20 Jan Shemot; The Power of Hebrew Letters, Names and Words
SHEMOT; Pt 1
The Hebrew Letters
Channels of Creative Consciousness
HaRav Yitzchak Ginsburgh
Names- pg. 7
The Hebrew letters of a Name or Word are conduits of spiritual energy.
SHEMOT; Pt 2
The Hebrew letters of a Name or Word are conduits of spiritual energy.
The NAME of Hashem as Y * V * ; The Shema (excerpt)
A meditation of the Shema is a focus on unity… Oneness.
For many, the Shema prayer is said twice per day and an additional time upon retiring. We have just begun the Torah reading of Shemot-Names so we will take a look at the 2nd line of the Shema that refers to Hashem as ‘Name’.
Aryeh Kaplan –on Jewish Meditation writes abou the sounding of the letter Shin.. shhhhh corresponds to ’ white noise’ associated with the world of chaos (Tohu) , and the sound of Mem.. mmmm corresponds to the ‘harmonizing’ of chaos to Tikun , the rectification of chaos) culminating in a unification or Oneness of the Shema prayer.
The simplest understanding of G-d is that he is Infinite. By definition an Infinite being is beyond understanding. It is a paradox due to the fact that we can only begin to understand an infinite G-d through our lens of this pluralistic multidimensional world of His revealed attributes. We refer to G-d by the 10 most common Names that identify attributes of His influences, but they are many more.
Each the names reflect particular attributes of G-d. The NAME-Hashem in the Shema is 1 of 10 most common names in reference to G-d that refers to the unification of all 4 Worlds. It is our mission of Tikun-Rectification to elevate and bring about the unity of the 4 Worlds Each name of G-d reflects particular attributes of G-d.
The Universe was created as what is referred to in kabbalah as the 4 Worlds (1-atzilut/emanation, 2- briyah/formation, 3- yesira/creation, 4- assya/action). The 4 Worlds are made up by the basic building blocks of the 10 sefirot. It should be understood that each one of the ‘faces’ of the 10 sefirot by which they are named chochma, binah etc., and each single sefirot has within itself the other 9 sefirot making each individual a vessel of 10 emanations , so each of the completed 4 Worlds of 10 sefirot actually contains 100 sefirot, which are multiplied by 4 Worlds of 100 emanations or sefirot (10² or 10 sefirot x the 1o sefirot ‘enclothed’ within each of them) = 400 as the fallen sparks of Holiness represented by the 400 soldiers of Esau to be revealed and rectified during the journey of the Jewish Nation to bring the Final Redemption.
The Shema is a prayer/meditation of bringing about the rectification and unification of the world as ONE. The final word of the Shema, ‘ECHAD’ is the focus of the meditation. Echad is translated as ONE, and the final letter of ‘ECHAD’ is Dalet which has a numerical value of 4 (Dalet = 4). According to kabbalistic tradition, 4 is the ‘reduced’ value of 400. As we said, 4 are the 4 Worlds of Creation (atzilut, beriyah, yetzira and asiya), and 10 sefirot have within them ‘interincluded’ sefirot therefore; 10 sefirot x 10 interincluded emanations x the 4 Worlds of creation = 400.
We may recall ‘400’ in the Torah as Abrahams 400 silver shekels as payment for Macphela, and the 400 soldiers of Esau that represented the fallen sparks to be rectified by Jacob-Israel.
In the 2nd line of Shema where we say ‘Baruch shem kavod malchuso l’olam va-ed… Blessed is the Name of His glorious kingdom for eternity’ , we can have in mind Hashem’s Name, the tetragrammaton, 4 letter Name of Hashem as Y- K -* -* as the 4 letters corresponds the 4 worlds of creation (as above diagram) as we bless of each of the 4 Worlds as they become unified as One.
We can then see that this meditation of the Shema can help us bring about the rectification and unification culminating as the powers of all the worlds as ONE through the focused meditation of the final word and final letter.
Furthermore, ECHAD as spelled out and numerically understood is Aleph (1), Chet (8) and Dalet (4) as equaling 13, reveals the insight of Chet (8) and Dalet (4) as the 12 individual Tribes then being ‘enclothed’ by the Aleph as +1, as the Nation of Yisroel… The culminating of the concept of Echad…Oneness. We say then that 12 (tribes) is as 13 (Echad gematria ) is as Echad, as the first letter of a word is the primary influence here as the letter Aleph, 1-One.
Leib Getzel (Lawrence) Lax
Addictions and Counseling
lawrenceJlax@gmail.com