Rain of Blessings

Welcome to Gishmey Brachah/Rain of Blessings, the home of Rabbi Moshe Aharon and Meta-Judaism: a think tank for evolving Judaism within an emerging, integral, new-paradigm.

In memory of my mother, Miryam bat Mikhel ve-Leyka, who passed away on the 21st of Tammuz.

Tisha B'Av

Tonight and tomorrow we observe the 9th of Av, one of the darkest days of the Jewish calendar. According to our tradition, the 9th of Av was the date of the destruction of both the first Temple in 586 BCE, and the second in 70 CE.
But the first temple and the second temple were very different entities, and according to our tradition their destruction hints at very different things.

The first temple was the temple built by David and Solomon. It was a temple that existed before Torah in the way that we understand it, the way we have it now, because at that time they only had the written Torah. They didn't have the oral tradition. When we think of Torah today, we're basically thinking of the oral tradition. The Talmud, the midrash, the commentators - everything that we have is the Torah of human interpretation, the whole process of the human effort to mediate and apply divine guidance.

But in the first temple they didn't have that kind of Torah. What they had in those days was prophets. On the other hand, in the first temple they had all kinds of things that we later lost. For example by the time of the second temple they didn't have the holy ark, which contained the tablets of the covenant. Some people think it's in Ethiopia - you might have seen Indiana Jones, for instance. The ark was in the first temple, but it was lost after that. read more...

Passover and the Power of a New Beginning

What’s In a Name?

There are many names for the divine but this Passover none is more powerful than the Tetragrammaton, the Shem Hameforash, the most explicit and unutterable name, the way that we name that which everything is resting on and drawing from is the name yud-heh-vav-heh (the “Name”).

According to the Zoharic tradition (the foundation of Jewish mystical texts), everything is somehow expressed by this name yud-heh-vav-heh. It is everything and everything is in it. And every secret is somehow related to these letters. It is the hermeneutical DNA underlying all of creation: It represents the basic structure of divine energy which results in manifestation in the world, which results in time, which results in the human body.

The Secret of the Seasons

According to the mystical tradition, every month of the year has a special verse from the Bible that goes with it. And these verses, or pieces of verses, always have the four Hebrew letters of the Name, in some particular order that corresponds to the energy of the month. Usually, this means that there is a verse with a sequence of at least four words, and one will begin with a yud, one will begin with a heh, one will begin with a vav, and another will begin with a heh.

So the mystics over the centuries studied the Bible very carefully in Hebrew, and looked for hints where these letters come together; because the Name is so powerful, there’s so much energy in that Name, that if you can find a place where those four letters come together it could give you a clue to some deep significance. As in the alchemical, scientific or raja yoga tradition, seekers within the Jewish Mystical tradition applied their insight and mind power towards looking for hints. Hints that could help us learn more about who we really are and what the world really is and how everything works. A lot of the mystical tradition, you could say, is basically that. It is gilui sodot - revealing of secrets: secrets of heaven, secrets of the earth, secrets of our souls. And these secrets are windows into reality that we must find and open. Experimenting with the new view to see what it can do for us. People have been guided in their search to certain powerful sources and places, and because of their motivation they have put themselves deeply into the investigation of what could be found by opening that particular window. Often if they discovered something, they wrote a sefer [holy book] about it. Or, if unsafe to publicize, they shared it with someone trustworthy, hence our oral traditions.

PURIM AND THE POSITIVE POWER OF CONCEALMENT

The shabbatot before Purim - compassion, and remembering

It’s very lovely, and such a wonderful opportunity, to absorb the energy of Adar.

There’s a saying in the gemara, in the rabbinic teachings, that if you really want something to succeed, you should plant some Adar in it. Sometimes that’s understood as “you should do your planting in Adar,” - which conveniently comes at about the right time for people in a lot of places to do their planting; but it’s strange the way they say you should plant Adar in something.

So the energy of Adar - it’s really very special, and when you come to the month of Adar there are always extra special Torah readings, in keeping with the energy of the month. Before you get to Purim, you have two special readings each Shabbat before you come to Purim: you have Shabbat Shekalim, and then you have Shabbat Zachor: the Shabbat which is called “shekels,” and the Shabbat which is called “remember.”

So to get to Purim you have to get the energy of shekels, and the energy of remembering. Shekels, if you don’t know Hebrew, means money. You have to get the energy of money. In the old days, people paid a certain tax, in shekels: you had to pay your dues, basically. This inyan [matter] of money - this means, really, in Jewish language, tzedakah [charity]: when you give something to other people. In other words money, basically, means compassion.