Hello Dear Ones! Yes, I am publicly counting Omer. I've been writing and noting and now, publishing:
Week One of Counting Omer: We examine the nature of Khesed (חסד). Khesed is the 4th Sephirah of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life. As with many Hebrew words, there is no exact translation into English. For this work, my preferred translation is Lovingkindness. It also means Grace, Compassion, Benevolence, Loyalty. I assert that Khesed is a quality central to Jewish ethics, Jewish thought, and Jewish theology.
Khesed ShebeKhesed Lovingkindness, Grace, Compassion, Benevolence, and Loyalty within Lovingkindness, Grace, Compassion, Benevolence, and Loyalty.
Quality: Shekhinah – Ein Sof: Unending Divine Presence within our lives, our worlds, and the Universe. The miracle of Creation.
Before the beginning, there was only Oneness. Oneness was all that was known and all that was experienced. Oneness was the universe; there was no thing other than the Oneness. Ein Sof, one of many names we use in Judaism for Divine Oneness, was All and Every Thing and No Thing.
Still, The Oneness, The Ein Sof, sought something other; different and still connected. The first attempts to create distinction or differentiation within The Oneness were disastrous. No Thing and Every Thing could not be made to be Some Thing other than Oneness.
Yet, Ein Sof sought to bring a connected separation into being. It contemplated Its dilemma and searched the debris of the failures and the concept and vision occurred for The Oneness to contract Itself!
The Contraction (Tzimzum) occurred as quickly as the thought formed and there was space separate from the Oneness – a void of darkness. The Oneness marveled at the Separation and the Connection. Then the Oneness spoke “Light” and light came into being (Gen. 1:3). The light was the Oneness that had filled the voided space. With the thought of “Let there be light” ten holy vessels appeared, waiting to be filled with Primordial Energy.
Alas, the Primordial Energy vessels were not connected, and several received more than they could handle, causing them to explode and their explosion caused the remaining vessels to explode. The explosions sent light and darkness to fill and expand the void, causing galaxies and planets, asteroids and comets, suns and moons, lands and seas, particles and waves and so much more come into existence, including Holy Sparks! Holy Sparks fell everywhere – all over what we call Earth and across the expanse of the universe!
Then Oneness thought to create human beings in Its image, “after our likeness... So (The Oneness) created human beings in (the Divine) image, creating them male and female.” (Gen. 1:26-27).
The Oneness renews creation constantly, offering us the opportunity to expand our understanding of what has always existed: diversity within every binary (either/or, one or the other) way we have of assessing and dividing the world around us. Science has finally proven what many of us have always known: there is only the Human Race; no distinctions between our amazing differences as we are 99.9% alike. Long-standing cultures around the world that also make it clear that variations in gender expression are as old as our humanity and that women are far from the weaker gender.
What are the binary ways of thinking, keeping you anchored in ways of being, thinking, and assessing yourself or another that no longer serve you? Time to open that steamer trunk your carrying so that you may lighten your load on your new journey out of the narrows (mitzrayim).
Blessings!
Sabrina
© Sabrina Sojourner 2020
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