Wayne Dosick By Wayne Dosick List of honorees Louis Rose Society Jewishsightseeing home San Diego Jewish Times home
Rabbinic Insights: 12 Spirals of Kabbalah
San Diego Jewish Times, February 10, 2006
By Rabbi Wayne Dosick
Kabbalah teaches that the way to come to the place where Heaven and Earth
meet, the way to journey between the Infinite and the finite, the way to reach
God, is by means of 10 emanations, or steps, called sefirot.
The sefirot — which hold the
characteristics and attributes of God — are the steps that emanate from God to
the Earthly world, in descending order; and are, at the very same time, the
steps that are the pathways from us to God, in ascending order. They are like
rungs on a ladder that connect Heaven and Earth, God and human Beings, and, they
reflect to human Beings, who are created “in the image of God,” the Godly
characteristics and attributes to imitate.
The early kabbalists named and defined 10 (actually, 12) sefirot. They visualized these sefirot
in a structured order, or form, with each sefirah
related to all the others through lines of connection.
They called the image of the sefirot
the Tree of Life.
The kabbalists wanted the sefirot
to be totally accessible to us; they wanted us to be able to viscerally feel
their place and their purpose. They especially wanted us to be fully conscious
of the supporting central column, and of the role of the feminine and masculine.
So, they superimposed the sefirot
of the Tree of Life onto human form. There is another model for journey to God,
for alignment of the sefirot, which
was born out of evolving human consciousness, and the bubbling up of new
God-energy.
The linear, hierarchical, top to bottom, authoritarian structure is
replaced by a circular, web-like structure.
The sefirot are in an
egalitarian circle, where each sefirah
spins, whirls, and tumbles in on itself.
At the same time, the sefirot
are in constant motion, spinning, whirling, and tumbling in on one another,
constantly changing place, interweaving with one another.
In this image, the way to God is not to climb up a ladder to reach up to
God, but, rather, to be in constantly moving, interwoven interaction with God,
to be — in the words of the poet — “like two waves rolling over each other
and inter-wetting each other.”
Whether or not they were consciously aware of it, this model was embraced
by the 18th century Chasidim, who rejected the notion that there is
any hierarchy of people or ideas on the journey to God. While they were
non-egalitarian concerning women’s rights and roles in Jewish life, the
Chasidim championed egalitarianism in regard to equal access to God. There can
be, they insisted, no secret avenue open only to the elite; there can be no test
of scholarship or learning. The approach to God cannot be hidden or veiled. Each
person has complete, unfettered access to God through (choose one or more):
personal piety, text-learning, stories and parables, ritual observance, deep
meditation, and fervent, joyful prayer, chant, and dance.
Together the kabbalastic and chassidic approaches to God form many of the
patterns of modern prayer. Yet, still, the modern age suggests one more
kabbalistic model. We seek a new kabbalastic model for our day that is rooted in
the authenticity of the ages; that reflects the evolving consciousness and new
God-energy of our time; that weaves together the guideposts of both the linear
and the circular.
The kabbalistic model for our age modifies the random chance swirling
motion of the sefirot in the circular
model by restoring the image of the linear Tree of Life. And it changes the
order in which we engage the sefirot,
so that the new image of the journey to God is a spiral.
In this spiral, there is a sense of numbered order, as we move from sefirah
#1, through the sefirot until we reach
sefirah #12, with each sefirah
taking on new order, new meaning, and new purpose for the journey.
Yet, even in order, in the spiral, there is constant movement, constant
connection, constant interaction.
The spiral is like the
kabbalah’s name for God — Ein Sof.
It is infinite — without beginning and without end; always and forever.
This spiral configuration comes to us with echoes from the deep past. The
ancients were enjoined to wear fringes on the corners of their garments as a
physical sign of God’s loving commandments — an observance that many
traditional Jews still follow today, and which manifests in the ritual prayer
garb, the tallit. The strings of the
fringes are made into knots and swirls to symbolically represent the number 613
— the number of mitzvot-commandments
in the Torah. Antiquity’s string, spiraling around itself, representing the
word of God, is today’s renewed image of our interconnection with the Divine.
And, the spiral configuration comes to us in the most recent scientific
discoveries of the mysteries of the universe. Modern physics teaches the
“string theory” — that, rather than zero-dimensional particles, the
single, fundamental building blocks of the universe are one-dimensional
vibrating, spinning, swirling, spiraling strings. Some proponents of the string
theory teach that it leads to the conclusion that the universe is
26-dimensional. How interesting! For, the gematria
(the numerical value of the Hebrew letters) of the biblical name of God, yud, hey, vav, hey, pronounced Yahweh,
or, alternately, Adonai, is 26! Modern
science’s new cosmology is imaged in the kabbalistic model of a spiraling
string that lives in dimensions, spelling the name of God!
At the same time, science is mapping the human genome, the
double-stranded, swirled DNA, which holds the keys to the questions of human
existence. And, some say that DNA is currently expanding and growing, and will
eventually be 12 interconnected, swirling spiraled strands.
Science does not invent or create anew; it discovers and records what is
already there. All that modern science is now beginning to understand is a
reflection of the kabbalistic model that has now bubbled up from antiquity —
the ever-spiraling relationship between God, humankind, and the universe.
As physicist Dr. Roben Jastrow, the former head of NASA, puts it, “...
the scientist has lived by the power of reason, he has scaled the mountains of
ignorance, and is about to conquer the highest peak. As he pulls himself over
the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting
there for centuries.”
Can we picture this spiral? Can we even begin to imagine it? It is
certainly multi-dimensional, living in many worlds at the same time. It surely
is in constant motion, whirling, swirling, and twirling like its circular
predecessor; turning inside and outside of itself. All the while, with the grace
of delicate, elegant dance, it holds its shape and the particular positions of
each sefirah within the configuration.
It is, perhaps, rainbow colored, sparkling and glittering in its dazzling
beauty. With our three dimensional eyes, the best we can sense is the image of a
hologram, which has unlimited depth, boundless space, and unending motion.
Like the kabbalistic notion of the Infinite God, from and to whom our
spiritual journey spirals, the spiral Tree of Life is Ein
Sof, without beginning and without end.
Using this spiral configuration of the Tree: of Life to journey to God
will result in a change to the long-established fixed order of prayer, and will
introduce some new prayers (all sourced in biblical and Jewish liturgical texts)
sung and chanted to some new (but old) melodies.
It is understandable that there will be those who resist change to the
well-established, well-known, and comfortable. Remember: the old order of the
public communal worship services remains the same (although it, too, begs for
revision.)
This new order is for private, individual prayers that bring each and
every person — you! — into personal, intimate relationship with God.
This new order brings you to God more swiftly and more intensely. That is
its wondrous excitement, and its invaluable worth and merit.
I am not a 13th or 16th century kabbalist. Nor am I
an 18th century chasid. I am not a great scholar or historian of
kabbalah; nor am I deeply immersed in day and night study or mystic practice.
Yet, like the kabbalists, I want to come to God through deep, sweet, powerful
meditation, and, like the chasidim, I want to come to God through ecstatically
joyful prayer.
I am the (egalitarian) neo-kabbalist, the new kabbalist, and the
(egalitarian) neo-chasid, the new chasid, who offers you a new model that honors
and celebrates the teachings and the patterns of the past, and, at the very same
time, creates a new form, to weave anew, magical pathway to being with God.
Rabbi Wayne Dosick, Ph.D., the spiritual guide of the Elijah
Minyan, an adjunct professor at the University of San Diego and the Director of
the 17: Spiritually Healing Children's Emotional Wounds. He is the
award-winning author of six critically acclaimed books, including Golden
Rules; Living Judaism; and Soul Judaism: Dancing with God into a New Era.