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Chanukah Day 8: Now with 100% more lightning!

Chag sameach! We have reached the end of our series of eight posts with readings about light – all kinds of light, from the lights of Rebbe Nachman to the lights of secularism. Make sure to check out our previous offerings:

Day 1: Ra’u Or: Essays in Honor of Dr. Ora Horn Preuser edited by Rabbi Joseph H. Prouser

Day 2: Everything Thaws by R.B. Lemberg

Day 3: Thirty-Two Gates of Wisdom: Awakening Through Kabbalah by Rabbi DovBer Pinson

Day 4: Here Is Our Light: Humanistic Jewish Holiday and Life-Cycle Liturgy for Inspiration and Reflection, edited by Miriam S. Jerris and Sheila Malcolm

Day 5: An Angel Called Truth & Other Tales from the Torah, by Rabbi Jeremy Gordon and Emma Parlons, with illustrations by Pete Williamson.

Day 6: The Missing Jew: Poems 1976-2021 by Rodger Kamenetz

Day 7: Enlightenment by Trial and Error by Jay Michaelson

Now we’re upping the ante and not just talking about light, but about lightning!

We picked the following excerpt from Rabbi Jill Hammer’s Return to the Place: The Magic, Meditation, and Mystery of Sefer Yetzirah. This book features an entire new translation of the classic Kabbalistic text Sefer Yetzirah, with chapter-by-chapter commentary, and meditative exercises. The following section covers the expression “the look of lightning” (כמראה הברק) from chapter 1:8.

Our Chanukah sale is still ongoing, and you can get all three of our Jill Hammer books for the price of two! That’s almost $25 off, and with free shipping within the US… But let’s read!

The Look of Lightning

In the previous passage, we heard that the divine dwelling place is at the center of the sefirot, so that the sefirot reach out in endless rays from the divine. The hollow sefirot and the engraved letters seem meant to conduct divine energy, power, or intention throughout the cosmos. Our current passage tell us that these ten rays are in fact infinite, and that they have the “appearance of lightning.” It seems that they are flashes of energy, or that flashes of energy appear in them, moving back and forth. God’s word, like lightning, flashes from the sacred center, moves through the depths of the sefirot and out into their endless reaches, and returns to the sacred center. Sefer Yetzirah calls this movement “running and returning.”

The use of lightning to describe the sefirot is evocative. Physicist Kared Barad writes: “Lightning is a reaching toward, an arcing dis/juncture, a striking response to charged yearnings.” Lightning arises from “electrical potential buildup and flows of charged particles.” While the physics of lightning may not have been available to the author(s) of this text, the flash of lightning certainly was. The lightning that moves within the sefirot is very much like a flow of charged particles, an electrified reaching toward divine presence.

Ronit Meroz understands this section to be describing the sefirot as a group of angels, similar to the “holy beasts” in Ezekiel who bear the divine throne. Meroz argues that beings that can “bow” before God must be “personified” supernatural beings – angels, in the form Jewish tradition usually understands angels, rather than anything “abstract.” Meroz writes: “It is the angels who always set out on God’s mission, and of whom one may therefore say that ‘his word is in them.’” Meroz asserts that the sefirotic angels have “humility and reverence” for God – they are entities capable of having a personal attitude toward the divine.

Yet are the sefirot truly personified? God’s word in these beings does not “command,” but rather “runs and returns” – the sefirot are conduits, not servants. Perhaps we might call them angels, but they are also hollow endless entities, and the divine word runs and returns in them like an electric current through a charged wire. They may be conscious, but they hardly seem like Michael or Gabriel. It may be that the sefirot bow not (or not only) because they are reverent in a personal way but because they are channels sensitive to the movement of divine creative power. The bowing of the sefirot is a theotropism of the whole universe.

The sefirot act as a collective – they are a multiplicity with a single purpose. They move together after God’s word, and they bow together before God’s throne. These multiple forces are channels for one “singular master.” Yehuda Liebes indicates that many of the sections of Chapter 1 start with multiplicity and end with oneness, as if to show the reader how all is drawn toward the One.

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Thank you for following along with us, and we hope we managed to bring a little additional light into your life!

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Chanukah Day 3: About the Endless Light!

Chag sameach! Today we’ve reached Day 3 of Chanukah, and our light-themed holiday highlights from books we published. Make sure to take a look at previous instalments and also peruse our holiday buy 2, get 3 sale!

Day 1: Ra’u Or: Essays in Honor of Dr. Ora Horn Preuser edited by Rabbi Joseph H. Prouser

Day 2: Everything Thaws by R.B. Lemberg

Today we picked something Kabbalistic – a chapter from Rabbi DovBer Pinson’s Thirty-Two Gates of Wisdom: Awakening Through Kabbalah. This book goes through introductory Kabbalistic concepts in a gate by gate format, and also explains how each concept relates to our everyday lives and interpersonal relations. These days people talk a lot about boundaries, but how do boundaries relate to the endless light? We can find out…

Gate 2: Ohr Ein Sof – The Endless Light

There is no way to relate to Essence, for we are of Essence. There is nothing outside of Essence, nor any division within it. Relationship suggests duality; essence is singularity. What begins with essence ends with essence, and there are no-things in between to obstruct that singularity.

Yet – and this is the supreme mystery – we are relational beings. Our brains are built to project definitions and distinctions, to compartmentalize and contextualize, and to relate to apparent separations as if they actually exist. Binary oppositions dominate our perception in our daily practices. This is like bening awake, yet day-dreaming that we are asleep.

Our brains are hard-wired to break life into projects. Our consciousness is an instrument created to negotiate a three-dimensional universe, which encompasses definitions. Without the ability to make distinctions, the mind has a hard time grasping what we call reality. Because of this, we feel separated from our Essential Source. The yearning to awaken to our Source is the fuel behind everything we do.

The kabbalistic ladder of metaphors, worlds, gates, and practices is the path to our gradual awakening to our true state: Unity.

The highest gate, the ultimate metaphor for Reality, is ein sof, ‘No End’ – Infinity. The ohr ein sof – Light of Infinity – metaphorically shines within Essence like a beginningless, endless light within the orb of a boundless sun.

Within the orb of the ohr ein sof there is no shadow, color, or limitation. There is nothing to bind the infinite light. In ein sof anything with even the semblance of a sof, an ‘end’, is ein, ‘not.’ Ein means ayin – absolutely no-thing. In Hebrew ayin and ein are spelled the same.

In personal terms: When we are fully engaged in expressing our endless selves, there is no room for a relationship with others. Relationships can only exist with boundaries. Without boundaries, our light would pour forth, leaving no room for anyone else.

To enter the gate of ein sof is to become One with the Infinite Divine Light. All we need do is stay true to what we subconsciously already know: I am no-thing. I am not an independent, separate I and the ein sof is within Everything.

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Thank you for reading! Tomorrow we’re going to share something from a radically different Jewish movement…

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The first day of Chanukah arrives with a new book announcement: Ra’u Or!

Chag sameach and welcome, dear readers –

Every day of Chanukah we are going to post something for you to read! (G-d willing, but we’re working on it.) We begin with something from a book we are announcing just now (though if you follow our Twitter account, we hinted at it here and there…). You can also take advantage of our Chanukah sale!

Cover image of Ra'u Or
Cover art by Sonia Gordon-Walinsky of PasukArt

Ra’u Or: Essays in Honor of Dr. Ora Horn Prouser is a collection of scholarly essays in celebration of Dr. Ora Horn Prouser, published for her 60th birthday and edited by Rabbi Joseph H. Prouser.

You might know Ora Horn Prouser as the author of our popular Esau’s Blessing, exploring disability in the Hebrew Bible – this book was a finalist for the National Jewish Book Awards in 2013.

Chapters follow many themes: from disability inclusion to the theme of light inspired by Dr. Prouser’s name Ora, from women’s issues to public theology and Bible scholarship, they all relate in some way to Dr. Prouser’s work and life.

The excerpt we chose is from Michael Kasper’s essay “Light and Peace in Our Daily Liturgical Declarations.” It connects light to peace, specifically peace in the home, and relates these concepts surprisingly also the birth of Moses!

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Jewish wisdom has it that shalom bayit, peace in the home, is an idea so important that it deserves to be used as a Rorschach for how to live together in community. The Otzar haMidrashim—Midrash haGadol 42—helps to explicate rabbinic thinking about the relationship between peace and light.

‬. גדול השלום שלא התחיל הקב״ה לברוא דבר בעולמו אלא בדבר שהוא שלום ואיזה זה האור שנאמר ויאמר אלהים יהי אור. ומנין שהוא שלום שנאמר יוצר אור ובורא חושך עושה שלום (ישעיה מ״ה ז׳). מכאן אמרו חז״ל נר ביתו וקידוש היום נר ביתו עדיף משום שלום ביתו. פירוש האור נקרא שלום לפיכך מקדימין הנר שהוא אור ושלום ליין.

Great is peace that the Holy Blessed One did not begin to create anything in God’s world other than something that is peace—and what is this? The light, as it says, “And God said ‘let there be light.’” And from where do we know that [light] is peace? As it says, “forms light and creates darkness, makes peace” (Isaiah 45:7). From here our sages of blessed memory said, “[When one has a choice between] a lamp for their home and [wine for] sanctification of the day, the lamp for one’s home is preferable because of peace in their household.”

Our understanding is that light equals peace and, therefore, candles are more important than Kiddush wine. Our sages understood that the value of peace was so great, so primary to all that followed, that if one had to decide whether to buy candles to illumine the room or wine to sanctify the meal, the choice was decidedly in favor of light, for light which is shared brings peace to the home.

Other cultures understand the relationship between light and creation in similarly essential ways. In Spanish, to give birth is called dar a luz, to give to [the] light. The phrase is the same in Portuguese and only slightly different in
Italian: dare al luce. All mean the same, to birth a child. All point us toward the inescapable idea that the fact of existence, the fact of humans roaming the planet, the fact of community, all these are shown to us by the magic of the sun. By the magic of light. By the magic of peace.

None other than Rashi, 15 writing in the latter half of the eleventh century, makes a similar point about the goodness of light. Commenting on Exodus 2:2 he sees a connection between the words Jokhebed uses upon seeing her son, Moses, (ki tov hu—how goodly he is) and the Torah’s own commentary in Genesis 1:4 (ki tov—God saw that the light was good).

‫וַיַּ֧רְא אֱלֹהִ֛ים אֶת־הָא֖וֹר כִּי־ט֑וֹב וַיַּבְדֵּ֣ל אֱלֹהִ֔ים בֵּ֥ין הָא֖וֹר וּבֵ֥ין הַחֹֽשֶׁך
God saw that the light was good, and God separated the light from the darkness.
Genesis 1:4

וַתַּ֥הַר הָאִשָּׁ֖ה וַתֵּ֣לֶד בֵּ֑ן וַתֵּ֤רֶא אֹתוֹ֙ כִּי־ט֣וֹב ה֔וּא וַֽתִּצְפְּנֵ֖הוּ שְׁלֹשָׁ֥ה יְרָחִֽים׃
The woman conceived and bore a son; and when she saw how goodly he was, she hid him for three months.
Exodus 2:2

In fleshing out this connection, Rashi cites Sotah 12a:

וַחֲכָמִים אוֹמְרִים בְּשָׁעָה שֶׁנּוֹלַד מֹשֶׁה נִתְמַלֵּא הַבַּיִת כּוּלּוֹ אוֹר כְּתִיב הָכָא וַתֵּרֶא אוֹתוֹ כִּי טוֹב הוּא וּכְתִיב הָתָם וַיַּרְא אֱלֹהִים אֶת הָאוֹר כִּי טוֹב
The verse states, with regard to the birth of Moses, “And the woman conceived, and bore a son; and when she saw him that he was a goodly [ki tov] child, she hid him three months” (Exodus 2:2). And the Rabbis say: At the time when Moses was born, the entire house was filled with light (ora), as it is written here: “And when she saw him that he was a goodly [ki tov] child,” and it is written there: “And God saw the light, that it was good [ki tov]” (Genesis 1:4).
Sotah 12a

Reading Rashi, we get a glimpse of the power this creation of light enjoys. God saw the light and called it good, Moses’ mother invokes the language of light to describe her son, and the rabbis posit an entire house, full of light, at the moment of Moses’ birth. Light, Or/Ora, is good!

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Thank you for reading, and tomorrow we’ll offer you some Jewish poetry about light! Specifically, the Northern Lights…