Kabbalah By Heart

We are now in the days of Counting the Sefirot on the Tree of Life. It's a sort of Jewish Cognitive Behavioral Therapy that we go through each year after leaving Egypt during Passover. The task is to get the slavery mentality out of a newly freed people. The question is, can you be free? Can you be free to make choices in alignment with the Highest Wisdom? Can you be ready to receive the Torah on Shavuot, which is the holiday that comes 49 days later?

The Tree of Life is like the blueprint of our psyche with 4 states of consciousness outlined within it: spiritual, mental, emotional and behavioral. During this time of the year we are focusing on cleaning out and clearing out our misalignments.

Here's a diagram I created a long time ago for seeing the Tree of Life through the lens of Jewish CBT. Each Sefirah can be seen as a Personality Part. And like any personality, the parts can show up in destructive or constructive ways, depending on how closely they are in alignment with Hashem. "Keter" is where we connect to and download that Highest Wisdom.

Imagining Being Free

I don't know about you but I'm definitely not free today. Instead, I'm feeling the Mercury Retrograde that's hitting the heavens right now. (Email me back and let me know if you're feeling it too!) I feel like I'm slogging through this email but so wanting to write it and break through to the other side. As Jews, we are told that we aren't under the control of the stars and planets. Hashem is the Only One in control. But if you're human, like I am, it's so hard to remember that there's nothing Higher than the Invisible One of the Universe.

Kabbalah Cards Site

I like to see this from the perspective of Jewish CBT: I'm either coming from a mind-frame of "Geulah" where everything is miraculous and moving toward better and better or I'm under the influence of a "Golus" mentality, where everything, including myself seems to just be wrong and off. Of course, I created a Kabbalah card for each of these states:

Kabbalah Card for Golus/Exile

Kabbalah Cards are Affirmations of Jewish Wisdom

There are many resources for learning more about the Tree of Life and especially the Counting of the Omer, which is what we are involved in right now. I highly recommend signing up for an email by Rabbi Simon Jacobson or purchasing his book. The Tree of Life is a fantastic way to understand the personality and especially the character traits that make up our psyche. It's called the "blueprint of the Universe" because it's the path where Hashem contracted the All in order to make room for the myriad. So it's a pattern that can be seen everywhere and in everything.

Hopefully, this mercury retrograde will ease up and we'll all start to feel released from its grips. Going through the Sefirot is a fantastic way to refocus and gain back the control. One of my biggest fans requested I teach a class on the sefirot and because I'm still "retired", I don't think a class is coming too soon! But I hope this bit of an email lesson satisfies and gives you all something interesting to ponder.