sat on a cushion by the window watching the thickening mist and
listening to the patter of the rain, she imagined herself walking along
the bottom of a murky lake, her bare feet deep in soft mud, shadowy
amorphous plant forms surrounding her on all sides. In the space in
front of her was a clear white light shining as if from a great distance
and drawing her forward. Each step was filled with the sensual
pleasure of her toes in the soft lake bottom, of the gentle water caressing her
face and hands, and with the intellectual delight of realizing she could
breathe in this underwater world. But she was most conscious of her
heart being drawn toward the light and that with every step her heart
felt larger and in some inexplicable way both more excited and
immeasurably calm.
She began to hear music as she
continued to walk forward into the light, random notes on a violin, then
a more regular melody on a flute. She stopped to listen more closely,
and at that moment she heard the door behind her open and her name being
called. She was back by her window in Tzfat.
Coda
"Meditation on Rock and Roots"
The
tree melts into the rugged rock as if it were liquid butter poured on
freshly torn French bread. Its sinuous roots dance in and out of the
crevices, joyously joining in delicious elegance on the variegated
exposed surface only to part again into sour isolation within the hidden
depths beneath the crusty underside.
I stand opposite
the tree listening to the melodies it is singing to the rock and
hearing harmonies emerge from the playful wanderings of root within
rock. My tongue can taste sweetness in their courtship, and I
wonder if there could ever be a wedding feast for two such disparate
light-beings.
THE KABBALISTIC TREE OF LIFE
(Definitions assembled in ascending order by Yehudit Goldfarb)
Worlds
Asiyah Behavior/action patterns in the physical dimensions of my being Lower Hey
Yetzirah Emotion/feeling patterns in the emotional dimensions of my being Vav
Beriyah Intellect//thought patterns in the intellectual dimensions of my being Upper Hey
Atzilut Motivation/intention patterns in the spiritual dimensions of my being Yod
Sefirot
Malkhut (The Breath, Shabbat): being present, centeredness, sense of sovereignty, consciousness of being breathed, grounded holiness
Yesod (
Shuruk, Friday): relationship, intimacy, communication, connection, bonding, the foundation
Hod (
Kubutz, Thursday): splendor, empathy, refining the vision, aesthetics, ritual
Netzach (
Chirik, Wednesday): sense of purpose, endurance, awareness of eternal structures, decision-making
Tiferet (
Cholam,
Tuesday): beauty, harmony, compassionate balancing of the limitless and
the structured, surrendering to a larger all-encompassing perspective
Gevurah (
Sh’va, Monday): strength and power, setting limits, honoring boundaries, making judgments
Chesed (
Segol, Sunday): lovingkindness, openness, abundance, flowing expansiveness
Binah (
Tzere): understanding, differentiating, analyzing, noticing the multiplicity
Chokhmah (
Patach): intuitive wisdom, holistic insight, unifying vision, divine intellect
Keter (
Kamatz): experiencing reality beyond ego and sense of self, awareness of the All-illuminating Eternal Now
Levels of Soul
Nefesh: appetitive functioning and awareness, creative imagination, vitality
Ruach: emotional awareness, intentionality (linking the physical and spiritual), song
Neshamah: intellect, spiritual manifestation, creative thought, inspiration
Chayah: divine integrative life force (The Living One), life-experience connected to source of Eternal Life, will to live
Yechidah: uniqueness (The Unique Single One), holographic unification with Hashem
Note: Descriptions and short movies of how to dance the movements for the
nikudot (Hebrew vowel signs whose names are listed above next to their corresponding
sefirot on the Kabbalistic Tree of Life) are available on my website:
www.otiyot.com.
Under Otiyot Hayyot on this blog, I
have copied the descriptions of how to do the Dance of the
Nikudot. You
can view me performing the movements for the
nikudot from
Keter to
Malkhut in descending order on
my youtube channel.
All material on this site is under copyright © Yehudit Goldfarb and may be copied only with permission from the owner.
