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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 18^th 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 13^th or 16^th century kabbalist. Nor am I an 18^th 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.